The Quirt, Page 2

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE ENCHANTMENT OF LONG DISTANCE

  Lorraine Hunter always maintained that she was a Western girl. If shereached the point of furnishing details she would tell you that she hadridden horses from the time that she could walk, and that her father wasa cattle-king of Idaho, whose cattle fed upon a thousand hills. When shewas twelve she told her playmates exciting tales about rattlesnakes.When she was fifteen she sat breathless in the movies and watchedpicturesque horsemen careering up and down and around the thousandhills, and believed in her heart that half the Western pictures weretaken on or near her father's ranch. She seemed to remember certainlandmarks, and would point them out to her companions and whisper adesultory lecture on the cattle industry as illustrated by the picture.She was much inclined to criticism of the costuming and the acting.

  At eighteen she knew definitely that she hated the very name CasaGrande. She hated the narrow, half-lighted hallway with its "tree"where no one ever hung a hat, and the seat beneath where no one ever satdown. She hated the row of key-and-mail boxes on the wall, with the bellbuttons above each apartment number. She hated the jangling of the halltelephone, the scurrying to answer, the prodding of whichever bellbutton would summon the tenant asked for by the caller. She hated themeek little Filipino boy who swept that ugly hall every morning. Shehated the scrubby palms in front. She hated the pillars where the paintwas peeling badly. She hated the conflicting odors that seeped into theatmosphere at certain hours of the day. She hated the three old maids onthe third floor and the frowsy woman on the first, who sat on the frontsteps in her soiled breakfast cap and bungalow apron. She hated thenervous tenant who occupied the apartment just over her mother'sthree-room-and-bath, and pounded with a broom handle on the floor whenLorraine practised overtime on chromatic scales.

  At eighteen Lorraine managed somehow to obtain work in a Westernpicture, and being unusually pretty she so far distinguished herselfthat she was given a small part in the next production. Her gloriousduty it was to ride madly through the little cow-town "set" to thepost-office where the sheriff's posse lounged conspicuously, and therepull her horse to an abrupt stand and point excitedly to the distanthills. Also she danced quite close to the camera in the "Typical CowboyDance" which was a feature of this particular production.

  Lorraine thereby earned enough money to buy her fall suit and coat andcheap furs, and learned to ride a horse at a gallop and to dance whatpassed in pictures as a "square dance."

  At nineteen years of age Lorraine Hunter, daughter of old Brit Hunter ofthe TJ up-and-down, became a real "range-bred girl" with a real Stetsonhat of her own, a green corduroy riding skirt, gray flannel shirt,brilliant neckerchief, boots and spurs. A third picture gave her furtherpractice in riding a real horse,--albeit an extremely docile animalcalled Mouse with good reason. She became known on the lot as a realcattle-king's daughter, though she did not know the name of her father'sbrand and in all her life had seen no herd larger than the thirty headof tame cattle which were chased past the camera again and again to makethem look like ten thousand, and which were so thoroughly "camerabroke" that they stopped when they were out of the scene, turned andwere ready to repeat the performance _ad lib_.

  Had she lived her life on the Quirt ranch she would have known a greatdeal more about horseback riding and cattle and range dances. She wouldhave known a great deal less about the romance of the West, however, andshe would probably never have seen a sheriff's posse riding twentystrong and bunched like bird-shot when it leaves the muzzle of the gun.Indeed, I am very sure she would not. Killings such as her father heardof with his lips drawn tight and the cords standing out on the sides ofhis skinny neck she would have considered the grim tragedies they were,without once thinking of the "picture value" of the crime.

  As it was, her West was filled with men who died suddenly in gobs of redpaint and girls who rode loose-haired and panting with hand held overthe heart, hurrying for doctors, and cowboys and parsons and such. Shehad seen many a man whip pistol from holster and dare a mob with lipsdrawn back in a wolfish grin over his white, even teeth, and kidnappingswere the inevitable accompaniment of youth and beauty.

  Lorraine learned rapidly. In three years she thrilled to moreblood-curdling adventure than all the Bad Men in all the West could havefurnished had they lived to be old and worked hard at being bad alltheir lives. For in that third year she worked her way enthusiasticallythrough a sixteen-episode movie serial called "The Terror of the Range."She was past mistress of romance by that time. She knew her West.

  It was just after the "Terror of the Range" was finished that a greatrevulsion in the management of this particular company stoppedproduction with a stunning completeness that left actors and actressesfeeling very much as if the studio roof had fallen upon them. Lorraine'sWest vanished. The little cow-town "set" was being torn down to makeroom for something else quite different. The cowboys appeared intailored suits and drifted away. Lorraine went home to the Casa Grande,hating it more than ever she had hated it in her life.

