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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Dude Wrangler, by Caroline Lockhart,
+Illustrated by Dudley Glynne Summers
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Dude Wrangler
+
+
+Author: Caroline Lockhart
+
+
+
+Release Date: October 29, 2007  [eBook #23244]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUDE WRANGLER***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
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+      See 23244-h.htm or 23244-h.zip:
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+
+
+
+
+
+THE DUDE WRANGLER
+
+by
+
+CAROLINE LOCKHART
+
+Frontispiece by Dudley Glyne Summers
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "Wallie swung the frying pan with all his strength ...
+knocking the six-shooter from Boise Bill's hand as he jumped across the
+fire at him"]
+
+
+
+Garden City, N. Y., And Toronto
+Doubleday, Page & Company
+1921
+
+Copyright, 1921, by
+Doubleday, Page & Company
+All Rights Reserved, Including That of Translation into Foreign
+Languages, Including the Scandinavian
+
+Copyright, 1921, by Street & Smith Corporation
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                                                PAGE
+
+      I. The Girl from Wyoming                            3
+     II. "The Happy Family"                              10
+    III. "Pinkey"                                        18
+     IV. The Brand of Cain                               24
+      V. "Gentle Annie"                                  33
+     VI. "Burning His Bridges"                           42
+    VII. His "Gat"                                       47
+   VIII. Neighbours                                      62
+     IX. Cutting His Eyeteeth                            69
+      X. The Best Pulling Team in the State              81
+     XI. Merry Christmas                                 92
+    XII. The Water Witch                                112
+   XIII. Wiped Out                                      131
+    XIV. Lifting a Cache                                142
+     XV. Collecting a Bad Debt                          156
+    XVI. The Exodus                                     168
+   XVII. Counting Their Chickens                        176
+  XVIII. The Millionaires                               182
+    XIX. A Shock for Mr. Canby                          196
+     XX. Wallie Qualifies as a First-Class Hero         207
+    XXI. "Worman! Worman!"                              221
+   XXII. "Knocking 'Em for a Curve!"                    231
+  XXIII. Rifts                                          247
+   XXIV. Hicks the Avenger                              261
+    XXV. "And Just Then----"                            301
+
+
+
+
+THE DUDE WRANGLER
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE GIRL FROM WYOMING
+
+
+Conscious that something had disturbed him, Wallie Macpherson raised
+himself on his elbow in bed to listen. For a full minute he heard
+nothing unusual: the Atlantic breaking against the sea-wall at the foot
+of the sloping lawn of The Colonial, the clock striking the hour in the
+tower of the Court House, and the ripping, tearing, slashing noises like
+those of a sash-and-blind factory, produced through the long, thin nose
+of old Mr. Penrose, two doors down the hotel corridor, all sounds to
+which he was too accustomed to be awakened by them.
+
+While Wallie remained in this posture conjecturing, the door between the
+room next to him and that of Mr. Penrose was struck smartly several
+times, and with a vigour to denote that there was temper behind the
+blows which fell upon it. He had not known that the room was occupied;
+being considered undesirable on account of the audible slumbers of the
+old gentleman it was often vacant.
+
+The raps finally awakened even Mr. Penrose, who demanded sharply:
+
+"What are you doing?"
+
+"Hammering with the heel of my slipper," a feminine voice answered.
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+"A chance to sleep."
+
+"Who's stopping you?" crabbedly.
+
+"You're snoring." Indignation gave an edge to the accusation.
+
+"You're impertinent!"
+
+"You're a nuisance!" the voice retorted. Wallie covered his mouth with
+his hand and hunched his shoulders.
+
+There was a moment's silence while Mr. Penrose seemed to be thinking of
+a suitable answer. Then:
+
+"It's my privilege to snore if I want to. This is my room--I pay for
+it!"
+
+"Then this side of the door is mine and I can pound on it, for the same
+reason."
+
+Mr. Penrose sneered in the darkness: "I suppose you're some sour old
+maid--you sound like it."
+
+"And no doubt you're a Methuselah with dyspepsia!"
+
+Wallie smote the pillow gleefully--old Mr. Penrose's collection of
+bottles and boxes and tablets for indigestion were a byword.
+
+"We will see about this in the morning," said Mr. Penrose,
+significantly. "I have been coming to this hotel for twenty-eight
+years----"
+
+"It's nothing to boast of," the voice interrupted. "I shouldn't, if I
+had so little originality."
+
+Mr. Penrose, seeming to realize that the woman would have the last word
+if the dialogue lasted until morning, ended it with a loud snort of
+derision.
+
+He was so wrought up by the controversy that he was unable to compose
+himself immediately, but lay awake for an hour framing a speech for Mr.
+Cone, the proprietor, which was in the nature of an ultimatum. Either
+the woman must move, or he would--but the latter he considered a remote
+possibility, since he realized fully that a multi-millionaire, socially
+well connected, is an asset which no hotel will dispense with lightly.
+
+The frequency with which Mr. Penrose had presumed upon this knowledge
+had much to do with Wallie's delight as he had listened to the
+encounter.
+
+Dropping back upon his pillow, the young man mildly wondered about the
+woman next door to him. She must have come in on the evening train while
+he was at the moving pictures, and retired immediately. Very likely she
+was, as Mr. Penrose asserted, some acrimonious spinster, but, at any
+rate, she had temporarily silenced the rich old tyrant of whom all the
+hotel stood in awe.
+
+A second time the ripping sound of yard after yard of calico being
+viciously torn broke the night's stillness and, grinning, Wallie waited
+to hear what the woman next door was going to do about it. But only a
+stranger would have hoped to do anything about it, since to prevent Mr.
+Penrose from snoring was a task only a little less hopeless than that of
+stopping the roar of the ocean. Guests whom it annoyed had either to
+move or get used to it. Sometimes they did the one and sometimes the
+other, but always Mr. Penrose, who was the subject of a hundred
+complaints a summer, snored on victoriously. The woman next door, of
+course, could not know this, so no doubt she had a mistaken notion that
+she might either break the old gentleman of his habit or have him
+banished to an isolated quarter.
+
+Wallie had not long to wait, for shortly after Mr. Penrose started again
+the tattoo on the door was repeated.
+
+In response to a snarl that might have come from a menagerie, she
+advised him curtly:
+
+"You're at it again!"
+
+Another angry colloquy followed, and once more Mr. Penrose was forced to
+subside for the want of an adequate answer.
+
+All the rest of the night the battle continued at intervals, and by
+morning not only Wallie but the entire corridor was interested in the
+occupant of the room adjoining his.
+
+Wallie was in the office when the door of the elevator opened with a
+clang and Mr. Penrose sprang out of it like a starved lion about to hurl
+himself upon a Christian martyr. While his jaws did not drip saliva, the
+thin nostrils of his bothersome nose quivered with eagerness and anger.
+
+"I've been coming here for twenty-eight years, haven't I?" he demanded.
+
+"Twenty-eight this summer," Mr. Cone replied, soothingly.
+
+"In that time I never have put in such a night as last night!"
+
+"Dear me!" The proprietor seemed genuinely disturbed by the information.
+
+"I could not sleep--I have not closed my eyes--for the battering on my
+door of the female in the room adjoining!"
+
+"You astonish me! Let me see----" Mr. Cone whirled the register around
+and looked at it. He read aloud:
+
+"Helene Spenceley--Prouty, Wyoming."
+
+Mr. Cone lowered his voice discreetly:
+
+"What was her explanation?"
+
+"She accused me of snoring!" declared Mr. Penrose, furiously. "I heard
+the clock strike every hour until morning! Not a wink have I slept--not
+a _wink_, Mr. Cone!"
+
+"We can arrange this satisfactorily, Mr. Penrose," Mr. Cone smiled
+conciliatingly. "I have no doubt that Miss--er--Spenceley will gladly
+change her room if I ask her. I shall place one equally good at her
+disposal---- Ah, I presume this is she--let me introduce you."
+
+Although he would not admit it, Mr. Penrose was quite as astonished as
+Wallie at the appearance of the person who stepped from the elevator and
+walked to the desk briskly. She was young and good looking and wore
+suitable clothes that fitted her; also, while not aggressive, she had a
+self-reliant manner which proclaimed the fact that she was accustomed to
+looking after her own interests. While she was as far removed as
+possible from the person Mr. Penrose had expected to see, still she was
+the "female" who had "sassed" him as he had not been "sassed" since he
+could remember, and he eyed her belligerently as he curtly acknowledged
+the introduction.
+
+"Mr. Penrose, one of our oldest guests in point of residence, tells me
+that you have had some little--er--difference----" began Mr. Cone,
+affably.
+
+"I had a hellish night!" Mr. Penrose interrupted, savagely. "I hope
+never to put in such another."
+
+"I join you in that," replied Miss Spenceley, calmly. "I've never heard
+any one snore so horribly--I'd know your snore among a thousand."
+
+"Never mind--we can adjust this matter amicably, I will change your room
+to-day, Miss Spenceley," Mr. Cone interposed, hastily. "It hasn't
+_quite_ the view, but the furnishings are more luxurious."
+
+"But I don't want to change," Miss Spenceley coolly replied. "It suits
+me perfectly."
+
+"I came for quiet and I can't stand that hammering," declared Mr.
+Penrose, glaring at her.
+
+"So did I--my nerves--and your snoring bothers me. But perhaps," with
+aggravating sweetness, "I can break you of the habit."
+
+"I wouldn't lose another night's sleep for a thousand dollars!"
+
+"It will be cheaper to change your room, for I don't mean to change
+_mine_."
+
+The millionaire turned to the proprietor. "Either this person goes or I
+do--that's my ultimatum!"
+
+"I will not be bullied in any such fashion, and I can't very well be
+put out forcibly, can I?" and Miss Spenceley smiled at both of them. Mr.
+Cone looked from one to the other, helplessly.
+
+"Then," Mr. Penrose retorted, "I shall leave _immediately!_ Mr. Cone,"
+dramatically, "the room I have occupied for twenty-eight summers is at
+your disposal." His voice rose in a crescendo movement so that even in
+the furthermost corner of the dining room they heard it: "I have a peach
+orchard down in Delaware, and I shall go there, where I can snore as
+much as I damn please; and don't you forget it!"
+
+Mr. Cone, his mouth open and hands hanging, looked after him as he
+stamped away, too astonished to protest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"THE HAPPY FAMILY"
+
+
+The guests of the Colonial Hotel arose briskly each morning to nothing.
+After a night of refreshing and untroubled sleep they dressed and
+hurried to breakfast after the manner of travellers making close
+connections. Then each repaired to his favourite chair placed in the
+same spot on the wide veranda to wait for luncheon. The more energetic
+sometimes took a wheel-chair for an hour and were pushed on the
+Boardwalk or attended an auction sale of antiques and curios, but mostly
+their lives were as placid and as eventful as those of the inmates of an
+institution.
+
+The greater number of the male guests of The Colonial had retired from
+something--banking, wholesale drugs, the manufacture of woolens. The
+families were all perfectly familiar with one another's financial rating
+and histories, and although they came from diverse sections of the
+country they were for two months or more like one large, supremely
+contented family. In truth, they called themselves facetiously "The
+Happy Family," and in this way Mr. Cone, who took an immense pride in
+them and in the fact that they returned to his hospitable roof summer
+after summer, always referred to them.
+
+Strictly speaking, there were two branches of the "Family": those whose
+first season antedated 1900, and the "newcomers," who had spent only
+eight, or ten, or twelve summers at The Colonial. They were all on the
+most friendly terms imaginable, yet each tacitly recognized the
+distinction. The original "Happy Family" occupied the rocking chairs on
+the right-hand side of the wide veranda, while the "newcomers" took the
+left, where the view was not quite so good and there was a trifle less
+breeze than on the other.
+
+The less said of the "transients" the better. The few who stumbled in
+did not stay unless by chance they were favourably known to one of the
+"permanents." Of course there was no rudeness ever--merely the polite
+surprise of the regular occupants when they find a stranger in the pew
+on Sunday morning. Sometimes the transient stayed out his or her
+vacation, but usually he confided to the chambermaid, and sometimes Mr.
+Cone, that the guests were "doodledums" and "fossils" and found another
+hotel where the patrons, if less solid financially, were more
+interesting and sociable.
+
+Wallace Macpherson belonged in the group of older patrons, as his aunt,
+Miss Mary Macpherson, had been coming since 1897, and he himself from
+the time he wore curls and ruffled collars, or after his aunt had taken
+him upon the death of his parents.
+
+"Wallie," as he was called by everybody, as the one eligible man under
+sixty, was, in his way, as much of an asset to the hotel as the
+notoriously wealthy Mr. Penrose. Of an amiable and obliging disposition,
+he could always be relied upon to escort married women with mutinous
+husbands, and ladies who had none, mutinous or otherwise. He was
+twenty-four, and, in appearance, a credit to any woman he was seen with,
+to say nothing of the two hundred thousand it was known he would inherit
+from Aunt Mary, who now supported him.
+
+Wallie's appearance upon the veranda was invariably in the nature of a
+triumphal entry. He was received with lively acclaim and cordiality as
+he flitted impartially from group to group, and that person was
+difficult indeed with whom he could not find something in common, for
+his range of subjects extended from the "rose pattern" in Irish crochet
+to Arctic currents.
+
+The morning on the veranda promised to be a lively one, since, in
+addition to the departure of old Mr. Penrose, who had sounded as if he
+was wrecking the furniture while packing his boxes, the return from the
+war of Will Smith, the gardener's son, was anticipated, and the guests
+as an act of patriotism meant to give him a rousing welcome. There was
+bunting over the doorway and around the pillars, with red, white, and
+blue ice cream for luncheon, and flags on the menu, not to mention a
+purse of $17.23 collected among the guests that was to be presented in
+appreciation of the valour which, it was understood from letters to his
+father, Will had shown on the field of battle.
+
+The guests were in their usual places when Wallie came from breakfast
+and stood for a moment in the spacious double doorway. A cheerful chorus
+welcomed him as soon as he was discovered, and Mrs. C. D. Budlong put
+out her plump hand and held his. He did not speak instantly, for his eye
+was roving over the veranda as if in search of somebody, and when it
+rested upon Miss Spenceley sitting alone at the far end he seemed
+satisfied and inquired solicitously of Mrs. Budlong: "Did you sleep
+well? You are looking splendid!"
+
+There were some points of resemblance between Mrs. Budlong and the
+oleander in the green tub beside which she was sitting. Her round, fat
+face had the pink of the blossoms and she was nearly as motionless as if
+she had been potted. She often sat for hours with nothing save her
+black, sloe-like eyes that saw everything, to show that she was not in a
+state of suspended animation. Her husband called her "Honey-dumplin',"
+and they were a most affectionate and congenial couple, although she was
+as silent as he was voluble.
+
+"My rest was broken." Mrs. Budlong turned her eyes significantly toward
+the far end of the veranda.
+
+"Did you hear that terrible racket?" demanded Mr. Budlong of Wallie.
