At first there was an awkward reserve between them, but after the earlier visits this broke down and their talk became interspersed with personal references, with small, inconsequential confidences that, intrinsically worthless, meant much to them. Yet there was never a word of the life both had lived far over the other side of those snowcaps to the eastward. Somehow the girl felt intuitively that it had not all been pleasant for the man there, and VB maintained a stubborn reticence. He could have told her much of her own life back in the East, of the things she liked, of the events and conditions that were irksome, because he knew the environment in which she had lived and he felt that he knew the girl herself. He would not touch that topic, however, for it would lead straight to _his_ life; and all that he wanted for his thoughts now were Jed and the hills and the Captain and--this girl. They composed a comfortable world of which he wanted to be a part.

Gail found herself feeling strangely at home with this young fellow.

She experienced a mingled feeling compounded of her friendship for the finished youths she had known during school days and that which she felt for the men of her mountains, who were, she knew, as rugged, as genuine, as the hills themselves. To her Young VB rang true from the ground up, and he bore the finish that can come only from contact with many men. That is a rare combination.

It came about that after a time the Captain let Gail touch him, allowed her to walk about him and caress his sleek body. Always, when she was near, he stood as at attention, dignified and self-conscious, and from time to time his eyes would seek the face of his master, as though for rea.s.surance. Once after the girl had gone VB took the Captain's face between his hands and, looking into the big black eyes, muttered almost fiercely:

"She's as much of the real stuff as you are, old boy! Do you think, Captain, that I can ever match up with you two?"

Before a month had gone by the girl could lead the Captain about, could play with him almost as familiarly as VB did; but always the horse submitted as if uninterested, went through this formality of making friends as though it were a duty that bored him.

Once d.i.c.k Worth, the deputy from Sand Creek, and his wife rode up the gulch to see the black stallion. While the Captain would not allow the man near him, he suffered the woman to tweak his nose and slap his cheeks and pull his ears; then it was that Jed and VB knew that the animal understood the difference between s.e.xes and that the chivalry which so became him had been cultivated by his intimacy with Gail Thorpe.

After that, of course, there was no plausible excuse for Gail's repeated visits. However, she continued coming. VB was always reserved up to a certain point before her, never yielding beyond it in spite of the strength of the subtle tactics she employed to draw him out. A sense of uncertainty of himself held him aloof. Within him was a traditional respect for women. He idealized them, and then set for men a standard which they must attain before meeting women as equals. But this girl, while satisfying his ideal, would not remain aloof. She forced herself into VB's presence, forced herself, and yet with a delicacy that could not be misunderstood. She came regularly, her visits lengthened, and one sunny afternoon as they stood watching the Captain roll she looked up sharply at the man beside her.

"Why do you keep me at this?"

"This? What? I don't get your meaning."

"At coming over here? Why don't you come to see me? I-- Of course, I haven't any fine horse to show you, but--"

Her voice trailed off, with a hint of wounded pride in the tone. The man faced her, stunning surprise in his face.

"You--you don't think I fail to value this friendship of ours?" he demanded, rallying. "You--Why, what can I say to you? It has meant so much to me--just seeing you; it's been one of the finest things of this fine country. But I thought--I thought it was because of this,"--with a gesture toward the Captain, who stood shaking the dust from his hair with mighty effort. "I thought all along you were interested in the horse; not that you cared about knowing me--"

"Did you really think that?" she broke in.

VB flushed, then laughed, with an abrupt change of mood.

"Well, it _began_ that way," he pleaded weakly.

"And you'd let it end that way."

"Oh, no; you don't understand, Miss Thorpe," serious again. "I--I can't explain, and you don't understand now. But I've felt somehow as though it would be presuming too much if I came to see you."

She looked at him calculatingly a long moment as he twirled his hat and kicked at a pebble with his boot.

"I think it would be presuming too much if you let me do all the traveling, since you admit that a friendship does exist," she said lightly.

"Then the only gallant thing for me to do is to call on you."

"I think so. I'm glad you recognize the fact."

