Chapter IX AFTER THE BALL

 THE sun found a sleepy crowd at breakfast next morning. The boys had life enough, however, to hector one another about the fun of the night before.   “It’s hip, hooray for the Mormon lassies,” chirruped Pat, as he banged about among his cooking utensils.   “And how about the Mormon beer, Chuck?” asked Dick.   “Dry, dry, dry,” he sang dolefully, “dry as—”   “Their bloomin’ prayers,” put in Dick; “did you hear that long-faced old elder bawl to the Lord for blessings? I thought he’d never quit; but Teddy here took it like a saint. The kid’s pious enough to show ’em the way to glory.”   “Yes, and your smart talk shows your breeding,” said Dan, rather sharply.   “My breeding’s good as yours, Old Primrose.”   “That may be,” returned Dan calmly, “but one thing is certain, my breeding would make{100} me bite my tongue before I’d let it fling coarse jokes about prayer or anything else that’s sacred.” Dan’s tone brought a strained silence. For a few seconds nothing was heard but the click of the knives and forks on the tin dishes. Then Pat came to the rescue with—   “Well, them Mormons are a jolly people anyway, if they do mix prayin’ and preachin’ with their dancin’ and their eatin’. Faith, and I think it’s a foine practice, especially that askin’ the blessin’ over their praties. It gives everybody a fair start. I’ve a moind to interjuce the custom in this bloomin’ camp.”   The Irishman’s sally proved good sauce for breakfast. Everybody laughed, and things cleared up.   Dick did not take kindly, of course, the rap Dan had given him, but it saved him from the tormenting he had expected on a tenderer spot—his discomfiture over Alta. For even with all the bravado he could muster, he could not drive out of his brain the fact that his chances with her had received an upset. Their parting the night before had been too abrupt for comfort to him, or to Alta either.   For Alta did not enjoy quarrels. She had no well-defined feeling for Dick except to like him as a partner. He was quick at cowboy{101} repartee, and rather winning withal. Any of the other ranch girls would have taken delight in receiving his attentions. But Alta was out for fun, not fellows. As to falling desperately in love with him or any one else—well, she had no thought of such things at that time. Still Dick’s dash and independence were a challenge to her own free spirit. He was as daring as she was saucy, and that made him provokingly interesting.   Her actions with Fred had nettled him. She felt it, but she did not know why. Dick did, however, and he found it hard work to throw off his ugly feeling and act decently. Not that he cared so much for Alta. It was the anticipation of jokes at his expense from the boys and the worse thought that for once he had met the girl who could ignore him, that angered him sorely.   As they had swung on at a lively gallop toward the Morgan ranch he turned his temperish feeling to smartness, making flippant remarks to draw out an expression of feeling from his partner. Alta, with quick wit, divined his thoughts, but she still kept her poise, foiling with lightsome yet ladylike deftness all his efforts to provoke a quarrel. Seeing that his efforts to annoy her failed to bring the response he desired, he finally desisted from making flippant{102} remarks and by the time they reached the ranch, “Richard was himself again.”   “Thank you very much,” said Alta, as he returned from taking care of her horse; “it has been a pleasant evening for me. I hope you have enjoyed it, too.”   “Oh, sure, I had a dandy dance,” said he lightly.   “Well, good night, happy dreams,” she said, her eyes laughing in the moonlight.   Dick misread the glance and said boldly, “You are not going yet, are you?”   “Why not?” Alta’s tone showed surprise; “it’s late enough.”   “Not till I get something sweet,” he said smartly, as he grabbed her hands and bent to kiss her.   “Dick Davis! How dare you?” she exclaimed in startled, injured tone, as she jerked away and turned to the door.   Dick was nonplused, but he caught his astonished breath to say, “Oh, don’t be scared! I won’t hurt you; so long.” Then swinging into his saddle he dug his spurs into his pony and dashed off, while Alta half ran into the house.   When she reached her room she stood by the window for a time, tapping her foot temperishly on the floor.{103}   “The smarty!” she said, half aloud; “what does he take me for? I don’t know why boys can’t be happy and be gentlemen at the same time. I’m tired of their nonsense.”   She began rather impetuously to disrobe. Then she stopped to watch the fleecy clouds glide calmly over the face of the moon. Again she turned to her couch and tucked herself among the comforts, where she lay tossing with her thoughts, and trying to nurse her indignant feelings against Dick into a real hate; but somehow she could not do it. Her heart was troubled. One thing only was clear: she must not tell her uncle a word about it. It would trouble him, too. Alta feared the consequences, if her uncle found out that Dick had mistreated her. No, she would keep such worries to herself. With this thought she fell asleep.   This again was a hard thing for Alta to decide. Except for her trouble with Bud she had always opened her heart freely to her foster father, for he was the only friend in whom she could confide. Indeed, he had been both father and mother to her for many years—ever since her own parents had passed away. She had lost her father when she was a babe in arms. Her mother too, a sweet, frail lily, whom Alta could just remember, had passed away some three years later.{104}   Then Uncle Tom came into her life, back out of the rugged West, where he had gone after the war—came to lay his brother’s wife tenderly away among the green hills of Ohio, and to take her baby girl to his own rugged heart. How she had softened and molded that old bachelor-soldier heart, how she had played upon it with a thousand childish whims, set it throbbing with anxiety, filled it with joy and love, we can but suggest here. Alta had grown to be part of Colonel Morgan’s very life. For her sake he had tried to settle down again in Ohio, remaining there at his brother’s home for nearly a year.   But the call of the craggy West came back in the springtime, and though it half broke his heart to do it, he yielded to his love of the strong life among the mountains, struck out across the plains again with full purpose to make a fortune in California and then return to take care of his “little squirrel” and bring her up in a life that befitted her.   