It was at a little junction station in eastern Colorado, in the clear blue-and-silver of a fine morning, that Mrs. Grayson and Sylvia met them. Mr. Grayson and his party had been down about fifty miles on a branch line for a speech at a town of importance, and they had begun the return journey before daylight in order to make the connection. But when the gray dawn came through the dusty car-windows, it was odd to see how neat and careful all appeared, even under such difficult circ.u.mstances.

Harley was surprised to realize the eagerness with which he looked forward to the meeting, and put it down to the long lack of feminine society. But he wondered if Sylvia had changed, if the nearer approach of her marriage with "King" Plummer would make her reserved and with her outlook on the future--that is, as one apart.

He had a favorable seat in the car and he was the first to see them. The junction was a tiny place of not more than a half-dozen houses standing in the midst of a great plain, and it made a perfect silhouette against the gorgeous morning sunlight. Harley saw two slender figures outlined there in front of the station building, and, despite the distance, he knew them. There was to him something typically American and typically Western in these two women coming alone into that vast emptiness and waiting there in the utmost calmness, knowing that they were as safe as if they were in the heart of a great city, and perhaps safer.

He knew, too, which was Sylvia; her manner, her bearing, the poise of her figure, had become familiar to him. Slender and upright, she was in harmony with the majesty of these great and silent s.p.a.ces, but she did not now seem bold and forward to him; she was clothed in a different atmosphere altogether.

There was a warm greeting for Mr. Grayson and the hand of fellowship for the others. Harley held Sylvia's fingers in his for a moment--just a moment--and said, with some emphasis:

"Our little party has not been the same without you, Miss Morgan."

"I'm glad to hear you say it," she replied, frankly, "and I'm glad to be back with all of you. It's a campaign that I enjoy."

"It can be said for it that it is never monotonous."

"That's one reason why I like it."

She laughed a little, making no attempt to conceal her pleasure at this renewed touch with fresh, young life, and, because it was so obvious, Harley laughed also and shared her pleasure. He noticed, too, the new charm that she had in addition to the old, a softening of manner, a slight appeal that she made, without detracting in any wise from the impression of strength and self-reliance that she gave.

"Where did you leave 'King' Plummer?" he asked, unguardedly.

"In Idaho," she replied, with sudden gravity. "He is well, and I believe that he is happy. He is umpiring a great quarrel between the cattlemen and the sheepmen, or, rather, he is compelling both to listen to him and to agree to a compromise that he has suggested. So he is really enjoying himself. You do not know the delight that he takes in the handling of large and rather rough affairs."

"I can readily guess it; he seems to have been made for them."

But she said no more of "King" Plummer, quickly turning the talk to the campaign, and showing at once that she had followed every phase of it with the closest and most anxious attention. Mrs. Grayson had walked on a little and was talking to her husband, but she glanced back and saw what she had expected. She and her husband turned presently in their walk, and she said, looking significantly at Harley and Miss Morgan:

"It is a great pleasure to Sylvia to be with your party again."

There was such a curious inflection to her voice that the candidate exclaimed, "Why, what do you mean, Anna?" and she merely replied, "Oh, nothing!" which meant everything. The candidate, understanding, looked more attentively, and his eyes contracted a little, as if he were not wholly pleased at what he saw.

"It's a free world," he said, "but I am glad that 'King' Plummer will be with us again in a few days."

But his wife, able to see further than he, merely looked thoughtful and did not reply.

Harley's solitary talk with Miss Morgan was brief; it could not be anything else under the circ.u.mstances; Hobart, with all sail set, bore down upon them.

"Come! Come, Harley!" he cried, with the perfect frankness that usually distinguished him, "we don't permit any selfish monopolists here. We are all cast away on a desert island, so to speak, and there are a lot of us men and only two women, one of whom is mortgaged!"

Then he was welcoming Miss Morgan in florid style; and there, too, was the ancient beau, Tremaine, displaying all his little arts of elegance and despising Hobart's obvious methods; and Blaisdell, and all the others, forming a court about her and giving her an attention which could not fail to please her and bring a deeper red to her cheeks and a brighter flash to her eyes. It seemed to Mrs. Grayson, looking on, that the girl had been hungry for something which she had now found, and in finding which she was happy, and, despite her sense of loyalty, she felt a glow of sympathy.

But the sense of duty in Mrs. Grayson was strong, and while she hesitated much and sought for mental excuses to avoid it, she wrote a long letter to "King" Plummer that evening in the waiting-room of a little wayside hotel. In many things that she said she was beautifully vague; but she told him how glad she was that he would join them so soon; she spoke of the quarrel between the cattlemen and the sheepmen as a closed affair, and complimented him on his skill in bringing it to an end so quickly; it was all the better because now he could come to them at once, and she boldly said how much Sylvia was missing him. But when she sealed and addressed the letter she reflected awhile before dropping it in the box on the wall.

"Now, ought I to do this?" she asked herself. "Have I the right to hasten or to divert the course of affairs?"

She decided that she had the right, and mailed the letter.

