Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/124

 full of them, a campus full of them, hospitals full of them, flitting in white uniforms and dainty caps, eyes all set for a young doctor, but none of them that made the heart quicken like this Elizabeth of the country west of Dodge.

His discernment must have been at low ebb that first night, he thought with scorn, when he had compared the color of her hair to new cider. It was comparable to no beverage so base as cider, but something more rare, more precious and volatile. Champagne, perhaps, although his acquaintance with that liquor was vague.

Elizabeth came back almost immediately, wearing a dark-blue sailor hat which made her look very summery, together with some kind of a light dress—with adorable little sprangles of pink flowers in it—that gave her a joyous and sprightly air. If Dr. Hall had known that she had put the dress on in anticipation of his coming, he would have been completely undone. As it was, he did not even suspect it. When a man is young, he knows so little about the ladies; when he is keen enough to understand them, he is too old for the wisdom to do him any good.

There was a picture of General Custer in the room where the prodigious piano stood; Major Cottrell wished the doctor to see it before going, for he held it above all the trophies and treasures of his campaigning days. Mrs. Cottrell and Elizabeth did the honors, Major Cottrell calling attention to the portrait's subtle excellence in loud voice—to the peril of his lately punctured lung—from his place by the window in the adjoining room.

The picture probably was a libel on the illustrious original—it had been enlarged from a small photograph,