Read Me Smith for Free Online Page B

gait, while he viewed the surrounding country with the thoughtful consideration of a prospective purchaser. As he gazed, its possibilities grew upon him. If water was to be found somewhere in the Bad Lands the location of the ranch was ideal for—certain purposes.
    The Bar C cattle-range bounded the reservation on the west; the MacDonald ranch, as it was still called, after the astute Scotch squawman who had built it, was close to the reservation line; and beyond the sheltering Bad Lands to the northeast was a ranch where lived certain friendly persons with whom he had had most satisfactory business relations in the past.
    A plan began to take definite shape in his active brain, but the head of a sleepy white pony appearing above the next rise temporarily changed the course of his thoughts, and with his recognition of its rider life took on an added zest.
    Dora Marshall, engrossed in thought, did not see Smith until he pulled his hat-brim in salutation and said:
    “You’re a thinker, I take it.”
    “I find my work here absorbing,” she replied, coloring under his steady look.
    He turned his horse and swung it into the road beside her.
    “I was just millin’ around and thought I’d ride down the road and meet you.” Further than this brief explanation, he did not seem to feel it incumbent upon him to make conversation. Apparently entirely at his ease in the silence which followed, he turned his head often and stared at her with a frank interest which he made no effort to conceal. Finally he shifted his weight to one stirrup and, turning in his saddle so that he faced her, he asked bluntly:
    “That look in your eyes—that look as if you hadn’t nothin’ to hide—is it true? Is it natural, as you might say, or do you just put it on?”
    Her astonished expression led him to explain.
    “It’s like lookin’ down deep into water that’s so clear you can see the sand shinin’ in the bottom; one of these places where there’s no mud or black spots; nothin’ you can’t see or understand. Sabe what I mean?”
    Since she did not answer, he continued:
    “I’ve met up with women before now that had that same look, but only at first. It didn’t last; they could put it on and take it off like they did their hats.”
    “I don’t know that I am quite sure what you mean,” the girl replied, embarrassed by the personal nature of his questions and comments; “but if you mean to imply that I affect this or that expression, for a purpose, you misjudge me.”
    “I was just askin’,” said Smith.
    “I think I am always honest of purpose,” the girl went on slowly, “and when one is that, I think it shows in one’s eyes. To be sure, I often fall short of my intentions. I mean to do right, and almost as frequently do wrong.”
    “You do?” He eyed her with quick intentness.
    “Yes, don’t you? Don’t all of us?”
    “I does what I aims to do,” he replied ambiguously.
    So she—this girl with eyes like two deep springs—did wrong—frequently. He pondered the admission for a long time. Smith’s exact ideas of right and wrong would have been difficult to define; the dividing line, if there were any, was so vague that it had never served as the slightest restraint. “To do what you aim to do, and make a clean get-away”—that was the successful life.
    He had seen things, it is true; there had been incidents and situations which had repelled him, but why, he had never asked himself. There was one situation in particular to which his mind frequently reverted, as it did now. He had known worse women than the one who had figured in it, but for some reason this single scene was impressed upon his mind with a vividness which seemed never to grow less.
    He saw a woman seated at an old-fashioned organ in a country parlor. There was a rag-carpet on the floor—he remembered how springy it was with the freshly laid straw underneath it. Her husband held a lamp that she might see the notes, while his other hand was