"I wanted to thank you all," she said, "and to tell you how glad I am to be back. I have met lots of people, of all sorts and kinds, but not one of them who could hold a candle to any of you three kind, true-hearted friends. I wanted to do it here where Daddy is in the place you gave him and made for him under the trees, close to the running water. I was only a girl--a kiddie--when I went away. I think I am a great deal older now, perhaps, than other girls of my age. And I realize all you have done for me. The only thing is, I don't know how to begin to thank you."

She went to Mormon and took hold of both his hands, her head raised, lips curved to kiss him. Mormon stooped and turned his weathered cheek, but Molly kissed him full on the lips. So with Sam, despite the enormous mustache. Then she came to Sandy, taller than the others, his face grave, under control, the eagerness smothered in his eyes, desire checked by reverence for the pure affection of the offered salute. He fancied that her lips trembled for a moment as they rested softly warm, upon his own. But the tremor might have been his own. He knew his heart was pounding against the slight touch of her slenderness that was manifest with womanhood. His arms ached with the restraint he set upon them, despite the presence of Mormon and Sam.

Grit surveyed the gift of thanks gravely, as a ceremony, as some ancient lineaged n.o.ble might have looked upon the bestowal of sacrament and accolade for honorably deserved knighthood. Perhaps it was that and the dog knew it. To Sandy, the little s.p.a.ce about the grave, where the great cottonwoods waved overhead like banners, their trunks like pillars, the dappled carpet of the turf, with the sweet air blowing through the clearing and peeps of blue above through the boughs, was like a sanctuary. That the two others, men of rough life and free habit, yet of clean thought and decent custom, were touched with the same sensation, their eyes attested.

"I've brought some things for you," said Molly. "Just presents that I bought in shops. But I wanted to thank you out here where Daddy lies."

She sought their glances, searching to see if they understood, satisfied.

"We're sure glad to git back the Mascot of the Three Star," said Mormon.

"An' the sooner you git through bein' eddicated an' come back fo' keeps, the better," amended Sam.

Sandy said nothing but smiled at her and Molly smiled back again.

"I think you have been my mascot rather than me yours," she demurred.

"Shucks!" said Mormon. "Yore mine, warn't it? He found it," he added, setting a brown big hand on the headstone. "You wait till you see what we bought with our share of the Molly Mine. Prime stock an' machinery.

Look at the new corrals an' buildin's. Wait till you've gone over the place. An' we sure have been lucky with everythin'. I'll say you're a mascot."

"I've still got my lucky piece," she said and pulled out of her neck, suspended by the fine chain of gold, the gold piece with which Sandy had won the stake that had started her east. "Now show me all the improvements. We'll get Kate Nicholson. She's a first-cla.s.s scout if you ever get her out of the sh.e.l.l she crawled into a long time ago when her folks suddenly lost everything they had. If we had a piano, Sam, she'd play the soul out of your body. Wait until she gets at the harmonium to-night. You and she will have to play duets, Sam, you on the three-decked harmonica I got for you."

"Aw, shucks!" protested Sam? "I'm no musician."

"You are," she said gaily. "You are my Three Wise Men of the West. You are all magicians. You took me out of the desert, you have made life beautiful for me. Don't dispel the illusion, Soda-Water Sam. I'd rather hear you play _El Capitan_ than listen to the Philharmonic Orchestra."

"Whatever that is," answered Sam.

Molly's words were light but her eyes were frankly wet now and so were those of the three men.

"Come, Grit," she said, and the dog bounded to her, licking her hand, and so to the rest of them cementing the alliance in his own way.

"Some day!" speculated Mormon as they went to the ranch-house. He got a good deal into those two words, for all three of them.

CHAPTER XVII

WESTLAKE BRINGS NEWS

In the week that followed the partners of the Three Star managed to find many hours for holiday-making. The ranch ran well on its own routine, and Molly was a princess to be entertained. Kate Nicholson emerged from her chrysalis and became almost a b.u.t.terfly rather than the pale gray moth they had fancied her. Even Miranda revised her opinion. The Nicholsons, it came out, had been a family of some consequence and a fair degree of riches in South Carolina before an unfortunate speculation had taken everything. Kate Nicholson, left alone soon afterward, had a.s.sumed the role of governess or companion with more or less success and drifted on, submerged in the families who had used her services until Keith had secured her for the post with Molly when things had seemed particularly black. Now, riding with Molly, with Sam and Sandy for escorts, over the open range or up into the canons, on picnics, the years slid off from her. She acquired color with the capacity for enjoyment, she developed a quaint gift of jest and she proved a natural horsewoman. Molly coaxed her into different modes of hair dressing and little touches of color. She laughed understandingly and talked spontaneously. Evenings, when they would return to the disconsolate Mormon, who bewailed openly his lack of saddle ease, they found, two nights out of three, Miranda Bailey, self-charioted in her flivver with offerings of cake and doughnuts to supplement Pedro's still uncertain efforts.

