Horse Heaven Hill. Zane Grey

Evidently he did not like Blanding.

      “Let me have him. You get a bridle and saddle. . . . Here, Chaps. That’s a poor name for you. Whoa now, White-face. I’ll call you that, or better—Cream Puff.”

      It did not take a moment for Lark to make up with him. A horse that is spirited, and nervous with men, very often is easy to handle by women. Chaps had never been hurt by a woman.

      “You sure have a way with horses,” remarked Blanding as he returned.

      “Yes. But it’s not like yours with ladies, Mr. Blanding. . . . Thanks, but I’ll bridle him.”

      Lark put the bridle on, then the blankets, which she smoothed and patted out. The saddle was not a light one by any means, but she swung it up with one hand, easily and sweepingly, in a manner to make the watching cowboy whistle.

      “I hate a single cinch, but reckon—” she said, speaking to herself.

      “We haven’t a double-cinch saddle on the ranch,” Blanding informed her.

      Lark made no reply. The cowboy had ceased to exist for her just then. She pulled the cinch, lightly at first, watching the mustang, and then she tightened it. That done, she put on gloves and sombrero, which she had laid aside.

      “Reckon the stirrups will be about right,” vouchsafed Blanding. “They have been lengthened since one of Miss Wade’s girl friends rode here last week.”

      Lark measured them with her arm. Then gathering up the reins she grasped the pommel with both hands. Up she vaulted into the saddle, without ever touching the stirrup.

      “Get out of here, Cream Puff,” Lark called gaily, and she was off. The barnyard gate stood ajar, and down the lane another gate was open, and two cowboys, probably the ones Blanding had driven off, stood by waiting. Lark touched the mustang with the spurs. He broke from a trot into a gallop. The cowboys waved their hats.

      Lark found herself beyond the fences, out on an old sandy road, with the open sage ahead. She could have screamed her joy. On a horse again! The purple reaches calling! She asked no more. She left her problems behind and raced for the sage.

CHAPTER FOUR

      Stanley Weston lived alone with his father, an invalid during his later years. He had been one of the pioneer settlers of that section of Washington, having traveled there from Pennsylvania as a young man.

      It was no wonder that the old man loved Sage Hill Ranch and that his great hope was for Stanley to carry on there. The location was beautiful, besides having many associations dear to the pioneer. The ranch house stood on a gradually rising bench of sage, which spread out from an eminence called Sage Hill. There was more pine on it than sage. The massive logs of which the house was built had come off that hill. A number of springs united to form a fine brook of cold, clear water, which was no small item in the value of the immense ranch. Weston had in the early days acquired thousands of acres which were now valuable. He owned fine standing timber; there were hundreds of horses on the thousand-acre pasture which he had fenced; and there was no end of cattle. Weston also owned wheat farms south of Wadestown.

      Stanley rode home early from Wadestown that night. An argument with Marigold, not the first by any means, had left him more than usually pensive and sad. Such moods had been more frequent of late. He had taken Marigold to task, and not for the first time, about something he believed she should not have done and they quarreled. Never again, he vowed! Then his thoughts turned to Marigold’s cousin, the girl from south Idaho who called herself Lark. “Name somehow suits her,” he thought.

      The air was cold and brisk. He slowed up a bit, so that the wind would not be so piercing. Sage Hill loomed dark against the star-fired sky. On each side of the road spread the almost flat land, dim and monotonous, spectral under the stars, and redolent with sage.

      Soon Stanley reached the winding road between the low foothills, from which it was only a short distance up the slope to the ranch house.

      The hour was still early enough for his father to be in the living room, his hands spread to a bright fire. He had a fine shaggy head and a gray rugged face. It was easy to see where Stanley got his stature.

      “Wal howdy, son, reckon I didn’t expect you home tonight,” the rancher greeted Stanley as he breezed in.

      “Glad to get home, believe me,” returned Stanley, eager to get near the fire. “It was cold. I met Marigold in town. She had a cousin with her, a girl named Burrell from Idaho. I rode back with them.”

      “Burrell. I remember him. Pardner of Wade’s years ago. Real Westerner of the old school. Married a part-Indian girl. What was the girl like?”

      “Pretty. Shy. Strange—after these girls. She won’t last long at Wade’s.”

      “Ahuh. How’d it come aboot thet she’s there?”

      “Well, I gathered that she was an orphan, living on a run-down ranch, on the Salmon River in Idaho. Do you know that country, Dad?”

      “Grand country, son. Wild yet, I reckon.”

      “I’d like to see it. . . . The Wades offered her a home and here she is. That’s all I know.”

      “Is she like these heah town lasses?” asked Weston shortly.

      “How do you mean, Dad?” inquired Stanley, his eyes twinkling.

      “Wal, aboot the flirtin’—leadin’ the boys on an’ so forth?”

      Stanley laughed heartily at his father. The modern young woman was one of the incomprehensible things to the older man’s generation. They were not out of accord on the subject, though Stanley, being a college graduate, sought to preserve a broad, liberal mind.

      “No, Dad. Lark is not in the least like ‘these here town lasses.’ I wonder—”

      “Lark? Thet her name?”

      “Yes. I couldn’t tell you just why, but it suits her.”

      “Sight better’n Marigold. Thet’s a hell of a name,” growled Weston. “Suppose you fetch Lark up to see me. I get lonesome oftener than I used to. Mebbe we’d hit it off. I’d like to know somethin’ aboot thet Salmon country.”

      “Dad, I’ll be glad to,” spoke up Stanley, surprised. “Bet she’d like to come. . . . It’s a long time, though, Dad, since you asked to see Marigold.”

      Stanley spoke with unconscious wistfulness, and half to himself. The old man was silent. He turned round before the fire. Stanley sighed.

      “Dad, you don’t approve of Marigold. Oh, I know, and it worries me.”

      “Wal, son, do you approve of her?” inquired the rancher, in his blunt way.

      The query shocked Stanley and brought a recurrence of the mood in which he had not long since left Marigold.

      “Dad, a fellow must certainly approve of the girl he’s going to marry.”

      “Ahuh. I reckon so, an’ make himself blind to do it.”

      “Dad, let’s have it out. Let’s lay the cards on the table. . . . Gradually you have lost something for Marigold. You used to love her.”

      The rancher pulled his chair closer to the fire, opening his big hands to the warmth, as was his habit.

      “Put a couple of chunks on, Stan. . . . Shore, I used to love Mari. Before you went to college an’ she growed up. Mother was livin’ then. She was fond of Mari. But all seems changed, son. I don’t say Mari isn’t lovable yet. She is. But, if you must know, I can’t stand the change in her lately.”

      “What do you mean, Dad?” questioned Stanley gravely.

      “Wal, you know, son, I reckon.”

      “Yes, I know, but do you?”

      “Son, I can see what the girl has on her