RETRIBUTION
Coles had advertised the auction sale of the mares
to take place immediately after the race and though
he would gladly have postponed it he had to live up
to his advertisement. Naturally the result was
disastrous. The ranchers had seen the ragged Alcatraz
win against the imported horses and they felt they
could only show their local patriotism by failing
to bid. There were one or two mocking offers of
a hundred dollars a head for the lot. “Something
pretty for my girl to ride,” as one of the ranchers
phrased it, laughing. The result was that every
one of the mares was knocked down to Marianne at a
ludicrously low price; so low that when it was over
and Coles strolled about with her to indicate the
size of her bargain she felt that she was moving in
a dream.
“It’s easy to see that you’re not
Western,” he said in the end, “but you
have a Western horse to thank for putting this deal
through—I mean Alcatraz.”
“He’s too ugly for that,” said Marianne,
and yet on her way back to the hotel she realized
that the sun-faded chestnut had truly proved a gold
mine to her. It had been, she felt, the luckiest
day of her business life, for she knew that the price
she had paid for the mares was less than half a reasonable
valuation of them. Here was her ranch ready stocked,
so to speak, with fine horses. It only needed,
now, to end the tyrannical sway of Lew Hervey and
in that fighting man of men, Red Perris, Marianne
felt that the solution lay.
Once in her room at the hotel, she looked about her
in some dismay. Of course she was merely an employer
receiving a prospective employee to examine his qualifications,
but she also remained, in spite of herself, a girl
receiving a man. She was glad that no one was
there to watch with quizzical eye as she rearranged
the furniture; she was doubly glad that he could not
watch her at the mirror. She gave herself the
most critical examination since she left the East
and on the whole she approved of the changes.
The stirring life in the open had darkened the olive
of her skin, she found, but also had made it more
translucent; the curve of her cheek was pleasantly
filled; her throat rounder; her head better poised.
And above all excitement gave her the vital color.
She paused at this point to wonder why a stray cowpuncher
should make her flush but immediately decided that
he had nothing to do with it; it was the purchase
of the mares that kept alive the little thrill of
happiness. But Marianne was essentially honest
and when her heart jumped as she heard a swift, light
step come down the hall and pause at her door, she
admitted at once that horses had nothing to do with
the matter.
She wished ardently that she had made the discovery
sooner. As it was, before she composed herself,
he had knocked, been bidden in and stood before her.
She knew, inwardly dismayed, that her eyes were wide,
her color high, and her whole expression one of childish
expectancy. It comforted her greatly to find
that he was hardly more at ease than she. He
made futile efforts to rub some dust from his shirt.
