the Light Of Western Stars (1992) (43 page)

She experienced a strange, annoying surprise when she discovered both Helen and Dorothy watching Stewart with peculiar interest
.
Edith, too, was alive to the splendid picture the cowboy made
.
But when Edith smiled and whispered in her ear, "It's so good to look at a man like that," Madeline again felt the surprise, only this time the accompaniment was a vague pleasure rather than annoyance
.
Helen and Dorothy were flirts, one deliberate and skilled, the other unconscious and natural
.
Edith Wayne, occasionally-and Madeline reflected that the occasions were infrequent-admired a man sincerely
.
Just here Madeline might have fallen into a somewhat revealing state of mind if it had not been for the fact that she believed Stewart was only an object of deep interest to her, not as a man, but as a part of this wild and wonderful West which was claiming her
.
So she did not inquire of herself why Helen's coquetry and Dorothy's languishing allurement annoyed her, or why Edith's eloquent smile and words had pleased her
.
She got as far, however, as to think scornfully how Helen and Dorothy would welcome and meet a flirtation with this cowboy and then go back home and forget him as utterly as if he had never existed
.
She wondered, too, with a curious twist of feeling that was almost eagerness, how the cowboy would meet their advances
.
Obviously the situation was unfair to him; and if by some strange accident he escaped unscathed by Dorothy's beautiful eyes he would never be able to withstand Helen's subtle and fascinating and imperious personality
.

They returned to camp in the cool of the evening and made merry round a blazing camp-fire
.
But Madeline's guests soon succumbed to the persistent and irresistible desire to sleep
.

Then Madeline went to bed with Florence under the pine-tree
.
Russ lay upon one side and Tartar upon the other
.
The cool night breeze swept over her, fanning her face, waving her hair
.
It was not strong enough to make any sound through the branches, but it stirred a faint, silken rustle in the long grass
.
The coyotes began their weird bark and howl
.
Russ raised his head to growl at their impudence
.

Madeline faced upward, and it seemed to her that under those wonderful white stars she would never be able to go to sleep
.
They blinked down through the black-barred, delicate crisscross of pine foliage, and they looked so big and so close
.
Then she gazed away to open space, where an expanse of sky glittered with stars, and the longer she gazed the larger they grew and the more she saw
.

It was her belief that she had come to love all the physical things from which sensations of beauty and mystery and strength poured into her responsive mind; but best of all she loved these Western stars, for they were to have something to do with her life, were somehow to influence her destiny
.

***

For a few days the prevailing features of camp life for Madeline's guests were sleep and rest
.
Dorothy Coombs slept through twenty-four hours, and then was so difficult to awaken that for a while her friends were alarmed
.
Helen almost fell asleep while eating and talking
.
The men were more visibly affected by the mountain air than the women
.
Castleton, however, would not succumb to the strange drowsiness while he had a chance to prowl around with a gun
.

This languorous spell disappeared presently, and then the days were full of life and action
.
Mrs
.
Beck and Bobby and Boyd, however, did not go in for anything very strenuous
.
Edith Wayne, too, preferred to walk through the groves or sit upon the grassy promontory
.
It was Helen and Dorothy who wanted to explore the crags and canons, and when they could not get the others to accompany them they went alone, giving the cowboy guides many a long climb
.

Necessarily, of course, Madeline and her guests were now thrown much in company with the cowboys
.
And the party grew to be like one big family
.
Her friends not only adapted themselves admirably to the situation, but came to revel in it
.
As for Madeline, she saw that outside of a certain proclivity of the cowboys to be gallant and on dress-parade and alive to possibilities of fun and excitement, they were not greatly different from what they were at all times
.
If there were a leveling process here it was made by her friends coming down to meet the Westerners
.
Besides, any class of people would tend to grow natural in such circumstances and environment
.

Madeline found the situation one of keen and double interest for her
.
If before she had cared to study her cowboys, particularly Stewart, now, with the contrasts afforded by her guests, she felt by turns she was amused and mystified and perplexed and saddened, and then again subtly pleased
.

Monty, once he had overcome his shyness, became a source of delight to Madeline, and, for that matter, to everybody
.
Monty had suddenly discovered that he was a success among the ladies
.
Either he was exalted to heroic heights by this knowledge or he made it appear so
.
Dorothy had been his undoing, and in justice to her Madeline believed her innocent
.
Dorothy thought Monty hideous to look at, and, accordingly, if he had been a hero a hundred times and had saved a hundred poor little babies' lives, he could not have interested her
.
Monty followed her around, reminding her, she told Madeline, of a little adoring dog one moment and the next of a huge, devouring gorilla
.

Nels and Nick stalked at Helen's heels like grenadiers on duty, and if she as much as dropped her glove they almost came to blows to see who should pick it up
.

