Page 44 - Ninety Miles From Nowhere

out trapping again, but we all told Rose stories about Leon in preparation for his return.
Peggy told Rose that Leon was an habitual liar, and I told her that Leon had said to me once that I was too friendly. I looked at him aghast, thinking he meant I was too forward, until he explained that he meant I should be more “coy and flirty”.
We three young women, with Mother’s help, planned a strategy whereby the first time Rose saw Leon she should flirt with him.
A few days later, Rose and I went down to the Slash Ranch to see if we could rent some horses to ride while she was visiting me. On the way there, near the box canyon, we met the wagon with four men, including Dick, Leon, and Earl, returning from their trapping trip. Rose didn’t catch on that Leon was to be her target, until I said something to her that impressed it upon her mind. She exclaimed, “Oh, is he the liar?” then clamped her hand over her mouth. And that was the end of that plot.
When we reached the Slash Ranch, no one answered our knock, but I heard voices in the rear so we went around there. The cowboys were cleaning out the corrals, but all stopped to lean against the rail fence or sit on the top rail. They told us that everybody had gone to Horse Camp (Double Springs) bear hunting. Rose’s eyes got as big as saucers. The moment she asked, excitedly, “Are there bears around here?” they began to tell her bear stories including the one about bears coming up at night to eat with their dogs.
We stayed there awhile talking to the cowboys, and I noticed that Rose kept looking around me to get a better look at them. Finally she stood out in front of them, with her arms akimbo, and said, “I want to know what makes him click every time he moves!” Of course, being cowboys, they couldn’t remove their spurs even to clean the corral.
By the time the men had finished telling Rose how fierce the beasts were, and how brave they were in dealing with them, they declared it was lunch time and insisted that we stay to eat with them.
All the men in the West were good cooks and these were no exception. They had bear stew and a big pot of pinto beans simmering on the stove. All we needed was the bread, and as I’ve stated before, the men always refused to make biscuits if a woman was present. The lot fell to me and I was petrified - I, a rank amateur in the presence of experts. Also I had made only water biscuits on my homestead, and here I had to use milk (one step into the unknown), and bear grease instead of vegetable shortening (the second step into the unknown). Imagine my surprise to discover that the biscuits were quite edible and we all enjoyed our lunch.
After lunch the boys rolled their cigarettes, and Scotty, the ranch foreman, offered his Granger Rough Cut (really a pipe tobacco) to Rose with what she must have considered a challenge. She hurriedly rolled a very amateurish-looking cigarette, and began smoking it. I knew she did not smoke and wondered how she could stand that strong tobacco.