Nogales international., 1934-03-10

For half an hour the two women sat
on the floor with the dog between
them. For a time he seemed rather
pleased at so much attention and gave
a short sharp bark of inquiry. Then,
as nothing much happened, he
yawned, scratched at the floor, and
after turning around lay down with a
soft sigh and presently began to snore'
"Sugarfoot, honey" said Ann at
last, why amt you deadY"
After the cattle sale Ruth knew that
Snavely had misinformed her about
the yearly earning power Of the ranch.
AS near as she could estimate, the
income-even without the Parker cat
tle-was more than three times the
amount he had mentioned. She be-
1ieved that his lie was an attempt to
discourage her, not plan to make
money for himself.
But the cattle buyer had come and
his check was now in Ruth's hands ;
this check gave her, after Snavely'S
share was deducted, nearly thousand
dollars over the amount of her note.
Ruth walked en- air-small wonder
that she was not anxious to have any
more words with Snavely. After all,
what if he had underrated the income
She could meet her note, and she had
not been forced to sell any of the fine
Parker cattle except the calves. She
had improved the ranch wonderfully
and next year this Improvement would
manifest itself in real money. And
with the money from next falls sale
she would buy more cattle, pure breds,
the best in the world. She had set
herself FIVE years to bring the earning
of the ranch to a certain comfortable
amount. Then she and David would
move into town near the schools. ..
She knew that Snavely would have to
be considered in these plans, but the
future looked so bright, it was shame
to spoil it with thinking Of him. In
her heart she rather believed that
Snavely would eventually sell out to
her.
Since the cattle sale something
seemed to have happened to Snavely;
he no longer gave the impression that
he was waiting for something. In
stead, he had puzzled, uncertain air.
He avoided Ruth consistently, but
where before he had let it be seen that
he avoided her because he could not
stand the sight Of her, he now made
half-smiling excuses.
The girl had been so happy with the
results of the roundup and the gayety
of the fiesta that she paid little atten-
ton to him. She had won. Neverthe-
less, whenever he was behind her Ruth
had to control wild impulse to run.
On the day after she received the
cattle buyers check, Will Thane
drove up to the ranch. He brought a
marriage license for Alfredo and
Magda. He had already secured the
priests signature, and now asked the
newly married couple to sign, telling
them the paper was an agreement with
the great American government to live
happily together and never quarrel
about anything. Alfredo and Magda
signed it joyful1y.
AS IL WdS Sllll iIllu-ulOIlllIlS w Ill
did not hurry away. He and Ruth sat
on the running board of the roadster
and talked
David and I are going to flag your
dad this afternoon and go into town
with him. I've some business to at
tend to and David wants some ice
cream We're going on a regular
spree-they have a movie in town,
haven't they?"
'"Two; both terrible. But say, you
can't go in with Dad; he's quit the
delivery business"
"Ohl Why"
"No use in it. He started carrying
mail by accident, anyway. You see,
after mother died, he and I went to
live in town. We left Juan and Juana
on the ranch. I went to school and
Dad became sheriff. Well, when l
got old enough to go to the university,
we went to California. But Dad
couldn't stand it there-too cold and
too far away from the ranch. So he
came home. He used to go into town
every week to get g letter from ms