O. Henry

         Madame Bo-Peep, of the Ranches


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"AUNT ELLEN," said Octavia, cheerfully, as she threw
her black kid gloves carefully at the dignified Persian cat
on the window-seat, "I'm a pauper."

"You are so extreme in your statements, Octavia,
dear," said Aunt Ellen, mildly, looking up from her paper.

"If you find yourself temporarily in need of some small
change for bonbons, you will find my purse in the drawer
of the writing desk."

Octavia Beaupree removed her hat and seated herself
on a footstool near her aunt's chair, clasping her hands
about her knees. Her slim and flexible figure, clad in a
modish mourning costume, accommodated itself easily
and gracefully to the trying position. Her bright and
youthful face, with its pair of sparkling, life-enamoured
eyes, tried to compose itself to the seriousness that the
occasion seemed to demand.

"You good auntie, it isn't a case of bonbons; it is abject,
staring, unpicturesque poverty, with ready-made clothes,
gasolined gloves, and probably one o'clock dinners all
waiting with the traditional wolf at the door. I've just
come from my lawyer, auntie, and, 'Please, ma'am, I
ain't got nothink 't all. Flowers, lady? Buttonhole,
gentleman? Pencils, sir, three for five, to help a poor
widow?' Do I do it nicely, auntie, or, as a bread-winner
accomplishment, were my lessons in elocution entirely
wasted?"

"Do be serious, my dear," said Aunt Ellen, letting her
paper fall to the floor, "long enough to tell me what you
mean. Colonel Beaupree's estate -- "

"Colonel Beaupree's estate," interrupted Octavia,
emphasizing her words with appropriate dramatic ges-
tures, "is of Spanish castellar architecture. Colonel
Beaupree's resources are -- wind. Colonel Beaupree's
stocks are -- water. Colonel Beaupree's income is --
all in. The statement lacks the legal technicalities to
which I have been listening for an hour, but that is what
it means when translated."

"Octavia!"  Aunt Ellen was now visibly possessed by
consternation. "I can hardly believe it. And it was the
impression that he was worth a million. And the De
Peysters themselves introduced him!"

Octavia rippled out a laugh, and then became properly
grave.

"De mortuis nil, auntie -- not even the rest of it. The
dear old colonel -- what a gold brick he was, after all!
I paid for my bargain fairly -- I'm all here, am I not? 
-- items: eyes, fingers, toes, youth, old family, unques-
tionable position in society as called for in the contract
no wild-cat stock here." Octavia picked up the
morning paper from the floor. "But I'm not going to
'squeal' -- isn't that what they call it when you rail at
Fortune because you've, lost the game?" She turned
the pages of the paper calmly. "'Stock market' -- no
use for that. 'Society's doings' -- that's done. Here is
my page -- the wish column. A Van Dresser could not
be said to 'want' for anything, of course. 'Chamber-
maids, cooks, canvassers, stenographers-"

"Dear," said Aunt Ellen, with a little tremor in her
voice, "please do not talk in that way. Even if your
affairs are in so unfortunate a condition, there is my three
thousand -- "

Octavia sprang up lithely, and deposited a smart kiss
on the delicate cheek of the prim little elderly maid.

"Blessed auntie, your three thousand is just sufficient
to insure your Hyson to be free from willow leaves and
keep the Persian in sterilized cream. I know I'd be
welcome, but I prefer to strike bottom like Beelzebub
rather than hang around like the Peri listening to the
music from the side entrance. I'm going to earn my own
living. There's nothing else to do. I'm a -- Oh, oh, oh!
-- I had forgotten. There's one thing saved from the
wreck. It's a corral -- no, a ranch in -- let me see --
Texas: an asset, dear old Mr. Bannister called it. How
pleased he was to show me something he could describe
as unencumbered! I've a description of it among those
stupid papers he made me bring away with me from his
office. I'll try to find it."

Octavia found her shopping-bag, and drew from it a
long envelope filled with typewritten documents.

"A ranch in Texas," sighed Aunt Ellen. "It sounds
to me more like a liability than an asset. Those are the
places where the centipedes are found, and cowboys,
and fandangos."