+
+"Not so loud, 'C. D.,'" admonished Mrs. Budlong. Mrs. Budlong ran the
+letters together so that strangers often had the impression she was
+calling her husband "Seedy," though the name was as unsuitable as well
+could be, since Mr. Budlong in his neat blue serge suit, blue polka-dot
+scarf, silk stockings, and polished tan oxfords was well groomed and
+dapper always.
+
+"She's driven away our oldest guest." Mr. Budlong lowered his indignant
+voice a little.
+
+"He _was_ a nuisance with his snoring," Wallie defended.
+
+"She could have changed her room," said Mrs. Budlong, taking her hand
+away from him. "She need not have been so obstinate."
+
+"He was very rude to her," Wallie maintained stoutly. "Sleeping next
+door, I heard it all--and this morning in the office."
+
+"Anyway, I think Mr. Cone made a mistake in not insisting upon her
+changing her room, and so I shall tell him." Mr. Budlong, who had made
+"his" in white lead and paint and kept a chauffeur and a limousine, felt
+that his disapproval would mean something to the proprietor.
+
+"Oh, Wallie!"
+
+Wallie felt relieved when he saw Mrs. Henry Appel beckoning him. As he
+was on his way to Mrs. Appel Miss Mattie Gaskett clutched at his arm and
+detained him.
+
+"Did you see the robins this morning, Wallie?"
+
+"Are they here?"
+
+"Yes, a dozen of them. They do remind me so of my dear Southland." Miss
+Gaskett was from Maryland.
+
+"The summer wouldn't be the same without either of you," he replied,
+gallantly.
+
+Miss Gaskett shook a coquettish finger at him.
+
+"You flirt! You have pretty speeches for everyone."
+
+Wallie did not seem displeased by the accusation as he passed on to Mrs.
+Appel.
+
+The Appels were among the important families of The Colonial because the
+richest next to Mr. Penrose. They were from Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania.
+Mr. Appel owned anthracite coal land and street railways, so if Mr.
+Appel squeezed pennies and Mrs. Appel dressed in remnants from the
+bargain counter their economies were regarded merely as eccentricities.
+
+Mrs. Appel held up a sweater: "Won't you tell me how to turn this
+shoulder? I've forgotten. Do you purl four and knit six, or purl six and
+knit four, Wallie?"
+
+Wallie laughed immoderately.
+
+"Eight, Mrs. Appel! Purl eight and knit four--I told you yesterday.
+That's a lovely piece of Battenburg, Mrs. Stott. When did you start it?"
+
+"Last month, but I've been so busy with teas and parties--so many, many
+things going on. Don't you think it will make a lovely dresser-scarf?
+What would you line it with?"
+
+"Pink, absolutely--that delicate shade like the inside of a sea-shell."
+
+"You _are_ such an artist, Wallie! Your taste is perfect."
+
+Wallie did not contradict her.
+
+Strictly, Mrs. Stott did not belong in the group in which she was
+seated. She had been coming to The Colonial only eleven years, so
+really, she should have been on the other side of the veranda, but Mrs.
+Stott had such an insidious way of getting where and what she wanted
+that she was "one of them" almost before they knew it.
+
+Mr. Stott was a rising young attorney of forty-eight, and it was
+anticipated that he would one day be a leading trial lawyer because of
+his aggressiveness.
+
+Wallie's voice took on a sympathetic tone. He stopped in front of a
+chair where a very thin young lady was reclining languidly.
+
+"How's the bad heart to-day, Miss Eyester?"
+
+"About as usual, Wallie, thank you," she replied, gratefully.
+
+"Your lips have more colour."
+
+Miss Eyester opened a handbag and, taking out a small, round mirror
+which she carried for the purpose, inspected her lips critically.
+
+"It does seem so," she admitted. "If I can just keep from getting
+excited."
+
+"I can't imagine a better place than The Colonial." The reply contained
+a grain of irony.
+
+"That's why I come here," Miss Eyester sighed, "though I'm _pining_ to
+go somewhere livelier."
+
+Wallie wagged his head playfully.
+
+"Treason! Treason! Why, you've been coming here for--" Miss Eyester's
+alarmed expression caused him to finish lamely--"for ever so long."
+
+"Wallie!" It was his aunt's voice calling and he went instantly to a
+tall, austere lady in a linen collar who was knitting wash-rags with the
+feverish haste of a piece-worker in a factory.
+
+He stood before her obediently.
+
+"Don't go in to-day."
+
+"_Why_, Auntie?" In his voice there was a world of disappointment.
+
+"It's too rough--there must have been a storm at sea."
+
+"But, Auntie," he protested, "I missed yesterday, taking Mrs. Appel to
+the auction. It isn't very rough----"
+
+"Look at the white-caps," she interrupted, curtly, "I don't want you to
+go, Wallie."
+
+"Oh, very well." He turned away abruptly, wondering if she realized how
+keenly he was disappointed--a disappointment that was not made less by
+the fact that her fears were groundless, since not only was it not
+"rough" but he was an excellent swimmer.
+
+"The girl from Wyoming," as he called Miss Spenceley to himself, had
+overheard and was looking at him with an expression in her eyes which
+made him redden. It was mocking; she was laughing at him for being told
+not to go in bathing, as if he were a child of seven.
+
+He sauntered past her, humming, to let her know that he did not care
+what she thought about him. When he turned around she had vanished and a
+few minutes after he saw her with her suit over her arm on the way to
+the bath-house on the exclusive beach in front of The Colonial.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+"PINKEY"
+
+
+The train upon which Will Smith was expected was not due until
+twelve-thirty, so, since he could not go swimming and still felt
+rebellious over being forbidden, Wallie went upstairs to put the
+finishing touches on a lemonade tray of japanned tin which he had
+painted and intended presenting to Mr. Cone.
+
+The design was his own, and very excellent it seemed to Wallie as he
+stopped at intervals and held it from him. On a moss-green background of
+rolling clouds a most artistic cluster of old-fashioned cabbage roses
+was tossed carelessly, with a brown slug on a leaf as a touch of
+realism.
+
+The gods have a way of apportioning their gifts unevenly, for not only
+did Wallie paint but he wrote poetry--free verse mostly; free chiefly in
+the sense that his contributions to the smaller magazines were,
+perforce, gratuitous. Also he sang--if not divinely, at least so
+acceptably that his services were constantly asked for charity concerts.
+
+In addition to these he had manlier accomplishments, playing good games
+of tennis, golf, and shuffle-board. Besides, Mr. Appel was his only
+dangerous opponent on the bowling alley, and he had learned to ride at
+the riding academy.
+
+Now, as he worked, he speculated as to whether he had imagined it or
+"the girl from Wyoming" really had laughed at him. He could not dismiss
+her from his mind and the incident rankled. He told himself that she had
+not been there long enough to appreciate him; she knew nothing of his
+talents or of his popularity. She would learn that to be singled out by
+him for special attention meant something, and he did not consider
+himself a conceited man either.
+
+Yet Wallie continued to tingle each time that he thought of the laughter
+in her eyes--actual derision he feared it was. Then he had an idea, a
+very clever one it seemed to him. By this time she would have returned
+from bathing and he would go down and exhibit the cabbage roses. They
+would be praised and she would hear it. It was nearly time for Will
+Smith to arrive, and he had to stop painting, anyhow.
+
+Bearing the lemonade tray carefully in order not to smudge it, Wallie
+stepped out of the elevator and stood in the wide doorway, agreeably
+aware that he was a pleasing figure in his artist's smock and the
+flowing scarf which he always put on when he painted.
+
+No one noticed him, however, for everyone was discussing the return of
+the "Smith boy," and the five dollars which Mr. Appel, the railway
+magnate, had unexpectedly contributed to the purse that he was going to
+present to him on behalf of the guests.
+
+Miss Spenceley was on the veranda as he had surmised she would be, and
+Wallie debated as to whether he should wait until discovered and urged
+to show his roses, or frankly offer his work for criticism.
+
+While he hesitated, the clatter of hoofs and what appeared to be a
+serious runaway on the side avenue brought everyone up standing. The
+swaying vehicle was a laundry wagon, and when it turned in at the
+entrance to the grounds of The Colonial, the astonished guests saw that
+not only had the horse a driver but a rider!
+
+It was not a runaway. On the contrary, the person on the horse's back
+was using his heels and his hat at every jump to get more speed out of
+the amazed animal.
+
+The wagon stopped in front of the hotel with the driver grinning
+uncertainly, while a soldierly figure sprang over the wheel to wring the
+hand of Smith, the gardener. Another on the horse's back replaced his
+service cap at an extraordinary angle and waited nonchalantly for the
+greetings to be over.
+
+Before he went to the army "Willie" Smith had been a bashful boy who
+blushed when the guests spoke to him, but he faced them now with the
+assurance of a vaudeville entertainer as he introduced his "buddy":
+
+"Pinkey Fripp, of Wyoming--a hero, ladies and gentlemen! The grittiest
+little soldier in the A.E.F., with a medal to prove it!"
+
+Followed an account of the deed of reckless courage for which Pinkey had
+been decorated, and the Smith boy told it so well that everyone's eyes
+had tears in them. Mrs. Appel, fumbling for her handkerchief, dropped
+her ball of yarn over the railing, where the cat wound it among the rose
+bushes so effectively that to disentangle it were an endless task.
+
+The subject of the eulogy stared back unabashed at the guests, who
+stared at him in admiration and curiosity. Unflattered, unmoved, he
+sagged to one side of the bare-backed horse with the easy grace of one
+accustomed to the saddle. No one just like him ever had come under the
+observation of the august patrons of The Colonial.
+
+Pinkey Fripp was about five feet four and square as a bulldog.
+"Hard-boiled" is a word which might have been coined specially to
+describe him. The cropped hair on his round head was sandy, his skin a
+sun-blistered red, and his lips had deep cracks in them. His nose did
+not add to his beauty any more than the knife-scar around his neck,
+which looked as if someone had barely failed in an attempt to cut off
+his head.
+
+The feature that saved the young fellow's face from a look of
+unmitigated "toughness" was his pale gray eyes, whose steady, fearless
+look seemed to contend with a whimsical gleam of humour.
+
+Pinkey listened, with the disciplined patience of the army, to the
+recital of the exploit that had won the War Cross for him, but there was
+a peculiar glint in his light eyes. As Smith drew to a conclusion,
+Pinkey slowly lifted his leg, stiffened by a machine-gun bullet, over
+the horse's neck and sat sideways.
+
+The applause was so vociferous, so spontaneous and hearty, that nothing
+approaching it ever had been heard at The Colonial. But it stopped as
+suddenly, for in the middle of it Pinkey gathered himself and sprang
+through the air like a flying-squirrel, to bowl the Smith boy over. "You
+said you wouldn't tell about that 'Craw de gare,' ner call me a hero,
+an' you've gone and done it!" he said, accusingly, as he sat astride of
+him. "I got feelin's jest like grown-up folks, and I don't like to be
+laughed at. Sorry, Big Boy, but you got this comin'!" Thereupon, with a
+grin, Pinkey banged his host's head on the gravel.
+
+The two were surrounded when this astonishing incident was over and it
+was found that not only was the Smith boy not injured but seemed to be
+used to it and bore no malice. The guests shook hands with the boys and
+congratulated them; they examined the War Cross that Pinkey produced
+reluctantly from the bottom of the flour-sack in which he carried his
+clothing, and finally Mr. Appel presented the purse in a speech to which
+nobody listened--and the Smith boy shocked everybody by his extravagance
+when he gave five of it to the driver of the laundry wagon.
+
+"I was shore pinin' to step in the middle of a horse," was Pinkey's
+explanation of their eccentric arrival. "It kinda rests me."
+
+While all this was happening Wallie stood holding his lemonade tray.
+When he could get close, he welcomed the Smith boy and was introduced to
+Pinkey, and stood around long enough to learn that the latter and Helene
+Spenceley knew each other.
+
+Nobody, however, was interested in seeing his roses. Even Miss Mattie
+Gaskett, who always clung like a burr to woollen clothing with the
+least encouragement, said carelessly when he showed her the lemonade
+tray:
+
+"As good as your best, Wallie," and edged over to hear what Pinkey was
+saying.
+
+There was nothing to do but withdraw unobtrusively, though Wallie
+realized with chagrin that he could have gone upstairs on his hands and
+knees without attracting the least attention. For the first time he
+regretted deeply that his eyesight had kept him out of the army, for he,
+too, might have been winning war crosses in the trenches instead of
+rolling bandages and knitting socks and sweaters.
+
+Wallie almost hated the lemonade tray as he slammed it on the table, for
+in his utter disgust with everything and everybody the design seemed to
+look more like cabbages than roses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE BRAND OF CAIN
+
+
+There never was a nose so completely out of joint as Wallie's nor an
+owner more thoroughly humiliated and embittered by the fickleness and
+ingratitude of human nature. The sacrifices he had made in escorting
+dull ladies to duller movies were wasted. The unfailing courtesy with
+which he had retrieved their yarn and handkerchiefs, the sympathy and
+attention with which he had listened to their symptoms, his solicitude
+when they were ailing--all were forgotten now that Pinkey was in the
+vicinity.
+
+The ladies swarmed around that person, quoted his sayings delightedly,
+and declared a million times in Wallie's hearing that "he was a
+character!" And the worst of it was that Helene Spenceley did not seem
+sufficiently aware of Wallie's existence even to laugh at him.
+
+As the displaced cynosure sat brooding in his room the third morning
+after Pinkey's arrival he wished that he could think of some perfectly
+well-bred way to attract attention.
+
+He believed in the psychology of clothes. Perhaps if he appeared on the
+veranda in something to emphasize his personality, something suggesting
+strength and virility, like tennis flannels, he could regain his hold on
+his audience.
+
+With this thought in mind Wallie opened his capacious closet filled with
+wearing apparel, and the moment his eyes fell upon his riding breeches
+he had his inspiration. If "the girl from Wyoming" thought her friend
+Pinkey was the only person who could ride a horse, he would show her!
+
+It took Wallie only so long to order a horse as it required to get the
+Riding Academy on the telephone.
+
+"I want a good-looking mount--something spirited," he instructed the
+person who answered.
+
+"We've just bought some new horses," the voice replied. "I'll send you
+the pick of them."
+
+Wallie hung up the receiver, fairly trembling with eagerness to dress
+himself and get down on the veranda. He looked well in riding
+togs--everyone mentioned it--and if he could walk out swinging his crop
+nonchalantly, well, they would at least _notice_ him! And when he would
+spring lightly into the saddle and gallop away--he saw it as plainly as
+if it were happening.
+
+Although Wallie actually broke his record he seemed to himself an
+unconscionable time in dressing, but when he gave himself a final survey
+in the mirror, he had every reason to feel satisfied with the result. He
+was correct in every detail and he thought complacently that he could
+not but contrast favourably with the appearance of that "roughneck" from
+Montana--or was it Wyoming?
+
+"What you taking such a hot day to ride for?" Mrs. Appel called when she
+caught sight of Wallie.
+
+The question jarred on him and he replied coolly:
+
+"I had not observed that it was warmer than usual, Mrs. Appel."
