Dorothy on a Ranch Part 8

But nothing did. All the untoward incidents of this journey to the Rockies had happened during its first stage. "Tenderfoot Sorrel" was left behind, of course, but he did not greatly regret that. He felt that he could more easily endure physical pain than the chaffing of his fellows at San Leon.

As before, the start was made with a flourish of whip and horn, amid good wishes and farewells from the hosts of the Wayside Inn, and a sure promise to "come again!" Then a day's journey steadily onward and upward, through river-fed valleys and rocky ravines, with a mid-day stop at another little hostelry, for a change of horses and a plain dinner.

Then on again, following the sun till it sank behind a mountain range and they had climbed well nigh to the top. Here Mr. Ford ordered a brief halt, that the travellers might look behind them at the glorious landscape. When they had done so, till the scene was impressed upon their memories forever, again the order came:

"Eyes front! but shut! No peeping till I say--Look!"

Laughing, finding it ever so difficult to obey, but eager, indeed, the last ascent was made. Then the wheels seemed to have found a level stretch of smoother travelling and again came Mr. Ford's cry:

"All eyes front and--open! Welcome to San Leon!"

Open they did. Upon one of the loveliest homes they had ever beheld. A long, low, roomy building, modelled in the Mission style that Lady Gray so greatly admired; whose s.p.a.cious verandas and cloistered walks invited to delightful days out of doors; while everywhere were flowers in bloom, fountains playing, vine-clad arbors and countless cosy nooks, shadowed by magnificent trees. A lawn as smooth as velvet, dotted here and there by electric light poles whose radiance could turn night into day.

For a moment n.o.body spoke; then admiration broke forth in wondering exclamations, while the host helped his wife to alight, asking:

"Well, Erminie, does it suit you?"

"Suit? Dear, I never dreamed of anything better than a plain shack on a mountain side. That's what you called it--but this--this is no shack.

It's more like a palace!"

"Well, the main thing is to make it a home."

"Is it as good as the 'cabin,' father?" asked Leslie, coming up and laying his hand on Mr. Ford's shoulder.

"Let us hope it will be! If the first inmates are peace and good will.

Peace and good will," he repeated, gravely. Then his accustomed gayety replaced his seriousness and he waved his hand toward the entrance, saying:

"Queen Erminie, enter in and possess your kingdom! Your maids of honor with you!"

"My heart!" cried Alfaretta, following her hostess, like a girl in a dream. "I thought 'twould be just another up-mounting sort of place, not near so nice as Deerhurst or the Towers, but it's splendid more 'n they are, either one or both together."

"Wonderful, what money can do in this land of the free!" remarked Herbert, critically estimating the establishment. "Think of a man having his own electric light plant away up here! Why, if it weren't for the mountains yonder one could fancy this is Newport or Long Branch."

"Without the sea, Bert. Even money can't bring the sea to the mountain-tops," said Helena, though her own face was aglow with admiration.

"It can do the next best thing to it. Look yonder," said Monty, pointing where a glimmer of sunset-tinted water showed through a hedge of trees.

"Let's go there. It certainly is water," urged Jim Barlow.

"Well, Leslie told me there was a strange waterfall near San Leon and I suppose the same money has pressed that into service. To think! That 'Railroad Boss' earned his first quarter selling papers on the train! He was talking about the 'cabin' as we came along. It had two rooms and he lived in it alone with his mother. By his talk they hadn't always been so poor and she belonged to an old family, as 'families go in America.'

That was the way he put it, and it was his ambition to see his mother able to take 'the place where she belonged.' That's how he began; and now, look at this!"

All the young people had now gathered around the pond, or lake, that had been made in a natural basin on the mountain side, for thinking that their host and hostess would better like to enter their new home with no strangers about them, Dorothy had suggested:

"Let's follow the boys! Jim's arm ought to be looked after, first thing, and I'll remind him of it. He'd no business to come on horseback all that long way, but he never would take care of himself."

"Has Leslie ever been here before?" asked Molly Breckenridge.

"No. It is as much a surprise to him as to his mother. But he's mighty proud of his father," answered Dorothy. "Look, here he comes now."

He came running across the sward and down the rocky path to the edge of the lake and clapped a hand on the shoulders of Herbert and Montmorency.

He did not mean to be less cordial to Jim Barlow but he was. For two reasons: one that Dorothy had extolled her humble friend till he seemed a paragon of all the virtues; and secondly what he had learned of Jim's eagerness for knowledge had made him ashamed of his own indifference to it. Even that day, his father had commended the poorer boy for his keen observation of everything and read him a portion of a letter received from Dr. Sterling, the clergyman with whom James lived and studied.

The Doctor had written that the lad was already well versed in natural history and that his interest in geology was as great as the writer's own. He felt that this invitation to his beloved protege was a wonderful thing for the student, and that Mr. Ford might feel he was having a hand in the formation of a great scientist.