"'The Rancho de las Sombras,'" read Octavia from
a sheet of violently purple typewriting "'is situated one
hundred and ten miles southeast of San Antonio, and
thirty-eight miles from its nearest railroad station, Nopal,
on the I. and G. N. Ranch, consists of 7,680 acres of well-
watered land, with title conferred by State patents, and
twenty-two sections, or 14,080 acres, partly under yearly
running lease and partly bought under State's twenty-
year-purchase act. Eight thousand graded merino sheep,
with the necessary equipment of horses, vehicles and
general ranch paraphernalia. Ranch-house built of
brick, with six rooms comfortably furnished according to
the requirements of the climate. All within a strong
barbed-wire fence.

"'The present ranch manager seems to be competent
and reliable, and is rapidly placing upon a paying basis
a business that, in other hands, had been allowed to suffer
from neglect and misconduct.

"'This property was secured by Colonel Beaupree in a
deal with a Western irrigation syndicate, and the title
to it seems to be perfect. With careful management and
the natural increase of land values, it ought to be made
the foundation for a comfortable fortune for its owner.'"

When Octavia ceased reading, Aunt Ellen uttered
something as near a sniff as her breeding permitted.

"The prospectus," she said, with uncompromising
metropolitan suspicion, "doesn't mention the centipedes,
or the Indians. And you never did like mutton, Octavia.
I don't see what advantage you can derive from this --
desert."

But Octavia was in a trance. Her eyes were steadily
regarding something quite beyond their focus. Her lips
were parted, and her face was lighted by the kindling
furor of the explorer, the ardent, stirring disquiet of the
adventurer. Suddenly she clasped her hands together
exultantly.

"The problem solves itself, auntie," she cried. "I'm
going to that ranch. I'm going to live on it. I'm
going to learn to like mutton, and even concede the good
qualities of centipedes -- at a respectful distance. It's
just what I need. It's a new life that comes when my old
one is just ending. It's a release, auntie; it isn't a narrow-
ing. Think of the gallops over those leagues of prairies,
with the wind tugging at the roots of your hair, the com-
ing close to the earth and learning over again the stories
of the growing grass and the little wild flowers without
names! Glorious is what it will be. Shall I be a
shepherdess with a Watteau hat, and a crook to keep the
bad wolves from the lambs, or a typical Western ranch
girl, with short hair, like the pictures of her in the Sunday
papers? I think the latter. And they'll have my picture,
too, with the wild-cats I've slain, single-handed, hanging
from my saddle horn. 'From the Four Hundred to the
Flocks' is the way they'll headline it, and they'll print
photographs of the old Van Dresser mansion and the
church where I was married. They won't have my
picture, but they'll get an artist to draw it. I'll be wild
and woolly, and I'll grow my own wool."

"Octavia!"  Aunt Ellen condensed into the one word
all the protests she was unable to utter.

"Don't say a word, auntie. I'm going. I'll see the
sky at night fit down on the world like a big butter-dish
cover, and I'll make friends again with the stars that I
haven't had a chat with since I was a wee child. I wish
to go. I'm tired of all this. I'm glad I haven't any
money. I could bless Colonel Beaupree for that ranch,
and forgive him for all his bubbles. What if the life will
be rough and lonely! I -- I deserve it. I shut my heart
to everything except that miserable ambition. I -- oh,
I wish to go away, and forget -- forget!"

Octavia swerved suddenly to her knees, laid her flushed
face in her aunt's lap, and shook with turbulent sobs.

Aunt Ellen bent over her, and smoothed the coppery-
brown hair.

"I didn't know," she said, gently; "I didn't know --
that. Who was it, dear?

When Mrs. Octavia Beaupree, nйe Van Dresser,
stepped from the train at Nopal, her manner lost, for the
moment, some of that easy certitude which had always
marked her movements. The town was of recent estab-
lishment, and seemed to have been hastily constructed of
undressed lumber and flapping canvas. The element
that had congregated about the station, though not
offensively demonstrative, was clearly composed of citizens
accustomed to and prepared for rude alarms.

Octavia stood on the platform, against the telegraph
office, and attempted to choose by intuition from the
swaggering, straggling string, of loungers, the manager
of the Rancho de las Sombras, who had been instructed
by Mr. Bannister to meet her there. That tall, serious,
looking, elderly man in the blue flannel shirt and white
tie she thought must be he. But, no; he passed by,
removing his gaze from the lady as hers rested on him,
according to the Southern custom. The manager, she
thought, with some impatience at being kept waiting,
should have no difficulty in selecting her. Young women
wearing the most recent thing in ash-coloured travelling
suits were not so plentiful in Nopal!

