"Oh, dear, oh, dear!" cried Marcia.

So it was under Lee's protection that she went back through the meadows and to the house. At first she was frightened by the strange noises his led horse made, little snorts which made her jump. But in the end she put out a timid hand and stroked the velvet nose. When finally Bud Lee lifted his hat to her at the base of the knoll upon which the house stood Marcia thanked him for his kindness.

"I've been terribly unconventional, haven't I?" she smiled at him.

"But I mustn't again. Next time we meet, Mr. Lee, I am not even going to speak to you. Unless," relenting brightly, "you come up to the house and are properly introduced!"

As she went through the lilacs Lee saw her wave her parasol to him.

XV

JUST A GIRL, AFTER ALL

Three days later Bud Lee learned that Judith Sanford was, after all, "just a girl, you know"; that at least for once in her life she had slipped away to be by herself and to cry. He stopped dead in his tracks when he came unexpectedly upon her, become suddenly awkward, embarra.s.sed, a moment uncertain, but yielding swiftly to an impulse to run for it.

"Come here, Bud Lee!" commanded Judith sharply, dabbing at her eyes.

"I want to talk with you."

He was at the Upper End where he had ridden for half a dozen young horses which were to be taken down into the meadow for their education.

And here she was, on a bench outside the old cabin, indulging herself in a hearty cry.

"I--I didn't know you were here," he stammered. "I was going to make some coffee and have lunch here. I do, sometimes. It's a real fine day, isn't it, Miss Sanford? Nice and warm and--" His voice trailed off indistinctly.

"Oh, scat!" cried Judith at him, half laughing, still half crying. She had wiped her eyes but still two big tears, untouched, trembled on her cheeks. In spite of him Lee couldn't keep his eyes off of them.

"I'm just crying," Judith told him then, with a sudden a.s.sumption of cool dignity which had in it something of defiance. "I've got a right to, if I want to, haven't I? What do you look at me like that for?"

"Sure," he answered hastily. "It does you good to cry; I know. Great thing. All ladies do, sometimes----"

Judith sniffed.

"You know all that there is to be known about '_ladies_,' don't you?

In your vast wisdom all you've got to do is lump 'em in one of your brilliant generalities. That's the man of you!"

"Maybe I'd better go make the coffee?" he suggested hurriedly. "It's after twelve. And it'll do you good. A nice hot cup."

"Maybe you had," said Judith icily. "Perhaps I can postpone my conversation with you until the water boils."

Lee went into the cabin without looking back. Judith, watching him, saw that he ran his hand across his forehead. She sniffed at him again. But when Lee had the coffee ready she had washed her face at the spring, had tucked her tumbled hair back under her hat, and, looking remarkably cool, came into the cabin. Lee thought of his meeting with Marcia, of her repeated a.s.surance that she knew she had violated the conventions.

"You _can_ make coffee," Judith nodded her approval as she sipped at the black beverage, cooled a little by condensed milk. Lee was busied with a tin containing potted meat. "Now, have you got over your shock so that I can talk with you?"

He smiled at her across the little oil-cloth-covered table, and answered lightly and with his old a.s.surance that he guessed he had steadied his nerve. Hadn't he told her a cup of coffee would do wonders?

"Would it go to your head," began the girl abruptly, "if I were to tell you that I size you up as the best man I've got on my pay-roll?"

"I'd try to keep both feet on the ground," he said gravely, though he wondered what was coming.

"I'll explain," she continued, her tone impersonally businesslike.

"Next to you, I count on Doc Tripp; next to Tripp, on Carson. They are good men; they are trustworthy; they understand ranch conditions and they know what loyalty to the home-range means. But Tripp is just a veterinarian; simply that and nothing more. His horizon isn't very wide. Neither is Carson's."

"And mine?" he grinned at her. "Read me my horoscope, Miss Sanford!"

"You have taken the trouble to be something more than just a horse foreman," she told him quietly. "I don't know what your advantages have been; if you haven't gone through high school, then at least you have been ambitious enough to get books, to read, to educate yourself.

You have developed further than Carson; you have broadened more than Tripp."

"Thanks," he offered dryly.

