“It ain’t impudence, my calling her by her first name, Mr. Lauderdale. I haven’t had a real good opportunity as yet to ask your daughter to marry me. You see, we haven’t met any too often—this is time the fourth and only a shade less perturbed than the former three. But rest assured that I’ll take advantage of the first chance. Our ‘happily-ever-afterward’ is all settled so far as I am concerned.” “I see.” Although in one way the blind man’s quiet statement wasn’t true, in another he looked as though it was. At a call from the rear room, Pape sprang to open the door and relieve Jane of her laden tea-tray. On turning, he noticed that the father’s one hand gripped the other in his strong, firm, Westernwise clasp, as though in self-congratulation. He looked as though he now felt sincere in the welcome extended earlier for form’s sake to one Peter Stansbury Pape. Just why? Well, why not? CHAPTER XVI—AN ACCEPTED ALLY “Mr. Pape has been painting your picture with a brush dipped in colors of the Yellowstone,“ observed Curtis Lauderdale as he sipped the fragrant amber brew which his daughter had poured and passed. The girl flashed their guest an indignant glance. “Attacking dad at his weakest point? For that I should paint him an awful picture of you.” “With a brush dipped in colors of the truth?” At her threat and Pape’s meek retort, the old man’s eyes continued to beam their way, as only sightless eyes can beam. “You needn’t, Jen-Jen. It doesn’t matter what Mr. Pape looks like. Men show less on the outside what they are than women. I’d rather see him as he is inwardly. Already I know that he has both an imagination and a sense of humor. And he is direct with the _skookum_ talk, which doesn’t lend to lies. As for his exterior, I imagine him as moderately sizeable and well-muscled and plain, or you wouldn’t have brought him around.” “Immoderately plain,” she corrected, still with a punishing air. “Good. Then I’ve got him—” her parent with a chuckle. “Now it seems to me, if he’s done for us all you say he has, that we owe him some explanation.” At once Jane’s quasi-disapproval of their quickly established fellowship turned into real. “Explanation has been our downfall, dad,” she warned. “You know your failing. You trust too much and too soon. You seem to have got worse instead of better—positively—since you went to the war.” “She’s right, Mr. Lauderdale,” Pape advised. “It is too soon to trust me in _skookum_ or any other foreign language. But you seem shy some sort of help which I’d like to supply if I can. Why waste time explaining? You’re entitled—on face value, you know—to the best I can give. There’ll be plenty of time to explain after we’ve horned off all these nesters that seem to be rooting around your ranch.”