+
+"It's ninety, with the humidity goodness knows how much!" she retorted.
+
+Without seeming to look, Wallie could see that both Miss Spenceley and
+Pinkey were on the veranda and regarding him with interest. His pose
+became a little theatrical while he waited for his mount, striking his
+riding boot smartly with his crop as he stood in full view of them.
+
+Everyone was interested when they saw the horse coming, and a few
+sauntered over to have a look at him, Miss Spenceley and Pinkey among
+the others.
+
+"Is that the horse you always ride, Wallie?" inquired Miss Gaskett.
+
+"No; it's a new one I'm going to try out for them," Wallie replied,
+indifferently.
+
+"Wallie, _do_ be careful!" his aunt admonished him. "I don't like you to
+ride strange horses."
+
+Wallie laughed lightly, and as he went down to meet the groom who was
+now at the foot of the steps with the horses he assured her that there
+was not the least cause for anxiety.
+
+"Why, that's a Western horse!" Miss Spenceley exclaimed. "Isn't that a
+brand on the shoulder?"
+
+"It looks like it," Pinkey answered, ruffing the hair then smoothing it.
+"Shore it's a brand." He stepped off a pace to look at it.
+
+"Pardon me, but I think you're mistaken," Wallie said, politely but
+positively. "The Academy buys only thoroughbreds."
+
+"If that ain't a bronc, I'll eat it," Pinkey declared, bluntly.
+
+"Can you make out the brand?" asked Miss Spenceley.
+
+Pinkey ruffed the hair again and stepped back and squinted. Then his
+cracked lips stretched in a grin that threatened to start them bleeding:
+"'88' is the way I read it."
+
+She nodded: "The brand of Cain."
+
+Then they both laughed immoderately.
+
+Wallie could see no occasion for merriment and it nettled him.
+
+"Nevertheless, I maintain that you are in error," he declared,
+obstinately.
+
+"I doubt if I could set one of them hen-skin saddles," observed Pinkey,
+changing the subject.
+
+Wallie replied airily:
+
+"Oh, it's very easy if you've been taught properly."
+
+"Taught? You mean," wonderingly, "that somebody _learnt_ you to ride
+horseback?"
+
+Wallie smiled patronizingly:
+
+"How else would I know?"
+
+"I was jest throwed on a horse and told to stay there."
+
+"Which accounts for the fact that you Western riders have no 'form,' if
+you'll excuse my frankness."
+
+"Don't mention it," replied Pinkey, not to be outdone in politeness.
+"Maybe, before I go, you'll give me some p'inters?"
+
+"I shall be most happy," Wallie responded, putting his foot in the
+stirrup.
+
+He mounted creditably and settled himself in the saddle.
+
+"Thumb him," said Miss Spenceley, "and we'll soon settle the argument."
+
+"How--thumb him? The term is not familiar."
+
+"Show him, Pinkey." Her eyes were sparkling, for Wallie's tone implied
+that the expression was slang and also rather vulgar.
+
+"He'll unload his pack as shore as shootin'." Pinkey hesitated.
+
+"No time like the present to learn a lesson," she replied, ambiguously.
+
+"Certainly--if there's anything you can teach me," Wallie's smile said
+as plain as words that he doubted it. "Mr. Fripp--er--'thumb' him."
+
+"You're the doctor," said Pinkey, grimly, and "thumbed" him.
+
+The effect was instantaneous. The old horse ducked his head, arched his
+back, and went at it.
+
+It was over in less time than it requires to tell and Wallie was
+convinced beyond the question of a doubt that the horse had not been
+bred in Kentucky. As he described an aerial circle Wallie had a
+whimsical notion that his teeth had bitten into his brain and his spine
+was projected through the crown of his derby hat. Darkness and oblivion
+came upon him for a moment, and then he found himself being lifted
+tenderly from a bed of petunias and dusted off by the groom from the
+Riding Academy.
+
+The ladies were screaming, but a swift glance showed Wallie not only Mr.
+Appel but Mr. Cone and Mr. Budlong with their hands over their mouths
+and their teeth gleaming between their spreading fingers.
+
+"Coward!" he cried to Pinkey. "_You_ don't dare get on him!"
+
+"Can you ride him 'slick,' Pinkey?" asked Miss Spenceley.
+
+"I'll do it er bust somethin'." Pinkey's mouth had a funny quirk at the
+corners. "Maybe it'll take the kinks out of me from travellin'."
+
+He looked at Mr. Cone doubtfully: "I'm liable to rip up the sod in your
+front yard a little."
+
+"Go to it!" cried Mr. Cone, whose sporting blood was up. "There's
+nothin' here that won't grow again. Ride him!"
+
+Everybody was trembling, and when Miss Eyester looked at her lips they
+were white as alabaster, but she meant to see the riding, if she had one
+of her sinking spells immediately it was over.
+
+When Pinkey swung into the saddle, the horse turned its head around
+slowly and looked at the leg that gripped him. Pinkey leaned down,
+unbuckled the throat-latch, and slipped off the bridle. Then, as he
+touched the horse in the flank with his heels, he took off his cap and
+slapped him over the head with it.
+
+The horse recognized the familiar challenge and accepted it. What he
+had done to Wallie was only the gambolling of a frisky colt as compared
+with his efforts to rid his back of Pinkey.
+
+Even Helene Spenceley sobered as she watched the battle that followed.
+
+The horse sprang into the air, twisted, and came down
+stiff-legged--squealing. Now with his head between his forelegs he shot
+up his hind hoofs and at an angle to require all the grip in his rider's
+knees to stay in the saddle. Then he brought down his heels again,
+violently, to bite at Pinkey--who kicked him.
+
+He "weaved," he "sunfished"--with every trick known to an old outlaw he
+tried to throw his rider, rearing finally to fall backward and mash to a
+pulp a bed of Mr. Cone's choicest tulips. But when the horse rose Pinkey
+was with him, while the spectators, choking with excitement, forgetting
+themselves and each other, yelled like Apaches.
+
+With nostrils blood-red and distended, his eyes the eyes of a wild
+animal, now writhing, now crouching, now lying back on his haunches and
+springing forward with a violence to snap any ordinary vertebra, the
+horse pitched as if there was no limit to its ingenuity and endurance.
+
+Pinkey's breath was coming in gasps and his colour had faded with the
+terrible jar of it all. Even the uninitiated could see that Pinkey was
+weakening, and the result was doubtful, when, suddenly, the horse gave
+up and stampeded. He crashed through the trellis over which Mr. Cone had
+carefully trained his crimson ramblers, tore through a neat border of
+mignonette and sweet alyssum that edged the driveway, jumped through
+"snowballs," lilacs, syringas, and rhododendrons to come to a halt
+finally conquered and chastened.
+
+The "88" brand has produced a strain famous throughout Wyoming for its
+buckers, and this venerable outlaw lived up to every tradition of his
+youth and breeding.
+
+There never was worse bucking nor better riding in a Wild West Show or
+out of it, and Mr. Appel declared that he had not been so stirred since
+the occasion when walking in the woods at Harvey's Lake in the early
+'90's he had acted upon the unsound presumption that all are kittens
+that look like kittens and disputed the path with a black-and-white
+animal which proved not to be.
+
+Mrs. C. D. Budlong was shedding tears like a crocodile, without moving a
+feature. Mr. Budlong put the lighted end of a cigar in his mouth and
+burned his tongue to a blister, while Miss Eyester dropped into a chair
+and had her sinking spell and recovered without any one remarking it. In
+an abandonment that was like the delirium of madness Mr. Cone went in
+and lifted Miss Gaskett's cat "Cutie" out of the plush rocker, where she
+was leaving hairs on the cushion, and surreptitiously kicked her.
+
+Altogether it was an unforgettable occasion, and only Pinkey seemed
+unthrilled by it--he dismounted in a businesslike, matter-of-fact manner
+that had in it neither malice toward the horse nor elation at having
+ridden him. He felt admiration, if anything, for he said as he rubbed
+the horse's forehead:
+
+"You shore made me ride, Old Timer! You got all the old curves and some
+new ones. If I had a hat I'd take it off to you. I ain't had such a
+churnin' sence I set 'Steamboat' fer fifteen seconds. Oh, hullo----" as
+Wallie advanced with his hand out.
+
+"I congratulate you," said Wallie, feeling himself magnanimous in view
+of the way his neck was hurting.
+
+"You needn't," replied Pinkey, good-naturedly. "He durned near 'got'
+me."
+
+"It was a very creditable ride indeed," insisted Wallie, in his most
+patronizing and priggish manner. He found it very hard to be generous,
+with Helene Spenceley listening.
+
+"It seemed so, after _your_ performance, 'Gentle Annie'!" snapped Miss
+Spenceley.
+
+Actually the woman seemed to spit like a cat at him! She had the tongue
+of a serpent and a vicious temper. He hated her! Wallie removed his hat
+with exaggerated politeness and decided never to have anything more to
+say to Miss Spenceley.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+"GENTLE ANNIE"
+
+
+Wallie had told himself emphatically that he would never speak again to
+Helene Spenceley. That would be an easy matter since she had glared at
+him, when they had passed as she was going in for breakfast, in a way
+that would have made him afraid to speak even if he had intended to. To
+refrain from thinking of her was something different.
+
+He sat on a rustic bench on The Colonial lawn watching the silly robins
+and wondering why she had called him "Gentle Annie." It was clear enough
+that nothing flattering was intended, but what did she mean by it? There
+was no reason that he could see for her to fly at him--quite the
+contrary. He had been very generous and gentlemanly, it seemed to him,
+in congratulating Pinkey when it was due to them that he, Wallie, was
+thrown into the petunias. His neck was still stiff from the fall and no
+one had remembered to inquire about it--that was another reason for the
+disgruntled mood in which the moment found him. The women were making
+perfect _fools_ of themselves over that Pinkey--they were at it now, he
+could hear them cackling on the veranda.
+
+What he could not understand was why they should act as if there was
+something _amusing_ about a woman who came from west of Buffalo and then
+make a hero of a man from the Wild and Woolly. Yet they always did it,
+he had noticed. Why, that Pinkey could not speak a grammatical sentence
+and they hung on his every word, breathless. It was disgusting!
+
+Wallie picked up a pebble and pelted a robin.
+
+He wished the undertow would catch that Spenceley girl. If he should
+reach her when she was going down for the third time she would _have_ to
+thank him for saving her and that would about kill her. He decided that
+he would make a point of bathing when she did, on the very remote chance
+that it might happen.
+
+"Gentle Annie! Gentle Annie! Gentle Annie!" The name rankled.
+
+Wallie pitched a pebble at another robin and accidentally hit it.
+Stunned for an instant, it keeled over, and Wallie glanced guiltily
+toward the hotel to see if by any chance Mr. Cone, who encouraged
+robins, was looking.
+
+Pinkey was crossing the lawn with the obvious intention of joining him.
+
+"Gee!" he exclaimed, sinking down beside Wallie, "I've nearly sprained
+my tongue answerin' questions. 'Is it true that snakes shed their skin,
+and do the hot pools in the Yellowstone Park freeze in winter?' I'm
+goin' to drift pretty pronto--I can't stand visitin'."
+
+"Do you like the East, Mr. Fripp?" inquired Wallie, formally.
+
+"I'm glad they's a West," Pinkey replied, cryptically.
+
+"You and Miss Spenceley are from the same section, I take it?"
+
+"Yep--Wyomin'."
+
+"Er--by the way"--Wallie's tone was elaborately casual--"what did she
+mean yesterday when she called me 'Gentle Annie'?"
+
+Pinkey moved uneasily.
+
+"Could you give me the precise significance?" persisted Wallie.
+
+"I could, but I wouldn't like to," Pinkey replied, drily
+
+"Oh, don't spare my feelings," said Wallie, loftily, "there's nothing
+_she_ could say would hurt them."
+
+"If that's the way you feel--she meant you were 'harmless'."
+
+"I trust so," Wallie responded with dignity.
+
+"I'd ruther be called a--er--a Mormon," Pinkey observed.
+
+Shocked at the language, Wallie demanded:
+
+"It is, then, an epithet of opprobrium?"
+
+"I can't say as to that," replied Pinkey, judicially, "but she meant you
+were a 'perfect lady'."
+
+"It's more than I can say of her!" Wallie retorted, reddening.
+
+Pinkey merely grinned and shrugged a shoulder.
+
+He arose a moment later as if the conversation and company alike bored
+him.
+
+"Well--I'm goin' to pack my war-bag and ramble. Why don't you come West
+and git civilized? With your figger you ought to be good fer somethin'.
+S'long, feller!"
+
+Naturally, Wallie was not comforted by his conversation with Pinkey. Now
+he knew himself to have been insulted, and resented it, but along with
+his indignation was such a feeling of dissatisfaction with his life as
+he had never known. His brow contracted while he thought of the monotony
+of it. Just as this summer would be a duplicate of every other summer so
+the winter would be a repetition of the many winters he had spent in
+Florida with Aunt Mary. After a few months at home they would migrate
+with the robins. He would meet the same people he had seen all summer.
+They would complain of the Southern cooking and knit and tat while they
+babbled amiably of themselves and the members of their family and their
+doings. The men would smoke and compare business experiences when they
+had finished flaying the Administration. Discontent grew within him as
+he reviewed it. Why couldn't he and Aunt Mary do something different for
+the winter? By George! he would suggest it to her!
+
+He got up with alacrity, cheerful immediately.
+
+She was not on the veranda and Miss Eyester was of the opinion that she
+had gone to her room to take her tonic.
+
+"I have turned the shoulder, Wallie." Mrs. Appel held up the sweater
+triumphantly.
+
+"That's good," said Wallie, feeling uncomfortable with Miss Spenceley
+within hearing.
+
+"Wallie," Mrs. Stott called to him, "will you give me the address of
+that milliner whose hats you said you liked particularly? Somewhere on
+Walnut, wasn't it?"
+
+"Sixteenth and Walnut," Wallie replied, shortly.
+
+"What do you think I'm doing, Wallie?"
+
+"I can't imagine, Mrs. Budlong."
+
+"I'm rolling!"
+
+"Rolling?"
+
+"To reduce. C. D. says I look like a cement-mixer in action."
+
+Wallie was annoyed by the confidence.
+
+Miss Gaskett beckoned him.
+
+"Have you seen Cutie, Wallie?"
+
+"No," curtly.
+
+"When I called her this morning she looked at me with eyes like saucers
+and simply _tore_ into the bushes. Do you suppose anybody has abused
+her?"
+
+Mr. Cone, who was standing in the doorway, went back to his desk
+hastily.
+
+"I'm not in her confidence," said Wallie with so much sarcasm that they
+all looked at him.
+
+Miss Spenceley was talking to Mr. Appel, who was listening so
+attentively that Wallie wondered what she was saying. They were sitting
+close to the window of the reception room and it occurred to Wallie that
+there would be no harm in stepping inside and gratifying his curiosity.