Thus keeping a speculative watch on all persons of
possible managerial aspect, Octavia, with a catching
breath and a start of surprise, suddenly became aware of
Teddy Westlake hurrying along the platform in the
direction of the train -- of Teddy Westlake or his sun-
browned ghost in cheviot, boots and leather-girdled hat
-- Theodore Westlake, Jr., amateur polo (almost)
champion, all-round butterfly and cumberer of the soil;
but a broader, surer, more emphasized and determined
Teddy than the one she had known a year ago when last
she saw him.

He perceived Octavia at almost the same time, deflected
his course, and steered for her in his old, straightforward
way. Something like awe came upon her as the strange-
ness of his metamorphosis was brought into closer range;
the rich, red-brown of his complexion brought out so
vividly his straw-coloured mustache and steel-gray eyes.
He seemed more grown-up, and, somehow, farther away.
But, when he spoke, the old, boyish Teddy came back
again. They had been friends from childhood.

"Why, 'Tave!" he exclaimed, unable to reduce
his perplexity to coherence. " How -- what -- when --
where?"

"Train," said Octavia; "necessity; ten minutes ago;
home. Your complexion's gone, Teddy. Now, how --
what -- when -- where?"

"I'm working down here," said Teddy. He cast side
glances about the station as one does who tries to combine
politeness with duty.

"You didn't notice on the train," he asked, "an old
lady with gray curls and a poodle, who occupied two
seats with her bundles and quarrelled with the conductor,
did you?"

"I think not," answered Octavia, reflecting. "And
you haven't, by any chance, noticed a big, gray-mustached
man in a blue shirt and six-shooters, with little flakes of
merino wool sticking in his hair, have you?"

"Lots of 'em," said Teddy, with symptoms of mental
delirium under the strain. Do you happen to know any
such individual?"

"No; the description is imaginary. Is your interest
in the old lady whom you describe a personal one?"

"Never saw her in my life. She's painted entirely
from fancy. She owns the little piece of property where I
earn my bread and butter - the Rancho de las Sombras.
I drove up to meet her according to arrangement with
her lawyer."

Octavia leaned against the wall of the telegraph office.
Was this possible? And didn't he know?

"Are you the manager of that ranch?" she asked
weakly.

"I am," said Teddy, with pride.

"I am Mrs. Beaupree," said Octavia faintly; "but my
hair never would curl, and I was polite to the conductor."

For a moment that strange, grown-up look came back,
and removed Teddy miles away from her.

"I hope you'll excuse me," he said, rather awkwardly.
"You see, I've been down here in the chaparral a year.
I hadn't heard. Give me your checks, please, and I'll
have your traps loaded into the wagon. Josй will follow
with them. We travel ahead in the buckboard."

Seated by Teddy in a feather-weight buckboard, behind
a pair of wild, cream-coloured Spanish ponies, Octavia
abandoned all thought for the exhilaration of the present.
They swept out of the little town and down the level road
toward the south. Soon the road dwindled and dis-
appeared, and they struck across a world carpeted with
an endless reach of curly mesquite grass. The wheels
made no sound. The tireless ponies bounded ahead at
an unbroken gallop. The temperate wind, made fragrant
by thousands of acres of blue and yellow wild flowers,
roared gloriously in their ears. The motion was aлrial,
ecstatic, with a thrilling sense of perpetuity in its effect.
Octavia sat silent, possessed by a feeling of elemental,
sensual bliss. Teddy seemed to be wrestling with some
internal problem.

"I'm going to call you madama," he announced as the
result of his labours. "That is what the Mexicans will
call you -- they're nearly all Mexicans on the ranch,
you know. That seems to me about the proper thing."

"Very well, Mr. Westlake," said Octavia, primly.

"Oh, now," said Teddy, in some consternation, "that's
carrying the thing too far, isn't it?"

"Don't worry me with your beastly etiquette. I'm
just beginning to live. Don't remind me of anything
artificial. If only this air could be bottled! This much
alone is worth coming for. Oh, look I there goes a deer!"

"Jack-rabbit," said Teddy, without turning his head.

"Could I -- might I drive?" suggested Octavia, pant-
ing, with rose-tinted cheeks and the eye of an eager child.

"On one condition. Could I -- might I smoke? "

"Forever!" cried Octavia, taking the lines with solemn
joy. "How shall I know which way to drive?"

"Keep her sou' by sou'east, and all sail set. You see
that black speck on the horizon under that lowermost
Gulf cloud? That's a group of live-oaks and a land-
mark. Steer halfway between that and the little hill to
the left. I'll recite you the whole code of driving rules
for the Texas prairies: keep the reins from under the
horses' feet, and swear at 'em frequent."

