For some days Cheerio’s discourse on mastodons, dinosaurs and the various species of the prehistoric days had been extremely vague and unsatisfactory to his disciple. Matters reached a climax upon this especial Sunday, when he had wandered from the matter of a fossil skeleton recently discovered on the Red Deer River, said to be one hundred and sixty feet long and at least seventy feet tall, with a sudden question that brought a snort of disgust from the intensely-interested Sandy.
“What’s she got to do with the Mezzozoic age?” he exploded.
(Note: Cheerio had digressed from the absorbing matter of the age of the Red Deer dinosaurs, to ask suddenly whether Hilda was likely to be riding with a certain bachelor rancher whose bronco was tied to the front of the ranch house when the reluctant Cheerio and Sandy had ridden away that morning.)
“I s-s-suppose,” stuttered Cheerio, “that your s-s-sister w-w-will probably be riding with her caller at the r-r-ranch.”
Sandy’s reply was neither enlightening nor respectful. He glimpsed his friend with the shrewd unflattering scrutiny of a wise one, and presently:
“Say, you don’t mean to tell me that you’re gettin’ stuck on her too!”
That was a disturbing question, and moreover a revealing one. It plainly disclosed to the upset Cheerio that there were others “stuck on” Hilda. In fact, Sandy left no room for doubt as to that.
“Holy Hens!” went on Hilda’s brother. “Half the guys in this country’s got a case on her! I don’t know what they see in her. Should think you’d have more common sense than to pile along in too.”
“Hilda’s eyes,” said the Englishman softly, “are as b-brown as loamy soil. They’re like the dark earth, warm and rich and full of promise.”
“Oh, my God—frey!” groaned Sandy and rolled clear down the grassy slope on which they had been sitting to the more intelligent and sane company of Viper, a yellow and unlovely cur who was, however, the private and personal property of Sandy. Viper was at that moment “snooping” above a gopher hole. One intelligent eye and ear cocked up warily, signalled with canine telepathy to his master and pal the warning:
“Careful! She’s under there! Don’t let on you and me are above her. I’ll get her for you. You’ll have another tail for your collection. Don’t forget there’s a gymkhana over at the Minnehaha ranch next month and the prize for the most gopher tails is five plunks.”
To this unspoken but perfectly comprehensible message, Sandy replied:
“Betchu we get his tail, Viper! Betchu I take the prize this year! I got seventy-five now. Make it seventy-six, Viper, and I’ll give you eight bones for dinner tonight.”
Cheerio, meanwhile, ruminating painfully upon Sandy’s revelation, and also upon that bronco tied to front of the ranch house, and its good-looking owner who was inside, unable to endure the picture his mind conjured of Hilda riding off with her caller into their own (his and Hilda’s) especial sun glow, jumped in a hurry upon Jim Crow’s back, and with the best of intentions sped back to O Bar O.
It was Sunday afternoon, and such of the ranch hands as were not off on some courting or hunting or fishing or riding expedition, were stretched out on the various cots that lined the long bunkhouse taking their weekly siesta. Cheerio himself was accustomed to spend his Sundays in his cave studio, but in these latter days—since in fact Hilda had ceased to ride with them in the evenings—even the painting had lost its charm for him. He spent his Sundays in the near vicinity of the ranch house, his hopeful eyes pinned upon that wide verandah on to which the girl now so seldom came.
Occasionally, as on this Sunday, Sandy would induce him into short excursions from the ranch, but Cheerio was restless and unsettled now, and far from being the satisfactory companion and oracle upon whom Sandy had depended.
Now as Cheerio paused at the bunkhouse, he turned over in his mind such small treasures as he possessed. He had a most ardent desire to endow Hilda with one or all of his possessions. He was obsessed with a longing to lay his hands upon certain treasures of a great house that should have been his own. His possessions at the ranch were modest enough. His wages had been spent mainly for paint and books. He surveyed the crude, but adequate, bookcase he had built himself, and scanned the volumes laid upon the shelves. After all, one could offer no finer gift than a book. He chose carefully, with a thought rather for what might appeal especially to a girl of Hilda’s type than his own preferences.
As he came around the side of the house, he perceived that the bronco was gone. A momentary heartshake over the thought that Hilda might have gone with it, and then a great thumping of that sensitive organ as he saw the girl upon the steps. She was sitting in the sunlight, staring out before her in a day dream. Something in the mute droop of the expressive young mouth and the slight shadow cast by the lashes against her cheek gave Hilda a look of singular sadness and depression and sent her caller impetuously hurrying toward her. He had come, in fact, directly in front of her, before the eyes were lifted and Hilda looked back at him. Slowly the colour swept like the dawn over her young face, as he extended the book, stammering and blushing in
