On their way to the restaurant, Gray said: "Pa and Ma and Allie Briskow and the tutoress have gone to the mountains--Ma's beloved mountains--and they appear to be living up to her expectations. The mountains, I mean. The old dear writes me every week, and her letters are wonderful, even outside of the spelling. She hasn't lost a single illusion. She has a soul for adventure, has Ma; she's hunting for caves now--keeps her ears open to hear if the ground sounds hollow; wants to find a mysterious cavern and explore it, with her heart in her mouth.

She revels in the clean, green foliage and the spring brooks. She says the trees are awful crowded in places and there's no dust on them."

"And Allie has a tutor!"

"The best money could secure. And, by the way, you wouldn't have known the girl after you got through with her that day. That was only the beginning, too. She fills the eye now, and she's growing."

"_Growing?_"

Gray chuckled. "Not physically, but mentally, psychologically, intellectually."

"I said she had possibilities."

"Yes. More than I gave her credit for, but what they are, where they will lead her, I don't know. I'm a foolish person, Miss Parker, for I take an intense interest in the affairs of other people, especially my friends. My favorite dissipation is to share the troubles of those whom I like, and right now I'm quite as worried over Allie as her father is.

You see, she has outdistanced her parents already; the dream part is wearing off and her new life is a reality. She is confronted with the grim and appalling necessity of adapting herself to a completely new and bewildering set of conditions. I'm not sure that she will be equal to it."

"I presume you mean that she is sensitive."

"Supersensitive! And ambitious! That's the trouble. If she were dull and conceited she could be both happy and contented. But she's bright, and she lacks egotism, so she'll never be either. Adversity would temper a girl like her; prosperity may--spoil her."

"There is a boy, too, isn't there?"

"Oh, Buddy! He's away at school. He'll make a hand, or--well, if he doesn't, I'll beat the foolishness out of him. I've a.s.sumed complete responsibility for Buddy, and he'll be a credit to me."

There was a tone in Gray's voice when he spoke of the Briskows that gave Barbara Parker a wholly new insight into his character; it was with a feeling that she knew him and liked him better that she said:

"You think a lot of those nesters, don't you?"

"More than they believe, and more than I would have thought possible,"

he readily declared. "I'm a lonesome inst.i.tution. There's n.o.body dependent upon me; I owe no bills, no grat.i.tude, and I've canceled the obligations that others owe me. You've no idea how unnecessary I am. It gives me a pleasing sense of importance, therefore, to feel that I fill a place in somebody's affairs."

Wichita Falls's facilities for public entertainment reflected perhaps as correctly as anything else the general chaos consequent upon its swift expansion into a city. Such hotels as had been capable of caring for the transient trade of pre-petroleum days were full and carried waiting lists like exclusive clubs; rooming houses and private dwellings were crowded. A new and modern fireproof hotel was stretching skeleton fingers of steel skyward, but meanwhile the task of sheltering, and especially of feeding three times a day, the hungry hordes that bulged the sides of the little city was a difficult one. To wrest possession of a cafe table for two at the rush hour was an undertaking almost as hazardous as jumping a mining claim, but Calvin Gray succeeded and eventually he and "Bob" found themselves facing each other over a discolored tablecloth, reading a soiled menu card to a perspiring waiter. It was in some ways an ideal retreat for a tete-a-tete, for the bellowed orders, the rattle of crockery, the voice of the hungry food battlers, and the clash of their steel made intimate conversation easy. Gray noted with approval the ease with which his dainty companion adapted herself to the surroundings and remarked upon it.

"After four years in the East it took me a little while to get used to it," she confessed. "The Wichita I left was a quiet town; the one I came home to was a madhouse. At first the excitement frightened me, for I felt as if I were being run over, tossed aside. But now that I've fallen in with the chase, why--I think it is splendid."

"Just what are you doing and how do you do it?" Gray wanted to know.

Barbara was glad to tell him about her brief but eventful experience since that morning at the Nelson bank when she had executed her coup, and she recited the story with enthusiasm.

"Having no capital to go on," she explained, "I've merely bought and sold on commission so far, but I'm not always going to be a broker. I'm making good, and some day dad and I will be big operators. I've been able to buy a car, and most of my time I'm out in the field. They tell me I'm as good an oil scout as some of the' men working for the big companies; but, of course, I'm not. I merely have an advantage; drillers tell me more than they'd tell a man."

"Of course, with your father along you're safe in going anywhere, but to go through the fields alone--"

"Oh, dad doesn't go!"