"I'm too happy to swear, Ted. Oh, why do people
buy yachts or travel in palace-cars, when a buckboard
and a pair of plugs and a spring morning like this can
satisfy all desire?"

"Now, I'll ask you," protested Teddy, who was futilely
striking match after match on the dashboard, "not to
call those denizens of the air plugs. They can kick out
a hundred miles between daylight and dark." At last
he succeeded in snatching a light for his cigar from the
flame held in the hollow of his hands.

"Room!" said Octavia, intensely. "That's what
produces the effect. I know now what I've wanted --
scope -- range -- room! "

"Smoking-room," said Teddy, unsentimentally. "I
love to smoke in a buckboard. The wind blows the smoke
into you and out again. It saves exertion."

The two fell so naturally into their old-time goodfellow-
ship that it was only by degrees that a sense of the strange-
ness of the new relations between them came to be felt.

"Madama," said Teddy, wonderingly, "however did
you get it into your bead to cut the crowd and come down
here? Is it a fad now among the upper classes to trot
off to sheep ranches instead of to Newport?"

"I was broke, Teddy," said Octavia, sweetly, with her
interest centred upon steering safely between a Spanish
dagger plant and a clump of chaparral; "I haven't a
thing in the world but this ranch -- not even any other
home to go to."

"Come, now," said Teddy, anxiously but ineredu-
lously, "you don't mean it?"

"When my husband," said Octavia, with a shy slurring
of the word, "died three months ago I thought I had a
reasonable amount of the world's goods. His lawyer
exploded that theory in a sixty-minute fully illustrated
lecture. I took to the sheep as a last resort. Do you
happen to know of any fashionable caprice among the
gilded youth of Manhattan that induces them to abandon
polo and club windows to become managers of sheep
ranches?"

"It's easily explained in my case," responded Teddy,
promptly. "I had to go to work. I couldn't have earned
my board in New York, so I chummed a while with old
Sandford, one of the syndicate that owned the ranch before
Colonel Beaupree bought it, and got a place down here.
I wasn't manager at first. I jogged around on ponies and
studied the business in detail, until I got all the points in
my head. I saw where it was losing and what the reme-
dies were, and then Sandford put me in charge. I get a
hundred dollars a month, and I earn it."

"Poor Teddy!" said Octavia, with a smile.

"You needn't. I like it. I save half my wages, and
I'm as hard as a water plug. It beats polo."

"Will it furnish bread and tea and jam for another out-
cast from civilization?"

"The spring shearing," said the manager, "just cleaned
up a deficit in last year's business. Wastefulness and
inattention have been the rule heretofore. The autumn
clip will leave a small profit over all expenses. Next
year there will be jam."

When, about four o'clock in the afternoon, the ponies
rounded a gentle, brush-covered hill, and then swooped,
like a double cream-coloured cyclone, upon the Rancho
de las Sombras, Octavia gave a little cry of delight. A
lordly grove of magnificent live-oaks cast an area of
grateful, cool shade, whence the ranch had drawn its
name, "de las Sombras" -- of the shadows. The house,
of red brick, one story, ran low and long beneath the trees.
Through its middle, dividing its six rooms in half, extended
a broad, arched passageway, picturesque with flowering
cactus and hanging red earthern jars. A "gallery," low
and broad, encircled the building. Vines climbed about
it, and the adjacent ground was, for a space, covered with
transplanted grass and shrubs. A little lake, long and
narrow, glimmered in the sun at the rear. Further away
stood the shacks of the Mexican workers, the corrals,
wool sheds and shearing pens. To the right lay the low
hills, splattered with dark patches of chaparral; to the
left the unbounded green prairie blending against the blue
heavens.

"It's a home, Teddy," said Octavia, breathlessly;
that's what it is -- it's a home."

"Not so bad for a sheep ranch," admitted Teddy, with
excusable pride. "I've been tinkering on it at odd times."

A Mexican youth sprang from somewhere in the grass,
and took charge of the creams. The mistress and the
manager entered the house.

"Here's Mrs. MacIntyre," said Teddy, as a placid,
neat, elderly lady came out upon the gallery to meet
them. "Mrs. Mac, here's the boss. Very likely she
will be wanting a hunk of ham and a dish of beans after
her drive."

Mrs. MacIntyre, the housekeeper, as much a fixture
on the place as the lake or the live-oaks, received the
imputation of the ranch's resources of refreshment with
mild indignation, and was about to give it utterance when
Octavia spoke.

