CHAPTER II
THE ENCHANTMENT OF LONG DISTANCE
Lorraine Hunter always maintained that she was a Western girl. If shereached the point of furnishing details she would tell you that she hadridden horses from the time that she could walk, and that her fatherwas a cattle-king of Idaho, whose cattle fed upon a thousand hills.When she was twelve she told her playmates exciting tales aboutrattlesnakes. When she was fifteen she sat breathless in the moviesand watched picturesque horsemen careering up and down and around thethousand hills, and believed in her heart that half the Westernpictures were taken on or near her father's ranch. She seemed toremember certain landmarks, and would point them out to her companionsand whisper a desultory lecture on the cattle industry as illustratedby the picture. She was much inclined to criticism of the costumingand the acting.
At eighteen she knew definitely that she hated the very name CasaGrande. She hated the narrow, half-lighted hallway with its "tree"where no one ever hung a hat, and the seat beneath where no one eversat down. She hated the row of key-and-mail boxes on the wall, withthe bell buttons above each apartment number. She hated the janglingof the hall telephone, the scurrying to answer, the prodding ofwhichever bell button would summon the tenant asked for by the caller.She hated the meek little Filipino boy who swept that ugly hall everymorning. She hated the scrubby palms in front. She hated the pillarswhere the paint was peeling badly. She hated the conflicting odoursthat seeped into the atmosphere at certain hours of the day. She hatedthe three old maids on the third floor and the frowsy woman on thefirst, who sat on the front steps in her soiled breakfast cap andbungalow apron. She hated the nervous tenant who occupied theapartment just over her mother's three-room-and-bath, and pounded witha broom handle on the floor when Lorraine practised overtime onchromatic scales.
At eighteen Lorraine managed somehow to obtain work in a Westernpicture, and being unusually pretty she so far distinguished herselfthat she was given a small part in the next production. Her gloriousduty it was to ride madly through the little cow-town "set" to thepost-office where the sheriff's posse lounged conspicuously, and therepull her horse to an abrupt stand and point quite excitedly to thedistant hills. Also she danced quite close to the camera in the"Typical Cowboy Dance" which was a feature of this particularproduction.
Lorraine thereby earned enough money to buy her fall suit and coat andcheap furs, and learned to ride a horse at a gallop and to dance whatpassed in pictures as a "square dance."
At nineteen years of age Lorraine Hunter, daughter of old Brit Hunterof the TJ up-and-down, became a real "range-bred girl" with a realStetson hat of her own, a green corduroy riding skirt, gray flannelshirt, brilliant neckerchief, boots and spurs. A third picture gaveher further practice in riding a real horse,--albeit an extremelydocile animal called Mouse with good reason. She became known on thelot as a real cattle-king's daughter, though she did not know the nameof her father's brand and in all her life had seen no herd larger thanthe thirty head of tame cattle which were chased past the camera againand again to make them look like ten thousand, and which were sothoroughly "camera broke" that they stopped when they were out of thescene, turned and were ready to repeat the performance _ad lib_.
Had she lived her life on the Quirt ranch she would have known a greatdeal more about horseback riding and cattle and range dances. Shewould have known a great deal less about the romance of the West,however, and she would probably never have seen a sheriff's posseriding twenty strong and bunched like bird-shot when it leaves themuzzle of the gun. Indeed, I am very sure she would not. Killingssuch as her father heard of with his lips drawn tight and the cordsstanding out on the sides of his skinny neck she would have consideredthe grim tragedies they were, without once thinking of the "picturevalue" of the crime.
As it was, her West was filled with men who died suddenly in gobs ofred paint and girls who rode loose-haired and panting with hand heldover the heart, hurrying for doctors, and cowboys and parsons and such.She had seen many a man whip pistol from holster and dare a mob withlips drawn back in a wolfish grin over his white, even teeth, andkidnappings were the inevitable accompaniment of youth and beauty.
Lorraine learned rapidly. In three years she thrilled to moreblood-curdling adventure than all the Bad Men in all the West couldhave furnished had they lived to be old and worked hard at being badall their lives. For in that third year she worked her wayenthusiastically through a sixteen-episode movie serial called "TheTerror of the Range." She was past mistress of romance by that time.She knew her West.
It was just after the "Terror of the Range" was finished that a greatrevulsion in the management of this particular company stoppedproduction with a stunning completeness that left actors and actressesfeeling very much as if the studio roof had fallen upon them.Lorraine's West vanished. The little cow-town "set" was being torndown to make room for something else quite different. The cowboysappeared in tailored suits and drifted away. Lorraine went home to theCasa Grande, hating it more than ever she had hated it in her life.