  Some one up-stairs was frying liver and onions, which was in flagrantdefiance of Rule Four which mentioned cabbage, onions and fried fish asundesirable foodstuffs. Outside, the palm leaves were dripping in thenight fog that had swept soggily in from the ocean. Her mother wastrying to collect a gas bill from the dressmaker down the hall, whoprotested shrilly that she distinctly remembered having paid that gasbill once and had no intention of paying it twice.

  Lorraine opened the door marked LANDLADY, and closed it with a slamintended to remind her mother that bickerings in the hall were lessdesirable than the odor of fried onions. She had often spoken to hermother about the vulgarity of arguing in public with the tenants, buther mother never seemed to see things as Lorraine saw them.

  In the apartment sat a man who had been too frequent a visitor, asLorraine judged him. He was an oldish man with the lines of failure inhis face and on his lean form the sprightly clothing of youth. He hadbeen a reporter,--was still, he maintained. But Lorraine suspectedshrewdly that he scarcely made a living for himself, and that he washome-hunting in more ways than one when he came to visit her mother.

  The affair had progressed appreciably in her absence, it would appear.He greeted her with, a fatherly "Hello, kiddie," and would have kissedher had Lorraine not evaded him skilfully.

  Her mother came in then and complained intimately to the man, anddeclared that the dressmaker would have to pay that bill or have her gasturned off. He offered sympathy, assistance in the turning off of thegas, and a kiss which was perfectly audible to Lorraine in the nextroom. The affair had indeed progressed!

  "L'raine, d'you know you've got a new papa?" her mother called out inthe peculiar, chirpy tone she used when she was exuberantly happy. "Iknew you'd be surprised!"

  "I am," Lorraine agreed, pulling aside the cheap green portieres andlooked in upon the two. Her tone was unenthusiastic. "A superfluous giftof doubtful value. I do not feel the need of a papa, thank you. If youwant him for a husband, mother, that is entirely your own affair. I hopeyou'll be very happy."

  "The kid don't want a papa; husbands are what means the most in heryoung life," chuckled the groom, restraining his bride when she wouldhave risen from his knee.

  "I hope you'll both be very happy indeed," said Lorraine gravely. "Nowyou won't mind, mother, when I tell you that I am going to dad's ranchin Idaho. I really meant it for a vacation, but since you won't bealone, I may stay with dad permanently. I'm leaving to-morrow or thenext day--just as soon as I can pack my trunk and get a Pullman berth."

  She did not wait to see the relief in her mother's face contradictingthe expostulations on her lips. She went out to the telephone in thehall, remembered suddenly that her business would be overheard by halfthe tenants, and decided to use the public telephone in a hotel fartherdown the street. Her decision to go to her dad had been born with thewords on her lips. But it was a lusty, full-voiced young decision, andit was growing at an amazing rate.

  Of course s
he would go to her dad in Idaho! She was astonished that theidea had never before crystallized into action. Why should she feed herimagination upon a mimic West, when the great, glorious real West wasthere? What if her dad had not written a word for more than a year? Hemust be alive; they would surely have heard of his death, for she andRoyal were his sole heirs, and his partner would have their address.

  She walked fast and arrived at the telephone booth so breathless thatshe was compelled to wait a few minutes before she could call hernumber. She inquired about trains and rates to Echo, Idaho.

  Echo, Idaho! While she waited for the information clerk to look it upthe very words conjured visions of wide horizons and clean winds andhigh adventure. If she pictured Echo, Idaho, as being a replica of the"set" used in the movie serial, can you wonder? If she saw herself, thebeloved queen of her father's cowboys, dashing into Echo, Idaho, on acrimply-maned broncho that pirouetted gaily before the post-office whilehandsome young men in chaps and spurs and "big four" Stetsons watchedher yearningly, she was merely living mentally the only West that sheknew.

  From that beatific vision Lorraine floated into others more entrancing.All the hairbreadth escapes of the heroine of the movie serial werehers, adapted by her native logic to fit within the bounds ofpossibility,--though I must admit they bulged here and there andthreatened to overlap and to encroach upon the impossible. Over thehills where her father's vast herds grazed, sleek and wild andlong-horned and prone to stampede, galloped the Lorraine of Lorraine'sdreams, on horses sure-footed and swift. With her galloped strong menwhose faces limned the features of her favorite Western "lead."

  That for all her three years of intermittent intimacy with adisillusioning world of mimicry, her dreams were pure romance, provedthat Lorraine had still the unclouded innocence of her girlhoodunspoiled.