A Sagebrush Cinderella
Max Brand
9781465657930
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
She lay prone upon the floor, kicking her heels together, frowningly intent upon her book. Outside the sky was crimson with the sunset. Inside the room, every corner was filled with the gay fantoms of the age of chivalry. Jac would not raise her head, for if she kept her eyes upon the printed page it seemed to her that the armored knights were trooping about her rooms. A board creaked. That was from the running of some striped page with pointed toes. The wind made a soft rustling. That was the stir of the nodding plumes of the warriors. The pageantry of forgotten kings flowed brightly about her. “Jac!” Jacqueline frowned and shrugged her shoulders. “Jac!” She raised her head. The dreary board walls of her room looked back at her, empty, barren, a thousand miles and a thousand years from all romance. She closed her book as the door of her room opened and her father stood in the entrance. “Readin’ again!” said Jim During in infinite disgust. “Go down an’ wait on the table. The cook’s gone an’ got drunk. I’ve give him the run. Hurry up.” She shied the book into a corner and rose. “How many here for chow?” she asked. “Maurice Gordon an’ a lot of others,” said her father. “Start movin’!” She started. Handsome Maurice Gordon! She had only to close her eyes and there he stood in armor—Sir Maurice de Gordon! You might have combed the cattle ranges for five hundred miles north, east, south, and west, and never found so fine a figure of a man as Maurice Gordon. Good looks are rather a handicap than a blessing in the mountain desert, but “Maurie” Gordon was notably ready at all times for anything from a dance to a fight, and his reputation was accordingly as high among men as among women. He made a stir wherever he went, and now as he sat in the dining-room of Jim During’s crossroads hotel, all eyes were upon him. He withstood their critical admiration with the nonchalant good-nature of one who knew that, from his silk bandanna to his fine riding-boots, his outfit represented the beau-ideal of the cow-puncher.
