Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/222

210 Together the two men examined the sketchy, incomplete work that Brainerd had managed to accomplish.

"I have lacked health, and I have lacked means," said the elder, frankly, "so I have not here a prosperous money-making plant, such as I should have. But it makes me a decent living; and, what is more, it brings me a living every year. Dry seasons don't bother me a bit. As to this sagebrush upland you were laughing about"

Daphne, her wardrobe renewed, no longer concealed herself. The gangly, bare-legged child of yesterday was suddenly forgotten, as though it had never been. Not by a flicker of the eyelash did Daphne acknowledge that such a creature had ever existed; and there was that, not in but back of her manner, that withered even a recollection of it. Only her extraordinary vital energy, her wayward elfish fancy playing quaintly over everyday things, and her headlong zest in living she carried over with her into the new phase. Once she had determined that Kenneth came sympathetically to the life she and her father lived at the Bungalow, she took him on wholeheartedly; and, as to a friend visiting for the first time, she was all eagerness to take him about and show him hidden lands. Generally they went on horseback. Daphne led, very mysterious as to their destination; very chatty in comment of the things they saw by the way. The dogs invariably accompanied them, creating great disturbance in the colonies of ground squirrels. The first rain had cleared promptly and no more had come. The sun shone warmly. A timid green lay snuggled beneath the dead grasses.

"Keeping warm under a fur coat," said Daphne.

She knew intimately every nook and cranny in the hills; every grove of oaks; every secret cañon from the ranges. To some quaint or beautiful or cozy objective she led Kenneth on each of their rides. He learned to know when to exclaim by the small, triumphant air of expectation she assumed when they had reached their journey's end—a still dark pool beneath fragrant bay trees; a fantastic old tree twisted by long-dead gales; a flat rock looking down on the blue of deep cañons; a slope of shingle where the sun lay warm and the spicy odour of Lad's