"I'm sorry," Disston replied contritely. "I shouldn't have urged you to come, but I was hoping you would like it--its picturesqueness, the unconventionality, and the dozen-and-one other things which appeal to me so strongly. In my enthusiasm, perhaps I exaggerated."
"I can't see anything picturesque in discomfort," Miss Rathburn retorted. "There's nothing picturesque in trying to bathe in water that curdles when you put soap in it, and makes your hands like nutmeg graters; or in servants who call you by your first name; or in trying to ride scraggly horses that have no gaits and shake you to pieces; or anything even moderately interesting about a country where there are no trees to sit under and nothing to look at but sagebrush, and rocks, and prairie dogs, and mountains, and not a soul that one can know socially!"
"I had no notion you disliked it out here so much, Beth," he replied gravely.
But he was not sufficiently apologetic, not sufficiently humble. She went on in a tone in which spite was uppermost: "And furthermore, if unconventionality could ever make me look and act like that 'Sheep Queen' over there," she nodded towards the mountain, "I hope to leave before it happens."
"Hush, Beth!" Her mother's expostulation was lost upon her for, looking at Disston, she was a little dismayed by the expression upon his face when he turned and, leaning his back against the porch post, faced her, saying with a sternness which was foreign to him: "It's quite impossible for you to understand or appreciate a woman like Kate Prentice, and you will oblige me, Beth, by refraining from criticising her, at least in my presence."
Hugh would as well have slapped her. She scattered the manicure articles in her lap as she sprang up and stamped a tiny foot at him: "She is impossible! Unspeakable! And I believe you are in love with her!"
For an instant Disston looked at her with an expression which was at once angry and startled, but before he had framed an answer Teeters appeared in the doorway behind them and said soberly: "Looks like somethin' serious is startin' over yonder." He nodded toward the mountains.
"What do you mean?" Disston asked quickly.
"One of Kate's sheep wagons was blowed up a few nights ago, and there's a story circulatin' that somebody's goin' to shoot up the Outfit."
Disston's face wore a frown of concentration.
"Teeters," in sudden decision, "I'm going up to see her. She may need us."
"But isn't it dangerous?" Mrs. Rathburn protested.
"Not unless he's mistook for one of the Outfit, then they might try a chunk of lead on him," Teeters reassured her.