"Oh, Mrs. MacIntyre, don't apologize for Teddy.
Yes, I call him Teddy. So does every one whom he
hasn't duped into taking him seriously. You see, we
used to cut paper dolls and play jackstraws together ages
ago. No one minds what he says."

"No," said Teddy, "no one minds what he says, just
so he doesn't do it again."

Octavia cast one of those subtle, sidelong glances
toward him from beneath her lowered eyelids -- a glance
that Teddy used to describe as an upper-cut. But there
was nothing in his ingenuous, weather-tanned face to
warrant a suspicion that he was making an allusion --
nothing. Beyond a doubt, thought Octavia, he had
forgotten.

"Mr. Westlake likes his fun," said Mrs. Maclntyre, as
she conducted Octavia to her rooms. "But," she added,
loyally, "people around here usually pay attention to
what he says when he talks in earnest. I don't know
what would have become of this place without him."

Two rooms at the east end of the house had been
arranged for the occupancy of the ranch's mistress. When
she entered them a slight dismay seized her at their bare
appearance and the scantiness of their furniture; but she
quickly reflected that the climate was a semi-tropical one,
and was moved to appreciation of the well-conceived efforts
to conform to it. The sashes had already been removed
from the big windows, and white curtains waved in the
Gulf breeze that streamed through the wide jalousies.
The bare floor was amply strewn with cool rugs; the
chairs were inviting, deep, dreamy willows; the walls
were papered with a light, cheerful olive. One whole
side of her sitting room was covered with books on smooth,
unpainted pine shelves. She flew to these at once. Before
her was a well-selected library. She caught glimpses of
titles of volumes of fiction and travel not yet seasoned
from the dampness of the press.

Presently, recollecting that she was now in a wilderness
given over to mutton, centipedes and privations, the
incongruity of these luxuries struck her, and, with intuitive
feminine suspicion, she began turning to the fly-leaves of
volume after volume. Upon each one was inscribed in
fluent characters the name of Theodore Westlake, Jr.

Octavia, fatigued by her long journey, retired early
that night. Lying upon her white, cool bed, she rested
deliciously, but sleep coquetted long with her. She
listened to faint noises whose strangeness kept her faculties
on the alert -- the fractious yelping of the coyotes, the
ceaseless, low symphony of the wind, the distant booming
of the frogs about the lake, the lamentation of a concertina
in the Mexicans' quarters. There were many conflicting
feelings in her heart -- thankfulness and rebellion, peace
and disquietude, loneliness and a sense of protecting care,
happiness and an old, haunting pain.

She did what any other woman would have done --
sought relief in a wholesome tide of unreasonable tears,
and her last words, murmured to herself before slumber,
capitulating, came softly to woo her, were "He has
forgotten."

The manager of the Rancho de las Sombras was no
dilettante. He was a "hustler." He was generally up,
mounted, and away of mornings before the rest of the
household were awake, making the rounds of the flocks
and camps. This was the duty of the majordomo, a
stately old Mexican with a princely air and manner, but
Teddy seemed to have a great deal of confidence in his
own eyesight. Except in the busy seasons, he nearly
always returned to the ranch to breakfast at eight o'clock,
with Octavia and Mrs. Maclntyre, at the little table set
in the central hallway, bringing with him a tonic and
breezy cheerfulness full of the health and flavour of the
prairies.

A few days after Octavia's arrival he made her get out
one of her riding skirts, and curtail it to a shortness
demanded by the chaparral brakes.

With some misgivings she donned this and the pair of
buckskin leggings he prescribed in addition, and, mounted
upon a dancing pony, rode with him to view her posses-
sions. He showed her everything -- the flocks of ewes,
muttons and grazing lambs, the dipping vats, the shearing
pens, the uncouth merino rams in their little pasture, the
water-tanks I prepared against the summer drought --
giving account of his stewardship with a boyish enthus-
siasm that never flagged.