In a way Castleton was the best feature of the camping party
.
He was such an absurd-looking little man, and his abilities were at such tremendous odds with what might have been expected of him from his looks
.
He could ride, tramp, climb, shoot
.
He liked to help around the camp, and the cowboys could not keep him from it
.
He had an insatiable desire to do things that were new to him
.
The cowboys played innumerable tricks upon him, not one of which he ever discovered
.
He was serious, slow in speech and action, and absolutely imperturbable
.
If imperturbability could ever be good humor, then he was always good-humored
.
Presently the cowboys began to understand him, and then to like him
.
When they liked a man it meant something
.
Madeline had been sorry more than once to see how little the cowboys chose to speak to Boyd Harvey
.
With Castleton, however, they actually became friends
.
They did not know it, and certainly such a thing never occurred to him; all the same, it was a fact
.
And it grew solely out of the truth that the Englishman was manly in the only way cowboys could have interpreted manliness
.
When, after innumerable attempts, he succeeded in throwing the diamond-hitch on a pack-horse the cowboys began to respect him
.
Castleton needed only one more accomplishment to claim their hearts, and he kept trying that-to ride a bucking bronco
.
One of the cowboys had a bronco that they called Devil
.
Every day for a week Devil threw the Englishman all over the park, ruined his clothes, bruised him, and finally kicked him
.
Then the cowboys solicitously tried to make Castleton give up; and this was remarkable enough, for the spectacle of an English lord on a bucking bronco was one that any Westerner would have ridden a thousand miles to see
.
Whenever Devil threw Castleton the cowboys went into spasms
.
But Castleton did not know the meaning of the word fail, and there came a day when Devil could not throw him
.
Then it was a singular sight to see the men line up to shake hands with the cool Englishman
.
Even Stewart, who had watched from the background, came forward with a warm and pleasant smile on his dark face
.
When Castleton went to his tent there was much characteristic cowboy talk, and this time vastly different from the former persiflage
.

"By Gawd!" ejaculated Monty Price, who seemed to be the most amazed and elated of them all
.
"Thet's the fust Englishman I ever seen!He's orful deceivin' to look at, but I know now why England rules the wurrld
.
Jest take a peek at thet bronco
.
His spirit is broke
.
Rid by a leetle English dook no bigger 'n a grasshopper!Fellers, if it hain't dawned on you yit, let Monty Price give you a hunch
.
There's no flies on Castleton
.
An' I'll bet a million steers to a rawhide rope thet next he'll be throwin' a gun as good as Nels
.
"

It was a distinct pleasure for Madeline to realize that she liked Castleton all the better for the traits brought out so forcibly by his association with the cowboys
.
On the other hand, she liked the cowboys better for something in them that contact with Easterners brought out
.
This was especially true in Stewart's case
.
She had been wholly wrong when she had imagined he would fall an easy victim to Dorothy's eyes and Helen's lures
.
He was kind, helpful, courteous, and watchful
.
But he had no sentiment
.
He did not see Dorothy's charms or feel Helen's fascination
.
And their efforts to captivate him were now so obvious that Mrs
.
Beck taunted them, and Edith smiled knowingly, and Bobby and Boyd made playful remarks
.
All of which cut Helen's pride and hurt Dorothy's vanity
.
They essayed open conquest of Stewart
.

So it came about that Madeline unconsciously admitted the cowboy to a place in her mind never occupied by any other
.
The instant it occurred to her why he was proof against the wiles of the other women she drove that amazing and strangely disturbing thought from her
.
Nevertheless, as she was human, she could not help thinking and being pleased and enjoying a little the discomfiture of the two coquettes
.

Moreover, from this thought of Stewart, and the watchfulness growing out of it she discovered more about him
.
He was not happy; he often paced up and down the grove at night; he absented himself from camp sometimes during the afternoon when Nels and Nick and Monty were there; he was always watching the trails, as if he expected to see some one come riding up
.
He alone of the cowboys did not indulge in the fun and talk around the camp-fire
.
He remained preoccupied and sad, and was always looking away into distance
.
Madeline had a strange sense of his guardianship over her; and, remembering Don Carlos, she imagined he worried a good deal over his charge, and, indeed, over the safety of all the party
.

But if he did worry about possible visits from wandering guerrillas, why did he absent himself from camp? Suddenly into Madeline's inquisitive mind flashed a remembrance of the dark-eyed Mexican girl, Bonita, who had never been heard of since that night she rode Stewart's big horse out of El Cajon
.
The remembrance of her brought an idea
.
Perhaps Stewart had a rendezvous in the mountains, and these lonely trips of his were to meet Bonita
.
With the idea hot blood flamed into Madeline's cheek
.
Then she was amazed at her own feelings-amazed because her swiftest succeeding thought was to deny the idea-amazed that its conception had fired her cheek with shame
.
Then her old self, the one aloof from this red-blooded new self, gained control over her emotions
.

But Madeline found that new-born self a creature of strange power to return and govern at any moment
.
She found it fighting loyally for what intelligence and wisdom told her was only her romantic conception of a cowboy
.
She reasoned: If Stewart were the kind of man her feminine skepticism wanted to make him, he would not have been so blind to the coquettish advances of Helen and Dorothy
.
He had once been-she did not want to recall what he had once been
.
But he had been uplifted
.
Madeline Hammond declared that
.
She was swayed by a strong, beating pride, and her instinctive woman's faith told her that he could not stoop to such dishonor
.
She reproached herself for having momentarily thought of it
.