Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/66

 to time during the hour or more he had been talking with Nearing on the porch. A fitting instrument, Barrett thought, for expressing the capricious wilfulness which must lie in that young lady's heart. Something wild there was in it, such as this barbarian instrument might relieve, and comfort with its mellow cadence, its treasured secrets and heroic memories of its thousand years.

His thought trailed off on this new and more pleasant speculation. There was one, with her Grecian hair, who would rise to heroic heights if there was any more romance in this dun world to live, indeed. It might never come to her to sacrifice for love and honor and the dear and precious things such as the women of old days gave their all for before their gods. Should romance ever dawn again, and involve her in its tragedies and loves and recompenses, there was one to rise to its heights like a young eagle in the glad morning sun.

"So, a few days around the ranch," said Nearing—Barrett noted that all of them spoke of the home place invariably as the ranch, the rest of it usually as the Diamond Tail—"to get your bearings and harden a little to the saddle, then you can go out and take up your duties at Eagle Rock camp."

"There is so much to learn," said Barrett, "that I'd like to begin as soon as I can, Don't think I'm ungrateful for the hospitality of this house, sir, when I say I'd like to go on the job tomorrow."

"I suppose it's just as well, Ed. The quicker you begin the sooner you'll get enough of it," Nearing laughed.