Where was the old Teddy that she knew so well? This
side of him was the same, and it was a side that pleased
her; but this was all she ever saw of him now. Where
was his sentimentality -- those old, varying moods of
impetuous love-making, of fanciful, quixotic devotion, of
heart-breaking gloom, of alternating, absurd tenderness
and haughty dignity? His nature had been a sensitive
one, his temperament bordering closely on the artistic.
She knew that, besides being a follower of fashion and its
fads and sports, he had cultivated tastes of a finer nature.
He had written things, he had tampered with colours, he
was something of a student in certain branches of art,
and once she had been admitted to all his aspirations and
thoughts. But now -- and she could not avoid the con-
clusion -- Teddy had barricaded against her every side
of himself except one -- the side that showed the manager
of the Rancho de las Sombras and a jolly chum who had
forgiven and forgotten. Queerly enough the words of
Mr. Bannister's description of her property came into
her mind -- "all inclosed within a strong barbed-wire
fence."

"Teddy's fenced, too," said Octavia to herself.

It was not difficult for her to reason out the cause of
his fortifications. It had originated one night at the
Hammersmiths' ball. It occurred at a time soon after
she had decided to accept Colonel Beaupree and his
million, which was no more than her looks and the entrйe
she held to the inner circles were worth. Teddy had
proposed with all his impetuosity and fire, and she looked
him straight in the eyes, an said, coldly and finally:
"Never let me hear any such silly nonsense from you
again." "You won't," said Teddy, with an expression
around his mouth, and -- now Teddy was inclosed
within a strong barbed-wire fence.

It was on this first ride of inspection that Teddy was
seized by the inspiration that suggested the name of
Mother Goose's heroine, and he at once bestowed it upon
Octavia. The idea, supported by both a similarity of
names and identity of occupations, seemed to strike him
as a peculiarly happy one, and he never tired of using it.
The Mexicans on the ranch also took up the name, adding
another syllable to accommodate their lingual incapacity
for the final "p," gravely referring to her as "La Madama
Bo-Peepy." Eventually it spread, and "Madame Bo-
Peep's ranch" was as often mentioned as the "Rancho
de las Sombras."

Came the long, hot season from May to September,
when work is scarce on the ranches. Octavia passed the
days in a kind of lotus-eater's dream. Books, hammocks,
correspondence with a few intimate friends, a renewed
interest in her old water-colour box and easel -- these
disposed of the sultry hours of daylight. The evenings
were always sure to bring enjoyment. Best of all were
the rapturous horseback rides with Teddy, when the moon
gave light over the wind-swept leagues, chaperoned by
the wheeling night-hawk and the startled owl. Often the
Mexicans would come up from their shacks with their
guitars and sing the weirdest of heart-breaking songs.
There were long, cosy chats on the breezy gallery, and an
interminable warfare of wits between Teddy and Mrs.
MacIntyre, whose abundant Scotch shrewdness often
more than overmatched the lighter humour in which she
was lacking.

And the nights came, one after another, and were filed
away by weeks and months -- nights soft and languorous
and fragrant, that should have driven Strephon to Chloe
over wires however barbed, that might have drawn Cupid
himself to hunt, lasso in hand, among those amorous
pastures -- but Teddy kept his fences up.

One July night Madame Bo-Peep and her ranch man-
ager were sitting on the east gallerv. Teddy had been
exhausting the science of prognostication as to the proba-
bilities of a price of twenty-four cents for the autumn clip,
and had then subsided into an anesthetic cloud of Havana
smoke. Only as incompetent a judge as a woman would
have failed to note long ago that at least a third of his
salary must have gone up in the fumes of those imported
Regalias.

"Teddy," said Octavia, suddenly, and rather sharply,
"what are you working down here on a ranch for?"

"One hundred per," said Teddy, glibly, "and found."

"I've a good mind to discharge you."

"Can't do it," said Teddy, with a grin.

"Why not?" demanded Octavia, with argumentative
heat.

"Under contract. Terms of sale respect all unexpired
contracts. Mine runs until 12 P. m., December thirty-first.
You might get up at midnight on that date and fire me.
if you try it sooner I'll be in a position to bring legal
proceedings."

Octavia seemed to be considering the prospects of
litigation.

"But," continued Teddy cheerfully, "I've been think-
ing of resigning anyway."

Octavia's rocking-chair ceased its motion. There were
centipedes in this country, she felt sure; and Indians,
and vast, lonely, desolate, empty wastes; all within strong
barbed-wire fence. There was a Van Dresser pride, but
there was also a Van Dresser heart. She must know for
certain whether or not he had forgotten.

"Ah, well, Teddy," she said, with a fine assumption
of polite interest, "it's lonely down here; you're longing
to get back to the old life -- to polo and lobsters and
theatres and balls."

"Never cared much for balls," said Teddy virtuously.

