Silvermane by Zane Grey

Author:Zane Grey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2014-09-24T04:00:00+00:00

II

From that hour dated Monty’s apparent subjection. He accepted himself at Rebecca’s valuation—that of a very small hired boy. Monty believed he had a way with girls, and at any rate that way had never been tried upon this imperious young Mormon miss. Monty made good his boast about being a master hand at the milking of cows. He surprised Rebecca, although she did not guess he saw it. For the rest Monty never looked at her—when she was looking—never addressed her, never gave her the slightest hint that her sex was manifest to him.

Now he knew perfectly well that his appearance did not tally with this kind of a cowboy. She realized it and was puzzled, but evidently he was a novelty. At first Monty sensed a slight antagonism of the Mormon against the Gentile, but in the case of Mrs. Keitch he never noticed this at all, and less and less from the girl.

The feeling of being in some sort of a trance persisted with Monty, and he could not account for it, unless it was the charm of this lonely Cañon Walls Ranch, combined with the singular attraction of its young mistress. Monty had not been there three days when he realized that sooner or later he would fall, and great would be the fall thereof. But his sincere and ever-growing admiration for Widow Keitch held him true to his inherent sincerity. It would not hurt him to have a terrible case over Rebecca, and he resigned himself. Nothing could come of it, except perhaps to chasten him. Ordinarily he would never let her dream of such a thing. She just gradually and imperceptibly grew on Monty. There was nothing strange in this. Wherever Monty had ridden, there had always been some girl before that he had bowed down. She might be a fright—a lanky, slab-sided, red-headed country girl, but that made no difference. His comrades had called him Smoke Bellew, because of his propensity for raising so much smoke where there was not any fire.

Sunday brought a change at the Keitch household. Rebecca appeared in a white dress, and Monty caught his breath. He worshipped from a safe distance through the leaves. Presently a two-seated buckboard drove up to the ranch house, and Rebecca lost no time climbing in with the young people. They drove off, of course, to church at the village of White Sage, some half dozen miles across the line. Monty thought it odd that Mrs. Keitch did not go.

There had been many a time in Monty’s life when the loneliness and solitude of these dreaming cañon walls would have been maddening. But Monty found strange ease and solace here. He had entered upon a new era of thinking. He hated to think that it might not last. But it would last if the shadow of the past did not fall on Cañon Walls.

At 1:00 p.m. Rebecca returned with her friends in the buckboard, and presently Monty was summoned to dinner, by no less than Mrs.

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