Molly chuckled once to Sandy.

"Miranda's a dear," she said. "I wish she'd marry Mormon. But Kate Nicholson is a far better cook than she is. Only she won't do anything for fear of hurting Miranda's feelings."

Yet the governess did cook on occasion, trout that they caught in the mountain streams, and camp biscuits and fragrant coffee when they made excursion, so deft a presiding genius of the camp-fire that Sam declared she belonged to Sageland.

"I love it," she answered, sleeves tucked to the elbow, stooping over the fire, her face full of color, tucking a vagrant wisp of hair into place.

"Not much like the East, is it, Molly?" Sandy would ask.

"Not a bit. Lots better."

"You must miss a lot."

"What, for instance, Sandy?"

"Real music, for one thing. Concerts, theaters. Your sports. Tennis and golf. The people you met at the Keiths'. Clothes, pritty dresses, dancin'."

"I love dancing," she said. "But not always the way they dance. Tennis and golf are poky compared to riding Blaze. I like pretty things, but I'm not crazy about clothes, Sandy. And lots of them are, back there.

Grown-up women as well as the girls I knew. And they are never satisfied, Sandy. It isn't real there. n.o.body seems to know each other.

Anybody could drop out and not be missed. It is all a rush. It is good to be back--good."

She stopped talking, gazing into the fire. The nights at Three Star were crisp. It was as if cold was jealous of the land that the sun wooed so ardently and rushed upon it the moment the latter sank behind the hills.

Sandy looked at her hungrily, wishing she would elect to sit there always, mistress of the hearth and of him.

"Young Keith'll be over soon, I reckon," he said presently. "He said he'd come. Like him, Molly?"

It was not jealousy prompted the suggestion, but Sandy had more than once contrasted himself with the youngster and his easy manners, his undeniably good looks, his youth, wondering how close he was to Molly's moods and ideals, making him typical of the East as against the West.

"He's a nice boy," she said. "He has always had things his own way. He's partly spoiled, I'm afraid. He'd have been a lot nicer if he had been brought up on a ranch. I've told him so."

"Why?"

"Life's quieter out here, Sandy. It's bigger somehow. Donald only pleases himself. He--they don't seem to have real families out East, Sandy. I don't quite mean that, but as I have seen them. The Keiths.

They are kind but they don't belong just to each other. They have their own ways and none of them do anything together. He's been nice to me--Donald. So have Mr. and Mrs. Keith."

Sandy had no effort imagining Donald being nice to Molly, contrasted with the other girls who just amused themselves.

"I'd cut a pore figger at tennis, I reckon," he said. "Or golf."

"So would Donald breaking a bronco," she laughed. "He's keen to ride one, to see a round-up. Why, Sandy, they think life is wonderful out here. And it is."

He wondered how much of her enthusiasm was lasting, how much came of the affectionate grat.i.tude she showed them constantly, how much she thought of the swifter life she was going back to presently at the end of the month--with one week gone out of the four. He wrestled with the temptation to ask her not to go back, or to have Miss Nicholson remain on the ranch to complete the education that was steadily widening--as he saw it--the gap between them.

Sandy was not ignorant. His speech was mostly dialect, born of environment. He wrote correctly enough, aided by the dictionary he had acquired. He had business capacity, executive ability, strong manhood.

He read increasingly, his mind was plastic. But these things he belittled. And he was her guardian. Though he knew he might win her promise to stay easily enough, he did not wish to exercise his authority. It might be misunderstood, even by Molly herself, later. He could not force his hand in this vital matter, as he handled other things. And yet....

Sam had stopped playing, Kate Nicholson was weaving chords in music unknown to those who listened, save that it seemed to speak some common language that had been forgotten since childhood. The fire shifted, there was silence in the big room. Mormon sat shading his face, Miranda Bailey beside him, her knitting idle. Sam lounged in a shady corner near the harmonium. Grit lay asleep. It was infinitely peaceful.

There was the sound of a motor outside, the honk of a horn. The door opened and a man came in, gazing uncertainly about him in the half-light--Westlake.

"This is the Three Star, isn't it?" he asked, evidently puzzled at the group.