The Range Boss by Charles Alden Seltzer (best novels to read to improve english .TXT) 📕

Halfway down the slope, the rider turned and saw that Willard and the occupants of the buckboard were watching him. The color in his cheeks grew deeper and his embarrassment increased, for he noted that the girl had faced squarely around toward him, had forgotten her precarious position; her hands were clasped as though she were praying for his safety. The aunt and uncle, too, were twisted in their seat, leaning toward him in rigid attitudes, and Willard, safe on his bank, was standing with clenched hands.

“Do you reckon we’re goin’ to break our necks, you piebald outlaw,” the rider said to the pony. “Well,” as the animal whinnied gently at the sound of his voice, “there’s some people that do, an’ if you’ve got any respect for them you’ll be mighty careful.”

The descent was accomplished in a brief time, and then Patches and his rider went forward toward the mired buckboard and its occupants, the pony unconcernedly, its rider, having conquered his embarrassment, serene, steady of eye, inwardly amused.

When he reached the water’s edge he halted Patches. Sitting motionless in the saddle, he quietly contemplated the occupants of the buckboard. He had come to help them, but he was not going to proffer his services until he was sure they would be welcomed. He had heard stories of the snobbishness and independence of some Easterners.

And so he sat there long, for the occupants of the buckboard, knowing nothing of his intentions, were in their turn awaiting some word from him.

No word came. He looked down, interestedly watching Patches drink. Then, when the pony had finished, he looked up, straight at the girl. She was sitting very erect—as erect as she could in the circumstances, trying hard to repress her anger over his inaction. She could see that he was deliberately delaying. And she met his gaze coldly.

He looked from the girl to Willard. The Easterner was examining a small pistol that he had drawn from a yellow holster at his waist, so high on his waist that he had been compelled to bend his elbow in an acute angle to get it out. His hands were trembling, whether from the wetting he had received or from doubt as to the rider’s intentions, was a question that the rider did not bother with. He looked again at the girl. Doubt had come into her eyes; she was looking half fearfully at him, and he saw that she half suspected him of being a desperado, intent on doing harm. He grinned, moved to mirth.

She was reassured; that smile had done it. She returned it, a little ruefully. And she felt that, in view of the circumstances, she might dispense with formalities and get right down to business. For her seat was uncomfortable, and Aunt Martha and Uncle Jepson were anxious, to say nothing of Willard, who had placed his pistol behind him, determined, if the man turned out to be a highwayman, to defend his party to the last.

But still the rider did not move. There was no hurry; only Willard seemed to be really suffering, for the winter’s chill had not yet gone out of the air. But then, Willard had earned his ducking.

The girl cleared her throat. “We have had an accident,” she informed the rider, her voice a little husky.

At this word he swept his hat from his head and bowed to her. “Why, I reckon you have, ma’am,” he said. “Didn’t you have no driver?”

“Why, yes,” returned the girl hesitatingly, for she thought she detected sarcasm in his voice, and she had to look twice at him to make sure—and then she couldn’t have told. “The gentleman on the bank, there, is our driver.”

“The gentleman on the bank, eh?” drawled the rider. And now for the first time he seemed to become aware of Willard’s presence, for he looked narrowly at him. “Why, he’s all wet!” he exclaimed. “I expect he come pretty near drownin’, didn’t he, ma’am?” He looked again at the girl, astonishment in his eyes. “An’ so he drove you into that suck-hole, an’ he got throwed out! Wasn’t there no one to tell him that Calamity ain’t to be trusted?”

“Mr. Vickers told us to keep to the right after reaching the middle,” said the girl.

“I distinctly understood him to say the left, Ruth,” growled Willard.

The rider watched the girl’s face, saw the color come into it, and his lips twitched with some inward emotion. “I reckon your brother’s right, ma’am. Vickers wanted to drownd you-all.”

“Mr. Masten isn’t my brother,” denied the girl. The color in her face heightened.

“Well, now,” said the rider. He bent his head and patted the pony’s mane to hide his disappointment. Again, so it seemed to the girl, he was deliberately delaying, and she bit her lips with vexation.

Willard also seemed to have the same thought, for he shouted angrily: “While you are talking there, my man, I am freezing. Isn’t there some way for you to get my party and the wagon out of there?”

“Why, I expect there’s a way,” drawled the rider, fixing Masten with a steady eye; “I’ve been wonderin’ why you didn’t mention it before.”

“Oh Lord!” said Masten to the girl, his disgust making his voice husky, “can you imagine such stupidity?”

But the girl did not answer; she had seen a glint in the rider’s eyes while he had been looking at Masten which had made her draw a deep breath. She had seen guile in his eyes, and subtlety, and much humor. Stupidity! She wondered how Masten could be so dense!

Then she became aware that the rider was splashing toward her, and the next instant she was looking straight at him, with not more than five feet of space between them. His gaze was on her with frank curiosity, his lean, strong face glowing with the bloom of health; his mouth was firm, his eyes serene, virility and confidence in every movement of his body. And then he was speaking to her, his voice low, gentle, respectful, even deferential. He seemed not to have taken offense at Willard, seemed to have forgotten him.

“I reckon you-all will have to ride out of here on my horse, ma’am,” he said, “if you reckon you’d care to. Why, yes, I expect that’s right; I’d ought to take the old lady an’ gentleman first, ma’am,” as the girl indicated them.

He backed his pony and smiled at Aunt Martha, who was small, gray, and sweet of face. He grinned at her—the grin of a grown boy at his grandmother.

“I reckon you’ll go first, Aunty,” he said to her. “I’ll have you high an’ dry in a jiffy. You couldn’t ride there, you know,” he added, as Aunt Martha essayed to climb on behind him. “This Patches of mine is considerable cantankerous an’ ain’t been educated to it. It’s likely he’d dump us both, an’ then we’d be freezin’ too.” And he glanced sidelong at Willard.

Aunt Martha was directed to step on the edge of the buckboard. Trembling a little, though smiling, she was lifted bodily and placed sidewise on the saddle in front of him, and in this manner was carried to the bank, far up on the slope out of the deep mud that spread over the level near the water’s edge, and set down gently, voicing her thanks.

Then the