"What?" Gray looked up incredulously, but "Bob" nodded her head vigorously.

"Dad hates automobiles; they frighten him. So I go out alone while he runs the office."

"Extraordinary! But, my dear girl, it's dangerous."

"Naturally, I avoid 'Burk' and the Northwest Extension after dark--even the scouts do that. But it wouldn't pay anybody to high-jack me. No. I go right in on the derrick floors and hobn.o.b with the drillers, talk about their wives and their families, discuss croup and fishing jobs; sometimes they let me taste the sand and even show me the logs of their wells. It amused them at first to think of a girl playing the game single-handed--most men, however rough, have a sense of chivalry, you know, and are better sports than they realize. Now--well, they're beginning to respect my business ability. They have learned that I keep my mouth closed and that I'll treat them squarely. Some of them would fight for me. I tell you it is the greatest experience, the most thrilling adventure, a girl ever had."

"You are a brave child, and I admire your courage," Gray declared.

"But I'm not. I'm afraid of everything that other girls are afraid of."

Leaning forward confidentially, the girl continued: "I'm a hollow sham, Mr. Gray, but dad doesn't know it. After I learned how badly he wanted me to be a boy, and how he had set his heart on teaching me the things he thought a son of his should know, I had a secret meeting with myself and I voted unanimously to fill the specifications if it killed me. So I began a fraudulent life. I'm in earnest. For instance, I abhor guns, but I learned to shoot with either hand until--well, I'm pretty expert.

And roping! I can build a loop, jump through it, do straight and fancy catches like a cowboy. I worked at it for months, years it seemed to me. I knew very well it was a ridiculous waste of time, but I'll never forget how proud dad was when I learned the 'b.u.t.terfly.' That was my reward. Horses used to frighten me blue, but I learned to ride well enough. In fact, it has been a keen disappointment to him that I won't enter the Frontier Day contests. He'd like nothing better than to see me win the bucking-horse match. Think of it! And I'm so timid I can't look an oat in the face!" Barbara attempted a shy laugh, but there was a quaver to her voice, and when Gray continued to stare at her gravely, sympathetically, her face quickly sobered. "Now you understand why my father doesn't think it necessary to go along on my trips through the oil fields. It has never occurred to him that I'm anything but 'Bob'

Parker, his boy. Mind you, he is lost in admiration of me and I rule him like a slave. I think he is great, too, and he _is_. He is the dearest, gentlest, sweetest father in the world, and I wouldn't have him learn the hideous truth about me for anything."

For a moment Barbara's listener studied her thoughtfully, then he said: "I'm immensely flattered that you like me well enough to make me your confessor. Now I'm going to confess to you that I also am an arrant coward."

"Please don't joke. You have become quite a famous character, and if the stories I hear are true--"

"The stories one hears are never true. I have my share of physical courage, perhaps; that's a common, elementary virtue, like generosity, grat.i.tude, sympathy. The most mediocre people are blessed that way."

"Oh! Generosity and grat.i.tude are divine qualities!"

Gray shook his head positively. "Impulses! Heart impulses, not brain impulses. They have nothing to do with character. Now I'm deathly afraid of one thing."

"What, pray?"

"Ridicule! You see, I'm egotistical and ostentatious. Oh, very!

Disgustingly vain, in fact. If I were unconscious of it, I'd be unbearable, but--it amuses me as much as it amuses others, and that takes the curse off of it. I am delighted at some of my own antics. I love to swagger and I adore an audience, but to be laughed at by others would kill me. Ridicule! Scorn! I'm insensible to anything except those."

"You're a queer man."

Gray's gaze became fixed; there was a peculiar light--almost a glitter--in his eyes; he talked on as if voicing some engrossing thought. "Of course, I'm vindictive--that's a part of the swashbuckling character; it goes with the ruffles, the jack boots, and the swagger.

It is a luxury of which I am extremely jealous." Bringing his attention back to the girl, he smiled and his manner changed abruptly. "There!

I've proved it all by talking about myself when I'm interested only in you. However, it is sometimes easier to sell a thing by frankly decrying it than by covering up its bad points, and I'm trying desperately to make a good impression upon you. Now then, I'm tremendously interested in what you have told me about yourself, and I'm sure you are a better oil man--oil girl--than you have led me to suppose. But these are no times for social pleasantries. We are living in bedlam. There is nothing in the air but business--oil--profits. You are a business woman, and if we are to become as well acquainted as I hope we will, it must be the result of a common business interest. So, then, for a bargain. I am going to enter this field in a large way; if you will take me for a client, I will buy and sell through you whenever possible. Perhaps we can even speculate together now and then. I'll guarantee you against loss. What do you say?"

