an’ relieved, I reckon. Pretty soon Sam went down in the dumps an’ Nesta got her haid in the air. They quarreled. Sam wouldn’t tell me what aboot. An’ for the first time in her life Nesta kept things from me. She’d been goin’ to Shelby to dances—stayin’ overnight with Lil Snell, at her home. Sam didn’t go to some of these latest dances. He roamed around like a lost dawg. . . . Well, I took up the trail. An’, Cap, so help me Heaven, I found out Nesta was carryin’ on with Lee Tate.”
“No!” repudiated Tanner, passionately, jerking up with fire in his eye.
“Yes!—It’s damn hard to believe, Cap, but it’s true.”
“Aw! . . . Then she’d broke off with Playford?”
“Not a bit of it. They stayed engaged, an’ they’re still engaged. Now what do you think aboot it?”
“You said Nesta was carryin’ on with Tate. Jest how do you mean? Carryin’ on?”
Rich Ames shrank from the query. He writhed with his strong brown hands clenched between his knees, and the blue flash of his eyes centered with piteous doubt and entreaty upon the fire.
“If it was any girl but Nesta, I’d say she’d been more’n foolish,” he went on, slowly. “Nesta isn’t like any other girl. An’ I don’t mean headstrong an’ proud an’ moonstruck. Most girls are that way. I don’t know just what I mean. But Nesta is different. She might be mad at Sam. She shore hates to be bossed. All the same, lettin’ Lee Tate make up to her was daid wrong.”
“It was,” agreed Tanner, soberly. “Tate is a handsome fellar.”
“Shore. An’ he’s slick with girls. On an’ off he’s had most of the girls in the Tonto crazy aboot him. Nesta may be innocent of goin’ that far, but she shore has the name of it. Well, I didn’t believe much of the gossip. But when I watched Nesta an’ Tate one night at a dance, an’ later found out she met him at Snell’s, I got pretty sick. Then if I’d gone at Nesta sort of kind an’ understandin’ it’d been better. But I didn’t understand, an’ I was shore sore. So I made it worse.”
“Ahuh. Natural enough. Looks like a bad mess, Rich. But I’ll withhold my judgment till Nesta tells me her side.”
“Shore. You cain’t do no less. Lord! I’m glad you’re heah, Cap. Nesta is fond of you an’ she’ll listen to you. But, just now, if this goes on it’ll get beyond you an’ me. An’ poor Sam—why, he’s the laughin’-stock of Shelby! He knows it, too, an’ he doesn’t go there. I must say he has been fine. Never a word against Nesta! But it’s hurtin’ him.”
“Wal, I shouldn’t wonder. It hurts me deep, Rich. I don’t quite savvy. Thet’s not like Nesta. What’s got into the girl?”
“Cap, there’s bad blood in the Ameses. I’ve got it, an’ I’m scared. Maybe it’s comin’ out in Nesta. Mother now—she took Nesta’s part. You’d think she was proud of the girl’s conquests. Mother must get somethin’ out of it herself. I shore couldn’t talk more aboot it.”
“Ahuh. I see your side, Rich. You not only feel bad about Sam, but you’re worried for Nesta. An’ if Lee Tate bragged, you know——”
“Cap, he has already bragged,” interrupted Rich, darkly. “That’s Lee’s way. Girls are easy for him. So far his talk hasn’t been—well, any shame to Nesta. But it’s most damned irritatin’.”
“Wal, Rich, his talk an’ Nesta’s odd behavior have got to be stopped.”
“Right, old timer,” returned Ames, quickly. “I reckon if we can fetch Nesta to her senses we won’t have to go further.”
“Don’t say ‘if,’ Rich. We’ll do it. An’ is thet all you’ve been worryin’ over?”
“Shore. Everythin’ else concernin’ us couldn’t be better. We’ve got over two hundred haid of cattle now. In another year Sam an’ I will need help. This heah is a fine range. In dry seasons the cattle browse up high while those down in the basin starve. No rustlin’ to speak of on this side. I can see how in a few years we shore will be rich. We live off the farm. An’ Sam is doin’ mighty fine. If Nesta will only settle down now we’ll all be happy, with the brightest prospects. Next year we’ll send the twins to school.”
“Wal, wal!—Thet’s good news. But it’d be sad if thet big-eyed lass spoiled it all. . . . I don’t believe she will, even allowin’ for the freaks of life. I know Nesta an’ I trust her. I’ll bet when her side of the story comes out we’ll see the thing different.”
“Cap, you cheer me up,” replied Ames, rising with brighter face. “I’ll chase myself now. An’ if Nesta doesn’t come heah, you find her. An’ if you cain’t talk her out of goin’ to Lil Snell’s weddin’ we’ll all go.”
“It’ll be better to do our talkin’ afterward,” said Tanner, sagely.
Tanner busied himself in and around his cabin, an expectant eye on the trail for Nesta. Some of the Ameses’ hounds came over to make friends with the trapper again. But Nesta did not put in an appearance. Tanner’s optimism began to fail and he grew troubled. Whereupon he sallied forth to find the girl.
The noonday sun poured warmly down into the valley. The heights looked clear and cold. There was a tang in the air, and the oak slopes gleamed steely gray. Deer and turkey watched the trapper as he plodded down the trail. He halted in the shady gulch to rest and ponder, then went on, to repeat the performance out in the flat, and he sat a long time on the old log. When he finally arrived at the Ames cabin the afternoon was well advanced.
Cappy found Mescal and Manzanita very much the worse for a prodigious consumption of candy. “Little pigs!” averred Mrs. Ames. “I had to take the candy away from them.” Mescal was sick in bed with colic, and Manzanita gave a capital imitation of a torpid lizard motionless in the sun.
“Cappy, you shore gave us a wonderful evenin’,” said Mrs. Ames. “But I’m afraid you’ve spoilt us.”
“Aw, what’s a little spoilin’?” laughed the trapper. “Once or twice a year won’t hurt nobody. Where’s Nesta?”
“She was flittin’ around like a butterfly all mawnin’,” rejoined Mrs. Ames. “Singin’ like a lark one minute, then mopin’ the next. She’s outdoors now. You’ll find her somewhere dreamin’ under a tree.”
“Mrs. Ames, what ails the lass?”
“Ails Nesta!—Nothin’ in the world. You men just cain’t understand us women.”
“Wal, perhaps not. But I’m tryin’ hard. An’ I reckon Rich an’ this Sam Playford are wuss off than me.”
“Rich been talkin’ to you?” queried the mother, sharply.
“Yes, a little. The lad is worried about Nesta. An’ I reckon he has cause.”
“I’m not gainsayin’ that, Cappy. He an’ Sam worship Nesta. An’ they haven’t sense enough to let the poor girl alone. Nesta is goin’ through a bad time. Her first love affairs. She was late startin’. Before I was sixteen I had half a dozen.”
“Aw, I see,” said Cappy, but he did not see at all. “So it’s love affairs.”
“Shore. She’s in love with two young men I know of. There might be another. This heah Sam Playford is a mighty fine boy. He’s good an’ gentle, an’ he’s powerful ugly. Now this Lee Tate is a handsome devil. He’s no good, an’ I’ll vouch he has a rough hand with girls. I’ve been tryin’ to make Rich an’ Sam see that they must let her alone. Sam is beginnin’ to. But Rich is like all the Ameses.”
“But, Mrs. Ames,” expostulated Cappy, “if they or all of us let Nesta alone, she—she’ll get a bit between her teeth an’—an’ I don’t know what.”
“Cappy, she has done that