"Oh, I'm not seeking to intrude into your private affairs, Mr. Bud Lee!" she cried warmly at his tone. "I have no desire to do so, having no interest in them. First of all, I want one thing clear: You said when I first came that you'd stay a few days, long enough for me to get a man in your place. We have both been rather too busy to think of your leaving or my seeking a subst.i.tute. Now what? The job is yours as long as you want it--if you'll stay. I don't want you leaving me in the lurch. Do you want to go? Or do you want to stick?"

What did he want? He had antic.i.p.ated an interference from the girl in his management of the duty allotted him and no such interference had come. She left him unhampered, even as she did Tripp and Carson. He had his interest in his horses. It was pleasant here. This cabin was a sort of home to him. Besides, he had the idea that Quinnion and Shorty might again be heard from--that if Trevors was backing their play, there would be other threats offered the Blue Lake outfit from which he had no desire to run. There was such a thing as loyalty to the home-range, and in the half-year he had worked here it had become a part of him.

"I'll stick," he said quietly.

"I'm glad of that," replied Judith. "Oh, you'll have your work cut out for you, Bud Lee, and, that you may be the better fitted to do it, I want you to know just what I am up against."

She paused a moment, stirring her coffee with one of Lee's tin spoons, gathering her thoughts. Then, speaking thoughtfully, she explained:

"It's a gamble, with us bucking the long odds. Dad left me a third interest, clear, valued, counting stock, at a good deal more than four hundred thousand dollars. He left me no cash. Dad never had any cash.

Just so soon as he got his hands on it he put it to work. I knew he had planned taking over another one-third interest, and I went on with his plans. I mortgaged my share for two hundred thousand dollars, which I got at five per cent. That means I have to dig up each year, just interest, ten thousand dollars. That's a pretty big lump, you know."

"Yes," he admitted slowly. "That's big; mighty big."

"With the money I raised," Judith continued, "I bought out the third owner, Timothy Gray. He let his holding go for three hundred and fifty thousand. It was a bargain for me--if I can make a go of it. I still owe, on the princ.i.p.al, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I owe on my mortgage two hundred thousand. Total of my indebtedness, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And that's bigger, Bud Lee."

"Yes. That's bigger figures than I can quite get the hang of."

No wonder she had been crying. Even if everything went smooth on the Blue Lake she, too, had her work cut out for her.

"Now," she ran on, her voice stirring him with the ringing note in it, "I can make a go of it--if they will just let me alone! I am playing close to the table, Lee, close! I have a little money in the bank, enough to run along for two or three months, that's all. I said that dad left no cash. I didn't mention his insurance." Her eyes grew suddenly wet but she did not avert them from Lee's face, going on quietly: "That was ten thousand dollars. Close to seven thousand had to go for his current obligations. I have about two thousand to run on."

"Close hauled," grunted Lee. And to himself, he remarked as he had remarked once before: "She's got her sand."

Quite naturally Bud Lee thought swiftly of his horses. He had told Trevors that he wanted to make no sale for at least six months. Given until then--if Judith could make a go of it without forcing a sale--he'd show her the way to at least seven or eight thousand, with a good percentage of clear profit.

"To begin with," Judith's voice interrupted his musings, "I am going to have trouble with Carson. I admit that he's an exceptionally good cattle foreman; I admit, too, that he has his limitations. He is of the old school, and has got to learn something! Already he has his weather-eye c.o.c.ked for the lean season; he'll be coming to me in August or September, telling me I've got to begin selling. That's the way they all do! And the result is that beef cattle drop and the market clogs with them. What I am going to do is make Carson start in buying then. Oh, he'll buck like one of his own red bay steers but he'll buy!"

"We're pretty well stocked up," Lee offered gently. "Turning the hills over to the hogs makes a difference, too. We're going to be short of feed long before September is over."

"Short of range feed, yes," she retorted warmly. "But we're going to put our trust in our silos, Lee, and make them do such work for us as they have never done before. Then, when other folks are forced to sell off for what they can get, we'll hold on and buy. We won't sell before December or January, when the market is up."

He shook his head. Though not of the old school which had produced Carson, still he put little faith in those tall towers into which alfalfa and Indian corn were fed to make lush fodder.

"I don't know a whole lot about silos," he admitted.

"Neither does Carson," said Judith. "He looks at such things as silos and milking-machines and tractors and fences even as the old Indians must have looked at the inroads of the white men. But, do you know where he has been these last few days?"