Nora Read Online Free PDF Page B

seen farming, of course, back East.”
    â€œIt’s different out here,” Melly continued. “We have to be hard or we couldn’t survive. And here, in East Texas, it’s really a lot better life than on the Great Plains or in the desert country farther west.”
    Nora watched the cowboy ride the sweating, snorting horse and wanted to scream at the poor creature’s struggles. Tears came to her eyes.
    Cal Barton had spotted the two women and came galloping up on his own mount to join them. “Ladies,” he welcomed.
    Nora’s white face told its own story as she stared at him coldly. “I have never seen such outrageous cruelty,” she said at once, dabbing at her eyes with an expensive lace-edged silk handkerchief. “That poor beast is being tormented by that man. Make him stop, at once!”
    Cal’s eyebrows shot up. “I beg your pardon?”
    â€œMake him stop,” she repeated, blind to Melly’s gestures. “It is uncivilized to treat a horse so!”
    â€œUncivi… Good God Almighty!” Cal burst out. “How in hell do you think horses get gentle enough to be ridden?”
    â€œNot by being tortured, certainly—not back East!” she informed him.
    He was getting heartily sick of her condescending attitude. “We have to do it like this,” he said. “It isn’t hurting the horse. Jack is only wearing him down. It isn’t cruel.”
    Nora dabbed at her face with the handkerchief. “The dust is sickening,” she was saying. “And the heat and the smell…!”
    â€œThen why don’t you go back to the nice cool ranch house and sip a cold drink?” he suggested with icy calmness.
    â€œA laudable idea,” Nora said firmly. “Come, Melly.”
    Melly exchanged helpless glances with Cal and rode after her cousin.
    Nora muttered all the way home about the poor horse. It didn’t help that a gang of tired cowboys passed them on the way back. One was mad at his sidekick and using colorful language to express himself. Nora’s face went scarlet at what she overheard, and she was almost shaking with outrage when they reached the barn at last.
    â€œKnights of the range, indeed!” she raged on the way to the front door, having left the horses in the charge of a young stable hand. “They stink and curse and they are cruel! It is nothing like my stories, Melly. It is a terrible country!”
    â€œNow, now, give it a chance,” Melly said encouragingly. “You’ve only been here a short while. It gets easier to understand, truly it does.”
    â€œI cannot imagine living here,” Nora said heavily. “Not in my wildest imaginings. How do you bear it?”
    â€œI love it,” the younger woman said simply, and her brown eyes reflected her pleasure in it. “You’ve lived such a different life, Nora, so sheltered and cushioned. You don’t know what it is to have to scratch for a living.”
    Nora’s thin shoulders rose and fell. “I have never had to. My life has been an easy one, until the past year. But I know one thing. I could never live here.”
    â€œYou don’t want to go home already?” Melly asked worriedly.
    Nora saw her concern and forced herself to calm down. “No, of course not. I shall simply have to stay away from the men, that is all. I do miss Greely. He, at least, was a refreshing change from those barbarians out there!”
    â€œGreely hasn’t been around lately,” Melly agreed. “I wonder why.”
    Â 
    N EITHER KNEW THE ANSWER to the question of Greely’s absence. Days passed, and the cowboys began to look a little less like dirty tramps and a little more like men as Nora’s first impression began to waver and then fade. Nora became able to recognize faces, even thick with dust and dirt. She recognized voices, as well, especially Mr. Barton’s. It was deep and slow, and when he