Argosy, Volume XXIII — Index Page, 1897 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A CAMPAIGN OF STRATEGY. 585 The acquaintance seemed mutually pleasant, and the young man secured © permission to escort her to the little town of EKhrenburg on the Colorado. The ranch was twenty odd miles to the southeast, and when, through some misunderstanding, no one appeared at the town to meet the young lady, it was manifestly the duty as well as the privilege of Kingsford to continue his guardianship to the ranch. The trip was easily made between sunrise and sunset, and the young man was received as hospitably as the young woman. His prepossessing appearance and manners, his skill as a horseman and with rifle and pistol, won upon the cowboys at once. He could not refuse their in- vitation to spend a week or two with them. In fact, since he possessed the means, he held serious thoughts of entering into the cattle business, the prin- cipal occupation of the people in that section. But the time came all too soon, when good taste forced him to bid his friends farewell for a season. Miss Warren expected to return eastward, when the weather became more bearable, and in making his own calculations, it need hardly be said that the young man assured himself he would be journeying in the same direction at about the same time. At Ehrenburg whom should he find but an old friend and college mate, who being weakened by pulmonary trouble, had gone thither for the benefit of the dry, equable climate. The poor fellow, however, had waited too long, and Kingsford saw that he was doomed. It was true comradeship that caused him to stay with the grateful invalid, until his life went out like the snuffing of a candle. The friend did everything possible to soothe his last hours. He took charge of his effects, wrote the particulars of his decease to his parents, attended to every want, and finally shipped the body to its home. Left alone at last, it seemed proper to Kingsford, who had kept Miss Warren informed of his whereabouts and doings, that he should make a brief call upon his old acquaintances before leaving the Territory. He had received several pressing invitations from them, and his reply was that as soon as he could complete all his duties, he would ride over to the ranch and remain for a few days. Now it was not unnatural that when the ardent lover found himself draw- ing near the home of the one that was dearer than all the world to him, he should feel some qualms as to the innate propriety of the step. Without analyzing his emotions, let it suffice that because of this diffidence and doubt, he decided to make a change in the direct course he had been pursuing, pause a while at the ranch of Gannet, with whom he had become well ac- quainted, and ride northward at a more seemly and deliberate pace. He was yet beyond sight of the ranch, when he descried a single horse- man approaching him at a walk from the eastward. Kingsford had been in the Southwest long enough to understand the need of circumspection in meeting strangers, and while yet a considerable distance separated them, he brought his glass into use and carefully studied the man, who changed the course of his pony, as if desirous of joining him. The result of this scrutiny was the discovery that the man was the hired cowboy or herder of Austin Gannet, who bore the odd sobriquet of Bumble Bee Beebe. He identified Kingsford almost at the same moment and swung Conmiceoooks 2) (EO)