Rivers West Read Online Free PDF

and decided we’d walk.
    Then I saw the girl.
    Chapter 4
----
    S HE WAS YOUNG, she was lovely, and she was riding a spirited chestnut gelding that she handled with superlative ease. Beside her rode two men.
    One was middle aged and stalwart of build, a man with sandy hair now going gray, a broad face, a hard jaw line, and the look about him of a Scotsman.
    The second man was young and good-looking, though not in the most robust way. Both men were armed; both rode good horses.
    They came right up to the inn door, and the girl looked at me, right straight at me. “Young man, may I speak to the host, please?”
    Something in her supercilious manner annoyed me. “You may if you like,” I said quietly. “He’s right inside.”
    Her face flushed ever so slightly—I was not sure whether from embarrassment or anger.
    â€œWould you call him for me, please?”
    â€œOf course.” Put that way, how could I refuse?
    Stepping inside the inn, I called out, “Mr. Tate? A lady to see you.”
    He came to the door, and his broad face immediately broke into a smile. “Miss Majoribanks! A pleasure! Would you step down, please? We’ll have a bit of something put on for you.”
    He held up a hand for her, and she stepped down, lightly, gracefully, gathering her skirt as she moved to the door.
    â€œHave you heard from your brother, Miss Majoribanks?”
    She stopped. “No, Mr. Tate, I have not. That is why I am here.”
    She passed inside, and he followed. Her two companions dismounted, the older one throwing first me a quick glance that seemed to measure me completely and then the same for Jambe-de-Bois. On Jambe, his eyes lingered.
    The younger companion got down also. “If you ask me,” he said to the older man, “this is a fool’s errand. If Charles were alive, he would have returned, and if he is not alive, what good can we do?”
    â€œHe is her brother,” the older man replied stiffly. “She will do what she can, as her father would have done.”
    â€œI still say it is foolish.”
    â€œPerhaps, but she will do as she pleases, you know that. And if I were you I’d not try to dissuade her.”
    He shrugged. “I tried, for all the good it did me. She will not listen.”
    They tied their horses and hers to the hitching rail and went inside. I knew not what to do. I had never seen a girl who made me want to look again as this one had.
    Their words I barely heard. I simply knew I had to look upon this girl once more.
    Perhaps she lived not far away, for she was known to Simon Tate. Perhaps she stopped here often. It was a sparsely settled area, with many fields, meadows, and running streams.
    On an impulse, I entered the common room and sat at a table near the window. Tate glanced at me, a little surprised. The lady and her friends sat with their backs to me. I ordered a glass of cider merely for an excuse to look at the girl again.
    She was talking.
    â€œMr. Tate, the last we heard from Charles was from St. Louis. He was planning to go up the Missouri—that’s a river out there—with a group of government men, scientists or surveyors or something. That was months ago.”
    â€œYou must understand,” Tate suggested, “that mails are slow, and the expedition may still be safe.”
    â€œI do understand. The letter was written many weeks before I got it.” She looked directly at him. “Mr. Tate, I believe that letter was purposely delayed.”
    â€œPurposely?” He was obviously puzzled. “But why? Who would have reason to delay a letter from a young man to his sister?”
    â€œBecause that young man had suddenly come upon information someone did not wish him to have. I know my brother’s seal. His ring is new. The seal had been broken and resealed. In other words, the letter had been read by someone else and forwarded to me only when they decided the contents were innocent