+The conversation was not of a private nature and in other circumstances
+he would have joined them, so, on his way to the elevator to find his
+aunt, he paused a moment to hear what the girl was saying.
+
+Since she was speaking emphatically and a lace curtain was the only
+barrier, Wallie found out without difficulty:
+
+"I have no use for a squaw-man."
+
+"You mean," Mr. Appel interrogated, "a white man who marries an Indian
+woman?"
+
+"Not necessarily. I mean a man who permits a woman to support him
+without making any effort on his part to do a man's work. He may be an
+Adonis and gifted to the point of genius, but I have no respect for him.
+He----"
+
+Wallie did not linger. He remembered the ancient adage, and while he did
+not consider himself an eavesdropper or believe that Miss Spenceley
+meant anything personal, nevertheless the shoe fit to such a nicety that
+he hurried to the elevator, his step accelerated by the same sense of
+guilt that had sent Mr. Cone scuttling to his refuge behind the counter.
+
+"Squaw-man"--the term was as new to him as "Gentle Annie."
+
+As Miss Eyester had opined, Miss Macpherson was taking her tonic, or
+about to.
+
+"I've come to make a suggestion, Auntie," Wallie began, with a little
+diffidence.
+
+"What is it?" Miss Macpherson was shaking the bottle.
+
+"Let's not go South this winter."
+
+"Where then?" She smiled indulgently as she measured out the medicine.
+
+"Why not California or Arizona?" he suggested.
+
+"I don't believe this tonic helps me a particle." She made a wry face as
+she swallowed it.
+
+"That's it," he declared, eagerly. "You need a change--we both do."
+
+"I'm too set in my ways to enjoy new experiences, and I don't like
+strangers. We might catch contagious diseases, and there is no place
+where we could be so comfortable as in Florida. No," she shook her head
+kindly but firmly, "we will go South as usual."
+
+"Oh--_sugar!_" The vehemence with which Wallie uttered the expletive
+showed the extent of his disappointment.
+
+"Wallie! I'm surprised at you!" She regarded him with annoyance.
+
+"I'm tired of going to the same places year after year, doing the same
+thing, seeing the same old fossils!"
+
+"Wallie, you are speaking of my friends and yours," she reminded him.
+
+"They're all right, but I like to make new ones. I don't want to go,
+Aunt Mary."
+
+She said significantly:
+
+"Don't you think you are a little ungrateful--in the circumstances?"
+
+It was the first time she had ever reminded him of his dependency.
+
+"If you mean I am an ingrate, that is an unpleasant word, Aunt Mary."
+
+She shrugged her shoulder.
+
+"Place your own interpretation upon it, Wallace."
+
+"Perhaps you think I am not capable of earning my own living?"
+
+"I have not _said_ so."
+
+"But you mean it!" he cried, hotly.
+
+Miss Macpherson was nearly as amazed as Wallie to hear herself saying:
+
+"Possibly you had better try it."
+
+She had taken two cups of strong coffee that morning and her nerves were
+over-stimulated, and perhaps with the intuition of a jealous woman she
+half suspected that "the girl from Wyoming" had something to do with his
+restlessness and desire to go West. The time she most dreaded was the
+day when she would have to share her nephew with another woman.
+
+Wallie's eyes were blazing when he answered:
+
+"I shall! I shall never be beholden to you for another penny. When I
+wanted to do something for myself you wouldn't let me. You're not fair,
+Aunt Mary!"
+
+Pale and breathing heavily in their emotion, they looked at each other
+with hard, angry eyes--eyes in which there was not a trace of the
+affection which for years had existed between them.
+
+"Suit yourself," she said, finally, and turned her back on him.
+
+Wallie went to his room in a daze, too bewildered to realize immediately
+what had happened. That he had quarrelled with his aunt, permanently,
+irrevocably, seemed incredible. But he would never eat her bread of
+charity again--he had said it. As for her, he knew her Scotch
+stubbornness too well to think that she would offer it. No, he was sure
+the break was final.
+
+A sense of freedom came to him gradually as it grew upon him that he was
+loose from the apron-strings that had led him since childhood. He need
+never again eat food he did not like because it was "good for him." He
+could sit in draughts if he wanted to and sneeze his head off. He could
+put on his woollen underwear when he got darned good and ready. He could
+swim when there were white caps in the harbour and choose his own
+clothing.
+
+A fine feeling of exultation swept over Wallie as he strode up and down
+with an eye to the way he looked in the mirror. He was free of petticoat
+domination. He was no longer a "squaw-man," and he would not be one
+again for a million dollars! He would "show" Aunt Mary--he would "show"
+Helene Spenceley--he would "show" _everybody!_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+"BURNING HIS BRIDGES"
+
+
+Wallie opened his eyes one morning with the subconscious feeling that
+something portentous was impending though he was still too drowsy to
+remember it.
+
+He yawned and stretched languidly and luxuriously on a bed which was the
+last word in comfort, since Mr. Cone's pride in The Colonial beds was
+second only to that of his pride in the hotel's reputation for
+exclusiveness. With especially made mattresses and monogrammed linen,
+silken coverlets and imported blankets, his boasts were amply justified,
+and the beds perhaps accounted for the frequency with which the guests
+tried to get into the dining room when the breakfast hours were over.
+
+A bit of yellow paper on the chiffonier brought Wallie to his full sense
+as his eyes fell upon it. It was the answer to a telegram he had sent
+Pinkey Fripp, in Prouty, Wyoming, making inquiries as to the possibility
+of taking up a homestead.
+
+It read:
+
+    They's a good piece of ground you can file on if you got
+    the guts to hold it.
+                                                      PINKEY.
+
+Wallie grew warm every time he thought of such a message addressed to
+him coming over the wire. Though worse than inelegant, and partially
+unintelligible, it was plain enough that what he wanted was there if he
+went for it, and he had replied that Pinkey might look for him shortly
+in Prouty.
+
+And to-day he was leaving! He was saying good-bye forever to the hotel
+that was like home to him and the friends that were as his own
+relatives! He had $2,100 in real money--a legacy--and his clothing. In
+his new-born spirit of independence he wished that he might even leave
+his clothes behind him, but he had changed his mind when he had figured
+the cost of buying others.
+
+His aunt had taken no notice of Wallie's preparations for departure. The
+news of the rupture had spread quickly, and the sympathies of the guests
+were equally divided. All were agreed, however, that if Wallie went West
+he would soon have enough of it and be back in time to go South for the
+winter.
+
+Helene Spenceley had left unexpectedly upon the receipt of a telegram,
+and it was one of Wallie's favourite speculations as to what she would
+say when she heard he was a neighbour--something disagreeable, probably.
+
+With the solemnity which a person might feel who is planning his own
+funeral, Wallie arose and made a careful toilet. It would be the last in
+the room that he had occupied for so many summers. The hangings were
+handsome, the chairs luxurious, and his feet sunk deep in the nap of the
+velvet carpet. The equipment of the white, commodious bathroom was
+perfection, and no article of furniture was missing from his bedroom
+that could contribute to the comfort of a modish young man accustomed to
+every modern convenience.
+
+As Wallie took his shower and dusted himself with scented talcum and
+applied the various lotions and skin-foods recommended for the
+complexion, he wondered what the hotel accommodations would be like in
+Prouty, Wyoming. Not up to much, he imagined, but he decided that he
+would duplicate this bathroom in his own residence as soon as he had his
+homestead going. Wallie's knowledge of Wyoming was gathered chiefly from
+an atlas he had borrowed from Mr. Cone. The atlas stated briefly that it
+contained 97,890 square miles, mostly arid, and a population of 92,531.
+It gave the impression that the editors themselves were hazy on Wyoming,
+which very likely was the truth, since it had been published in Mr.
+Cone's childhood when the state was a territory.
+
+What the atlas omitted, however, was supplied by Wallie's imagination.
+When he closed his eyes he could see great herds of cattle--his--with
+their broad backs glistening in the sunshine, and vast tracts--his
+also--planted in clover, oats, barley, or whatever it was they grew in
+the country. For diversion, he saw himself scampering over the country
+on horseback on visits to the friendly neighbours, entertaining
+frequently himself and entertained everywhere. As for Helene
+Spenceley--she would soon learn the manner of man she had belittled!
+
+This frame of mind was responsible for the fact that when he had
+finished dressing and gone below he spoke patronizingly to Mr. Appel,
+who paid an income tax on fourteen million.
+
+It was a wrench after all--the going--and the fact that his aunt did not
+relent made it the harder. It was the first time he ever had packed his
+own boxes and decided upon the clothes in which he should travel. But
+she sat erect and unyielding at the far end of the veranda while he was
+in the midst of a sympathetic leave-taking from the guests of The
+Colonial. There were tears in Mrs. Budlong's eyes when she warned him
+not to fall into bad habits, and Wallie's were close to the surface when
+he promised her he would not.
+
+"Aw--you'll be back when it gets cold weather," said Mr. Appel.
+
+"I shall succeed or leave my bones in Wyoming!" Wallie declared,
+dramatically.
+
+Mr. Appel snickered: "They'll help fertilize the soil, which I'm told
+needs it." His early struggles had made Mr. Appel callous.
+
+Miss Macpherson, looking straight ahead, gave no indication that she saw
+her nephew coming.
+
+"Will you say good-bye to me, Aunt Mary?"
+
+She appeared not to see the hand he put out to her.
+
+"I trust you will have a safe journey, Wallace." Her voice was a breath
+from the Arctic.
+
+He stood before her a moment feeling suddenly friendless. "This makes me
+very unhappy, Aunt Mary," he said, sorrowfully.
+
+Since she did not answer, he could only leave her, and her failure to
+ask him to write hurt as much as the frigidity of the leave-taking.
+
+The motor-bus had arrived and the chauffeur was piling his luggage on
+top of it, so, with a final handshake, Wallie said good-bye, perhaps
+forever, to his friends of The Colonial.
+
+They were all standing with their arms about each other's waists or with
+their hands placed affectionately upon each other's shoulders as the bus
+started, calling "Good-bye and good luck" with much waving of
+handkerchiefs. Only his aunt sat grim-visaged and motionless, refusing
+to concede so much as a glance in her nephew's direction.
+
+Wallie, in turn, took off his girlish sailor and swung it through the
+bus window and wafted kisses at the dear, amiable folk of The Colonial
+until the motor had passed between the stately pillars of the entrance.
+Then he leaned back with a sigh and with the feeling of having "burned
+his bridges behind him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+HIS "GAT"
+
+
+"How much 'Jack' did you say you got?" Pinkey, an early caller at the
+Prouty House, sitting on his heel with his back against the wall,
+awaited with evident interest an answer to this pointed question. He
+explained further in response to Wallie's puzzled look:
+"Kale--dinero--the long green--_money_."
+
+"Oh," Wallie replied, enlightened, "about $1,800." He was in his blue
+silk pajamas, sitting on the iron rail of his bed--it had an edge like a
+knife-blade.
+
+There was no resemblance between this room and the one he had last
+occupied. The robin's egg-blue alabastine had scaled, exposing large
+patches of plaster, and the same thing had happened to the enamel of the
+wash-bowl and pitcher--the dents in the latter leading to the conclusion
+that upon some occasion it had been used as a weapon.
+
+A former occupant who must have learned his art in the penitentiary had
+knotted the lace curtains in such a fashion that no one ever had
+attempted to untie them, while the prison-like effect of the iron bed,
+with its dingy pillows and counterpane and sagging middle, was such as
+to throw a chill over the spirits of the cheeriest traveller.
+
+It had required all Wallie's will power, when he had arrived at
+midnight, to rise above the depression superinduced by these
+surroundings. His luggage was piled high in the corner, while the two
+trunks setting outside his doorway already had been the cause of threats
+of an alarming nature, made against the owner by sundry guests who had
+bruised their shins on them in the ill-lighted corridor.
+
+Pinkey's arrival had cheered him wonderfully. Now when that person
+observed tentatively that $1,800 was "a good little stake," Wallie
+blithely offered to count it.
+
+"You got it with you?"
+
+Wallie nodded.
+
+"That's chancey," Pinkey commented. "They's people in the country would
+stick you up if they knowed you carried it."
+
+"I should resist if any one attempted to rob me," Wallie declared as he
+sat down on the rail gingerly with his bulging wallet.
+
+"What with?" Pinkey inquired, humorously.
+
+Wallie reached under his pillow and produced a pearl-handled revolver of
+32 calibre.
+
+"Before leaving I purchased this pistol."
+
+Pinkey regarded him with a pained expression.
+
+"Don't use that dude word, feller. Say 'gun,' 'gat,' 'six-shooter,'
+anything, but don't ever say 'pistol' above a whisper."
+
+A little crest-fallen, Wallie laid it aside and commenced to count his
+money. Pinkey, he could see, was not impressed by the weapon.
+
+"Yes, eighteen hundred exactly. I spent $250 purchasing a camping
+outfit."
+
+Pinkey looked at him incredulously. He was thinking of the frying-pan,
+coffee-pot, and lard-kettle of which his own consisted. He made no
+comment, however, until Wallie mentioned his portable bath-tub, which,
+while expensive, he declared he considered indispensable.
+
+"Yes," Pinkey agreed, drily, "you'll be needin' a portable bath-tub
+something desperate. I wisht I had one. The last good wash I took was in
+Crystal Lake the other side of the Bear-tooth Mountain. When I was done
+I stood out till the sun dried me, then brushed the mud off with a
+whisk-broom."
+
+"That must have been uncomfortable," Wallie observed, politely. "I hope
+you will feel at liberty to use my tub whenever you wish."
+
+"That won't be often enough to wear it out," said Pinkey, candidly. "But
+you'd better jump into your pants and git over to the land-office. We
+want to nail that 160 before some other 'Scissor-bill' beats you to it."
+
+Under Pinkey's guidance Wallie went to the land office, which was in the
+rear of a secondhand store kept by Mr. Alvin Tucker, who was also the
+land commissioner.
+
+The office was in the rear and there were two routes by which it was
+possible to get in touch with Mr. Tucker: one might gain admittance by
+walking over the bureaus, centre-tables, and stoves that blocked the
+front entrance, or he could crawl on his hands and knees through a large
+roll of chicken-wire wedged into the side door of the establishment.
+
+The main-travelled road, however, was over the tables and bureaus, and
+this was chosen by Pinkey and Wallie, who found Mr. Tucker at his desk
+attending to the State's business.
+
+Mr. Tucker had been blacking a stove and had not yet removed the traces
+of his previous occupation, so when Pinkey introduced him his hand was
+of a colour to make Wallie hesitate for the fraction of a second before
+taking it.
+
+Mr. Tucker being a man of great good nature took no offense, although he
+could scarcely fail to notice Wallie's hesitation; on the contrary, he
+inquired with the utmost cordiality:
+
+"Well, gents, what can I do for you this morning?" His tone implied that
+he had the universe at his disposal, and he also looked it as he tipped
+back his swivel chair and regarded them.
+
+"He wants to file on the 160 on Skull Crick that Boise Bill abandoned,"
+said Pinkey.
+
+Tucker's gaze shifted.