"When shall it be?"

"Any time. If I'm not home, stay until I get back. Daddy likes you.

You'll love my mother."

The vague "any time" occurred three days later. Young VB made a special trip over the hills to the S Bar S. The girl was stretched in a hammock, reading, when he rode up, and at the sound of his horse she scrambled to her feet, flushed, and evidently disconcerted.

"I'd given you up!" she cried.

"In three days?" taking the hand she offered.

"Well--most boys in the East would have come the next morning--if they were really interested."

"This is Colorado," he reminded her.

He sat crosslegged on the ground at her feet, and they talked of the book she had been reading. It was a novel of music and a musician and a rare achievement, she said. He questioned her about the story, and their talk drifted to music, on which they both could converse well.

"You don't know what it means--to sit here and talk of these things with you," he said hungrily.

"Well, I should like to know," she said, leaning forward over her knees.

For two long hours they talked as they never had talked before; of personal tastes, of kindred enthusiasms, of books and plays and music and people. They went into the ranch house, and Gail played for him--on the only grand piano in that section of the state. They came out, and she saddled her pony to ride part way back through the hills with him.

"_Adios,_ my friend," she called after him, as he swung away from her.

"It's your turn to call now," he shouted back to her, and when the ridge took him from sight he leaned low to the Captain's ear and repeated gently,--"my friend!"

So the barrier of reserve was broken. VB did not dare think into the future in any connection--least of all in relation to this new and growing friendship; yet he wanted to make their understanding more complete though he would scarcely admit that fact even to himself.

A week had not pa.s.sed when Gail Thorpe drove the automobile up to the VB gate.

"I didn't come to see the Captain this time," she announced to them both. "I came to pay a party call to Mr. VB, and to include Mr. Avery.

Because when a girl out here receives a visit from a man it's of party proportions!"

As she was leaving, she asked, "Why don't you come down to the dance Friday night?"

"A big event?"

"Surely!" She laughed merrily. "It's the first one since spring, and everybody'll be there. Mr. Avery will surely come. Won't you, too, Mr.

VB?"

He evaded her, but when she had turned the automobile about and sped down the road, homeward bound, he let down the bars for youth's romanticism and knew that he would dance with her if it meant walking every one of the twenty-two miles to the schoolhouse.

For the first time in years VB felt a thrill at the antic.i.p.ation of a social function, and with it a guilty little thought kept buzzing in the depths of his mind. The thought was: Is her hair as fragrant as it is glorious in color and texture?

Jed and VB made the ride after supper, over frozen paths, for autumn had aged and the tang of winter was in the air. Miles away they could see the glow of the bonfire that had been built before the little stone schoolhouse; and VB was not sorry that Jed wanted to ride the last stages of the trip at a faster pace.

Clear River had turned out, to the last man and woman--and to the last child, too! The schoolhouse was no longer a seat of learning; it was a festal bower. The desks had been taken up and placed along the four walls, seats outward, tops forming a ledge against the calcimined stones, making a splendid place for those youngest children who had turned out! Yes, a dozen babies slumbered there in the confusion, wrapped in many thicknesses of blankets.

Three lamps with polished reflectors were placed on window ledges, and the yellow glare filled the room with just sufficient brilliance to soften lines in faces and wrinkles in gowns that clung to bodies in unexpected places. The fourth window ledge was reserved for the music--a phonograph with a morning-glory horn, a green morning-glory horn that would have baffled a botanist. The stove blushed as if for its plainness in the center of the room, and about it, with a great sc.r.a.ping of feet and profound efforts to be always gentlemanly and at ease, circled the men, guiding their partners.

VB stood in the doorway and watched. He coughed slightly from the dust that rose and mantled everything with a dulling blanket--everything, I said, but the eyes must be excepted. They flashed with as warm a brilliance as they ever do where there is music and dancing and laughter.

The music stopped. Women scurried to their seats; some lifted the edges of blankets and peered with concerned eyes at the little sleepers lying there, then whirled about and opened their arms to some new gallant; for so brief was the interval between dances.