Those pests to farmers and
ranchmen, ground squirrels, had given the strange old man a chance to
build up a reputation of a sort. As a squirrel poisoner he was a brilliant
success.
"Who gave you permission to call Mr. Hilliard 'Nick'?" Carmen asked, not
very sternly, for she was pleased to have news from the other ranch. After
all, if Nick had had a visitor he might not be to blame.
"Why, everybody calls him 'Nick'," explained Simeon, huskily. "But I
won't, if it isn't your will, my lady."
"Oh, I don't care, if _he_ doesn't. Only----" she broke off, slightly
confused. Even to this old wretch she could not say, "It isn't suitable
that you should use my future husband's Christian name as if he were down
on the same level with a man like you." She could not be sure that Nick
would be her husband, though it seemed practically certain. Besides, if
Hilliard was "Nick" to everybody, it was a token of his popularity; and
Nick himself was the last man to forget that he had risen to his present
place by climbing up from the lowest rung of the ladder--the ladder of
poverty. She could not imagine his "putting on airs," as he would call it,
though she thought it might be better if he were less of the
"hail-fellow-well-met," and more of the master in manner among his own
cattlemen, and particularly with the wild riff-raff that had rushed to his
land with the oil boom.
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