Her Prairie Knight, Lonesome Land & The Uphill Climb: Complete Western Trilogy. B. M. Bower

might say that Beatrice was sulking in the hammock, for she had not spoken anything but “yes” and “no” to her mother for an hour, and she had only spoken those two words occasionally, when duty demanded it. For one thing, Sir Redmond was absent, and had been for two weeks, and Beatrice was beginning to miss him dreadfully. To beguile the time, she had ridden, every day, long miles into the hills. Three times she had met Keith Cameron, also riding alone in the hills, and she had endeavored to amuse herself with him, after her own inimitable fashion, and with more or less success. The trouble was, that sometimes Keith seemed to be amusing himself with her, which was not pleasing to a girl like Beatrice. At any rate, he proved himself quite able to play the game of Give and Take, so that the conscience of Beatrice was at ease; no one could call her pastime a slaughter of the innocents, surely, when the fellow stood his ground like that. It was more a fencing-bout, and Beatrice enjoyed it very much; she told herself that the reason she enjoyed talking with Keith was because he was not always getting hurt, like Sir Redmond—or, if he did, he kept his feelings to himself, and went boldly on with the game. Item: Beatrice had reversed her decision that Keith was vain, though she still felt tempted, at times, to resort to “making faces”—when she was worsted, that was.

      To return to this particular day of sulking; Rex had cast a shoe, and lamed himself just enough to prevent her riding, and so Beatrice was having a dull day of it in the house. Besides, her mother had just finished talking to her for her good, which was enough to send an angel into the sulks—and Beatrice lacked a good deal of being an angel.

      Dorman laid his baking-powder can confidingly in his divinity’s lap. “Be’trice, I did get some grasshoppers; you said I couldn’t. And you wouldn’t go fishin’, ‘cause you didn’t like to take Uncle Dick’s make-m’lieve flies, so I got some really ones, Be’trice, that’ll wiggle dere own self.”

      “Oh, dear me! It’s too hot, Dorman.”

      “‘Tisn’t, Be’trice It’s dest as cool—and by de brook it’s awf-lly cold. Come, Be’trice!” He pulled at the smart little pink ruffles on her skirt.

      “I’m too sleepy, hon.”

      “You can sleep by de brook, Be’trice. I’ll let you,” he promised generously, “‘cept when I need anudder grasshopper; nen I’ll wake you up.”

      “Wait till to-morrow. I don’t believe the fish are hungry to-day. Don’t tear my skirt to pieces, Dorman!”

      Dorman began to whine. He had never found his divinity in so unlovely a mood. “I want to go now! Dey are too hungry, Be’trice! Looey Sam is goin’ to fry my fishes for dinner, to s’prise auntie. Come, Be’trice!”

      “Why don’t you go with the child, Beatrice? You grow more selfish every day.” Mrs. Lansell could not endure selfishness—in others. “You know he will not give us any peace until you do.”

      Dorman instantly proceeded to make good his grandmother’s prophecy, and wept so that one could hear him a mile.

      “Oh, dear me! Be still, Dorman—your auntie has a headache. Well, get your rod, if you know where it is—which I doubt.” Beatrice flounced out of the hammock and got her hat, one of those floppy white things, fluffed with thin, white stuff, till they look like nothing so much as a wisp of cloud, with ribbons to moor it to her head and keep it from sailing off to join its brothers in the sky.

      Down by the creek, where the willows nodded to their own reflections in the still places, it was cool and sweet scented, and Beatrice forgot her grievances, and was not sorry she had come.

      (It was at about this time that a tall young fellow, two miles down the coulee, put away his field glass and went off to saddle his horse.)

      “Don’t run ahead so, Dorman,” Beatrice cautioned. To her had been given the doubtful honor of carrying the baking-powder can of grasshoppers. Even divinities must make themselves useful to man.

      “Why, Be’trice?” Dorman swished his rod in unpleasant proximity to his divinity’s head.

      “Because, honey”—Beatrice dodged—“you might step on a snake, a rattlesnake, that would bite you.”

      “How would it bite, Be’trice?”

      “With its teeth, of course; long, wicked teeth, with poison on them.”

      “I saw one when I was ridin’ on a horse wis Uncle Dick. It kept windin’ up till it was round, and it growled wis its tail, Be’trice. And Uncle Dick chased it, and nen it unwinded itself and creeped under a big rock. It didn’t bite once—and I didn’t see any teeth to it.”

      “Carry your rod still, Dorman. Are you trying to knock my hat off my head? Rattlesnakes have teeth, hon, whether you saw them or not. I saw a great, long one that day we thought you were lost. Mr. Cameron killed it with his rope. I’m sure it had teeth.”

      “Did it growl, Be’trice? Tell me how it went.”

      “Like this, hon.” Beatrice parted her lips ever so little, and a snake buzzed at Dorman’s feet. He gave a yell of terror, and backed ingloriously.

      “You see, honey, if that had been really a snake, it would have bitten you. Never mind, dear—it was only I.”

      Dorman was some time believing this astonishing statement. “How did you growl by my feet, Be’trice? Show me again.”

      Beatrice, who had learned some things at school which were not included in the curriculum, repeated the performance, while Dorman watched her with eyes and mouth at their widest. Like some older members of his sex, he was discovering new witcheries about his divinity every day.

      “Well, Be’trice!” He gave a long gasp of ecstasy. “I don’t see how can you do it? Can’t I do it, Be’trice?”

      “I’m afraid not, honey—you’d have to learn. There was a queer French girl at school, who could do the strangest things, Dorman—like fairy tales, almost. And she taught me to throw my voice different places, and mimic sounds, when we should have been at our lessons. Listen, hon. This is how a little lamb cries, when he is lost.... And this is what a hungry kittie says, when she is away up in a tree, and is afraid to come down.”

      Dorman danced all around his divinity, and forgot about the fish—until Beatrice found it in her heart to regret her rash revelation of hitherto undreamed-of powers of entertainment.

      “Not another sound, Dorman,” she declared at length, with the firmness of despair. “No, I will not be a lost lamb another once. No, nor a hungry kittie, either—nor a snake, or anything. If you are not going to fish, I shall go straight back to the house.”

      Dorman sighed heavily, and permitted his divinity to fasten a small grasshopper to his hook.

      “We’ll go a bit farther, dear, down under those great trees. And you must not speak a word, remember, or the fish will all run away.”

      When she had settled him in a likely place, and the rapt patience of the born angler had folded him close, she disposed herself comfortably in the thick grass, her back against a tree, and took up the shuttle of fancy to weave a wonderful daydream, as beautiful, intangible as the lacy, summer clouds over her head.

      A man rode quietly over the grass and stopped two rods away, that he might fill his hungry eyes with the delicious loveliness of his Heart’s Desire.

      “Got a bite yet?”

      Dorman turned and wrinkled his nose, by way of welcome, and shook his head vaguely, as though he might tell of several unimportant nibbles, if it were worth the effort.

      Beatrice sat a bit straighter, and dexterously whisked some pink ruffles down over two distracting ankles, and hoped Keith had not taken notice of them. He had, though; trust a man for that!

      Keith dismounted, dropped the reins to the ground, and came and laid himself down in the grass beside his Heart’s Desire, and Beatrice noticed how tall he was, and slim and strong.

      “How did you know we were here?” she