"Why--it's a splendid opportunity for me. And I know of some good things; I'm overflowing with information, in fact. For instance--"

Barbara hurriedly produced her oil map and, shoving aside the dishes in front of her, she spread it upon the table. "There is a wildcat going down out here that looks awfully good." As she indicated a tiny circle marked into the corner of one square, Gray noted that there was a dimple at the base of her finger. "The scouts don't think much of it, but I happen to know it is on a structure and has a good showing of oil. The driller is a friend of mine, and he has told me that his casing is set. He'll tip me off when he intends to drill through, and if you like we'll go out there and see what happens. If it comes in, it will mean a big play on surrounding property; prices will double, treble. My theory is this--"

Gray's head was close to the speaker's, but, although he pretended to listen to her words and to follow the tracings of her finger with studious consideration, in reality his attention was fixed upon the tantalizing curve of her smooth cheek and throat. In some perplexity of spirit he asked himself why it was that mere proximity to this wholly sensible and matter-of-fact young creature filled him with such a vague yet pleasurable excitement. He realized that he was not easily thrilled; feminine beauty, feminine charm were nothing new, nevertheless at this moment he experienced an intense elation, an eagerness of spirit, such as he had not felt since he was in the first resistless vigor of youth, and his voice, when he spoke, carried an unconscious quality strange to his ears.

It was the more bewildering because nothing had happened to awaken such feelings. He had met this unworldly, inexperienced prairie girl but twice, and on her part she had betrayed no particular attraction for him. As a matter of fact, she probably considered him an old man--young girls were like that. Of course, that was absurd. He was right in his prime, youth sang through his veins at this moment, and yet--she must like him, he must have somehow impressed her. That was fortunate, in view of her relations with Henry Nelson; luck was coming his way, and she would undoubtedly prove useful. The last thing Calvin Gray contemplated was a sentimental woman complication, but on account of this girl's peculiar knowledge it seemed to him the part of wisdom to cultivate her--to see as much of her as possible.

"If you will come over to the office, I'll show you how I think that pool lies," Barbara was saying, and Gray came to with a start.

It was midafternoon when he left the Parker office--at least he thought it must be midafternoon until he consulted his watch and discovered that, to all intents and purposes, he had completely lost two hours. An amazing loss, truly. There was no lack of youthful vigor in Calvin Gray's movements at any time, but now there was an unusual lightness to his tread and his lips puckered into a joyous whistle. It had been a great day, a day of the widest extremes, a day of adventure and romance. And that is what every day should be.

CHAPTER XII

If Gray cherished any lingering doubts as to the loyalty of Mallow, erstwhile victim of his ruthlessness, or of McWade and Stoner, the wildcat promoters, those doubts vanished during the next day or two. As a matter of fact, the readiness, nay, the enthusiasm with which they fell in with his schemes convinced him that he had acted wisely in yielding to an impulse to trust them. At first, when he divulged his enemy's ident.i.ty, they were thunderstruck; mere mention of Henry Nelson's name rendered them speechless and caused them to regard their employer as a harmless madman, but as he unfolded his plans in greater detail they listened with growing respect. The idea seized them finally. In the first place, it was sufficiently fantastic to appeal to their imaginations, for they saw in Gray a lone wolf with the courage and the ferocity to single out and pull down the leader of the herd, and, what was more, they scented profit to themselves in trailing with him. Then, too, the enterprise promised to afford free scope for their ingenuity, their cunning, their devious business methods, and that could be nothing less than pleasing to men of their type.

But early enough he made it plain that he intended and would tolerate no actual dishonesty; crooked methods were both dangerous and unsatisfactory, he told them, hence the fight must be fair even though merciless. To annoy, to hara.s.s, to injure, and if possible actually to ruin the banker, that was his intention; to accomplish those ends he was willing to employ any legitimate device, however shrewd, however smart. His entire fortune--and his a.s.sociates, of course, greatly exaggerated its size--would be available for the purpose, and when he sketched out the measures he had in mind the trio of rogues realized that here indeed was a field wide enough for the exercise of their peculiar gifts. They acknowledged, too, a certain pleasure in the comfortable a.s.surance that they would involve themselves in no illegal consequences.