+
+"I'm not sure it's open to entry," he replied, hesitatingly.
+
+"Yes, it is. His time was up a month ago, and he ain't even fenced it."
+
+"You know he's quarrelsome," Tucker suggested. "Perhaps it would be
+better to ask his intentions."
+
+"He ain't none," Pinkey declared, bluntly. "He only took it up to hold
+for Canby and he's never done a lick of work on it."
+
+"Of course it's right in the middle of Canby's range," Tucker argued,
+"and you can scarcely blame him for not wanting it homesteaded. Why
+don't you select a place that won't conflict with his interests?"
+
+"Why should we consider his interests? He don't think of anybody else's
+when he wants anything," Pinkey demanded.
+
+"Your friend bein' a newcomer, I thought he wouldn't want to locate in
+the middle of trouble."
+
+"He can take care of himself," Pinkey declared, confidently; though, as
+they both glanced at Wallie, there seemed nothing in his appearance to
+justify his friend's optimism. He looked a lamblike pacifist as he sat
+fingering his straw hat diffidently.
+
+Tucker brought his feet down with the air of a man who had done his duty
+and washed his hands of consequences; he prepared to make out the
+necessary papers. As he handled the documents he left fingerprints of
+such perfection on the borders that they resembled identification marks
+for classification under the Bertillon system, and Wallie was far more
+interested in watching him than in his intimation that there was trouble
+in the offing if he made this filing.
+
+He paid his fees and filled out his application, leaving Tucker's office
+with a new feeling of importance and responsibility. One hundred and
+sixty acres was not much of a ranch as ranches go in Wyoming, but it was
+a beginning.
+
+As soon as they were out of the building, Wallie inquired casually:
+
+"Does Miss Spenceley live in my neighbourhood?"
+
+"Across the mounting!" Which reply conveyed nothing to Wallie. Pinkey
+added: "I punch cows for their outfit."
+
+"Indeed," politely. Then, curiosity consuming him, he hazarded another
+question:
+
+"What did she say when she heard I was coming?"
+
+"She laughed to kill herself." Pinkey seldom lied when the truth would
+answer.
+
+In the meantime, Tucker, in guarded language, was informing Canby of the
+entry by telephone. From the sounds which came through the receiver he
+had the impression that the land baron was pulling the telephone out by
+the roots in his exasperation at the negligence of his hireling whom he
+had supposed had done sufficient work to hold it.
+
+"I'll attend to it," he answered.
+
+Tucker thought there was no doubt about that, and he had a worthy
+feeling of having earned the yearly stipend which he received from Canby
+for these small services.
+
+"We'd better sift along and git out there," Pinkey advised when they
+were back at the Prouty House.
+
+"To-day?"
+
+"You bet you! That's no dream about Boise Bill bein' ugly, and he might
+try to hold the 160 if he got wind of your filing."
+
+"In that event?"
+
+"In that event," Pinkey mimicked, "he's more'n likely to run you off,
+unless you got the sand to fight fer it. That's what I meant in my
+telegram."
+
+"Oh," said Wallie, enlightened. "'Sand' and--er--intestines are
+synonymous terms in your vernacular?"
+
+Pinkey stared at him.
+
+"Say, feller, you'll have to learn to sling the buckskin before we can
+understand each other. Anyhow, as I was sayin', you got a good
+proposition in this 160 if you can hold it."
+
+"If I am within my rights I shall adhere to them at all hazards,"
+declared Wallie, firmly. "At first, however, I shall use moral suasion."
+
+"Can't you say things plainer?" Pinkey demanded, crossly. "Why don't you
+talk United States? You sound like a Fifth Reader. If you mean you aim
+to argue with him, he'll knock you down with a neck-yoke while you're
+gittin' started."
+
+"In that event, if he attempted violence, I should use my pistol--my
+'gat'--and stop him."
+
+"In that event," Pinkey relished the expression, "in that event I shall
+carry a shovel along to bury you."
+
+Riding a horse from the livery stable and accompanied by Pinkey driving
+two pack-horses ahead of him, Wallie left the Prouty House shortly after
+noon, followed by comments of a jocular nature from the bystanders.
+
+"How far is it?" inquired Wallie, who was riding his English saddle and
+"posting."
+
+"Twenty for me and forty for you, if you aim to ride that way," said
+Pinkey. "Why don't you let out them stirrups and shove your feet in
+'em?"
+
+Wallie preferred his own style of riding, however, but observed that he
+hoped never to have another such fall as he had had at The Colonial.
+
+"A feller that's never been throwed has never rid," said Pinkey, sagely,
+and added: "You'll git used to it."
+
+This Wallie considered a very remote possibility, although he did not
+say so.
+
+Once they left the town they turned toward the mountains and
+conversation ceased shortly, for not only were they obliged to ride
+single file through the sagebrush and cacti but the trot of the livery
+horse soon left Wallie with no breath nor desire to continue it.
+
+The vast tract they were traversing belonged to Canby, so Pinkey
+informed him, and as mile after mile slipped by he was amazed at the
+extent of it. Through illegal fencing, leasing, and driving small
+stockmen from the country by various methods, Canby had obtained control
+of a range of astonishing circumference, and Wallie's homestead was
+nearly in the middle of it.
+
+Although they had eaten before leaving Prouty, it was not more than two
+o'clock before Wallie began to wonder what they would have for supper.
+They were not making fast time, for his horse stumbled badly and the
+pack-horses, both old and stiff, travelled slowly, so at three o'clock
+the elusive mountains seemed as far away as when they had started.
+
+Unable to refrain any longer, Wallie called to ask how much farther.
+
+"Twelve miles, or some such matter." Pinkey added: "I'm so hungry I
+don't know where I'm goin' to sleep to-night. That restaurant is reg'lar
+stummick-robbers."
+
+By four o'clock every muscle in Wallie's body was aching, but his
+fatigue was nothing as compared with his hunger. He tried to admire the
+scenery, to think of his magnificent prospects, of Helene Spenceley, but
+his thoughts always came back quickly to the subject of food and a
+wonder as to how soon he could get it.
+
+In his regular, well-fed life he never had imagined, much less known,
+such a gnawing hunger. His destination represented only something to eat
+and it seemed to him they never would get there.
+
+"What will we have for supper, Pinkey?" he shouted, finally.
+
+Pinkey replied promptly:
+
+"I was thinkin' we'd have ham and gra-vy and cowpuncher perta-toes; and
+maybe I'll build some biscuit, if we kin wait fer 'em."
+
+"Let's not have biscuit--let's have crackers."
+
+Ham and gravy and cowpuncher potatoes! Wallie rode along with his mouth
+watering and visualizing the menu until Pinkey came to a halt and said
+with a dramatic gesture:
+
+"There's your future home, Mr. Macpherson! That's what _I_ call a
+reg'lar paradise."
+
+As Mr. Macpherson stared at the Elysium indicated, endeavouring to
+discover the resemblance, surprise kept him silent.
+
+So far as he could see, it in nowise differed from the arid plain across
+which they had ridden. It was a pebbly tract, covered with sagebrush and
+cacti, which dropped abruptly to a creek-bed that had no water in it.
+Filled with sudden misgivings, he asked feebly:
+
+"What's it good for?"
+
+"Look at the view!" said Pinkey, impatiently.
+
+"I can't eat scenery."
+
+"It'll be a great place for dry-farmin'."
+
+Wallie looked at a crack big enough to swallow him and observed
+humorously:
+
+"I should judge so."
+
+"You see," Pinkey explained, enthusiastically, "bein' clost to the
+mountings, the snow lays late in the spring and all the moisture they is
+you git it."
+
+"I see." Wallie nodded comprehensively. "Why didn't you take it up
+yourself, Pinkey?"
+
+"Oh, I got to make a livin'."
+
+There was food for thought in the answer and Wallie pondered it as he
+got stiffly out of the saddle.
+
+"Can I be of any assistance?" he asked, politely.
+
+"You can git the squaw-axe and hack out a place fer a bed-ground and you
+can hunt up some firewood and take a bucket out of the pack and go to
+the crick and locate some water while I'm finding a place to picket
+these horses."
+
+Because it would hasten supper, it seemed to Wallie that wood and water
+were of more importance than clearing a place to sleep, so he collected
+a small pile of twigs and dead sagebrush, then took an aluminum kettle
+from his camping utensils and walked along the bank of Skull Creek
+looking for a pool which contained enough water to fill the kettle. He
+finally saw one, and planting his heels in a dirt slide, shot like a
+toboggan some twenty feet to the bottom. Filling his kettle he walked
+back over the boulders looking for a more convenient place to get up
+than the one he had descended.
+
+He was abreast of the camp before he knew it.
+
+"Whur you goin'?" Pinkey, who had returned, was hanging over the edge
+watching him stumbling along with his kettle of water.
+
+"I'm hunting a place to get up," said Wallie, tartly.
+
+"How did you git down?"
+
+"'Way back there."
+
+"Why didn't you git up the same way?"
+
+"Couldn't--without spilling the water."
+
+"I'll git a rope and snake you."
+
+"This doesn't seem like a very convenient location," said Wallie,
+querulously.
+
+"You can cut out some toe-holts to-morrow," Pinkey suggested,
+cheerfully. "The ground has got such a good slope to drain the corrals
+is the reason I picked it to build on."
+
+This explanation reconciled Wallie to the difficulty of getting water.
+To build a fire and make the coffee was the work of a moment, but it
+seemed twenty-four hours to Wallie, sitting on a saddle-blanket watching
+every move like a hungry bird-dog. He thought he never had smelled
+anything so savoury as the odour of potatoes and onions cooking, and
+when the aroma of boiling coffee was added to it!
+
+Pinkey stopped slicing ham to point at the sunset.
+
+"Ain't that a great picture?"
+
+"Gorgeous," Wallie agreed without looking.
+
+"If I could paint."
+
+"Does it take long to make gravy?" Wallie demanded, impatiently.
+
+"Not so very. I'll git things goin' and let you watch 'em while I go and
+take a look at them buzzard-heads. If a horse ain't used to bein' on
+picket he's liable to go scratchin' his ear and git caught and choke
+hisself."
+
+"Couldn't we eat first?" Wallie asked, plaintively.
+
+"No, I'll feel easier if I know they ain't tangled. Keep stirrin' the
+gravy so it won't burn on you," he called back. "And set the coffee off
+in a couple of minutes."
+
+Wallie was on his knees absorbed in his task of keeping the gravy from
+scorching when a sound made him turn quickly and look behind him.
+
+A large man on a small white pony was riding toward him. He looked
+unprepossessing even at a distance and he did not improve, as he came
+closer. His nose was long, his jaw was long, his hair needed cutting and
+was greasy, while his close-set blue eyes had a decidedly mean
+expression. There was a rifle slung under his stirrup-leather, and a
+six-shooter in its holster on his hip was a conspicuous feature of his
+costume.
+
+He sat for a moment, looking, then dropped the bridle reins as he
+dismounted and sauntered up to the camp-fire.
+
+Wallie was sure that it was "Boise Bill," from a description Pinkey had
+given him, and his voice was slightly tremulous as he said:
+
+"Good evening."
+
+The stranger paid no attention to his greeting. He was surveying Wallie
+in his riding breeches and puttees with an expression that was at once
+amused and insolent.
+
+"Looks like you aimed to camp a spell, from your lay-out," he observed,
+finally.
+
+"Yes, I am here permanently." Wallie wondered if the stranger could see
+that his hand was trembling as he stirred the gravy.
+
+"Indeed! How you got that figgered?" asked the man, mockingly.
+
+Wallie replied with dignity:
+
+"This is my homestead; I filed on it this morning."
+
+"Looks like you'd a-found out if it was open to entry before you went to
+all that trouble." Boise Bill shuffled his feet so that a cloud of the
+light wood-ashes rose and settled in the gravy.
+
+Wallie frowned but picked them out patiently.
+
+"I did," he answered, moving the pan.
+
+"Then somebody's lied to you, fer I filed on this ground and I ain't
+abandoned it."
+
+"You've never done any work on it, and Mr. Tucker has my filing fees and
+application so I cannot see that there is any argument about it."
+
+Wallie was very polite and conciliatory.
+
+"You'll find that filin' is one thing and holdin' is another in this
+man's country." Quite deliberately he scuffled up another cloud of
+cinders.
+
+"I will appreciate it," said Wallie, sharply, "if you won't kick ashes
+in my gravy!"
+
+"And I will appreciate it," Boise Bill mocked him, "if you'll git your
+junk together and move off my land in about twenty minutes."
+
+"I refuse to be intimidated," said Wallie, paling. "I shall begin a
+contest suit if necessary."
+
+"I allus fight first and contest afterward." Boise Bill lifted his huge
+foot and kicked over first the pan of ham and then the gravy. Wallie
+stood for a second staring at the tragedy. Then his nerves jumped and he
+shook in a passion which seemed to blind and choke him.
+
+Boise Bill had drawn his six-shooter and Wallie was looking into the
+barrel of it. His homestead, his life, was in jeopardy, but this seemed
+nothing at all compared to the fact that the ruffian, with deliberate
+malice, had kicked over his supper!
+
+"Have I got to try a chunk o' lead on you?" Boise Bill snarled at him.
+
+For answer Wallie stooped swiftly and gripped the long handle of the
+frying-pan. He swung it with all his strength as he would have swung a
+tennis racket. Knocking the six-shooter from Boise Bill's hand he jumped
+across the fire at him. Scarcely conscious of what he was doing in the
+frenzy of rage that consumed him, Wallie whipped his little
+pearl-handled pistol from his breeches pocket and as Boise Bill opened
+his mouth in an exclamation of astonishment, Wallie shoved it down his
+throat, yelling shrilly that if he moved an eye-lash he would pull the
+trigger!
+
+This was the amazing sight that stopped Pinkey in his tracks as
+effectively as a bullet.
+
+Wallie heard his step and asked plaintively but without turning:
+
+"What'll I do with him?"
+
+"As you are, until I pull his fangs."
+
+Pinkey threw the shells from Boise Bill's rifle and removed the
+cartridges from his six-shooter. Handing the latter back to him he said
+laconically:
+
+"Drift! And don't you take the beef-herd gait, neither."
+
+The malevolent look Boise Bill sent over his shoulder was wasted on
+Wallie who was picking out of the ashes and dusting the ham for which he
+had stood ready to shed his blood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+NEIGHBOURS
+
+
+The modest herring had been the foundation of the great Canby fortune.
+Small and unpretentious, the herring had swum in the icy waters of the
+Maine coast until transformed into a French sardine by Canby, Sr. It had
+brought wealth and renown to the shrewd old Yankee, who was alleged to
+have smelled of herring even in his coffin, but the Canby family were
+not given to boasting of the source of their income to strangers, and by
+the time Canby, Jr., was graduated from Harvard they were fairly well
+deodorized.
+
+In the East many things had conspired to make the young Canby the
+misanthrope and recluse he had come to be in Wyoming, where he was fully
+aided and abetted in his desire for seclusion by his neighbours, who
+disliked him so thoroughly that they went out of their way to avoid
+speaking to him.
