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Gradually, without any discussion or open refusal on the part of Natalie, it became understood not only to Dom Francisco, but to all the circle at Nadir, that she would never marry the old cattle-king.
He drew a dollar from his pocket, balanced it on his thumb, and continued: "We will now invoke the arbitrament of chance to decide the destinies of nations. Heads, I order an assortment of vines and fig trees, go back to the Jornado and become a cattle-king, I proceed to New-York-on-the-Hudson, by the Ess-Pee at 3:15 this A.M. presently, and arouse that somnolent city from its Rip Van Winkle."
But my train was laid out by a yard wreck at Twin Buttes just before dark, and I left it and took to the hills horseback. Don't ask me why I did such a thing as that; I can only say that the smell of the sage-brush got into my blood and I simply had to do it." The old cattle-king was standing with his feet planted wide apart and his hands deep in his pockets.
Still dreaming her dreams, still featuring herself as the star of many adventures, Lorraine followed the brakeman out of the dusty day coach and down the car steps to the platform of the place called Echo, Idaho. I can only guess at what she expected to find there in the person of a cattle-king father, but whatever it was she did not find it.
"Here, you red hoss, this ain't no pie-contest. We got to hit the water-hole afore dark." Once more in motion, he reverted to his old theme, but with finality in his tone. "I guess mebby I can't tell them reporters somethin' about me hotel out here on the desert! 'The only prevailable road-house between Antelope and the Concho, run by the retired cattle-king, Sundown Slim. Sounds good to me.
Lorraine Hunter always maintained that she was a Western girl. If she reached the point of furnishing details she would tell you that she had ridden horses from the time that she could walk, and that her father was a cattle-king of Idaho, whose cattle fed upon a thousand hills. When she was twelve she told her playmates exciting tales about rattlesnakes.
"Behold him!" he cried at his first visit, aghast at the havoc the stroke had played with the tall frame. "He is but a boy, he has fathered but two children and yet behold him! He is broken!" The sight of the Reverend Orme, suddenly grown pitifully old, seemed to work on the white-haired, but sturdy, cattle-king by reflection. He, too, grew old suddenly. Natalie was the first to notice it.
Lorraine Hunter always maintained that she was a Western girl. If she reached the point of furnishing details she would tell you that she had ridden horses from the time that she could walk, and that her father was a cattle-king of Idaho, whose cattle fed upon a thousand hills. When she was twelve she told her playmates exciting tales about rattlesnakes.
I've been working like one son-of-a-gun all fall and winter, and I'm in the cattle-king class to the extent of twelve head. I knew you were crazy to hear the glad tidings, so I tried to kill off a horse to get here and tell you. You and me'll be running a wagon and full crew in another year, don't you reckon? And send reps over into Wyoming and around, to look after our interests!"
So they reached a tumbled ranch-house squeezed between two hills so that it was sheltered from the storms of the winter but held all the heat of the summer. Once it had been a goodly building, the home of some cattle-king. But bad times had come. A bullet in a saloon brawl put an end to the cattle king, and now his home was a wreck of its former glory.
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