The Long Dim TrailHooker, Forrestine C. (Forrestine Cooper)
General
The Long Dim Trail
Hooker, Forrestine C. (Forrestine Cooper)
Arizona -- Fiction; Cowboys -- Fiction; Ranch life -- Fiction; Western stories
"Come see this view," called Allan, and she went to the long French
window and stood beside him. "Those mountains are the most wonderful
sermons in the world," he said. "It took me a long time to understand
them. Limber helped me. When I was discouraged, he did not say anything,
but just saddled his little pinto pony, Peanut, and my own horse,
Chinati, and we rode silently for hours through long, dim trails, until
I found courage and peace. Then we came home again. You and I will ride
those trails together dear. They have known my dark hours, and now I
want them to share our happiness."
He turned, and with his arm about her waist, led her to a door that
connected the living-room with an adjoining one.
"I told the boys to slick up this room for you, and you can select your
furniture from the catalogue. That is how we shop when we live on a
ranch, you know."
As he threw open the door, the pink roses and red Navajo rugs shrieked
discordant welcome, and Traynor started in surprise.
"Well!" he exclaimed. "I told them to whitewash it! This certainly is a
transformation. I wonder how on earth they managed it? If you don't care
for the paper, Nell, it can be changed. It's a trifle gaudy, I must
confess."
"It's the sweetest room I ever had!" she answered warmly. "I just love
every one of those awful pink roses, and I'm going out now to tell the
men how I love it!"
She darted from the room and found the men in the main stable. They
looked at her with evident embarrassment, but she held out her hand,
smiling as she cried impulsively, "I want to shake hands with each one
of you, and thank you for taking such trouble to make my room so pretty!
It is the nicest room I have ever had in my whole life!"
They took her hand awkwardly in turn, then each waited for one of the
others to answer. Silence gripped them.
Holy finally made a heroic effort and distinguished himself by
exploding, "Oh, Hell! That warn't northin'! 'Tweren't no trouble
whatsomever!"
Unable to control the corners of her mouth, Nell retreated to the house,
where she sank on a couch and shook with laughter as she related to
Allan the result of her appreciation.
As soon as her skirt had vanished through the court-yard the men turned
wrathfully on Holy.
"Say, Holy," Bronco said fiercely, "what the devil do you suppose she
will think of this outfit with you cussin' at her that way?"
Holy looked abashed and scratched his head, "Damned if I know how I come
to say it! But, if one of you fellers had of said somethin' I wouldn't
got no chanct to cuss. You all jest made me do it!" He stalked away in
offended dignity, while the other men looked after him.
"Well, what d'ye think of that?" Bronco demanded of Limber and Roarer,
who only shook their heads. Holy's logic was too much for them to pass
upon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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