Some one up-stairs was frying liver and onions, which was in flagrantdefiance of the Rule Four which mentioned cabbage, onions and friedfish as undesirable foodstuffs. Outside, the palm leaves were drippingin the night fog that had swept soggily in from the ocean. Her motherwas trying to collect a gas bill from the dressmaker down the hall, whoprotested shrilly that she distinctly remembered having paid that gasbill once and had no intention of paying it twice.
Lorraine opened the door marked LANDLADY, and closed it with a slamintended to remind her mother that bickerings in the hall were lessdesirable than the odour of fried onions. She had often spoken to hermother about the vulgarity of arguing in public with the tenants, buther mother never seemed to see things as Lorraine saw them.
In the apartment sat a man who had been too frequent a visitor, asLorraine judged him. He was an oldish man with the lines of failure inhis face and on his lean form the sprightly clothing of youth. He hadbeen a reporter,--was still, he maintained. But Lorraine suspectedshrewdly that he scarcely made a living for himself, and that he washome-hunting in more ways than one when he came to visit her mother.
The affair had progressed appreciably in her absence, it would appear.He greeted her with a fatherly "Hello, kiddie," and would have kissedher had Lorraine not evaded him skilfully.
Her mother came in then and complained intimately to the man, anddeclared that the dressmaker would have to pay that bill or have hergas turned off. He offered sympathy, assistance in the turning off ofthe gas, and a kiss which was perfectly audible to Lorraine in the nextroom. The affair had indeed progressed!
"L'raine, d'you know you've got a new papa?" her mother called out inthe peculiar, chirpy tone she used when she was exuberantly happy. "Iknew you'd be surprised!"
"I am," Lorraine agreed, pulling aside the cheap green portieres andlooked in upon the two. Her tone was unenthusiastic. "A superfluousgift of doubtful value. I do not feel the need of a papa, thank you.If you want him for a husband, mother, that is entirely your ownaffair. I hope you'll be very happy."
"The kid don't want a papa; husbands are what means the most in heryoung life," chuckled the groom, restraining his bride when she wouldhave risen from his knee.
"I hope you'll both be very happy indeed," said Lorraine gravely. "Nowyou won't mind, mother, when I tell you that I am going to dad's ranchin Idaho. I really meant it for a vacation, but since you won't bealone, I may stay with dad permanently. I'm leaving to-morrow or thenext day--just as soon as I can pack my trunk and get a Pullman berth."
She did not wait to see the relief in her mother's face contradictingthe expostulations on her lips. She went out to the telephone in thehall, remembered suddenly that her business would be overheard by halfthe tenants, and decided to use the public telephone in a hotel fartherdown the street. Her decision to go to her dad had been born with thewords on her lips. But it was a lusty, full-voiced young decision, andit was growing a
t an amazing rate.
Of course she would go to her dad in Idaho! She was astonished thatthe idea had never before crystallised into action. Why should shefeed her imagination upon a mimic West, when the great, glorious realWest was there? What if her dad had not written a word for more than ayear? He must be alive; they would surely have heard of his death, forshe and Royal were his sole heirs, and his partner would have theiraddress.
She walked fast and arrived at the telephone booth so breathless thatshe was compelled to wait a few minutes before she could call hernumber. She inquired about trains and rates to Echo, Idaho!
Echo, Idaho! While she waited for the information clerk to look it upthe very words conjured visions of wide horizons and clean winds andhigh adventure. If she pictured Echo, Idaho, as being a replica of the"set" used in the movie serial, can you wonder? If she saw herself,the beloved queen of her father's cowboys, dashing into Echo, Idaho, ona crimply-maned broncho that pirouetted gaily before the post-officewhile handsome young men in chaps and spurs and "big four" Stetsonswatched her yearningly, she was merely living mentally the only Westthat she knew.
From that beatific vision Lorraine floated into others more entrancing.All the hairbreadth escapes of the heroine of the movie serial werehers, adapted by her native logic to fit within the bounds ofpossibility,--though I must admit they bulged here and there andthreatened to overlap and to encroach upon the impossible. Over thehills where her father's vast herds grazed, sleek and wild andlong-horned and prone to stampede, galloped the Lorraine of Lorraine'sdreams, on horses sure-footed and swift. With her galloped strong menwhose faces limned the features of her favourite Western "lead."
That for all her three years of intermittent intimacy with adisillusioning world of mimicry, her dreams were pure romance, provedthat Lorraine had still the unclouded innocence of her girlhoodunspoiled.