"You're getting old, Teddy. Your memory is failing.
Nobody ever knew you to miss a dance, unless it occurred
on the same night with another one which you attended.
And you showed such shocking bad taste, too, in dancing
too often with the same partner. Let me see, what was
that Forbes girl's name -- the one with wall eyes --
Mabel, wasn't it?"

"No; Adйle. Mabel was the one with the bony
elbows. That wasn't wall in Adйle's eyes. It was soul.
We used to talk sonnets together, and Verlaine. Just
then I was trying to run a pipe from the Pierian spring."

"You were on the floor with her," said Octavia, unde-
flected, "five times at the Hammersmiths'."

"Hammersmiths' what? " questioned Teddy, vacuously.

"Ball -- ball," said Octavia, viciously. "What were
we talking of?"

"Eyes, I thought," said Teddy, after some reflection;
"and elbows."

"Those Hammersmiths," went on Octavia, in her
sweetest society prattle, after subduing an intense desire
to yank a handful of sunburnt, sandy hair from the head
lying back contentedly against the canvas of the steamer
chair, "had too much money. Mines, wasn't it? It was
something that paid something to the ton. You couldn't
get a glass of plain water in their house. Everything at
that ball was dreadfully overdone."

"It was," said Teddy.

"Such a crowd there was!" Octavia continued, con-
scious that she was talking the rapid drivel of a school-
girl describing her first dance. "The balconies were as
warm as the rooms. I -- lost -- something at that ball."
The last sentence was uttered in a tone calculated to
remove the barbs from miles of wire.

"So did I," confessed Teddy, in a lower voice.

"A glove," said Octavia, falling back as the enemy
approached her ditches.

"Caste," said Teddy, halting his firing line without
loss. "I hobnobbed, half the evening with one of
Hammersmith's miners, a fellow who kept his hands in
his pockets, and talked like an archangel about reduction
plants and drifts and levels and sluice-boxes."

"A pearl-gray glove, nearly new," sighed Octavia,
mournfully.

"A bang-up chap, that McArdle," maintained Teddy
approvingly. " A man who hated olives and elevators;
a man who handled mountains as croquettes, and built
tunnels in the air; a man who never uttered a word
of silly nonsense in his life. Did you sign those lease-
renewal applications yet, madama? They've got to be
on file in the land office by the thirty-first."

Teddy turned his head lazily. Octavia's chair was
vacant.

A certain centipede, crawling along the lines marked
out by fate, expounded the situation. It was early one
morning while Octavia and Mrs. Maclntyre were trim-
ming the honeysuckle on the west gallery. Teddy had
risen and departed hastily before daylight in response
to word that a flock of ewes had been scattered from their
bedding ground during the night by a thunder-storm.

The centipede, driven by destiny, showed himself on
the floor of the gallery, and then, the screeches of the two
women giving him his cue, he scuttled with all his yellow
legs through the open door into the furthermost west
room, which was Teddy's. Arming themselves with
domestic utensils selected with regard to their length,
Octavia and Mrs. Maclntyre, with much clutching of
skirts and skirmishing for the position of rear guard in
the attacking force, followed.

Once outside, the centipede seemed to have disappeared,
and his prospective murderers began a thorough but
cautious search for their victim.

Even in the midst of such a dangerous and absorbing
adventure Octavia was conscious of an awed curiosity
on finding herself in Teddy's sanctum. In that room
he sat alone, silently communing with those secret thoughts
that he now shared with no one, dreamed there whatever
dreams he now called on no one to interpret.

It was the room of a Spartan or a soldier. In one
corner stood a wide, canvas-covered cot; in another, a
small bookcase; in another, a grim stand of Winchesters
and shotguns. An immense table, strewn with letters,
papers and documents and surmounted by a set of pigeon-
holes, occupied one side.

The centipede showed genius in concealing himself
in such bare quarters. Mrs. Maclntyre was poking a
broom-handle behind the bookcase. Octavia approached
Teddy's cot. The room was just as the manager had left
it in his hurry. The Mexican maid had not yet given it
her attention. There was his big pillow with the imprint
of his head still in the centre. She thought the horrid
beast might have climbed the cot and hidden itself to bite
Teddy. Centipedes were thus cruel and vindictive
toward managers.

She cautiously overturned the pillow, and then parted
her lips to give the signal for reinforcements at sight of a
long, slender, dark object lying there. But, repressing
it in time, she caught up a glove, a pearl-gray glove,
flattened -- it might be conceived -- by many, many
months of nightly pressure beneath the pillow of the man
who had forgotten the Hammersmiths' ball. Teddy
must have left so hurriedly that morning that he had, for
once, forgotten to transfer it to its resting-place by day.
Even managers, who are notoriously wily and cunning,
are sometimes caught up with.

