The Man of the Forest by Zane Grey (readera ebook reader txt) 📕

the latter part of March; and the look with which he accompanied this remark brought a blush to Helen's cheek.

After Roy had departed Bo said to Helen: “Confound that fellow! He sees right through me.”

“My dear, you're rather transparent these days,” murmured Helen.

“You needn't talk. He gave you a dig,” retorted Bo. “He just knows you're dying to see the snow melt.”

“Gracious! I hope I'm not so bad as that. Of course I want the snow melted and spring to come, and flowers—”

“Hal Ha! Ha!” taunted Bo. “Nell Rayner, do you see any green in my eyes? Spring to come! Yes, the poet said in the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. But that poet meant a young woman.”

Helen gazed out of the window at the white stars.

“Nell, have you seen him—since I was hurt?” continued Bo, with an effort.

“Him? Who?”

“Oh, whom do you suppose? I mean Tom!” she responded, and the last word came with a burst.

“Tom? Who's he? Ah, you mean Las Vegas. Yes, I've seen him.”

“Well, did he ask a-about me?”

“I believe he did ask how you were—something like that.”

“Humph! Nell, I don't always trust you.” After that she relapsed into silence, read awhile, and dreamed awhile, looking into the fire, and then she limped over to kiss Helen good night and left the room.

Next day she was rather quiet, seeming upon the verge of one of the dispirited spells she got infrequently. Early in the evening, just after the lights had been lit and she had joined Helen in the sitting-room, a familiar step sounded on the loose boards of the porch.

Helen went to the door to admit Carmichael. He was clean-shaven, dressed in his dark suit, which presented such marked contrast from his riding-garb, and he wore a flower in his buttonhole. Nevertheless, despite all this style, he seemed more than usually the cool, easy, careless cowboy.

“Evenin', Miss Helen,” he said, as he stalked in. “Evenin', Miss Bo. How are you-all?”

Helen returned his greeting with a welcoming smile.

“Good evening—TOM,” said Bo, demurely.

That assuredly was the first time she had ever called him Tom. As she spoke she looked distractingly pretty and tantalizing. But if she had calculated to floor Carmichael with the initial, half-promising, wholly mocking use of his name she had reckoned without cause. The cowboy received that greeting as if he had heard her use it a thousand times or had not heard it at all. Helen decided if he was acting a part he was certainly a clever actor. He puzzled her somewhat, but she liked his look, and his easy manner, and the something about him that must have been his unconscious sense of pride. He had gone far enough, perhaps too far, in his overtures to Bo.

“How are you feelin'?” he asked.

“I'm better to-day,” she replied, with downcast eyes. “But I'm lame yet.”

“Reckon that bronc piled you up. Miss Helen said there shore wasn't any joke about the cut on your knee. Now, a fellar's knee is a bad place to hurt, if he has to keep on ridin'.”

“Oh, I'll be well soon. How's Sam? I hope he wasn't crippled.”

“Thet Sam—why, he's so tough he never knowed he had a fall.”

“Tom—I—I want to thank you for giving Riggs what he deserved.”

She spoke it earnestly, eloquently, and for once she had no sly little intonation or pert allurement, such as was her wont to use on this infatuated young man.

“Aw, you heard about that,” replied Carmichael, with a wave of his hand to make light of it. “Nothin' much. It had to be done. An' shore I was afraid of Roy. He'd been bad. An' so would any of the other boys. I'm sorta lookin' out for all of them, you know, actin' as Miss Helen's foreman now.”

Helen was unutterably tickled. The effect of his speech upon Bo was stupendous. He had disarmed her. He had, with the finesse and tact and suavity of a diplomat, removed himself from obligation, and the detachment of self, the casual thing be apparently made out of his magnificent championship, was bewildering and humiliating to Bo. She sat silent for a moment or two while Helen tried to fit easily into the conversation. It was not likely that Bo would long be at a loss for words, and also it was immensely probable that with a flash of her wonderful spirit she would turn the tables on her perverse lover in a twinkling. Anyway, plain it was that a lesson had sunk deep. She looked startled, hurt, wistful, and finally sweetly defiant.

“But—you told Riggs I was your girl!” Thus Bo unmasked her battery. And Helen could not imagine how Carmichael would ever resist that and the soft, arch glance which accompanied it.

Helen did not yet know the cowboy, any more than did Bo.

“Shore. I had to say thet. I had to make it strong before thet gang. I reckon it was presumin' of me, an' I shore apologize.”

Bo stared at him, and then, giving a little gasp, she drooped.

“Wal, I just run in to say howdy an' to inquire after you-all,” said Carmichael. “I'm goin' to the dance, an' as Flo lives out of town a ways I'd shore better rustle.... Good night, Miss Bo; I hope you'll be ridin' Sam soon. An' good night, Miss Helen.”

Bo roused to a very friendly and laconic little speech, much overdone. Carmichael strode out, and Helen, bidding him good-by, closed the door after him.

The instant he had departed Bo's transformation was tragic.

“Flo! He meant Flo Stubbs—that ugly, cross-eyed, bold, little frump!”

“Bo!” expostulated Helen. “The young lady is not beautiful, I grant, but she's very nice and pleasant. I liked her.”

“Nell Rayner, men are no good! And cowboys are the worst!” declared Bo, terribly.

“Why didn't you appreciate Tom when you had him?” asked Helen.

Bo had been growing furious, but now the allusion, in past tense, to the conquest she had suddenly and amazingly found dear quite broke her spirit. It was a very pale, unsteady, and miserable girl who avoided Helen's gaze and left the room.

Next day Bo was not approachable from any direction. Helen found her a victim to a multiplicity of moods, ranging from woe to dire, dark broodings, from them to' wistfulness, and at last to a pride that sustained her.

Late in the afternoon, at Helen's leisure hour, when she and Bo were in the sitting-room, horses tramped into the court and footsteps mounted the