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The boys talked of the life of people in their town and as they talked thought each of himself. Although he had not been out of the valley and had grown strong and big there, Beaut McGregor knew something of the outside world. It isn't a time when men are shut off from their fellows. Newspapers and magazines have done their work too well.
At last the trout was fairly on the edge of it. Lew began to pull steadily on his line and slid the tired fish into shallow water. It flopped helplessly on the stones. Lew drew it to the bank and thrust a finger into its gills. In another second the fish was dangling in air. "Great Cæsar!" cried Charley excitedly. "Ain't he a beaut! He's the biggest trout I ever saw."
He was a stalwart fellow for his years, but his excessively blond coloring, together with the effeminate style in which his mother insisted upon dressing him, caused the boys to give him the name of "Beauty," which was soon shortened into "Beaut," and had finally become "the Beau." "Will you let me hit you?" he asked. "Yes," replied Edgar. "Count three and hit. You can't hurt me."
Beaut and the other boy, a fat fellow, the son of a grocer, looked down the hill to the town over the heads of the newcomers and continued in their minds the thoughts that had made the conversation. "Hello girls, come and sit here," shouted the black-haired boy, laughing and looking boldly into the eyes of the tall pale woman.
Beaut began to tell her of the visits to the hillside with his father and described the effect of the scene on himself when he was a child. "I thought it was paradise," he said. She put her hand on his arm and seemed to be soothing him like a careful groom quieting an excitable horse. "Don't mind them," she said, "you will go away after a time and make a place for yourself out in the world."
Me for the laundry, and a good front, with big iron dollars clinkin' in my jeans. I seen a girl already, just yesterday, and, d'ye know, I'm feelin' already I'd just as soon marry her as not. I've ben whistlin' all day at the thought of it. She's a beaut, with the kindest eyes and softest voice you ever heard. Me for her, you can stack on that.
"Jest after yer put ther finish onto Shan an', say, that wuz a beaut, if any one should ask you I see Norris an' ther jock makin' fer ther gate, leadin' ther magpie bronc. I thinks they're goin' ter put him in ther corral fer yer, an' didn't pay much 'tention ter him." "Then he's up at the corral?" "No, he ain't. He's foggin' along to'rds ther Wichita Mountains as fast as he kin go."
"Then it was true what he said about you?" he asked. "No! No!" she cried, jumping up in her turn and beginning to pin on her hat. "Let's be going." Beaut sat stolidly on the log. "What's the use bothering each other," he said. "Let's sit here until the sun goes down. We can get home before dark." They sat down and she began talking, boasting of herself as he had boasted of his father.
Mike Hartnet came running down the road at the heels of McGregor. "Don't tell," he plead trembling. "Don't tell about me in the town. They will laugh and call names after me. I want to be let alone." Beaut shook himself loose from the detaining hand and went on down the hill. When he had passed out of sight of Hartnet he sat down on the ground.
All Bloomfield is proud of him to the bustin' point, and they ought to be." "By jinks!" grinned Eli; "that tall feller jest introduced one of the dark-eyed gals as his wife. Wush! but she's a beaut! He's homelier than a barn door with the paint washed off, but she's a peach. Wonder how he ever ketched her." "She's Spanish, or French, or something ferrun," asserted Uncle Eb.
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