Wildfire Part 24

"It is. Why, you've known me only a few days.... Dad would be mad. Like as not he'd knock you down.... I tell you, Lin, my dad is--is pretty rough. And just at this time of the races.... And if Wildfire beats the King! ... Whew!"

"WHEN Wildfire beats the King, not IF," corrected Slone.

"Dad will be dangerous," warned Lucy. "Please don't---don't ask him that. Then everybody would know I--I--you---you--"

"That's it. I want everybody at your home to know."

"But it's a little place," flashed Lucy. "Every one knows me. I'm the only girl. There have been--other fellows who.... And oh! I don't want you made fun of!"

"Why?" he asked.

Lucy turned away her head without answering. Something deep within her was softening her anger. She must fight to keep angry; and that was easy enough, she thought, if she could only keep in mind Slone's opposition to her. Strangely, she discovered that it had been sweet to find him always governed by her desire or will.

"Maybe you misunderstand," he began, presently. And his voice was not steady. "I don't forget I'm only--a beggarly rider. I couldn't have gone into the Ford at all--I was such a ragam.u.f.fin--"

"Don't talk like that!" interrupted Lucy, impatiently.

"Listen," he replied. "My askin' Bostil for you doesn't mean I've any hope. ... It's just I want him an' everybody to know that I asked."

"But Dad--everybody will think that YOU think there's reason--why--I--why, you OUGHT to ask," burst out Lucy, with scarlet face.

"Sure, that's it," he replied.

"But there's no reason. None! Not a reason under the sun," retorted Lucy, hotly. "I found you out here. I did you a--a little service. We planned to race Wildfire. And I came out to ride him.... That's all."

Slone's dark, steady gaze disconcerted Lucy. "But, no one knows me, and we've been alone in secret."

"It's not altogether--that. I--I told Auntie," faltered Lucy.

"Yes, just lately."

"Lin Slone, I'll never forgive you if you ask Dad that," declared Lucy, with startling force.

"I reckon that's not so important."

"Oh!--so you don't care." Lucy felt herself indeed in a mood not comprehensible to her. Her blood raced. She wanted to be furious with Slone, but somehow she could not wholly be so. There was something about him that made her feel small and thoughtless and selfish. Slone had hurt her pride. But the thing that she feared and resented and could not understand was the strange gladness Slone's declaration roused in her. She tried to control her temper so she could think. Two emotions contended within her--one of intense annoyance at the thought of embarra.s.sment surely to follow Slone's action, and the other a vague, disturbing element, all sweet and furious and inexplicable. She must try to dissuade him from approaching her father.

"Please don't go to Dad." She put a hand on Slone's arm as he stood close up to Wildfire.

"I reckon I will," he said.

"Lin!" In that word there was the subtle, nameless charm of an intimacy she had never granted him until that moment. He seemed drawn as if by invisible wires. He put a shaking hand on hers and crushed her gauntleted fingers. And Lucy, in the current now of her woman's need to be placated if not obeyed, pressed her small hand to his. How strange to what lengths a little submission to her feeling had carried her!

Every spoken word, every movement, seemed to exact more from her. She did not know herself.

"Lin! ... Promise not to--speak to Dad!"

"No." His voice rang.

"Don't give me away--don't tell my Dad!"

"What?" he queried, incredulously.

Lucy did not understand what. But his amazed voice, his wide-open eyes of bewilderment, seemed to aid her into piercing the maze of her own mind. A hundred thoughts whirled together, and all around them was wrapped the warm, strong feeling of his hand on hers. What did she mean that he would tell her father? There seemed to be a deep, hidden self in her. Up out of these depths came a whisper, like a ray of light, and it said to her that there was more hope for Lin Slone than he had ever had in one of his wildest dreams.

"Lin, if you tell Dad--then he'll know--and there WON'T be any hope for you!" cried Lucy, honestly.

If Slone caught the significance of her words he did not believe it.

"I'm goin' to Bostil after the race an' ask him. That's settled,"

declared Slone, stubbornly.

At this Lucy utterly lost her temper. "Oh! you--you fool!" she cried.

Slone drew back suddenly as if struck, and a spot of dark blood leaped to his lean face. "No! It seems to me the right way."

"Right or wrong there's no sense in it--because--because. Oh! can't you see?"

"I see more than I used to," he replied. "I was a fool over a horse.

An' now I'm a fool over a girl.... I wish you'd never found me that day!"

Lucy whirled in the saddle and made Wildfire jump. She quieted him, and, leaping off, threw the bridle to Slone. "I won't ride your horse in the race!" she declared with sudden pa.s.sion. She felt herself shaking all over.

"Lucy Bostil, I wish I was as sure of Heaven as I am you'll be up on Wildfire in that race," he said.

"I won't ride your horse."

"MY horse. Oh, I see.... But you'll ride Wildfire."

"I won't."

Slone suddenly turned white, and his eyes flashed dark fire. "You won't be able to help ridin' him any more than I could help it."

"A lot you know about me, Lin Slone!" returned Lucy, with scorn. "I can be as--as bull-headed as you, any day."

Slone evidently controlled his temper, though his face remained white.

He even smiled at her.

"You are Bostil's daughter," he said.

"Yes."

"You are blood an' bone, heart an' soul a rider, if any girl ever was.

You're a wonder with a horse--as good as any man I ever saw. You love Wildfire. An' look--how strange! That wild stallion--that killer of horses, why he follows you, he whistles for you, he runs like lightnin'

for you; he LOVES you."

Slone had attacked Lucy in her one weak point. She felt a force rending her. She dared not look at Wildfire. Yes--all, that was true Slone had said. How desperately hard to think of forfeiting the great race she knew she could win!

"Never! I'll never ride your Wildfire AGAIN!" she said, very, low.