"King" Plummer came a few days later--he said that he "just blew in a few days ahead of time"--and received a hearty welcome from everybody, which he returned in double measure in his broad, spontaneous way. He placed a sounding kiss upon the somewhat flushed brow of Sylvia Morgan, and exclaimed, "Well, my little girl, aren't you glad to see me ahead of time?" She replied quickly, though not loudly, that she was, and then he announced that he would stay with them for a long while. "These are my mountains," he said, "and I'll have to show you the way through them."

"King" Plummer, although inclined to be masterful, was admitted at once into the full membership of the party, and he entered upon what he called his first long vacation. He showed the keenest enjoyment in the speeches, the crowds, the enthusiasm, the travelling, and the quick-shifting scenes. He was a boy with the boys, but the watchful Mrs.

Grayson noticed a shade of difference between Sylvia with the "King"

present and Sylvia with the "King" absent. With him present there was a little restraint, a slight effort on her part to watch herself; but with him away there was great spontaneity and freedom, especially with the younger members like Harley and Hobart, and even Churchill, who reluctantly admitted that Miss Morgan was a fine girl, "though rather Western, you know."

Mrs. Grayson began to take thought with herself again, and the thought was taken with great seriousness. Had she been right in bringing "King"

Plummer on so soon, although he did not even know that he was brought?

She resolutely asked herself, too, how much of her action had been due to the knowledge that the "King" was a very important man to her husband, controlling, as he probably could, the vote of several mountain states. This question, which she could not answer, troubled her, and so did the conduct of Sylvia, who, usually so frank and straightforward, seemed to be suffering from a strange attack of perverseness. For years she had obeyed "King" Plummer as her protector and as the one who had rightful control, but now she began to give him orders and to criticise many things that he did, to the unlimited astonishment of the "King,"

who had never expected anything of the kind.

"What is the matter with Sylvia? I never knew her to act in such a way before," he said to Mrs. Grayson.

"As she is to be your wife, and not a sort of ward, she is merely giving you a preliminary training," replied the candidate's wife, dryly.

"King" Plummer looked at her in doubt, but he pondered the question deeply and was remarkably meek the next time Sylvia scolded him, whereat she showed less pleasure than ever. "King" Plummer was still in a maze and did not know what to say. The very next day he found himself deeper in the tangle, being scolded by Mrs. Grayson herself.

They were waiting at a small station for some carriages which were to take them across the prairie, and, the air being clear and bracing, they stood outside, where Miss Morgan, as usual, held an involuntary court. A cloud of dust arose, and behind it quickly came a great herd of cattle, driven with much shouting and galloping of horses by a half-dozen cowboys. The herd was pa.s.sing to the south a few hundred yards from the station, but Sylvia, thoroughly used to such sights, was not interested.

Not so some of the others who went out to see, and among them was "King"

Plummer, who began at once to calculate the number of cattle, their value, and how far they had come, all of which he did with great shrewdness.

The "King's" absorption in this congenial occupation was increased when he recognized the leader of the cowboys as an old friend and former a.s.sociate in Idaho and Montana, with whom he could exchange much interesting news. Borrowing a horse from one of the men, he rode on with them for a mile or two.

Mrs. Grayson had seen "King" Plummer leave the group about Sylvia, and she marked it with a disapproving eye. She would have spoken to him then, but she had no chance, and she watched him until he borrowed the horse and rode on with the cowboys. Then she looked the other way and saw two figures walking up and down the station platform. They were Sylvia and Harley, engrossed in talk and caring not at all for the pa.s.sage of the herd. The two brown heads were not far apart, and Mrs.

Grayson was near enough to see that Sylvia's color was beautiful.

The candidate's wife was annoyed, and, like any other good woman, she was ready to vent her annoyance on somebody. She walked out a little from the station, and presently she met "King" Plummer coming back. He dismounted, returned the horse to its owner, and approached her, the sparkle of enthusiasm in his eyes lighting up his brown face.

"That was a pleasant surprise, Mrs. Grayson," he exclaimed. "The leader of those boys was Bill Ascott, whom I've known twenty years, an' he's brought those cattle so cleverly all the way from Montana that they are in as good condition now as they were the day they started. And I had a fine gallop with them, too."

He had more to say, but he stopped when he noticed her deeply frowning face.

"What is wrong, Mrs. Grayson?" he asked, in apprehension.

"Oh, you had a fine gallop, did you!" she said, in a tone of biting irony. "I am glad of it. Mr. William Plummer ought to have his gallop, under any circ.u.mstances!"

He stared at her in increasing amazement.

"I don't know that I'm counted a dull man, but you've got me now, Mrs.

Grayson."

She pointed to the station platform, where the two brown heads were still not far apart.

"Without a word you left the woman that you are going to marry to look at a lot of cattle."

"Why, Sylvia is only a child, an' we've been used to each other for years. She understands."

"Yes, she will understand, or she isn't a woman," said Mrs. Grayson, and if possible the biting irony of her tone increased. "You will see, too, Mr. William Plummer, that one man at least did not neglect her for the sake of some dusty cattle."

Mr. Plummer stared again at the pair on the platform, and a mingled look of pain and apprehension came into his eyes.

"You surely can't mean anything of that kind! Why, little Sylvia has promised--"