Octavia slid the gray glove into the bosom of her sum-
mery morning gown. It was hers. Men who put them-
selves within a strong barbed-wire fence, and remember
Hammersmith balls only by the talk of miners about sluice-
boxes, should not be allowed to possess such articles.

After all, what a paradise this prairie country was!
How it blossomed like the rose when you found things
that were thought to be lost! How delicious was that
morning breeze coming in the windows, fresh and sweet
with the breath of the yellow ratama blooms! Might one
not stand, for a minute, with shining, far-gazing eyes, and
dream that mistakes might be corrected?

Why was Mrs. Maclntyre poking about so absurdly
with a broom?

"I've found it," said Mrs. MacIntyre, banging the door.
"Here it is."

"Did you lose something? asked Octavia, with sweetly
polite non-interest.

"The little devil!" said Mrs. Maclntyre, driven to
violence. "Ye've no forgotten him alretty?"

Between them they slew the centipede. Thus was he
rewarded for his agency toward the recovery of things
lost at the Hammersmiths' ball.

It seems that Teddy, in due course, remembered the
glove, and when he returned to the house at sunset made
a secret but exhaustive search for it. Not until evening,
upon the moonlit eastern gallery, did he find it. It was
upon the hand that he had thought lost to him forever,
and so he was moved to repeat certain nonsense that he
had been commanded never, never to utter again. Teddy's
fences were down.

This time there was no ambition to stand in the way,
and the wooing was as natural and successful as should
be between ardent shepherd and gentle shepherdess.

The prairies changed to a garden. The Rancho de las
Sombras became the Ranch of Light.

A few days later Octavia received a letter from Mr.
Bannister, in reply to one she had written to him asking
some questions about her business. A portion of the
letter ran as follows:

"I am at a loss to account for your references to the
sheep ranch. Two months after your departure to take
up your residence upon it, it was discovered that Colonel
Beaupree's title was worthless. A deed came to light
showing that he disposed of the property before his death.
The matter was reported to your manager, Mr. Westlake,
who at once repurchad the property. It is entirely
beyond my powers of conjecture to imagine how you have
remained in ignorance of this fact. I beg you that will
at once confer with that gentleman, who will, at least,
corroborate my statement."

Octavia sought Teddy, with battle in her eye.

"What are you working on this ranch for?" she asked
once more.

"One hundred -- " he began to repeat, but saw in her
face that she knew. She held Mr. Bannister's letter in
her hand. He knew that the game was up.

"It's my ranch," said Teddy, like a schoolboy detected
in evil. "It's a mighty poor manager that isn't able to
absorb the boss's business if you give him time."

"Why were you working down here?" pursued Octavia
still struggling after the key to the riddle of Teddy.

"To tell the truth, 'Tave," said Teddy, with quiet
candour, "it wasn't for the salary. That about kept me
in cigars and sunburn lotions. I was sent south by my
doctor. 'Twas that right lung that was going to the bad
on account of over-exercise and strain at polo and gym-
nastics. I needed climate and ozone and rest and things
of that sort."

In an instant Octavia was close against the vicinity
of the affected organ. Mr. Bannister's letter fluttered
to the floor.

"It's -- it's well now, isn't it, Teddy?"

"Sound as a mesquite chunk. I deceived you in one
thing. I paid fifty thousand for your ranch as soon as
I found you had no title. I had just about that much
income accumulated at my banker's while I've been
herding sheep down here, so it was almost like picking the
thing up on a bargain-counter for a penny. There's
another little surplus of unearned increment piling up
there, 'Tave. I've been thinking of a wedding trip in a
yacht with white ribbons tied to the mast, through the
Mediterranean, and then up among the Hebrides and
down Norway to the Zuyder Zee."

"And I was thinking," said Octavia, softly, "of a
wedding gallop with my manager among the flocks of
sheep and back to a wedding breakfast with Mrs. Mae-
Intyre on the gallery, with, maybe, a sprig of orange
blossom fastened to the red jar above the table."

Teddy laughed, and began to chant:

     "Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep,
     And doesn't know where to find 'em.
     Let 'em alone, and they'll come home,
     And -- "

Octavia drew his head down, and whispered in his ear,
But that is one of the tales they brought behind them.