There had been more of the same sort of praise and Leslie had looked with simple amazement at the tall, awkward youth, who had arrived in Denver with the rest of his young guests.

"That fellow smart? Clever? Brainy? Well, he doesn't look it. If ever I saw a regular clodhopper, he's the chap. But that Herbert Montaigne, now, is rippin'! He has the right 'air,' and so has the shorty, the fat Monty, only his figure is against him," he had remarked to Mateo, who had instantly agreed with him. Indeed, the Mexican _never_ disagreed with his "gracious excellency, Senor Leslie."

Mateo's service was an easy one and his salary good. Besides, he was really fond of his young master and formed all his opinions in accordance. So then he, too, cast a supercilious glance at Jim, and had caused that shy lad's color to rise, though beyond that he took no notice.

Already as they stood there gazing over the lake, crimson with the last rays of the sun, Jim was studying the rocks upon the farther side and squinting his eyes at something moving among them. It was with a startled return to his surroundings that he heard Leslie now say:

"My father wants to have you come in, Mr.--I mean James. The doctor is going to properly dress your arm."

"The doctor? Is there a doctor here?" asked Dorothy, slipping her hand under Jim's uninjured arm, and conveying by that action her sympathy with his feeling of an alien.

But he coolly drew aside. He wasn't going to be humiliated by any girl's cossetting, not even hers. He had never realized his poverty so bitterly, nor been more ashamed of that fact. Just because some richer boys looked down upon him was no reason he should look down upon himself. Also, it angered him that he really needed surgical attention.

He had suffered intensely during the ride hither but he had kept that to himself. He meant to keep it to himself whatever happened, and to join in what was going on as if he were physically sound as the other boys.

"It's only my left arm, anyway. I'd be a poor stick of a thing if I couldn't manage with the other," he had thought, bravely, despite the pain. Now here was he being made the object of everybody's notice; and, being Jim--he hated it! There was a surly look in his eyes as he replied to Leslie's message:

"I guess not. I mean--there isn't any need--I'm all right. I'm all right, I say. I'm--Shucks! I'm bully!"

It was Dorothy who blushed this time, she was so mortified by the rudeness of her "paragon." Whenever had he used such an expression? She flashed an indignant glance upon him, then coolly commanded him:

"You come right straight along, James Barlow. You're Mr. Ford's guest now and must do what he wants, just the same as if he were Dr. Sterling.

Besides, I know we all ought to be freshening ourselves before supper.

Lady Gray hates untidy people. Come on."

Again she linked her arm in Jim's and led the way up the slope toward the house, while at the mention of supper all the others fell into line behind her. And now Jim was already ashamed of his petulance with her.

After all, she was the prettiest girl of them all; and, so far as he knew, the richest. She was "thoroughbred;" her family one of the oldest in its native State; and though the poorhouse boy had no family pride of his own he was loyal to old Maryland and his earliest friend. What had not Dolly been to him? His first teacher, his loving companion, and the means of all that was good coming into his life.

"Say, Dolly, I'm sorry I said that and shamed you. Sorry I'm such a conceited donkey as to hate being looked down on. You just keep me posted on what's what, little girl, and I'll try to behave myself. But it beats creation, to find such a place as this up here on the Rockies and to know one man's done it. Kind of takes a feller's breath away, don't it?"

They were a little ahead of the rest of the party and able to talk freely, so Dorothy improved the chance to give "her boy Jim" a little lecture; suggesting that he must never stop short of accomplis.h.i.+ng just as much as Daniel Ford had done.

"What one poor lad can do, another can--if he will! _If he will_, James Barlow! It's just the _will_, you see. There was a copy in my old writing-book: 'What man has done, man can do.'"

"Shucks! I'm ambitious enough, but 'tain't along no money lines. What I want is learnin'--just plain knowledge. I wrote a copy once, too, and 'twas that 'Knowledge is Power.' I made them capitals the best I could so 't I never would forget 'em."

"Huh! For such a wise young man you talk pretty common. There's no need, Jim Barlow, for you to go back into all the bad grammar and chipped-off words just because you're talking to--me. I notice you are very particular and careful when you speak to our hosts. Oh, Jim! isn't this going to be just a glorious summer? Except when I think about Aunt Betty I'm almost too happy to breathe."

Jim had stumbled along beside her, unseeing the objects that were nearest--the lovely shrubbery, beautiful flowers, and quaint little furnis.h.i.+ngs of that grand lawn--but with his eyes fixed on a distant mountain peak, bare of verdure, and seemingly but a ma.s.s of vari-colored rock; and he now remarked:

"I wonder how much of this country that Dan Ford owns! I wonder if he's got a claim on the peaks yonder!"

"Come back to earth, boy! Can't you think anything, see anything but--stones? Here we are at the door and I fancy this gentleman is the doctor. Good evening, sir."