"Why, I can let you have the stock. You can pay me when you get ready."

"That's just it. You'd kind of give 'em to me and I ain't askin'

favors, except the buckboard and the white hosses."

"But what do you want to monkey with cattle for? You're doing pretty well with the water."

"That's just it. You see, Anita thinks I'm a rarin', high-ridin', cussin', tearin', bronco-bustin' cow-puncher from over the hill. I reckon you know I ain't, but I got to live up to it and kind of let her down easy-like. I can put on me spurs and chaps onct or twict a week and go flyin' out and whoopin' around me stock, and scarin' 'em to death, pertendin' I'm mighty interested in ridin' range. If you got a lady's goat, you want to keep it. 'Course, later on, I can kind o'

slack up. Then I'm goin' to learn her to read American, and she can read that piece in the paper about me. I reckon that'll kind of cinch up the idea that her husband sure is the real thing. But I got to have them cows till she can learn to read."

"We've got to brand a few yearlings that got by last round-up. Bud said there was about fifteen of them. You can ride over after you get settled and help cut 'em out. What iron do you want to put on them?"

"Well, seein' it's me own brand, I reckon it will be like this: A kind of half-circle for the sun, and a lot of little lines runnin' out to show that it's shinin', and underneath a straight line meanin' the earth, which is 'Sundown'--me own brand. Could Johnny make one like that?"

"I don't know. That's a pretty big order. You go over and tell Johnny what you want. And I'll send the buckboard over Sat.u.r.day."

CHAPTER XXVIII

IMPROVEMENTS

Out in a field bordered by the roadway a man toiled behind a disk-plough. He trudged with seven-league strides along the furrows, disdaining to ride on the seat of the plough. To effect a comfortable following of his operations he had lengthened the reins with clothes-line. He drove a team of old and gentle white horses as wheelers. His lead animals were mules, neither old nor gentle. It is possible that this fact accounted for his being afoot. He was arrayed in cowboy boots and chaps, a faded flannel shirt, and a Stetson.

Despite the fact that a year had pa.s.sed since he had practically "Lochinvared" the most willing Anita,--though with the full and joyous consent of her parents,--he still clung to the habiliments of the cowboy, feeling that they offset the more or less menial requirements of tilling the soil. Behind him trailed a lean, s.h.a.ggy wolf-dog who nosed the furrows occasionally and dug for prairie-dogs with intermittent zest.

The toiler, too preoccupied with his ploughing to see more than his horses' heads and the immediate unbroken territory before them, did not realize that a team had stopped out on the road and that a man had leaped from the buckboard and was standing at the fence. Chance, however, saw the man, and, running to Sundown, whined. Sundown pulled up his team and wiped his brow. "Hurt your foot ag'in?" he queried.

"Nope? Then what's wrong?"

The man in the road called.

Sundown wheeled and stood with mouth open. "It's--Gee Gosh! It's Billy!"

He observed that a young and fashionably attired woman sat in the buckboard holding the team. He fumbled at his shirt and b.u.t.toned it at the neck. Then he swung his team around and started toward the fence.

Will Corliss, attired in a quiet-hued business suit, his cheeks healthfully pink and his eye clear, smiled as the lean one tied the team and stalked toward him.

Corliss held out his hand. Sundown shook his head. "Excuse me, Billy, but I ain't shakin' hands with you across no fence."

And Sundown wormed his length between the wires and straightened up, extending a tanned and hairy paw. "Shake, pardner! Say, you're lookin' gorjus!"

"My wife," said Corliss.

Sundown doffed his sombrero sweepingly. "Welcome to Arizona, ma'am."

"This is my friend, Washington Hicks, Margery."

"Yes, ma'am," said Sundown. "It ain't my fault, neither. I had nothin' to say about it when they hitched that name onto me. I reckon I hollered, but it didn't do no good. Me pals"--and Sundown shrugged his shoulder--"mostly gents travelin' for their health--got to callin'

me Sundown, which is more poetical. 'Course, when I got married--"

"Married!" exclaimed Corliss, grinning.

"You needn't to grin, Billy. Gettin' married's mighty responsible-like."

Corliss made a gesture of apology. "So you're homesteading the water-hole? Jack wrote to me about it. He didn't say anything about your getting married."

"Kind of like his not sayin' anything about your gettin' hitched up, eh? He said he was hearin' from you, but nothin' about Misses Corliss.

Please to expect my congratulations, ma'am--and you, too, Billy."

"Thank you!" said Mrs. Corliss, smiling. "Will has told me a great deal about you."

"He has, eh? Well, I'm right glad to be acquainted by heresy. It kind of puts you on to what to expect. But say, it's hot here. If you'll drive back to me house, I'd sure like to show you the improvements."

"All right, Sun! We'll drive right in and wait for you."

They did not have to wait, however. Sundown, leaving his team at the fence, took a short cut to the house. He entered the back door and called to Anita.

"Neeter," he said, as she hastened to answer him, "they's some friends of mine just drivin' up. If you could kind of make a quick change and put on that white dress with the leetle roses sprinkled on it--quick; and is--is he sleepin'?"

"Si! He is having the good sleep."

"Fine! I'll hold 'em off till you get fixed up. It's me ole pal, Billy Corliss,--and he's brung along a wife. We got to make a good front, seein' it's kind of unexpected. Wrastle into that purty dress and don't wake him up."

"Si! I go queek."

"Why, this is fine!" said Corliss, entering, hat in hand, and gazing about the room. "It's as snug and picturesque as a lodge."

"Beautiful!" exclaimed the enthusiastic Margery, gazing at the Navajo rugs, the clean, white-washed walls against which the red ollas, filled with wild flowers, made a pretty picture, and the great grizzly-bear rug thrown across a home-made couch. "It's actually romantic!"

"Me long suit, lady. We ain't got much, but what we got goes with this kind of country."

Margery smiled. "Oh, Will, I'd like a home like this. Just simple and clean--and comfortable. It's a real home."

"Me wife's comin' in a minute. While she's--er--combin' her hair, mebby you'd like to see some of the improvements." And Sundown marched proudly to the new dining-room--an extension that he had built himself--and waved an invitation for his guests to behold and marvel.

The dining-room was, in its way, also picturesque. The exceedingly plain table was covered with a clean white cloth. The furniture, owing to some fortunate accident of choice, was not ornate but of plain straight lines, redeemed by painted ollas filled with flowers. The white walls were decorated with two pictures, a lithograph of the Madonna,--which seemed entirely in keeping with the general tone of the room, but which would have looked glaringly out of place anywhere else,--and an enlarged full-length photograph, framed, of an exceedingly tall and gorgeous cowboy, hat in hand, quirt on wrist, and looking extremely impressive. Beside the cowboy stood a great, s.h.a.ggy dog--Chance. And, by chance, the picture was a success.

"Why, it's you, Sun!" exclaimed Corliss, striding to the picture. "And it's a dandy! I'd hang it in the front room."'

"That's what Neeter was sayin'. But I kind of like it in here. You see, Neeter sets there and I set here where I can see me picture while I'm eatin'. It kind of gives me a good appet.i.te. 'Course, lookin' out the window is fine. See them there mesas dancin' in the sun, and the gra.s.s wavin' and me cows grazing and 'way off like in a dream them blue hills! It's sure a millionaire picture! And it don't cost nothin'."

"That's the best of it!" said Corliss heartily. "We're going to build--over on the mesa near the fork. You remember?"

Sundown's flush was inexplicable to Margery, but Corliss understood.

He had ridden the trail toward the fork one night. . . . But that was past, atoned for. . . . He would live that down.

"It's a purty view, over there," said Sundown gently.