Nora Read Online Free PDF

then what she hadn’t before: the lines of worry in his broad face. He wasn’t being completely truthful with his wife and daughter, she was certain of it. How terrible it would be if he should lose control of the ranch his grandfather had founded. It must be unpleasant for him to have a combine dictating his managerial decisions here; almost as unpleasant as it would have been for him to lose the ranch to the combine in the first place. She must learn what she could and then see if there was some way that she could help, so that he and his family did not lose their home and only source of income.
    After that, conversation turned to the Farmers Congress in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and to the Boer War in South Africa, where a Boer general named De Wet was growing more famous by the day with his courageous attacks on the superior forces of the British.
    Â 
    T HE NEXT FEW DAYS passed peacefully. The men were away from the ranch most of the day and, it seemed, half the night, bringing in the bulls. Within a couple of weeks, they would be starting the annual fall roundup. Nora’s opinion of the “knights of the range” underwent a startling transformation as she saw more and more of them from afar around the ranch.
    For one thing, there were as many black and Mexican cowboys as there were white ones. But whatever their color, they were mostly dirty and unkempt,because working cattle was hardly a dainty job. They were courteous and very polite to her, but they seemed to be shy. This trait had first surprised and then amused her. She went out of her way to flirt gently with a shy boy everyone called Greely, because it delighted her to watch him stammer and blush. The stale ennui of European men had made her uneasy with them, but this young man made her feel old and venerable. She had no thought of ridicule. It was the novelty of his reaction that touched something vulnerable in her. But she’d flirted with him once in front of Melly, and Melly had been embarrassed.
    â€œYou shouldn’t do that,” she told Nora gently but firmly when Greely went on his way. “The men don’t like being made fun of, and Cal Barton won’t stand for it. Nor will he hesitate to tell you to stop it if he ever catches you.”
    â€œBut I meant no insult. I simply adore the way he stammers when I speak to him,” she said, smiling. “I find this young man so refreshing, you know. And besides, Mr. Barton has no authority to tell me what to do, even if he did catch me,” Nora reminded her.
    Melly smiled knowingly. “We’ll see about that. He even tells Dad what to do.”
    Nora took the remark with a grain of salt, but she stopped playing up to poor Greely just the same. It was unfortunate that she should mention him, and why he amused her, later to her aunt when Greely was within earshot. After that, she had no opportunity to see him. His absence from her vicinity was pointed, andhe had a somber, crushed look about him that made Nora feel guilty until finally he seemed to disappear altogether.
    Â 
    N ORA WAS INVITED OUT to watch the cowboys work, and she accompanied Melly to a small corral near the house where a black cowboy was breaking a new horse to the remuda, the string of horses used by the men during roundup. Melly explained what would happen in the upcoming roundup, all about the long process of counting and branding cattle, and separating the calves from their mothers. Nora, who had known nothing of the reality of it, was appalled.
    â€œThey take the little calves from their mothers and burn the brands into their hide?” she exclaimed. “Oh, how horribly cruel!”
    Melly hesitated, a little uneasy. “Now, Nora, it’s an old practice. Surely in all your travels, you have seen people work on the land?”
    Nora settled deeper into her sidesaddle. She couldn’t bring herself to ride astride, as Melly did, feeling that it was unladylike. “I have