As the young lady arose to greet the guests, the graceful animal bounded away to the shrubbery, where, after peeping a moment with shy wonder at the new-comers, it skurried off to the top of the cliff behind the dwelling, snorting and stamping its foot angrily at the intrusion.

After greeting her friends cordially, Miss Estill led the way through a tessellated hall, where the walls were frescoed and hung with elegant paintings, past the winding stairs of dark, rich wood, and to a cool, long room to the east, the floor of which was covered with India matting, swept by the lace curtains that shaded the lofty windows from the fierce sunlight. An air of quiet refinement and simple luxury pervaded this apartment, which spoke volumes, in a mute way--all very favorable to the Estill family.

When Mrs. Estill came into the room, Mora presented her new friends, who were charmed by the elder lady's welcome; but when Clifford was introduced she gave him a swift, searching glance from her keen, blue eyes, that brought a flush to his face at her look of scrutiny and valuation. She must have read him aright, however, for she gave her hand to young Warlow in a very friendly way, and he thought he detected a sub-tone of graciousness in her welcome to himself a shade deeper than when she had addressed the others.

Mrs. Estill was a fair, dignified matron, whose flaxen hair was now slightly tinged with gray; but as Clifford contrasted the creole daughter with her, he failed to detect any resemblance between the two.

The elder lady must have divined his thoughts, or observed his look of wonder at the strange dissimilarity existing between herself and her only daughter, for she appeared to be embarra.s.sed and constrained in her attempts at entertaining the guests; but Mora was so animated and vivacious that her mother's disquiet was unnoticed by all save Clifford, who vaguely wondered at this show of uneasiness over such a trifle; yet he had occasion before many weeks had elapsed to recall it all with a strange significance.

When Mr. Estill came in, and Mora had presented her new friends, the ruddy, genial old ranchman said with a smile:--

"Now this is something like civilized life once more! Why, it does my very soul good to see young company about the old ranch--a sight that is as rare as it is pleasant. I almost fancy myself back in the old home again."

The visitors were soon chatting gaily with the courtly and entertaining host, who proved to be a typical ranchman of the plains,--shrewd through long dealings with a business cla.s.s noted for sagacity and wealth; urbane and refined in manner by having been thrown among bankers and the leading men of the city for many years; and lastly, hospitable, possibly owing to the fact that his hospitality had never been overtaxed nor abused in that thinly settled country.

"Where could this creole daughter have sprung from? She looks as if she might have stepped out of the Alhambra into this family of blonde Saxons," said Clifford mentally, again contrasting Mora and her parents; and while he noted the auburn hair, just tinged with gray, of Mr.

Estill, and the blue eyes of that courtly old gentleman, the contrast with the creole daughter became so apparent that Clifford must have betrayed his surprise, for he was soon aware that Mrs. Estill was regarding him with an uneasy expression which only served to increase his perplexity. "There is a skeleton in the domestic closet at Estill's ranch," thought our young friend; "but what can the mystery be?"

His speculations were cut short, however, by Mr. Estill saying that all the cow-boys were away with Hugh, shipping a "bunch of steers,"--omitting the fact that the modest "bunch" consisted of two long train-loads of sleek, fat beeves; and that the duties of hostler devolved upon himself in their absence.

The young men thereupon arose and left the room with their host, who, after the manner of Western people, believed in the maxim, "Love me, love my dog," which finds expression in the care lavished upon the horses of a welcome guest. This spirit often leads to a foundered nag, however; but it would be a very ungrateful man, indeed, who would grumble at such an evidence of esteem.

As they left the room to care for Clifford's team, Mora invited Maud and Grace up to her boudoir, which, she said, was so seldom visited that the spiders were more at home there than herself.

"You know about how much 'elegant leisure' falls to the lot of farmers and ranch people," she added.

"Yes, indeed," replied Maud, ruefully; "what with baking, scouring, and dairy-work, we have not much time for frivolous dissipation."

"Oh, what a lovely room!" screamed Grace in delight. "If I had such a sweet boudoir I'd steal an hour at least every day to play the heroine, even if the bread burned and the dishes went unwashed in consequence,"

she added, rapturously.

"When up here I often dream that I am a grand lady," said Mora, gaily; "but when I catch a glimpse in the mirror of a frumpy, frouzy creature with a towel over her head, then I awake to the sad reality that I am only the slave of circ.u.mstances."

Grace would have been perfectly justified, however, in indulging in day-dreams in such a place; for a more elegant apartment, or one where greater taste was evinced in every detail of adornment, was rarely to be seen in the West.

It was situated at the south end of the upper hall, and opened out upon the balcony by a door of plate gla.s.s, thick and beveled, through which could be seen the flashing fountain on the terrace below and a landscape of surpa.s.sing beauty. The wooded stream wound away down the prairie valley, which was dotted with innumerable ricks of wild-hay; the white stone walls which fenced the ranch ran far out onto the highlands, dimly defining the boundaries of the great estate.

