CORDUROY
RUTH COMFORT MITCHELL
Books by
RUTH COMFORT MITCHELL
CORDUROY
NARRATIVES IN VERSE
JANE JOURNEYS ON
PLAY THE GAME
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
New York London
THE NEXT MORNING SHE WAS EARLY ON HER HORSE AND SHE WORE HERWORN AND MELLOW CORDUROYS
[Page 31]
CORDUROY
BY
RUTH COMFORT MITCHELL
AUTHOR OF “PLAY THE GAME,”
“JANE JOURNEYS ON,” ETC.
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK : : LONDON : : 1923
COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Copyright, 1922, by The Crowell Publishing Company
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
W. S. Y.
WHO HAS PUT ON CORDUROY
AND WEARS IT WELL
CORDUROY
CHAPTER I
FOR the first time in her life—she had beenalive twenty-two vivid and zestful years—VirginiaValdés McVeagh, nicknamed,descriptively, “Ginger,” felt something like reverencefor a male creature of her own species.
Her father, that stolid Scot, had died whileshe was a hearty and unimaginative child; Aleck,her only brother, killed on the last day of fightingin the Great War, had been her pal and play-fellow,as were, in lesser and varying degrees, theyoung ranchers of the miles-wide neighborhood,while the vaqueros and old Estrada, mayordomoof her cattle ranch, were her henchmen, loyal,admiring, unquestioning. Always she had beenable to divide the men of her world unhesitatinglyinto two classes—her equals, her inferiors.
Dean Wolcott was different. He was framedin mystery and hallowed by grief, coming to her—almost[8]like a visitant from another world—inthe dawn of a Christmas Day she had vowed notto keep, bringing her the word of her dead brotherfor which she had thirsted, and a stained andcrumpled letter in Aleck’s own hand. It was thefirst shred of information she had had since theofficial communication, nearly four months afterthe armistice. That had come on a delicate dayof early Cal