Hetty Dorval Read Free Page A

Ernestine’s cousins were coming down from Ashcroft early on the Sunday. There were two boys and a girl and their father and mother. We were going to have an all-day picnic up the river, and the fathers were going to do a little fishing. You could fish all day in the Thompson rapids, dropping your fly or a grasshopper just behind a large rock where the green water was for a moment still, and you thought there was a chance of a fish lurking and getting its wind back, if fishes do, but you would not get a strike. Nothing but the tug tug of the current as your fly drifted down. But there were some other spots near Lytton where the river made pools and the fishing was often good. It was the pleasantest thing you could think of, there in the shade of a clump of bushes, with the expectation of a good picnic lunch, or lying comfortably full of food, and watching Ernestine’s father and uncle casting and casting, or just letting their lines sink. I liked Ernestine’s cousins, too, and we always had a good time. It wasan excitement whenever one of those picnics was planned, and I always came in from the ranch a day earlier so as not to miss it. It happened therefore that I was riding back on a Saturday afternoon instead of Sunday, quite late because I had stretched out my Saturday at home until Mother said I really must start or it would be dark when I got to Lytton. Mother and Father were not nervous at all about me and my long ride in, but Mother had a strong feeling about my not being out alone after dark. Mrs. Dunne was very careful about this too, and Mother had no misgivings once I was in Lytton.
    I remember that Mother made me take my old buckskin jacket with the fringed edges in case it was nippy that evening, because the weather had just turned colder. When I first got that jacket it was a beauty. It had been made by the Indians up at Lillooet, and Father had got me the prettiest he could find, with beads in a pattern of deer, and plenty of fringe. If anyone ever adored a garment, I adored my buckskin jacket. It had grown a little small for me and quite dirty, but Mother laughed and said that gave it style. We all had buckskin jackets.
    I must have ridden about ten miles or so, and was just rounding the corner of a bluff when I saw another rider, coming down the hill amongst the sage-brush. I had never seen the horse before; it was a beautiful horse. And certainly I had never seen the rider; indeed, you wouldn’t see anyone like her in all our part of that western country. She seemed to be young and she had a good seat. She rode on one of those small English saddles – which other people didn’t – and sat erect but easy; and no one near us wore that kind of riding clothes. It came to me with a hop, skip and a jump that this must be Mrs. Dorval and that must be the horse that Mr. Rossignol had been trying to get, up Quilchena way. If I kept on at my pace – I was loping along easily – and if Mrs. Dorval kept on ridingcarefully and slowly down the sage-dotted hill-side, we should just meet on the road. I felt very awkward, remembering the snub that Ernestine and I got at the bungalow, and I thought, “Now if Mrs. Dorval is snubby like Mrs. Broom this is going to be terrible, because I’ve had no experience and I don’t know what to do.” And although it was quite exciting to see Mrs. Dorval, because I had no doubt but that this was she, I would rather have had a grown-up with me, who would have known what to say and whether to go on or to drop behind or what. I slowed Maxey to a walk and hoped to goodness that Mrs. Dorval wouldn’t even see me and that she would go on by herself in front of me all the way to Lytton. But that was absurd, because no rider could possibly help seeing another rider in all that solitude.
    So it came that Mrs. Dorval, if it were she, reached the road first, and I had the opportunity of seeing how young she looked, and pretty, too, with a yellow shirt and a soft felt hat, and riding