The walls of the elegant apartment were draped with and paneled by carmine and cream colored silk, relieved by lines of white. A carpet of creamy velvet was strewn with moss-roses of the same shade of carmine, with all the furniture upholstered to correspond. The walls were graced--not crowded--by a tall beveled mirror of French plate and some delicious paintings, framed in gilt. The low mantel was of Italian marble, white, dappled and veined with red shading to faintest rose.

Vases of Sevres china, statuettes of bronze, and elegantly bound volumes were seen on every hand. There was a table of mosaic, on which was a basket of fancy-work, that, Miss Estill said, was destined never to be finished. Through the draped doorway, on the east, could be seen the snowy, lace-canopied bed of the mistress of all this splendor. The sunlight, sifting through the tops of the elms which grew below the terrace, shone in fitful bars of amber on a picture which was riveting the attention of Maud, who sprang up from her velvet chair and cried with enthusiasm:--

"Oh Grace! it is 'Sunset on the Smoky Hill,' don't you see the Iron Mound looming up with vague mystery? The serpentine river, fringed by trees, is the Saline; and there, winding down from the north, is the stately Solomon; while here at our feet flows the Smoky Hill between its timbered banks. See that white blot, far out to the east, rising in the evening mirage,--it must be Fort Riley! There is Abilene; and all along the wide prairie valley, flanked by bold gra.s.sy headlands, are white villages and golden fields of wheat. Here, nestling down in the broad valley among the groves at the base of the Iron Mound, is Salina--which reminds me of Damascus, with its rivers of Abana and Pharpar. Out to the south-west see that long line of purple, jagged b.u.t.tes, over which eternally hovers a smoky haze,--those are the Smoky Hills! Look at the twilight stealing down through their gorges. Oh, it is like a glimpse of heaven! Mora--Mora! who could have painted this?" she said, with tears of genuine emotion. Then seeing Miss Estill blushing hotly, she and Grace impulsively kissed the young artist--Maud saying with a little quaver of emotion:--

"Mora Estill, you dear, gifted creature--do you know that you are a genius?"

"I am not so certain of that, for I am often led to believe in Hugh's criticisms. He says that my best pictures are very similar in appearance to a newly flayed beef's-hide." Then, as the others gave vent to shrieks of feminine amazement, Miss Estill continued merrily: "I had a letter from him yesterday. He is at Kansas City, you know. Would you believe it?--he sent an order for me to paint the sign for a butcher's shop. The aggravating fellow charged me, carefully, to put a sufficient number of limbs on the figure of a cow that was to adorn the sign. Then he proceeded with a whole page of caution, in which he charged me to avoid the fatal error of painting claws upon the animal's hoofs. There followed a long homily, showing the dire results of such a slight mistake--the innuendo and sarcasm, the cold suspicion and cruel neglect, that would alight upon the head of a butcher who was suspected of making beef of an animal that wore claws.

"This picture of Lake Inman," said Miss Estill, as the laughing group moved forward to where a beautiful painting hung, "Hugh persists in calling 'The Knot Hole;' and in his letter he said that as to the horns of the animal which was to adorn the sign, they were a matter of indifference to the public, and I could keep them for the trunks of the 'stately elms' in my next landscape, and I might transplant them with great success to the sh.o.r.es of Lake Inman, which you see is badly in need of shade."

"I'd just like to teach him," said Grace, inadvertently; but seeing the amused look which Maud shot at Miss Estill she hesitated with a blush, while Mora quickly exclaimed:--

"Oh, I believe he is beginning to learn of late; but I hope you will give him a lesson in poetry, for I found an effusion among his papers, where he had evidently forgotten it, that will bear a _great deal of revision_;" and she took from a bronze cabinet a paper whereon was written, in lame and halting couplets, an apostrophe "To My Love."

But the author had failed so signally to secure either rhyme or measure, that the girls shrieked aloud as Mora read long verses of the most trivial nonsense and doggerel, where "golden tresses," "had went," and "blue eyes" were mingled with loving ardor, but very bad grammar.

As the verses progressed, the sentiment became more tender, but the diction and measure were perfectly appalling in their untutored originality. At each new limp or poetical hobble, the girls would laugh gaily; but when Mora looked at Grace with a significant smile, the application of the following lines was readily seen:--

"My love she's golden hair and eyes Of deepest, finest blue.

I love her better than ['Gooseberry pies!' cried Maud] any thing, My heart will always be true to you."

Although the author had promoted his lady love from the obscure position of third person to the station of second person in the s.p.a.ce of a second, yet even this was not enough to induce Grace to remain longer; for she fled away with burning blushes, while Mora still continued to read lines, the syntax of which disclosed the revolting fact that their author had throttled his own mother tongue, had slain persons without regard to s.e.x or condition, and, like a vandal, had cut off the feet of his best subject at some critical moment.