Alta was left meanwhile with “Aunt Betty,” a maiden sister of Colonel Morgan’s mother, who had been nurse for the child since the young mother’s death. It was a sore trial for both of them to see Uncle Tom leave. Every night, for months afterward, the child would cuddle{105} down in the motherly arms of Aunt Betty, to talk about her “dear daddy” ’way out West, express her fears that the wicked Indians would hurt him, and often cry herself to sleep. But Aunt Betty, though the silent tears at times trickled down her own withered cheeks, for this and other hidden sorrows, would cast aside the troubles cheerily and soothe and snuggle her “little squirrel” and sing her away to dreamland.   It was easier to keep cheery when Alta, a beribboned little maid of six, would trip away to the schoolhouse on a near-by hill. Bright and happy always, she learned her lessons in a flash and made friends of everybody. School days were to her a delight. They winged themselves away swiftly, carrying Alta into a beautiful girlhood, brimming with life, and pure and sweet as a rosebud.   Aunt Betty, gentle but firm, had watched and guided her unfolding throughout those tender years with almost more than a mother’s care. They were companions in the highest sense. No thought of the child’s but was freely shared with her foster mother; and this wise old lady, by tactful management and sweet suggestion, had cultivated in the child’s heart such a sense of helpfulness, kindness, and virtue as had made her soul even more beautiful{106} than her face, if that were possible. Alta Morgan was a wholesome, serviceable, charming girl. Aunt Betty was a teacher of the heart and hands as well as of the head.   But changes came, as changes will. Colonel Morgan had not found the end of the rainbow as quickly as he had hoped, though he sought for it faithfully among the mines of California, Nevada, and finally of Idaho. Despairing at last of ever striking the lucky vein, he turned to other fields, and eventually settled to the thought of ranching. Such a life was at least less uncertain of returns and would afford the quiet his age was beginning to demand. This decision made, he bought a well-stocked ranch, added to his acres by taking up more, and was just getting things into comfortable shape, when a message from Alta, with whom, of course, he had kept in close touch all of these years, brought the startling news that Aunt Betty had been taken away. “God has called her from me,” the tender words ran; “won’t daddy hurry home to his broken-hearted little girl?”   An hour later Colonel Morgan was driving posthaste to the station, sixty miles away. A few days later he stepped from the train at his old home town in Ohio. As he swung the gate and hurried toward the house, a beautiful{107} girl ran down the path to fling her arms about his neck and kiss his rugged face again and again. Then they walked slowly to the little cottage, sat in Aunt Betty’s old armchair on the porch, and clung to each other while they sobbed out their sorrow in the twilight together.   “Oh, daddy, dear, take me away, take me away. This will never be home again with my Aunt Betty gone. Take me, daddy, take me,” cried the anguish-stricken girl.   “There, ‘little squirrel,’ don’t cry; I will take you and keep you by me always. Oh, how I’ve missed you these long years!”   And that was how Alta Morgan came to the mountains—the pride of her old uncle’s heart, and to become the pride of the valley.   Her memories of Aunt Betty remained with her as a sweet, pure atmosphere throughout her life; but in the thrilling newness of the life of the craggy West her heart soon forgot its troubles. She responded to the life about her so readily that she seemed to have been always a part of it—a true Western girl, spontaneous, open-hearted, alive, free, yet tender and gentle withal. She was a sweet, wild rose blooming among the briers.   “Mornin’, daddy!”   “Good morning, little chipmunk!” responded Colonel Morgan, as Alta peeped playfully{108} through the door rather too late for breakfast. “How’s my bright-eyed lassie after her fun?”   She tripped across the room, to give him a squeeze and a kiss.   “Oh! I’m happy. How are you?”   “Gaunt as a race horse,” he returned, heaving a hungry sigh; “Aunt ‘Liza went off celebratin’ too, you know, and she hasn’t got back yet.” Aunt ‘Liza was the housekeeper of the ranch.   “What!” exclaimed Alta, “then you haven’t had breakfast? Why didn’t you wake this sleepy-head girl of yours? I’ll hurry now for sure.” She skipped to the kitchen as she spoke, to find breakfast well under way.   “You dear old daddy,” she called, tripping back to give him another kiss; “I am afraid you are going to spoil me. There’s nothing left to do but set the table. But why didn’t you wake me?”   “Oh, I knew my little girl would be tired after such a jolly time with her new beau.”   Alta winced. What if her uncle had heard it? She hesitated, then replied a little confusedly, “Oh, yes, the dance was fine; they’re real social folks.”   “And how’s the new beau, honey?” persisted her uncle in a teasing tone.   Alta blushed, then said evasively, “He’s all right, I suppose.{109}”   Colonel Morgan, seeing her embarrassment, leaped to the thought that she hesitated to talk because she was in love with Dick. She had never held back before. The thought pained him, but tenderness for her feelings checked him from pressing the point further. “Well, never mind,” he said gently; “I like Dick, too.”   “But I don’t!” the words leaped to Alta’s lips; she bit them back, however, hurried again to the kitchen to regain her poise, and a few moments later came back singing: ’Tis the West, the craggy West, that calls, that calls me; ’Tis the sage and sego-lily land I love, With its amber skies, its crystal streams, its mountains, Where among the canyon wilds we rove, we rove.   “Hello!” said her uncle; “where did that new song come from?”   “Oh, they sang it last night at the party. Like it?”   “Sounds pretty; sing some more.”   “I don’t know it yet; but I’ll get Mary to teach it to me and then I’ll sing it all for you. It’s a real Western song.”   “Do, little one, I’d like to hear it,” the old colonel replied. Then he lapsed for a while into quiet thought. The strain had waked the echoes in his heart.