Ill be hanged if I know, a tall, blond man in a light summer suit responded from the car; and the next moment Dick Forrest and Evan Graham were shaking hands.
Oh My and Oh Ho carried in the hand baggage, and Dick accompanied his guest to the watch tower quarters.
Youll have to get used to us, old man, Dick was explaining. We run the ranch like clockwork, and the servants are wonders; but we allow ourselves all sorts of loosenesses. If youd arrived two minutes later thered have been no one to welcome you but the Chinese boys. I was just going for a ride, and Paula Mrs. Forrest has disappeared.
The two men were almost of a size, Graham topping his host by perhaps an inch, but losing that inch in the comparative breadth of shoulders and depth of chest. Graham was, if anything, a clearer blond than Forrest, although both were equally gray of eye, equally clear in the whites of the eyes, and equally and precisely similarly bronzed by sun and weather-beat. Grahams features were in a slightly larger mold; his eyes were a trifle longer, although this was lost again by a heavier droop of lids. His nose hinted that it was a shade straighter as well as larger than Dicks, and his lips were a shade thicker, a shade redder, a shade more bowed with fulsomeness.
Forrests hair was light brown to chestnut, while Grahams carried a whispering advertisement that it would have been almost golden in its silk had it not been burned almost to sandiness by the sun. The cheeks of both were high-boned, although the hollows under Forrests cheekbones were more pronounced. Both noses were large-nostriled and sensitive. And both mouths, while generously proportioned, carried the impression of
girlish sweetness and chastity along with the muscles that could draw the lips to the firmness and harshness that would not give the lie to the square, uncleft chins beneath.
But the inch more in height and the inch less in chest-girth gave Evan Graham a grace of body and carriage that Dick Forrest did not possess. In this particular of build, each served well as a foil to the other. Graham was all light and delight, with a hint but the slightest of hints of Prince Charming. Forrests seemed a more efficient and formidable organism, more dangerous to other life, stouter-gripped on its own life.
Forrest threw a glance at his wrist watch as he talked, but in that glance, without pause or fumble of focus, with swift certainty of correlation, he read the dial.
Eleven-thirty, he said. Come along at once, Graham. We dont eat till twelve-thirty. I am sending out a shipment of bulls, three hundred of them, and Im downright proud of them. You simply must see them. Never mind your riding togs. Oh Ho fetch a pair of my leggings. You, Oh Joy, order Altadena saddled. What saddle do you prefer, Graham?
Oh, anything, old man.
English? Australian? McClellan? Mexican? Dick insisted.
McClellan, if its no trouble, Graham surrendered.
They sat their horses by the side of the road and watched the last of the herd beginning its long journey to Chili disappear around the bend.
I see what youre doing its great, Graham said with sparkling eyes. Ive fooled some myself with the critters, when I was a youngster, down in the Argentine. If Id had beef-blood like that to build on, I mightnt have taken the cropper I did.
But that was before alfalfa and artesian wells, Dick smoothed for him. The time wasnt ripe for the Shorthorn. Only scrubs could survive the droughts. They were strong in staying powers but light on the scales. And refrigerator steamships hadnt been invented. Thats what revolutionized the game down there.
Besides, I was a mere youngster, Graham added. Though that meant nothing much. There was a young German tackled it at the same time I did, with a tenth of my capital. He hung it out, lean years, dry years, and all. Hes rated in seven figures now.
They turned their horses back for the Big House. Dick flirted his wrist to see his watch.
Lots of time, he assured his guest. Im glad you saw those yearlings. There was one reason why that young German stuck it out. He had to. You had your fathers money to fall back on, and, I imagine not only that your feet itched, but that your chief weakness lay in that you could afford to solace the itching.
Over there are the fish ponds, Dick said, indicating with a nod of his head to the right an invisible area beyond the lilacs. Youll have plenty of opportunity to catch a mess of trout, or bass, or even catfish. You see, Im a miser. I love to make things work. There may be a justification for the eight-hour labor day, but I make the work-day of water just twenty-four hours long. The ponds are in series, according to the nature of the fish. But the water starts working up in the mountains. It irrigates a score of mountain meadows before it makes the plunge and is clarified to crystal clearness in the next few rugged miles; and at the plunge from the highlands it generates half the power and all the lighting used on the ranch. Then it sub-irrigates lower levels, flows in here to the fish ponds, and runs out and irrigates miles of alfalfa farther on. And, believe me, if by that time it hadnt reached the flat of the Sacramento, Id be pumping out the drainage for more irrigation.