+
+Having been graduated without distinction, he concentrated his efforts
+upon an attempt to become one of a New England coterie that politely but
+firmly refused to do more than admit his existence.
+
+In pursuance of his ambition he built a castle-like residence and
+specialized in orchids and roses, purchased a yacht, became an exhibitor
+at the Horse Show. Society praised his roses, but their admiration did
+not extend to Canby; he went on solitary cruises, in his floating palace
+and the Horse Show, which had proved an open sesame to others, in his
+case was a failure.
+
+Finally he married a girl who had the _entree_ to the circle he coveted,
+but his wife received invitations which did not include her husband. The
+divorce court ended the arrangement, and Canby had the privilege of
+paying a king's ransom in alimony into one of Boston's first families.
+
+Petty, unscrupulous, overbearing, Canby never attributed his failure to
+the proper cause, which was his unpleasant personality, but regarded it
+as a conspiracy on the part of Society to defeat him in his ambition and
+accordingly came to hate it.
+
+When he was not travelling he spent his time on the feudal estate he had
+created in Wyoming, where he had no visitors except Helene Spenceley and
+her brother, who came occasionally when invited. Protecting himself from
+invasion from the smaller cattlemen and homesteaders was in the nature
+of a recreation to Canby, who had various methods of ridding himself of
+their presence.
+
+Boise Bill was one of those he kept for the purpose of intimidating
+prospective settlers and was considered by him his ablest lieutenant.
+Theretofore when that person returned and stated that the job of running
+off the newcomer was one he did not care to tackle further, Canby could
+not fail to be impressed by the declaration.
+
+Among traits less agreeable, Boise Bill had a strong sense of humour,
+albeit of a somewhat ghoulish brand, usually. As he rode back to report
+to Canby, the ludicrous side of the encounter grew on him until it
+outweighed the chagrin he first had felt at getting the worst of it.
+
+Thinking of Wallie in his "dude" clothes, his face pale and his eyes
+gleaming, swinging the frying-pan in his rage at the loss of his supper,
+when a more experienced man would have thrown up his hands promptly,
+Boise Bill slapped his leg and rocked in the saddle as he chuckled:
+
+"That's the closest queak I ever had; he might a trembled his gun off
+and killed me!"
+
+To Canby he declared with a face that was unsmiling and solemn:
+
+"I 'low I got my share of nerve when it comes to a show-down, and I ain'
+no skim-milk runt, neither, but that nester--he's a giant--and hos-tile
+as they make 'em! He had me lookin' at my hole card from the outset."
+
+"Are you afraid of him?" Canby demanded, incredulously.
+
+"I wouldn't say I'm actually _afraid_ of him, but I got an old mother in
+southern Idyho that's dependin' on me and I can't afford to take
+chances."
+
+"I'll go myself," said Canby, curtly.
+
+"Don't let him git the drop on you," Boise Bill warned him. "I never
+_see_ anybody so quick as he is. He had out his weepon and was over the
+fire at me before I knew what was happenin'," with conviction. "He gets
+'ringy'--that feller."
+
+Canby's cold gray eyes glittered, though he said nothing of his
+intentions.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pinkey put up Wallie's silk tent and staked it, showed him how to hobble
+and picket his horse and to make baking-powder biscuit, and left him.
+
+"It'll be lonesome at first, and the work'll come hard on you, but
+you'll be jest as happy as if you was in your right mind, onct you git
+used to it," he assured Wallie.
+
+"The work doesn't bother me, but I imagine it will be lonesome."
+
+"You ought to git some kind of an animal and tame it," Pinkey suggested.
+"I mind one winter when I 'bached' I tamed and halter-broke two
+chipmunks so I could lead 'em anywhur. You wouldn't believe what company
+they was for me."
+
+Wallie agreed that it was an idea, but he was privately of the opinion
+that there would be a limit to the pleasure which the company of
+chipmunks, however accomplished, could afford him.
+
+"If only I had a congenial neighbour," he sighed, "it would make a great
+difference."
+
+"There's Canby--you might call on him," Pinkey suggested, grinning. "Or
+if you ketch yourself pickin' at the bed-clothes you can saddle up and
+scamper over and see me. 'Tain't fur--forty miles across the mounting.
+Jest below that notch--you can't miss it."
+
+Wallie had looked at the notch often since then. He was staring at it
+the evening Canby rode down on him--staring and thinking so hard of
+Helene Spenceley that Canby had checked his horse and was looking at him
+before he saw him.
+
+It would be impossible to say which was the more astonished.
+
+Instead of the fearsome person Canby had anticipated, he saw one so
+different and at the same time so extraordinary that he could not
+immediately collect himself.
+
+Wallie's trunks had followed him, together with a supply of provisions,
+and now, his day's work done, he was sitting in front of his tent on a
+patent camp-chair garbed in whatsoever had come handiest.
+
+Canby's eyes rested upon a mild-looking young man in a purple silk
+lounging robe, hob-nailed mountain boots, and a yachting cap with a
+black patent-leather visor. He was smoking a cigarette with a gold tip
+and a monogram, held in a hand that was white and carefully manicured.
+
+In his surprise, Canby said: "Good evening," almost amiably.
+
+Wallie, in turn, saw a visitor who looked as if he might just have
+returned from a canter through Central Park. His appearance was so
+homelike and familiar that Wallie went forward with a radiant smile of
+welcome. Before he knew it Canby found himself shaking hands vigorously
+with the person he had come to quarrel with.
+
+Wallie was sure that it was Canby but it flashed through his mind that
+perhaps he was not so black as he was painted and Pinkey was given to
+exaggeration, and very likely Boise Bill had acted upon his own
+initiative. At any rate, after four days of solitude Wallie would have
+been delighted to see his Satanic Majesty; so, with his most engaging
+smile, he invited Canby to dismount and stated that his name was
+"Macpherson."
+
+Canby could do nothing less than give his name also, though he refused
+the invitation. Whereupon Wallie declared heartily:
+
+"I take this as very nice and neighbourly of you, Mr. Canby, and please
+believe I appreciate it!"
+
+Canby bowed but said nothing.
+
+"You see, I'm a newcomer," Wallie babbled, "and I have so many things to
+learn that you can teach me. I consider myself fortunate in having a
+neighbour of your experience, and if you will let me I shall come to you
+for advice often."
+
+"Don't hesitate to call on me." In Canby's eyes there was something like
+a glint of amusement.
+
+Wallie went on guilelessly, finding it an extreme relief, after his
+enforced silence, to have an ear to talk into.
+
+"The fact is," confidentially, "I may not look it but I am a good deal
+of a tenderfoot."
+
+"Indeed?" Canby raised a politely surprised eyebrow.
+
+"Yes," he prattled on, "I am totally ignorant of agricultural matters;
+but I hope to learn and make a good thing, ultimately, out of this
+dry-farming proposition. I've got a little money, and I intend to invest
+it in developing this homestead. By mixing brains with industry I hope
+by next fall to get an ample return upon my money and labour. I trust I
+am not too optimistic?"
+
+"It would not seem so," Mr. Canby replied, guardedly. "How are you fixed
+for horses?"
+
+"I was just going to ask you about that," Wallie exclaimed. "I want to
+plow, and haul some fence posts, and I shall need horses. Can you
+recommend a team that would suit me?"
+
+"Next Thursday at two o'clock there will be a stock sale at my place and
+I have no doubt that you will be able to pick up something there for
+your purpose."
+
+"That's splendid!" Wallie cried, delightedly. "I shall seek you out, Mr.
+Canby, and ask you to assist me in making a selection. I've been
+thinking of buying a cow, too--this is rare good luck, isn't it, to be
+able to purchase what I need without going so far for it!"
+
+"I shall be present--hunt me up--two o'clock, Thursday."
+
+With a smile and a nod Canby gathered up his reins and departed while
+Wallie with a glowing face looked after him and declared aloud:
+
+"That's what I call real Western sociability!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CUTTING HIS EYETEETH
+
+
+A widely advertised stock sale was an event in the country for the
+twofold reason that it furnished the opportunity for neighbours with
+fifty and more miles between them to exchange personal news and
+experiences and also to purchase blooded animals for considerably less
+than they could have been imported.
+
+This was particularly true of the Canby sale, where the "culls," both in
+horses and cattle, were better than the best animals of the majority of
+the small stockmen and ranchers. In consequence, these sales were
+largely attended by the natives, who drank Canby's coffee and ate his
+doughnuts while calling him names which are commonly deleted by the
+censor.
+
+It was the custom also for such persons as had a few head of horses or
+cattle to dispose of, but not enough for a sale of their own, to bring
+them to be auctioned off with Canby's. So it had come to pass that the
+stock sale at Canby's ranch was second only in importance to the county
+fair to which all the countryside looked forward.
+
+Therefore Wallie, whose notion of a stock sale was of the vaguest, was
+much surprised when after riding in the direction his visitor had
+indicated and spending hours hunting for gates in wire fences, had come
+upon an assembly of a size he would not have believed possible in that
+sparsely populated district.
+
+Unless they denned in the rocks, the question as to where they lived
+might have puzzled a person more familiar with this Western phenomenon
+than Wallie.
+
+There were Ford cars which might have been duplicates of Henry's first
+model--with trailers containing the overflow of children--together with
+the larger cars of the more prosperous or more extravagant, as happened.
+Top buggies were in evidence, relics of the Victorian period, shipped
+out from Iowa and Nebraska--serviceable vehicles that had done duty when
+their owners were "keeping company." Lumber wagons were plentiful, with
+straw and quilts in the bottom to serve as shock-absorbers, while saddle
+horses were tied to every hitching post and cottonwood.
+
+When Wallie arrived in his riding boots and breeches he immediately
+shared attention with a large, venerable-looking Durham that was being
+auctioned. The Durham, however, returned the stare of the crowd with
+blase eyes which said that he had seen all of life he wanted to and did
+not care what further happened, while Wallie felt distinctly
+uncomfortable at the attention he attracted, and wished he might find
+Canby.
+
+As he stood speculating as to whether the folds of skin around the
+Durham's neck might be an indication of his age--a year for a fold,
+after the manner of snake-rattles--his attention was diverted to a group
+that was interested in the efforts of one of its members to pry a
+horse's mouth open.
+
+It seemed to Wallie an excellent opportunity to learn something which
+might be of future use to him, so he joined it.
+
+A man who looked capable of selling a runaway horse to his grandmother
+was saying emphatically:
+
+"Eight, next spring, I tell you. We raised her a pet on the ranch, so I
+ought to know what I'm talkin' about."
+
+The person who had managed to separate the horse's jaws laughed
+uproariously:
+
+"If she ever sees sixteen again----"
+
+"She ain't over eight, and I'll take my oath on it," interrupted the
+owner, with a fine show of indignation.
+
+"If I could believe you, I'd buy her."
+
+A piping voice from the group interjected itself into the conversation.
+It came from under the limp brim of a hat that dropped to the speaker's
+shoulders.
+
+"Why, I knowed that harse when I first come to the country. She was
+runnin' with her mother over in the Bighorns, and Bear George at
+Tensleep owned her. Some said that Frank McMannigle's runnin' harse,
+'Left Hand,' was her father, and others said she was jest a ketch colt,
+but I dunno. Her mother was a sorrel with a star in her forehead and the
+Two-pole-punkin' brand on her left shoulder. If I ain't mistaken, she
+had one white hind stockin' and they was a wire cut above her hock that
+was kind of a blemish. She got a ring bone and they had to kill her, but
+Bear George sold the colt, this mare here, to a feller at Kaysee over on
+Powder River and he won quite considerable money on her. It was about
+thirteen year ago that I last seen her, but I knowed her the minute I
+laid eyes on her. She et musty hay one winter and got the tizic, but you
+never would know it unless you run her. One of her stifle j'ints----"
+
+The mare's owner interrupted at this juncture:
+
+"You jest turn your mouth on, don't you, Tex, and go off and leave it?"
+
+"I happened to know a little somethin' about this harse," apologetically
+began "Tex," whose other name was McGonnigle, "so I thought----"
+
+"So you thought you'd butt in and queer the sale of it. I suppose you'd
+suffer somethin' horrible if there was a horse-deal on and you had to
+keep your mouth shut?"
+
+Mr. McGonnigle protested feebly that he had no such idea when he gave
+the horse's history, and Wallie was much interested in the wrangle, but
+he thought he caught a glimpse of Canby through one of the doorways of a
+stable so he hurried across the yard and found him in conversation with
+Boise Bill, who was grooming a work-horse which quite evidently was to
+be auctioned.
+
+Boise Bill grinned when he saw Wallie and nodded. Canby stepped out and
+greeted Wallie with some affability.
+
+"I've been watching for you. Have you bid on anything?"
+
+"Not yet. But I saw a fine-looking cow that I mean to buy if she is all
+she ought to be," Wallie replied with a touch of importance. "It seems
+to me that a good cow will help out wonderfully. I am very fond of milk
+and it will be useful in cooking. With a cow and a hen or two----"
+
+Canby and Wallie crossed the yard to where a mild-eyed Jersey was being
+dressed in a halter preparatory to being led forward and put up at
+auction.
+
+"Will you be good enough to permit me to examine this animal?" Wallie
+asked of her caretaker.
+
+"Shore," he replied, heartily, though he looked puzzled.
+
+Wallie drew off his riding gloves and stepped up briskly in a
+professional manner and pried open the mouth of the protesting cow.
+
+He exclaimed as he let go abruptly:
+
+"Why--she's old! I don't want her. She hasn't a single tooth left in her
+upper jaw. It's a fortunate thing I looked at her."
+
+A small boy roosting on the corral snickered. The cow's guardian smiled
+broadly and openly and deliberately winked at Canby.
+
+Offended, Wallie demanded:
+
+"Am I in error as to her age?"
+
+"Well--if a cow ever had a set of teeth in her upper jaw she'd be in a
+side-show. They don't have 'em. This cow is only three--a young animal."
+
+"That's true," Canby assented.
+
+"I declare! It seems very curious," Wallie exclaimed, astounded. He
+added, with all his importance punctured:
+
+"I fear I have much to learn."
+
+"This is a good place to learn it," observed the cow's valet.
+
+Wallie bought the Jersey at private sale, and needless to say, paid its
+full value.
+
+"She'll be fresh in January," the man said to him.
+
+Wallie looked bewildered, so the other explained further:
+
+"She'll have a calf." He said it in such a confidential manner that
+Wallie thought it was a secret and lowered his voice to answer:
+
+"I'm glad of it." He had a notion that he had gotten the best of Canby
+and wished that Miss Spenceley and The Colonial folk knew he had made a
+shrewd bargain and gotten a herd started.
+
+To Canby, who accompanied him on his tour of inspection, he said
+eagerly:
+
+"Where I wish your assistance is in the selection of my work-horses.
+What would you advise? Have you a pair in mind, Mr. Canby?" Canby
+reflected.
+
+"That was a good horse Boise Bill was currying," he suggested.
+
+"Yes, I noticed him. Is there another like him?"
