“Funny them greasers don’t come in from the north range with thet bunch o’ steers. They ben gone all day now,” he said to the boss, ignoring the girl’s parting sally.
Bridge sat tip-tilted against the front of the office building reading an ancient magazine which he had found within. His day’s work was done and he was but waiting for the gong that would call him to the evening meal with the other employees of the ranch. The magazine failed to rouse his interest. He let it drop idly to his knees and with eyes closed reverted to his never-failing source of entertainment.
And then that slim, poetic guy he turned and looked me in the eye,
“. … It’s overland and overland and overseas to—where?”
“Most anywhere that isn’t here,” I says. His face went kind of queer.
“The place we’re in is always here. The other place is there.”
Bridge stretched luxuriously. “ ‘There,’ ” he repeated. “I’ve been searching for there for many years; but for some reason I can never get away from here. About two weeks of any place on earth and that place is just plain here to me, and I’m longing once again for there.”
His musings were interrupted by a sweet feminine voice close by. Bridge did not open his eyes at once—he just sat there, listening.
As I was hiking past the woods, the cool and sleepy summer woods,
I saw a guy a-talking to the sunshine in the air;
Thinks I, “He’s going to have a fit—I’ll stick around and watch a bit;”
But he paid no attention, hardly knowing I was there.
Then the girl broke into a merry laugh and Bridge opened his eyes and came to his feet.
“I didn’t know you cared for that sort of stuff,” he said. “Knibbs writes man-verse. I shouldn’t have imagined that it would appeal to a young lady.”
“But it does, though,” she replied; “at least to me. There’s a swing to it and a freedom that ‘gets me in the eye.’ ”
Again she laughed, and when this girl laughed, harder-headed and much older men than Mr. L. Bridge felt strange emotions move within their breasts.
For a week Barbara had seen a great deal of the new bookkeeper. Aside from her father he was the only man of culture and refinement of which the rancho could boast, or, as the rancho would have put it, be ashamed of.
She had often sought the veranda of the little office and lured the new bookkeeper from his work, and on several occasions had had him at the ranchhouse. Not only was he an interesting talker; but there was an element of mystery about him which appealed to the girl’s sense of romance.
She knew that he was a gentleman born and reared, and she often found herself wondering what tragic train of circumstances had set him adrift among the flotsam of humanity’s wreckage. Too, the same persistent conviction that she had known him somewhere in the past that possessed her father clung to her mind; but she could not place him.
“I overheard your dissertation on here and there,” said the girl. “I could not very well help it—it would have been rude to interrupt a conversation.” Her eyes sparkled mischievously and her cheeks dimpled.
“You wouldn’t have been interrupting a conversation,” objected Bridge, smiling; “you would have been turning a monologue into a conversation.”
“But it was a conversation,” insisted the girl. “The wanderer was conversing with the bookkeeper. You are a victim of wanderlust, Mr. L. Bridge—don’t deny it. You hate bookkeeping, or any other such prosaic vocation as requires permanent residence in one place.”
“Come now,” expostulated the man. “That is hardly fair. Haven’t I been here a whole week?”
They both laughed.
“What in the world can have induced you to remain so long?” cried Barbara. “How very much like an old timer you must feel—one of the oldest inhabitants.”
“I am a regular aborigine,” declared Bridge; but his heart would have chosen another reply. It would have been glad to tell the girl that there was a very real and a very growing inducement to remain at El Orobo Rancho. The man was too self-controlled, however, to give way to the impulses of his heart.
At first he had just liked the girl, and been immensely glad of her companionship because there was so much that was common to them both—a love for good music, good pictures, and good literature—things Bridge hadn’t had an opportunity to discuss with another for a long, long time.
And slowly he had found delight in just sitting and looking at her. He was experienced enough to realize that this was a dangerous symptom, and so from the moment he had been forced to acknowledge it to himself he had been very careful to guard his speech and his manner in the girl’s presence.
He found pleasure in dreaming of what might have been as he sat watching the girl’s changing expression as different moods possessed her; but as for permitting a hope, even, of realization of his dreams—ah, he was far too practical for that, dreamer though he was.
As the two talked Grayson passed. His rather stern face clouded as he saw the girl and the new bookkeeper laughing there together.
“Ain’t you got nothin’ to do?” he asked Bridge.
“Yes, indeed,” replied the latter.
“Then why don’t you do it?” snapped Grayson.
“I am,” said Bridge.
“Mr. Bridge is entertaining me,” interrupted the girl, before Grayson could make any rejoinder. “It is my fault—I took him from his work. You don’t mind, do you, Mr. Grayson?”
Grayson mumbled an inarticulate reply and went his way.
“Mr. Grayson does not seem particularly enthusiastic about me,” laughed Bridge.
“No,” replied the girl, candidly; “but I think it’s just because you can’t ride.”
“Can’t ride!” ejaculated Bridge. “Why, haven’t I been riding ever since I came here?”
“Mr. Grayson doesn’t consider anything in the way of equestrianism riding unless the ridden
