Black Mesa. Zane Grey

I can see myself in. Look at yourself once in this glass.”

      “Holy mavericks! Once is plenty. No girl would leave home for a mug like thet.”

      “Haven’t you got girls on the brain?”

      “Shore. It’s a swell way to be. . . . A few looks in this glass, though, would rid me of all my vanity. Reminds me of them funny mirrors at Coney Island. I was East onct, traveling with the Hundred an’ One Ranch ootfit. Some trip.”

      Paul scarcely heard the loquacious cowboy. At the moment he was fingering the red tags on two new, heavy suitcases. He had forgotten these. They had been packed in Kansas City nearly five months before and had never been opened. Paul lifted them carefully onto his bed.

      “Shore I wondered what was in them two bags,” observed Wess. “You handle them kinda funny. Eggs, china or dynamite?”

      “Dynamite, pard,” replied Paul fiercely.

      “Quit yore kiddin’.”

      “Wess, I’ve forgotten all I put in those bags. But believe me, there’s the damndest lot of truck to dazzle a woman’s eyes! Cost far into four figures! Now what on earth will I do with it all?”

      “Why, hell, pard,” drawled Wess in his soft voice, “thet’s easy. Keep ’em for another girl.”

      “Wess, you have the most wonderful philosophy. I’ve noticed it before in such regard. . . . Your theory, then, is that in case of death or loss—or say, treachery—the thing to do is to get another?”

      “Cer-tin-lee an’ pronto!” declared Wess vociferously.

      Paul swore at the cowboy and drove him out to fetch lumber and tools. Kintell had touched rudely upon tender spots. Yet Paul found that he could laugh. The Texan was droll, unique, and altogether a remarkable character. Paul had just begun to appreciate him, and to realize that he was singularly helpful. Paul sat down on the bed and with a hesitating hand touched the red tag on the nearest of the two grips. A melancholy and detached pathos attended the memory of the passionate, boyish zeal and rapture that had been wasted in the loving selection and purchase of the gifts in that bag. He could think of them now, almost without bitterness. Yes, something had happened. The time might even come when he could look back at a searingly bitter experience of life with eyes of thoughtful tolerance.

      Kintell turned out to be a first-rate carpenter and handy man. By midafternoon the racks were finished, the shelves were up, the long heavy woodbox with its lid was in place, and the room had been thoroughly swept and dusted. Paul had to buy new blankets. Belmont showed no eagerness to lend. But he furnished a table, a suitable lamp, a better mirror, and towels. Paul had decided not to whitewash the ceiling and walls, but made instead an onslaught upon Belmont’s small stock of Indian baskets, scarfs, beaded ornaments, and other small articles that would lend color and attractiveness to a room.

      Arguments, however, anent the most becoming positions for the last batch of things Paul had bought increased with every objection he raised.

      “Lemme do this, pard. You haven’t no taste atall,” complained Kintell.

      “Say, you big lummox, I’ve forgotten more taste than you ever had,” retorted Paul. “But I suppose if I don’t bar you from this room you will fuss about it. So go ahead, interior decorator. Spread yourself.”

      “Interior decorator? Haw! Haw! Thet’s a good one, by gosh. I shore have painted my insides seventeen shades of red. . . . No more, though, pard. Thet last an’ only drunk of yores queered me. I’m on the water wagon now, an’ what’s more, henceforth you air on the wagon, too. Savvy?”

      “Water wagon, eh? That means Bitter Seeps.”

      “Wal, Bitter Seeps, then,” declared Kintell, as if he had been dealt a body blow. “Hell! We cain’t stay heah always. We’ll live cheap, save our dough, an’ when we got ten thousand haid, we’ll sell an’ pull fer a decent ranch. Find ourselves a couple of swell girls an’ settle down fer life. How aboot thet, pard?”

      “Sounded great, up to the last,” rejoined Paid with a dubious laugh. “I wish I could think so. . . . But look here, Wess.” And Paul lifted from the bed a large photograph of a lovely face that had been responsible for their isolation at Bitter Seeps.

      “My Gawd, pard! You ain’t gonna leave thet oot?” entreated Kintell.

      “Yes. Safest way, Wess. I’ll put it on my bureau.”

      “Lemme see.” The cowboy took the photograph and glared at it. He shook his lean head, and it was certain that resentment slowly was giving way to reluctant admiration. “Pard, if a man could hawg-tie a woman like her, an’ keep her where he could always have her, why, I reckon he might be fairly happy.”

      “Wess, try and spring that idea on some of these females today.”

      “I’m not joshin’. I mean thet. . . . Lordy, but she’s pretty to look at! An’ men air such pore fish. . . . Paul, I reckon the good Lord never had nothin’ to do with creatin’ lovely women.”

      “Whatever are you doing?” called a soft voice from the corridor. “Such pounding and shouting . . . ! Oh, how nice and cozy!”

      Louise stood framed in the doorway, graceful, big-eyed, strangely disturbing, at least to Paul.

      “Come in,” he said constrainedly, wondering if she had heard Wess’s doubtful approbation concerning her sex.

      “Howdy, lady,” drawled Wess, as he tossed the photograph back on the bed, where it flopped to expose the face that had inspired the cowboy to his Homeric language.

      “Oh, what a lovely girl!” she exclaimed as she entered. “Please may I see?”

      Paul handed her the picture with conflicting emotions. There followed another moment of silence.

      “Your sister?” she asked.

      “No. I have one of Anne here somewhere.”

      “How beautiful! I never saw anyone so lovely. . . . Who then?” she asked directly, her strange eyes seeking Paul’s face.

      It was not often that Paul was at a loss for words. He felt a rush of blood to his cheeks. Kintell relieved the situation with a laugh, not altogether mirthful.

      “Aw, thet’s only an old flame of the boss’s,” he drawled. But his gray gaze held a singularly bold expression. Wess did not intend to allow any doubts to accumulate in her mind.

      “Old flame is right,” spoke up Paul suddenly, no longer tongue-tied. “I was engaged to this girl once, Mrs. Belmont.”

      “Please don’t call me that,” she begged. “I told your cowboy I didn’t want to be called Mrs.”

      “Boss, she did at thet, but I forgot,” admitted Wess.

      “How shall I address you?” queried Paul.

      “Louise—or Louie. I like Louie better,” she announced simply.

      “Oh, I see,” replied Paul.

      “So you were engaged to this beautiful girl once?” went on Louise, studying the photo. “I should think—for a man—once would be for good.”

      “She gave me the gate,” said Paul frankly. He was glad that he could confess it.

      “Jilted you!” exclaimed Louise incredulously.

      “Rather hard to believe, isn’t it?” went on Paul lightly. “Young, handsome fellow, college graduate, good family—and rich.”

      “Wal, Louise, she didn’t know he was rich,” interposed Wess.

      “I don’t savvy you men,” returned the girl in confusion.

      “Mrs. . . . Louise, I’m simple enough,” said Paul hastily. “Wess there is a perfect devil. Especially with women, I fancy. But as