+
+"I believe he is one of a team."
+
+Canby was correct in his surmise. The pair were well matched and,
+impressed by their looks and strength, Wallie was delighted and
+determined to have them if possible.
+
+"Fourteen hundred is a good weight for your purpose--above that they are
+apt to be clumsy," said Canby.
+
+Wallie agreed enthusiastically.
+
+"My own idea exactly. You see, I'll have to use them for driving as well
+as working, until I can afford a motor."
+
+The gathering was composed mostly of good, honest folk but plain ones.
+They did, however, seem to know exactly what they were buying and why
+they wanted it, and Wallie was fearful that a pair of such exceptional
+horses would be run up to a figure beyond his resources. He wished they
+would bring them out and end the suspense which was momentarily growing
+greater as he thought of losing them.
+
+Boise Bill drove the pair from the stable finally, just as a powerful
+machine arrived and took a place in the outer circle. New arrivals had
+no interest at the moment for Wallie, who was as nervous as a young
+opera singer.
+
+As Boise Bill walked behind the team slapping them with a rope-end to
+drive them forward, it occurred to Wallie that it would have been much
+simpler to have led them, but as every one had his own way of doing
+things in this country he gave no further thought to the matter.
+
+If he had not been so anxious and intent upon what was about to happen,
+he might also have observed an interchange of knowing looks among the
+gentlemen whose clothes were secured mostly with shingle-nails and
+baling-wire.
+
+The team looked all the auctioneer declared them to be as they stood
+head to head--young, strong, perfectly matched--and he defied all
+Wyoming to find a blemish on them.
+
+The gentlemen in patched overalls seemed willing to take his word for
+it, since no one stepped forward to examine the team, and they listened
+with such attention while he extolled their virtues that it sickened
+Wallie, who already felt the thrill of ownership as he looked at them.
+
+"The greatest pullers in the State"; the auctioneer made a point of it,
+repeating it several times for emphasis.
+
+Wallie scanned the faces of the crowd to see if he could detect any
+special interest that would denote a rival bidder, and he wished the
+auctioneer would stop harping on their good qualities. It surprised him
+a little that he saw none of his own eagerness reflected in the varied
+expressions, also it relieved him somewhat. If he had had an unlimited
+bank account it would have been different, but he realized that any
+determined opponent could outbid him, so he found himself in a
+perspiration as he waited.
+
+"How high do you think I should go?" he asked of his friend and advisor.
+
+"That depends on how badly you want them."
+
+"They suit me exactly."
+
+"Horses of that class are selling around $500, but you might venture a
+little more, since you like them."
+
+"That's just about what I am able to pay. My goodness, but I hope I'm
+not outbid! You wouldn't believe how nervous I am. It's such a new
+experience that I am really agitated."
+
+The statement was unnecessary, since Canby could see Wallie's knees
+trembling in his riding breeches.
+
+"How much am I offered for this pair of magnificent young horses?" asked
+the auctioneer, ingratiatingly.
+
+Wallie, who had not such a case of stage-fright since he first sang in
+public "Oh, that we two were Maying," bid instantly:
+
+"Two hundred dollars!" His voice sounded like the squeak in a telephone
+receiver.
+
+The auctioneer cupped his hand behind his ear and leaned forward:
+
+"What?"
+
+The incredulity in his tone prompted Wallie to raise the bid to two
+hundred and twenty-five when he repeated it.
+
+The auctioneer struck his forehead with his clenched fist and staggered
+back dramatically, demanding:
+
+"Am I insulted?"
+
+"That ain't possible," croaked a voice among the spectators.
+
+"Two hundred and fifty!" The bid came from a ministerial-looking person
+who was known as a kind of veterinary occasionally employed by Canby.
+
+"Three hundred!" Wallie challenged him.
+
+"That's more like it, but still an insult to these noble brutes I'm
+selling. Who says three and a quarter?"
+
+"And a quarter!" came from the veterinary.
+
+"And a quarter--and a quarter--gentlemen, what ails you?" He looked at
+the "bone and sinew of the nation," who prodded each other.
+
+"Three hundred and fifty," Wallie responded.
+
+"Three-fifty! Boost her faster, gentlemen! Boost her right along! Am I
+offered four hundred?"
+
+"Four hundred!" The bid was the veterinary's.
+
+Wallie quavered:
+
+"Four hundred and fifty!"
+
+"Five hundred!" his opponent came back at him.
+
+Wallie hesitated.
+
+"Think of it! Going for five hundred!"
+
+The auctioneer looked at Wallie, who could not have been paler in his
+coffin.
+
+"Five twenty-five!"
+
+"Good! Now, sir," to the veterinary.
+
+"Five-fifty!"
+
+He turned to Wallie:
+
+"Am I done, gentlemen?"
+
+Wallie stared at him, his throat too dry to answer.
+
+"Must I give away the best pullin' team in the State for a puny,
+piddlin' five hundred and fifty dollars?" he pleaded.
+
+"SIX HUNDRED!" Wallie cried in desperation.
+
+With the bid Canby raised his hat and ran his fingers through his hair
+casually and the veterinary stopped bidding.
+
+"Done!" cried the auctioneer, "Sold to Mr.--the name, please--ah,
+Macpherson, for six hundred dollars---- A bargain!"
+
+Between relief and joy Wallie was speechless, while Canby congratulated
+him and the crowd bestowed upon him glances of either derision or
+commiseration, according to the nature of the individual.
+
+While he stood trying to realize his good fortune and that he was the
+owner of as good a pair of work-horses as ever looked through a halter, a
+figure that made his heart jump came swiftly forward, and with her hands
+in the pockets of her long motor coat, stopped in front of his team and
+scrutinized them closely.
+
+Helene Spenceley looked from one of the horses to the other. She saw the
+dilated pupils, the abnormally full forehead, the few coarse hairs
+growing just above the eyelid, and they told her what she had suspected.
+
+"I am sorry I did not know it was you who was bidding on these horses,"
+she said, turning to Wallie.
+
+"Did you want them, Miss Spenceley? I am sorry----"
+
+"Want them? You couldn't give them to me. They are locoed!"
+
+"Locoed!" He could only stare at her, hoping never again to feel such
+dismay as filled him at that moment.
+
+He had only the vaguest notion as to what "locoed" meant, but it was
+very clear that it was something highly undesirable. And he had been
+cheated by Canby, who had known of it and advised him to buy them! Such
+duplicity was without his experience, and sickened him nearly as much as
+the thought of the $600 he had invested in horses so radically wrong
+that Helene Spenceley would not take them as a gift.
+
+The single thought which came to solace him as he stood humiliated and
+panic-stricken was that she resented the dishonest trick that had been
+played upon him.
+
+Canby came forward to greet her, with his hand out. She ignored it and
+said indignantly:
+
+"I should have spoiled this sale for you, Mr. Canby, if I had seen who
+was bidding on these locoed horses."
+
+Though Canby flushed, he shrugged a shoulder and replied callously:
+
+"We all had to get our eyeteeth cut when we came to the country."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE BEST PULLING TEAM IN THE STATE
+
+
+Leading the cow, and aided by "Tex" McGonnigle, who boasted that he had
+a heart as big as the country he lived in and was willing to prove it by
+helping him with the locoed horses, Wallie made fair progress as far as
+the gate in the last wire fence, where "Tex" had to leave him.
+
+"'Tain't fur now," said that person, passing over the rope with a knot
+in the end with which he had belaboured the horses he had driven ahead
+of him. "Mog along stiddy and you'd ought to make it by sundown."
+
+"I think I'll lead 'em," Wallie remarked.
+
+"Locoed horses won't lead--you've got to drive 'em."
+
+Nevertheless, on the chance that "Tex" might not know everything, Wallie
+tried it after his helper had galloped in another direction.
+
+"The best pulling team in the state!" the auctioneer had declared, and
+truthfully. Wallie had a notion they could have moved the Capitol
+building if they had laid back on it as they did their halters when he
+tried to lead them.
+
+There was nothing for it but to tie their heads together and drive them
+as Tex had done, but with even less success. They missed either Tex's
+voluble and spicy encouragement or the experienced hand which laid on
+the rope end, but the chief difficulty seemed to be that they were of
+different minds as to the direction which they should take, and since
+the cow was of still another, Wallie was confronted with a difficult
+situation.
+
+Dragging the mild-eyed Jersey, which had developed an incredible
+obstinacy with the cessation of Tex's Comanche yells behind her, Wallie
+applied the rope he had inherited, with the best imitation he could give
+of the performance, but futilely.
+
+The cow and the horses pulling in opposite directions went around and
+around in a circle until the trampled earth looked as if it had been the
+site of a cider-press or a circus.
+
+After they had milled for twenty minutes without advancing a step Wallie
+lost patience.
+
+"Oh, sugar!" he cried. "This is certainly very, very annoying!"
+
+The cow was as much an obstacle to the continuance of their journey as
+the horses, since, bawling at intervals, she planted her feet and
+allowed her neck to be stretched until Wallie was fearful that it would
+separate, leaving only her gory head in the halter.
+
+With this unpleasant possibility confronting him, Wallie shrank from
+putting too much strain upon it with the result that the cow learned
+that if she bawled loud enough and laid back hard enough, he would ease
+up on the rope by which he was dragging her.
+
+Wallie had been taught from infancy that kindness was the proper method
+of conquering animals, therefore he addressed the cow in tones of
+saccharine sweetness and with a persuasive manner that would have
+charmed a bird off a tree.
+
+"Bossy! Bossy! Good bossy!" he cajoled her.
+
+Immune to flattery, she looked at him with an expression which reminded
+him of a servant girl who knows she is giving notice at an inopportune
+time. Then she planted her feet still deeper in the sand and bawled at
+him.
+
+"Darn it!" he cried, finally, in his exasperation.
+
+As he sat helpless in his dilemma, wondering what to do next, an idea
+occurred to him which was so clever and feasible that he lost no time in
+executing it.
+
+If he tied the cow to the stirrup of his saddle and she showed no
+disposition to escape, then he could walk and drive the work-horses
+ahead, returning for his saddle-horse and the cow! This, to be sure, was
+a slow process, but it was an improvement over spending the night going
+around in a circle.
+
+Wallie tied the cow's rope to the stirrup and both animals stood as if
+they were nailed to the spot while he ran after the work-horses, who had
+wandered in another direction. His boots, he noted, were not adapted to
+walking as they pinched in the toes and instep. He could not stop for
+such a small matter at this critical moment, however, so he continued to
+run until he overtook the horses and started them homeward.
+
+Turning to look at the cow and his saddle-horse, he saw them walking
+briskly, side by side, like soul-mates who understood each other
+perfectly, in the opposite direction from which he wanted them to go. He
+left the horses and ran after the cow, shouting:
+
+"Whoa--can't you?"
+
+He reasoned swiftly that the Jersey was the nucleus of a herd which
+would one day run up into the thousands, and he must get her at all
+hazards.
+
+"Whoa! Bossy--wait for me!" he pleaded as at top speed he went after
+her.
+
+"Good bossy! Good bossy!" His quavering voice was pathetic.
+
+At the sound of his voice the horse stopped, turned its head, and looked
+at him. The cow stopped also.
+
+Intensely relieved, Wallie dropped to a walk, congratulating himself
+that the livery horse chanced to be so well trained and obedient. As he
+approached, the cow stepped forward that she might look under the
+horse's neck and watch her pursuer. Both animals stood like statues,
+regarding him intently. When within fifty feet Wallie said in a
+conciliatory tone to show them that he stood ready to forgive them in
+spite of the inconvenience to which they had put him:
+
+"Nice horsey! Good bossy!"
+
+Quite as if it were a signal, "Nice horsey and good bossy" started at a
+trot which quickly left Wallie far behind them.
+
+Wallie ran until he felt that his overtaxed lungs were bursting. His
+boots were killing him, his shin bones ached, and his feet at every
+step sank to the ankles in the loose sand. It was like running through a
+bog. He pursued until he was bent double with the effort and his legs
+grew numb. The perspiration streamed from under his stylish derby, his
+stock wilted, and his clothing was as wet as if it had been raining.
+
+When his legs would carry him not one step farther he stopped and looked
+after the cow and horse--who were still doing perfect team-work,
+trotting side by side as evenly as if they had been harnessed together.
+They stopped instantly when he stopped, and, as before, the horse turned
+its head to look back at him while the cow peered under its neck at
+Wallie.
+
+Hope revived again when they showed no disposition to move, and after he
+had panted awhile, Wallie thought that by feigning indifference and
+concealing his real purpose he might approach them. To this end, he
+whistled with so much breath as his chase had left him, tossed pebbles
+inconsequently, and sauntered toward the pair as if he had all the day
+before him.
+
+The subterfuge seemed to be succeeding, and he was once more within
+fifty feet of them when they whirled about simultaneously and started at
+the same lively trot, leaving Wallie far behind them.
+
+A humane consideration for animals had been inculcated in Wallie from
+childhood by Aunt Mary, but now he felt such a yearning to inflict pain
+upon the cow and the livery horse that it would have shocked that lady
+if she could have read his thoughts as he chased them. He visualized
+the two of them tied to a tree while he laid on the rope-end, and the
+picture afforded him intense satisfaction.
+
+Exhausted, and with his heart pounding under his silk shirt-bosom,
+Wallie stopped at last because he had to. Immediately the horse and cow
+stopped also. While he gasped, a fresh manoeuvre occurred to Wallie.
+Perhaps if he made a circle, gradually getting closer, by a quick dash
+he could catch the bridle reins.
+
+As he circled, the gaze of the horse and cow followed him with the
+keenest interest. Finally he was close enough to see the placid look of
+benevolence with which his cow was regarding him and success seemed
+about to reward his efforts. The horse, too, had half closed its eyes by
+the time he was ready for his coup, as if it had lost all interest in
+eluding him.
+
+"Nice horsey! Good bossy!" Wallie murmured, reassuringly.
+
+For the third time he was within fifty feet of them, and while he was
+debating as to whether to make his dash or try to get a little closer,
+the pair, seeming to recognize fifty feet as the danger zone, threw up
+their heads and tails and went off at a gallop.
+
+Grinding his teeth in a way that could not but have been detrimental to
+the enamel, Wallie stood looking after them. A profane word never had
+passed his lips since he had had his mouth washed out with castile soap
+for saying "devil." But now with deliberate, appalling abandon, and the
+emphasis of a man who had cursed from his cradle, he yelled after the
+fleeing fiends incarnate:
+
+"Go to hell--damn you!"
+
+Instantly shocked and ashamed of himself, Wallie instinctively looked
+skyward, half expecting to see an outraged Jehovah ready to heave a
+thunderbolt down on him, though he felt that the Almighty in justice
+should recognize the provocation, and forgive him.
+
+Weary, with blistered heels and drooping shoulders, Wallie plodded after
+them while time and again they repeated the performance until it would
+have worn down a bloodhound to have followed the tracks made by Wallie
+and the renegades.
