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Updated: May 31, 2025
She came with a rush and a clatter which brought Nan out on to the veranda in hurry of anxious inquiry. Bud was behind her, but his movements lacked her impulse. Elvine was out of the saddle. She stood on the veranda, a figure of wild-eyed appeal. "Jeff! Oh, he's gone. Nan, they'll they'll kill him! I know it. I'm certain. And I warned him. I warned him. But oh!"
Then his eyes came round to the face of the rancher. There was something deadly in the steadiness of their regard. "This widow," he said. "Her name is Van Blooren. What is her first name, and the first name of her husband?" Before Dug could reply Peters pointed at the deeds of sale. "Guess her full name's writ ther'," he said. "Elvine van Blooren. Sort of queer name, ain't it?
Jeff was alone in the luxurious sitting-room when the mail was brought in by a waiter. He was glancing down the morning paper while he waited for Elvine, who was preparing for a morning round of the stores. His attention for the news he read was less than scant. It is doubtful if he read more than the head-lines, and these only with partial understanding.
"But why talk? It's too easy, and it's mighty cheap anyway. But Nan was pointing out of the window. She welcomed a sudden diversion. "It's Elvine coming right along over." Then, as Jeff craned forward: "Say, she's a dandy horsewoman. Get a look at her. Gracious, she might have been born in the saddle." But Jeff had not waited. He was out on the veranda to greet his wife as she came.
His fair strong face, serious and cold, was turned directly upon the beautiful figure of his wife, and it was the coldness of it that daunted her now. "Well?" The bitterness of that frigid, surprised inquiry was crushing. Elvine looked into his eyes for one single shadow of softening. She could find none. It shocked the hope she had been steadily building in her heart.
Elvine observed the coarse moustache, the lean cheeks, the low forehead and vicious eyes. The lips were hidden behind their curtain of hair. "Say, kind o' fergotten ain't yer?" he demanded. Then the woman's perfectly fitting riding suit seemed to attract his attention. "Gee," he exclaimed, "wher' you get that dandy rig?"
Elvine looked on with eyes that beheld but saw nothing of that which inspired her husband. Remembrance claimed her. Too well she remembered. And gladly would she have shut out such sights altogether, for more and more surely they crushed her already depressed spirits to a depth from which it seemed impossible to raise them. Nor was her beautiful face without some reflection of this.
That wonderful looking forward. Oh, the holiday of it had been nothing. There was only one thing, one thought, which had inspired the child. It was Jeff. It was a week that was to see honor done him, and she she was to join in honoring him. Jeff was the whole hub about which her happiness revolved. He was pained. He was angry. And the vision of Elvine van Blooren's dark beauty haunted him.
He stood before her chewing a straw with all the unconcern of his kind, his arm linked through the reins, and his hands thrust into the tops of his trousers. He was probably not more than thirteen years of age, but he possessed all the independence bred in the calling of the cattle world. Elvine broke in upon his meditative curiosity as he surveyed the new mistress of the ranch.
His evil face lost its smile, and, in a moment, he had bared his bristling head. But even as Elvine beheld these things she understood the curious expression which he seemed powerless to banish from his ferretty eyes. "You're Mrs. Masters, ma'am?" the fellow cried. "Say, ma'am, I'm just kind o' knocked all of a mush. I hadn't a notion. I truly hadn't.
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