Plainly Barbee was something of a favourite here; further, being a visitor, he was potentially of interest to the men who had not been off the ranch for matters of weeks and months.  When Alan Howard and the professor picked up their conversation, and again Helen found herself monopolized by John Carr, from here and there about the table came pointed remarks to Yellow Barbee.  Helen, though she listened to Carr and was never unconscious of her father and Howard, understood, after the strange fashion of women, all that was being said about her.  Early she gathered that there was, somewhere in the world, a dashing young woman styled the ‘Widow.’  Further, she had the quick eyes to see that Barbee blushed when an old cattle-man with a roguish eye cleared his throat and made aloud some remark about Mrs. Murray.  Yes; Barbee the insolent, the swaggering, the worldly-wise and conceited Barbee, actually blushed.

Though the hour was late it was not yet dark when the meal was done.  Somehow Howard was at Helen’s side when they went to the living-room and out to the front porch; Carr started with them, hesitated and held back, finally stepping over for a word with an old Mexican.  Helen noted that Barbee had moved around the table and was talking with her father.  As she and Howard found chairs on the porch, Longstreet and Barbee passed them and went out, talking together.

Chapter V

The Good Old Sport

The Longstreets remained several days upon Desert Valley Ranch, as the wide holding had been known for half a century.  Also John Carr and his young retainer, Yellow Barbee, prolonged their stay.  It appeared that Carr had come over from some vague place still further toward the east upon some matter of business connected with the sale of this broad acreage; Carr had owned the outfit and managed it personally for a dozen years, and now was selling to Alan Howard.  It further devolved that Barbee had long been one of Carr’s best horsemen, hence a favourite of Carr, who loved good horses, and that he had accompanied his employer merely to help drive over to the ranch a small herd of colts which had been included in the sale but had not until now been delivered.  Carr was a great deal with Howard, and Howard managed to see a great deal of the Longstreets; as for Barbee, Helen met his insolent young eyes only at mealtimes.

‘My business is over,’ Carr confessed to Helen in the patio the next morning.  ’There’s no red tape and legal nonsense between Al and me.  To sell a ranch like this, when you know the other chap, is like selling a horse.  But,’ and his eyes roved from his cigar to a glimpse through an open door of wide rolling meadows and grazing stock, ’I guess I’m sort of homesick for it.  If it was to do over I don’t know that I’d sell it this morning.’

Helen had rested well last night; this morning she had thrilled anew to the world about her.  She thought that she had never seen such a sunrise; the day appeared almost to come leaping and shouting up out of the desert; the air of the morning, before the heat came, was nothing less than glorious.  Her eyes were bright; there was the flush of joyousness in her cheeks.