Arizona Ames. Zane Grey

you-all a lot of presents.”

      “Cappy!—Open it now!” she flashed, suddenly radiant.

      “An’ what do you say, Mr. Playford?”

      “Cappy, if you don’t mind,” replied that worthy, “if you’re includin’ me, I’ll say if you got anythin’ to give anybody, do it quick.”

      “Hey, Rich, you’re in on this,” went on the trapper.

      “Cap, suppose you leave it to me?” responded Rich, with tantalizing coolness.

      “Wal, I’m willin’. You ’pear to be the only level-headed one hyar.”

      “Open the pack after Nesta an’ the twins have gone to bed.”

      The feminine triangle thus arraigned burst out with a vociferous, incoherent, yet unanimous decision that they never would go to bed.

      “Wal, reckon I’ll compromise,” decided Tanner. “Right after supper, then, I’ll open the show.”

      “Come in, Cap,” said Rich. “This November air gets cold once the sun goes down.”

      The living-room extended the width of the cabin, and perhaps half the length. With a fire burning in the stone fireplace it presented a cheery, comfortable aspect. It also served as dining-room, and two beds, one in each corner, indicated that some of the family slept there. A door near the chimney opened into the kitchen, a small and recent addition. Two other rooms completed the cabin, neither of which opened into this large apartment. Rich Ames, like all the Tontonians, liked open fires, to which the three yellow stone chimneys rising above the cabin gave ample testimony.

      “Manzi, you an’ Mescal wash up, an’ brush your hair,” observed Mrs. Ames from the kitchen. Nesta had vanished.

      “How’s tracks, Rich?” queried Tanner, with interest.

      “Cap, I never saw so much game sign since I can remember,” replied Ames, with reflective satisfaction. “Dad once told me aboot a fall like this. Reckon ten year ago, long before the Pleasant Valley war.”

      “Wal, thet’s good news. What kind of tracks?”

      “All kinds. Beaver, mink, marten, fox—why, old timer, if you catch all of the varmints in Doubtful you can buy out the fur companies. How are prices likely to be?”

      “Top notch. An’ ain’t it lucky to come when fur is plentiful? Reckon it’s a late fall, too.”

      “Shore is. Hardly any snow heah at all. An’ only lately on top. Bear, deer, turkey so thick up Tonto that you can kick them out of the trails. An’ lots of lions, too.”

      “I reckon feed is plentiful, or all this game would be somewhere else?”

      “Just wonderful, Cap. Acorns on the ground thick as hops. Berries aplenty, a good few wild grapes, an’ the first big crop of piñon nuts for years. The game is high up yet, an’ shore won’t work down till the weather gets bad. We had lots of rain at the right season, an’ the winter snows will be late. I’ll bet I know of a hundred bee trees. We been waitin’ for you, rememberin’ your weakness for honey.”

      “Haw! Haw! As if you didn’t have the same?—How about you, Playford, on Tonto honey?”

      “Me? I’ve as sweet a tooth as one of these Tonto bears.”

      “Wal, thet’s all fine for me,” declared the trapper, with gratification. “I reckon you boys will throw in with me, this winter anyway?”

      “We shore will, Cap,” replied Rich.

      “I’m darn glad of the chance,” added Playford. “My place is all tidy for the winter, even to firewood cut.”

      “Jest luck thet I fetched a sack of new traps,” said Tanner.

      “Hey, Rich,” called his mother from the kitchen, “come pack in the supper before I throw it out.”

      Rich responded with alacrity, and every time he emerged from the kitchen, laden with steaming pans he winked mysteriously at Cappy Tanner, subtly implicating Nesta, who had come in dressed in white, very sweet and aloof, and Sam Playford, who could not keep his humble worshipful eyes off her.

      “Cappy, you set in your old seat,” directed Mrs. Ames, beaming upon him. Then the twins came rushing in like whirlwinds, and they fought over who should have the place next to Tanner. Nesta was the last to seat herself, with an air of faint disapproval at the close proximity to Playford.

      This byplay amused the trapper, yet began to arouse curiosity and concern in him. Nesta had never before had an admirer who had been accepted by her family, if not by her. In the Tonto, girls of sixteen were usually married or about to be; and here was Nesta Ames, past eighteen, still single, and for all Cappy could tell, fancy free. He could be sure of little, except her charm and the change in her, the mystery of which only made her more attractive. Conversation lagged, and the interest of everybody, even the trapper, appeared to center on getting the meal over. The clearing off of the table was accomplished with miraculous brevity, and the kitchen lamp was brought in to add more light. Rich threw a couple of billets on the fire.

      “Wal, you all set around the table an’ I’ll play Santa Claus,” directed Tanner, and to the twins’ screams of delight he repaired to the porch, leaving the door open.

      This was an hour for which he had long planned. In order to make a magnificent impression he decided to carry all the bundles and parcels in at once, and thereby overwhelm the Ameses at one fell swoop. But he had not calculated on the difficulty of handling the mass when it was not snugly bound in a canvas. Not only did he stagger under the load, but he stumbled on the rude threshold and lost his balance.

      “Whoopee!” roared Rich Ames, in enormous glee.

      Cappy went down with his burdens, jarring the cabin.

Chapter Two

      A FEW moments later Cappy Tanner gazed around the living-room, utterly happy to contemplate the joy he had brought to the Ames family. Not for nothing had he, in the past, made note of what they needed and what they had longed for.

      For once Mescal and Manzanita were confounded and mute. Mrs. Ames was not ashamed of her tears, if she were aware of them, and she regarded Tanner as if he were beyond comprehension. Nesta had been most blessed by the trapper’s generosity. As she opened parcel after parcel she gasped. The last was a large flat box, somewhat crushed from the many packings on the back of a burro, but the contents were uninjured. The old trapper had engaged the good offices of a clever girl in Prescott to help him make these particular purchases of finery, but he did not betray that. He had the smiling nonchalant air of a man to whom such remarkable knowledge was nothing unusual. At first Nesta seemed rapt and spellbound. Then she hugged him. Cappy felt rewarded beyond his deserts, for the radiance and eloquence of her face had more than repaid him. At last she wept, and fled with her possessions to her room.

      Rich Ames sat on a bench, gazing down on the floor, where he had laid side by side, a new .44 Winchester, a Colt of the latest pattern, row after row of boxes of shells, a hunting-knife and a hand ax, a pair of wonderful silver-mounted Mexican spurs, a cartridge-belt of black carved leather with silver buckle and a gun-sheath ornamented by a large letter A in silver.

      “You son-of-a-gun!” burst out Rich, gulping. “Spent all last winter’s catch on us!”

      “No. I bought a new outfit for myself, two more burros, some pack saddles, an’ a lot of good grub,” replied Tanner, complacently.

      “Cap, if you had to do this heah job, why didn’t you wait till Christmas?” asked Ames, spreading wide his hands.

      Tanner bit his wayward tongue in time to keep secret the second pack which was full of Christmas presents.

      “Wal, Rich, if I have anythin’ good to tell a fellar or give him, I do it quick.”

      “You’ve ruined