Chapter 12. Held Up by Mr. Kelly - Page 2

"I have not said you must go." Beatrice answered with the sigh.

"You don't have to," he retorted. "It is a self evident fact. Who wants to go prowling around these hills by night, with a lantern that smokes an' has an evil smell, losing sleep and yowling like a bunch of coyotes, hunting a misguided young woman who thinks north is south, and can't point straight up?"

"You draw a flattering picture, Mr. Cameron."

"It's realistic. Do you still insist upon getting up there, for the doubtful pleasure of looking down?" Secretly, he hoped so.

"Certainly."

"Then I shall go with you."

"You need not. I can go very well by myself, Mr. Cameron."

Beatrice was something of a hypocrite herself.

"I shall go where duty points the way."

"I hope it points toward home, then."

"It doesn't, though. It takes the trail you take."

"I never yet allowed my wishes to masquerade as Disagreeable Duty, with two big D's," she told him tartly, and started off.

"Say! If you're going up that hill, this is the trail. You'll bump up against a straight cliff if you follow that path."

Beatrice turned with seeming reluctance and allowed him to guide her, just as she had intended he should do.

"Dick tells me you have been away," she began suavely.

"Yes. I've just got back from Fort Belknap," he explained quietly, though he must have known his absence had been construed differently. "I've rented pasturage on the reservation for every hoof I own. Great grass over there--the whole prairie like a hay meadow, almost, and little streams everywhere."

"You are very fortunate," Beatrice remarked politely.

"Luck ought to come my way once in a while. I don't seem to get more than my share, though."

"Dick will be glad to know you have a good range for your cattle, Mr. Cameron."

"I expect he will. You may tell him, for me, that Jim Worthington--he's the agent over there, and was in college with us--says I can have my cattle there as long as he's running the place."

"Why not tell him yourself?" Beatrice asked.

"I don't expect to be over to the Pool ranch for a while." Keith's tone was significant, and Beatrice dropped the subject.

"Been fishing lately?" he asked easily, as though he had not left her that day in a miff. "No. Dorman is fickle, like all male creatures. Dick brought him two little brown puppies the other day, and now he can hardly be dragged from the woodshed to his meals. I believe he would eat and sleep with them if his auntie would allow him to."

The trail narrowed there, and they were