But if she's as young as they say, she could have waited a bit for the
oof-bird to fly her way. Lots of men have money as well as looks.
Anyhow, I'm ready to take his cattle off his hands on a fair, square
deal, and if his girl-missis is what they say, I wouldn't mind--"

Having said this, he giggled and giggled again at his unspoken
impertinence. He knew he had almost said something fatuous, but the
suppressed idea appealed to him, nevertheless; for whatever he did, he
always had a vision of doing something else; and wherever he was, he was
always fancying himself to be somewhere else. That was the strain of
romance in him which came from his mixed ancestry. It was the froth
and bubble of a dreamer's legacy, which had made his mother, always
unconsciously theatrical, have a vision of a life on the prairies, with
the white mountains in the distance, where her beloved son would be
master of a vast domain, over which he should ride like one of Cortez'
conquistadores. Having "money to burn," she had, at a fortunate moment,
bought the ranch which, by accident, had done well from the start, and
bade fair, through the giggling astuteness of her spectacular son, to do
far better still by design.

On the first day of their arrival at Slow Down Ranch, the mother had
presented Orlando with a most magnificent Mexican bridle and head-stall
covered with silver conchs, and a saddle with stirrups inlaid with
silver. Wherefore, it was no wonder that most people stared and
wondered, while some sneered and some even hated. On the whole, however,
Orlando Guise was in the way of making a place for himself in the West in
spite of natural drawbacks.

Old Mazarine did not merely sneer as he saw the gay cavalier approach,
he snorted; and he would have blasphemed, if he had not been a professing