Her Prairie Knight

by B. M. Bower

Overview

"By George, look behind us! I fancy we are going to have a storm." Four heads turned as if governed by one brain; four pairs of eyes, of varied color and character, swept the wind-blown wilderness of tender green, and gazed questioningly at the high-piled thunderheads above. A small boy, with an abundance of yellow curls and white collar, almost precipitated himself into the prim lap of a lady on the rear seat."Auntie, will God have fireworks? Say, auntie, will He? Can I say prayers widout kneelin' down'? Uncle Redmon' crowds so. I want to pray for fireworks, auntie. Can I?""Do sit down, Dorman. You'll fall under the wheel, and then auntie would not have any dear little boy. Dorman, do you hear me? Redmond, do take that child down! How I wish Parks were here. I shall have nervous prostration within a fortnight."Sir Redmond Hayes plucked at the white collar, and the small boy retired between two masculine forms of no mean proportions. His voice, however, rose higher."You'll get all the fireworks you want, young man, without all that hullabaloo," remarked the driver, whom Dorman had been told, at the depot twenty miles back, he must call his Uncle Richard."I love storms," came cheerfully from the rear seat-but the voice was not the prim voice of "auntie." "Do you have thunder and lightning out here, Dick?""We do," assented Dick. "We don't ship it from the East in refrigerator cars, either. It grows wild."The cheerful voice was heard to giggle."Richard," came in tired, reproachful accents from a third voice behind him, "you were reared in the East. I trust you have not formed the pernicious habit of speaking slightingly of your birthplace."That, Dick knew, was his mother. She had not changed appreciably since she had nagged him through his teens. Not having seen her since, he was certainly in a position to judge."Trix asked about the lightning," he said placatingly, just as he was accustomed to do, during the nagging period. "I was telling her.""Beatrice has a naturally inquiring mind," said the tired voice, laying reproving stress upon the name."Are you afraid of lightning, Sir Redmond?" asked the cheerful girl-voice.4Sir Redmond twisted his neck to smile back at her. "No, so long as it doesn't actually chuck me over."After that there was silence, so far as human voices went, for a time."How much farther is it, Dick?" came presently from the girl.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442935860
Publisher:	ReadHowYouWant
Publication date:	07/13/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	320 KB

About the Author

Bertha Muzzy Sinclair or Sinclair-Cowan, née Muzzy (November 15, 1871 - July 23, 1940), best known by her pseudonym B. M. Bower, was an American author who wrote novels, fictional short stories, and screenplays about the American Old West.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER III. A Tilt With Sir Redmond. Beatrice, standing on the top of a steep, grassy slope, was engaged in the conventional pastime of enjoying the view. It was a fine view, but it was not half as good to look upon as was Beatrice herself, in her fresh white waist and brown skirt, with her brown hair fluffing softly in the breeze which would grow to a respectable wind later in the day, and with her cheeks pink from climbing. She was up where she could see the river, a broad band of blue in the surrounding green, winding away for miles through the hills. The far bank stood a straight two hundred feet of gay-colored rock, chiseled, by time and stress of changeful weather, into fanciful turrets and towers. Above and beyond, where the green began, hundreds of moving dots told where the cattle were feeding quietly. Far away to the south heaps of hazy blue and purple slept in the sunshine; Dick had told her those were the Highwoods. And away to thewest a jagged line of blue-white glimmered and stood upon tip-toes to touch the swimming clouds touched them and pushed above proudly; those were the Rockies. The Bear Paws stood behind her; nearer they were so near they lost the glamor of mysterious blue shadows, and became merely a sprawling group of huge, pine-covered hills, with ranches dotted here and there in sheltered places, with squares of fresh, dark green that spoke of growing crops. Ten days, and the metropolitan East had faded and become as hazy and vague as the Highwoods. Ten days, and the witchery of the West leaped in her blood and held her fast in its thralldom. A sound of scrambling behind her was immediately followed by a smothered epithet. Beatrice turned in time to seeSir Redmond pick himself up. "These grass slopes are confounded slippery, don't you ...