At the close Miss Estill folded the paper, and as she placed it in a cabinet she said, it would yet serve to pay off some old scores with Hugh. She must have kept her word, for on his return he was immeasurably shocked on opening his county paper to see, staring at him from the first page: "A Poem To My Love. By H. E."

After Mr. Estill had praised the dappled Normans and cared for them in a very hospitable manner, he led the young men out to a near-by pasture to show them his Jersey cows. While they were admiring the graceful animals, their host said:--

"For twenty-five years we had either depended on Texan cows for milk, or had used the concentrated article without even once thinking of the folly of such a course. We had so long been accustomed to seeing the herders la.s.so the wild, infuriated creatures before milking them, that we had actually forgotten there was any other way. It may have been owing to our trusting the operation wholly to the cow-boys that no progress was made in subduing the animals or reducing them to a domestic state; but we never had thought it safe to allow a woman inside of the corral since that morning, a score of years ago, when my wife had been kicked insensible by a beast that she had attempted to milk. One evening, after Mora had returned from Cincinnati, she witnessed the usual proceedings in the milk-yard,--two broad-hatted and bespurred herders la.s.soing a cow. Then, after tying her head to one post and hind-foot to another, one of the valiant milk-men stripped a few streams of the precious fluid into a cup, while his partner stood by, whip in hand, ready to punish any movement on the part of the bellowing brute.

Only then did she realize how infamously undairy-like the affair really was. When I met her a few moments later, she said with a shade of contempt in her tone:--

"'Oh, why do you allow such barbarous work on the ranch?'

"'But, my dear,' I replied, 'there is no other way. Why, I would rather tackle a mountain lion than one of those fiery creatures while she is loose.'

"'Then, why not buy some Jerseys?' Mora said.

"Yes, indeed, why not? I thought, and so I lost no time over deliberations, but wrote at once to Major Kingsbury, who sent me these gentle creatures, which now we value above anything else on the ranch."

Nothing was said about the vast herds, the thousands of fat cattle grazing out over the great pastures around; but the visitors were impressed with the evidence of great wealth visible on every hand. The capacious corral and innumerable ricks of prairie-hay bore mute testimony to the thrift and opulence which reigned at the Estill ranch.

As Mr. Estill led the way back to the dwelling he said:--

"Hugh will be greatly disappointed when he learns that he has missed your visit. I have been away with him for the last fortnight, and only returned last evening, when I learned from my wife that--that--my children had a very pleasant day up at your place." Then in a constrained voice he added: "I would like to meet your father, Mr.

Warlow; for there is a subject which I would like very much to discuss with him."

"My father expressed a wish to make your acquaintance also; for it appears that he is anxious to discuss the early history of this country with you," Clifford replied.

Mr. Estill seemed greatly agitated on hearing this; but when about to reply, dinner was announced, and he arose and led the way into the long, walnut-paneled dining-room. All this time Clifford was mutely wondering why the wealthy old ranchman should be so anxious to meet his father.

"Can it be that the cattle-king is opposed to the intimacy growing up between myself and his daughter?" young Warlow asked himself. Then he thought of the friendly manner of his host, and rejected the idea at once.

They were soon gaily chatting over the soup; but as Clifford's eye glanced along the wall his attention was attracted by a painting, which hung where the light fell upon it in such a way as to bring out every detail with perfect clearness. In its foreground was a mammoth tree, shading the gables of a stone cottage; a ruined wall, half smothered by vines. Across the stream, which had half encircled the knoll where the building stood, were fields of ripening grain, that rippled in the billowy waves, stirred and tossed by the summer breeze, wheat of coppery red or palest gold, the silvery sheen of rye and oats contrasting with the tawny prairie and dark, green groves, through which shimmered the brook and pools that he recognized as old friends.

As his eye sought the author of this delicate compliment, which was a truthful picture of his place--the Old Corral--he caught Miss Estill's amused look; for she had been watching the pleased surprise which had grown upon his face as he realized what the picture really was. His glance must have been very expressive in reply; for a blush swept over her face, usually serene in its quiet dignity, or vivacious with blithesome wit, and her blue eyes retreated behind their long lashes--a guilty admission that she was the artist who had painted the scene.

This silent by-play was not unnoticed, quiet as it all seemed; for as Clifford turned to take the plate of rare good things which the host pa.s.sed to him, he encountered the eyes of Mrs. Estill fixed upon him; but the lady smiled with a look of such evident enjoyment of the situation that he half forgot that Mr. Estill still held the plate, which young Warlow seized with an air which was neither as graceful nor self-possessed as a hero should have worn.

With ready tact Mrs. Estill came to the rescue by saying:--

"It all looks strange, no doubt, that I treat you to a ranch fare of canned beef from St. Louis, and vegetables from Baltimore and Rochester, but if it were not for our Jerseys we should have been compelled to call on Chicago for condensed milk also. I never realized the absurdity of this course until Mora told me of the luxuriant gardens and fields of grain which you are raising in the upper valley. Why, Hugh says it is a marvel how prosperous everything appears up there."