+
+The sun set and the colours faded, yet Wallie with a dogged tenacity he
+had not known was in him trudged back and forth, around and around, in
+pursuit of the runaways, buoyed up chiefly by the hope that if he could
+catch them he might soon be wealthy enough to afford to kill them.
+
+It was nearly dusk, and a night in the open seemed before him when the
+pair stopped and commenced feeding toward him. Whether they had become
+hungry or the sport had palled on them were questions Wallie could not
+answer. It was enough that they waited like two lambs for him to walk up
+and catch them.
+
+He was so tired that when he got himself in the saddle with the cow
+ambling along meekly at his stirrup, he found himself feeling grateful
+to them instead of vindictive. The locoed horses he decided to leave
+until morning.
+
+By the time he had reached his homestead and fallen out of the saddle,
+he had forgotten that he had sworn to tie them up and "whale" them. On
+the contrary, he was wondering if milking were a difficult process and
+if he could accomplish it, for he could not find it in his heart to let
+a dumb brute suffer. He remembered hearing that cows should be milked
+regularly, and while his Jersey had goaded him to blasphemy he knew that
+he would not be able to sleep if she was in pain through his negligence.
+
+Picketing the horse as Pinkey had taught him, he put the cow on a rope
+also. Then he set about the performance which had looked so simple when
+he had seen others engage in it.
+
+Among his accoutrements was a flashlight, and with this and a lard can
+Wallie stood for a moment speculating as to whether the cow had any
+preference as to the side she was milked on. He could not see that it
+would make any material difference, so he sat down on his heel on the
+side nearest and turned his flashlight on the spot where he wished to
+operate. Placing his lard can on the ground where he could throw a
+stream into it conveniently, he used his free hand for that purpose.
+
+To his surprise, nothing happened--except that the cow stopped chewing
+her cud and looked at him inquiringly. He persisted, but uselessly. Was
+anything wrong with his system, he wondered? He thought not, since he
+was milking exactly as he had seen the hired man milk on a farm where he
+had once spent a month in his childhood.
+
+He varied his method, making gentle experiments, but at the end of ten
+minutes the lard can was still empty and the cow was growing restless.
+For that he could not blame her. His hand ached and his foot seemed
+about to break off at the ankle from sitting on it.
+
+Wallie felt chagrined when he reflected that although he was a graduate
+of Haverford College and was bringing all his intelligence to bear upon
+it he was still unable to do what any hired man with an inch of forehead
+could accomplish with no apparent effort.
+
+Perhaps there was some trick about it--perhaps it _did_ make a
+difference which side a cow was milked on. Wallie walked around and
+turned the spot-light on the other side of his Jersey.
+
+The outlook, he fancied, seemed more promising.
+
+He sat down on his heel and started in energetically.
+
+It did make a difference which side one milked on--there was no doubt
+about it. The instant he touched her she lifted her foot and with an aim
+which was not only deadly and unerring but remarkable, considering that
+she could not see her target, planted it in the pit of Wallie's stomach
+with such force that the muffled thud of it sounded like someone beating
+a carpet. The kick knocked the breath out of him, and as he lay on his
+back on a clump of cactus he was sure that he was bleeding internally
+and probably dying.
+
+Wallie finally got to his feet painfully and with both hands on his
+stomach looked at the cow, who was again chewing tranquilly. There was
+murder in Wallie's eyes as he yelled at her:
+
+"Curse you! I could cut your heart out!"
+
+Then he crept up the path to his tent and dropped down on his pneumatic
+mattress, doubting if he ever would rise from it. As he lay there,
+supperless, with his clothes on, every muscle in his body aching, to say
+nothing of the sensation in his stomach, it seemed incredible that he
+could be the same person who had started off so blithely in the morning.
+
+The series of misfortunes which had befallen him overwhelmed him. He had
+purchased a cow which not only gave no milk but had a vicious
+disposition. He had paid two prices for a pair of locoed horses that did
+their pulling backward. He had made himself a laughing stock to the
+entire country and seemed destined to play the clown somehow whenever
+Helene Spenceley was in the vicinity. His ears grew red to the rims as
+he thought of it.
+
+But she _had_ resented Canby's dishonesty for him--_that_ was something;
+and Wallie was in a mood to be grateful for anything.
+
+The cow grunted as she lay down to her slumbers--Wallie ground his teeth
+as he heard her. A coyote yapped on a ridge forlornly and the horse on
+picket coughed and snorted while Wallie, staring at the stars through
+the entrance, massaged his injury and ruminated.
+
+Suddenly he sat up on his patent air mattress and shook his fist at the
+universe:
+
+"Canby nor nobody else shall down me! I'm going to make good somehow, or
+fertilize Wyoming as old Appel told me. I'll show 'em!"
+
+After that he felt better; so much better that he fell asleep
+immediately, and even the activities of two field-mice, who pulled and
+snipped at his hair with their sharp teeth in the interests of a nest
+they were building, only disturbed without awakening him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MERRY CHRISTMAS
+
+
+Wallie shivered in his sleep and pulled the soogans higher. The act
+exposed his feet instead of his shoulders, so it did not add to his
+comfort. He felt sleepily for the flour sack which he wore on his head
+as protection against the dust that blew in through the crack in the
+logs and his fingers sank into a small snow bank that had accumulated on
+his pillow.
+
+The chill of it completely awakened him. He found that there was frost
+on the end of his nose and he was in a miniature blizzard as far as his
+shoulders. The wind was howling around the corners and driving the first
+snow of the season through the many large cracks in his log residence.
+
+The day was Christmas, and there was no reason to believe that it would
+be a merry one.
+
+Wallie lay for a time considering the prospect and comparing it with
+other Christmases. He had a kettle of boiled beans, cold soda biscuit,
+coffee, and two prairie-dogs which he intended cooking as an experiment,
+for his Christmas dinner.
+
+Growing more and more frugal as his bank account shrank with alarming
+rapidity, Wallie reasoned that if he could eat prairie-dog it would
+serve a double purpose: While ridding his land of the pests it would
+save him much in such high-priced commodities as ham and bacon.
+Prairie-dog might not be a delicacy sought after by epicures, yet he
+never had heard anything directly against them, beyond their propensity
+for burrowing, which made them undesirable tenants. He reasoned that
+since they subsisted upon roots mainly, they were of cleanly habits and
+quite as apt to be nourishing and appetizing, if properly cooked, as
+rabbit.
+
+Having the courage of his convictions, Wallie skinned and dressed the
+prairie-dogs he had caught out of their holes one sunshiny morning, and
+meant to eat them for his Christmas dinner if it was humanly possible.
+
+The subject of food occupied a large part of Wallie's time and attention
+since he was not yet sufficiently practised to make cooking easy. He had
+purchased an expensive cook book, but as his larder seldom contained any
+of the ingredients it called for, he considered the price of it wasted.
+He had found that the recipes imparted by Tex McGonnigle, who had built
+his ten-by-twelve log cabin for him, were far more practical. Under his
+tuition Wallie had learned to make "sweat-pads," "dough-gods,"
+"mulligan," and other dishes with names deemed unsuitable for
+publication.
+
+After considering his dinner menu for a time, Wallie drew his knees to
+his chin, which enabled him to his get entire body under the soogan, and
+contrasted his present surroundings with those of the previous
+Christmas.
+
+In the spacious Florida hotel last year he had only to touch a button to
+bring a uniformed menial who served him coffee and lighted a grate fire
+for him, while the furnishings of his room and bath were quite as
+luxurious as those of The Colonial.
+
+Now, as the light strengthened, Wallie could see his third-handed stove
+purchased from the secondhand man, Tucker, standing in the corner with
+its list to starboard. The wind blowing through the baling wire which
+anchored the stove-pipe to the wall sounded like an aeolian harp played
+by a maniac. His patent camp chair had long since given way beneath him,
+and when he had found at the Prouty Emporium two starch boxes of the
+right height, he had been as elated when they were given to him as if he
+had been the recipient of a valuable present. They now served as chairs
+on either side of his plank table.
+
+His pneumatic mattress had collapsed from punctures, and Wallie's bones
+were uncomfortably close to the boards in the bottom of the bunk
+McGonnigle had built against one end of the cabin. His pillow was a
+flour sack filled with straw and of a doubtful colour, as was also the
+hand towel hanging on a nail beside a shocking wash basin.
+
+There was a dirt roof on the cabin from which clods of earth fell rather
+frequently and bounced on Wallie's head or dropped in the food, or on
+his bed to startle him when sleeping. The floor contained knotholes
+through which the field mice and chipmunks came up to share his
+provisions, and the door, being a trifle larger than the frame, could
+not be closed entirely.
+
+When Wallie had called McGonnigle's attention to the fact that he could
+stand in the middle of his cabin and view the scenery through the cracks
+in any direction, McGonnigle had assured him that "fresh air never hurt
+nobody," and while he cheerfully admitted that he was not a carpenter,
+declared that he had made allowances for this fact in his charges.
+
+Though Wallie could not notice it when he paid them, he said nothing,
+for by now he was accustomed to having everything cost more than he had
+anticipated, however liberal he might be in his estimate.
+
+Boise Bill rode by occasionally and inquired humorously if he thought he
+would "winter." To which Wallie always replied that he intended to,
+though there were moments of depression when he doubted it.
+
+It was upon Wallie's inability to "winter" that Canby was counting. He
+had hung on longer than Canby had thought he would, but the cattleman
+felt fairly sure that the first big snowstorm would see the last of
+Wallie. The hardships and loneliness would "get" him as it did most
+tenderfeet, Canby reasoned, and some morning he would saddle up in
+disgust, leaving another homestead open to entry.
+
+If, perchance, this did not happen, Canby had a system of his own for
+eliminating settlers. It was quite as efficacious as open warfare,
+though it took longer and was open to the objection that sometimes it
+enabled them to stay long enough to plow up eighty acres or so which
+went to weeds when they abandoned it.
+
+Canby had no personal feeling against Wallie and, after meeting him,
+decided he would use the more lawful and humane method of ridding
+himself of him. Instead of running him off by threats and violence he
+would merely starve him out, and Wallie's bank balance indicated that
+Canby was in a fair way to accomplish his purpose.
+
+Several happenings had made Wallie suspect something of Canby's purpose,
+and the same latent quality which had made Wallie trudge doggedly after
+his cow and horse until he had worn out their perversity always made him
+tell himself grimly that he was going to stick until he had his crop in
+and harvested if he laid down, a skeleton, and died beside one of his
+own haystacks.
+
+Mostly, however, he was so busy with his cooking, feeding his livestock,
+getting wood and water, to say nothing of piling rocks and grubbing
+sagebrush that he had no time to brood over Canby and the wrongs he had
+done him. He had learned from McGonnigle that his locoed horses would
+grow worse instead of better and eventually would have to be shot, and
+that person had imparted the discouraging information also that not only
+could he expect no milk from his cow until her calf arrived in January
+but Jerseys were a breed not commonly selected for beef cattle.
+
+Wallie had thought that his aunt would surely relent to the extent of
+writing him a Christmas letter but, yesterday, after riding eight miles
+to look in the bluing box nailed to a post by the roadside, he had found
+that it had contained only a circular urging him to raise mushrooms in
+his cellar.
+
+Helene Spenceley, too, might have sent him a Christmas card or
+something. He had seen her only twice since the sale, and each time she
+had whizzed past him in Canby's machine on the way to Prouty. The sight
+had given him a curious feeling which he had tried to analyze but had
+been unable to find a satisfactory name for it.
+
+Altogether, Wallie felt very lonely and forlorn and forgotten this
+Christmas morning as he lay in a knot under the soogan, listening to the
+wind twanging the stove-pipe wire and contemplating his present and
+future.
+
+He had discovered that by craning his neck slightly when in a certain
+position he could look through a crack and see the notch in the mountain,
+below which was the Spenceley ranch, according to Pinkey. He was
+prompted to do so now, but an eyeful of snow discouraged his
+observation, so he decided that he would get up, feed his animals and,
+after breakfast, wash his shirt and a few towels by way of recreation.
+
+The cabin was not only as cold as it looked but colder, and as Wallie
+hopped over the floor bare-footed and shivering he reflected that very
+likely his potatoes and onions were frozen and wished he had taken them
+to bed with him.
+
+They were, unmistakably, for they rattled like glass balls when he
+picked up several onions and examined them with a pained expression.
+
+Wallie was still wearing much of the wardrobe he had brought with him,
+and when dressed to go outside he was warm but unique in a green velour
+hat, his riding breeches, brilliant golf stockings that were all but
+feetless thrust in arctics, a blue flannel shirt from the Emporium in
+Prouty, and a long, tight-fitting tan coat which had once been very
+smart indeed.
+
+The snow had stopped falling by the time he had done his chores and
+breakfasted. The only benefit the storm had brought him was that it did
+away with the necessity of carrying water for his washing. He had
+acquired the agility of a cliff-dweller from scaling the embankment by
+means of the "toe-holts"; yet, at that, it was no easy matter to
+transport a bucket of water without spilling it.
+
+He wished for a well every time that he panted in from a trip to the
+creek, and meant to have one as soon as he could afford it.
+
+While the snow-water was melting Wallie considered the manner in which
+he should prepare the prairie-dogs. He presumed that it was too much to
+expect that the cook book would have anything to say on the subject, but
+it surely would recognize rabbit, and a recipe suitable for one would do
+for the other.
+
+Wallie got out his cook book and turned eagerly to the index. There was
+no mention of rabbit. A thought struck him--rabbit was hare and hare
+was rabbit, wasn't it? If so, the cook book would not admit it, for
+there was no such word under the H's.
+
+He was disgusted. What good was such a cook book, he asked himself as he
+turned the leaves in resentment. He wished he could collect the
+two-fifty he had paid for it. He read aloud, sneeringly:
+
+"Caviar toast, garnished. Crab, scalloped, in shell. Aspic in jelly.
+Fondu of cheese. Floating Island. Meringue glace, and Whipped Cream."
+
+The mere mention of the dishes made his mouth water, while his anger
+against the dame who had compiled it mounted higher. He remotely
+contemplated writing to inquire of the culinary oracle why she had
+ignored hare and rabbit.
+
+Continuing to scan the index, his eye caught a word which held
+possibilities. Game! If rabbit was not game, what was it?
+
+Ah! Wallie looked at a picture of a rabbit lying on a platter with its
+legs in the air and artistically decorated with parsley until he felt
+more hungry than ever. Then he read aloud with gusto:
+
+"Barbecued rabbit. Casserole of rabbit. Roast rabbit. Smothered rabbit.
+Stewed rabbit."
+
+He perused all the recipes carefully. After giving weighty consideration
+to each, roast rabbit seemed to make the strongest appeal to him. He
+read the recipe aloud twice that he might the better comprehend it:
+
+"Dress and wash the wily _coureur de bois_, but leave the heads on in
+cleaning them. Stuff the bodies with a forcemeat of fat, salt pork,
+minced onions, and fine bread crumbs well seasoned with salt and
+pepper. Sew them up with fine thread and lay upon thin slices of pork,
+covering the grating of the roaster. Lay other slices of pork over them,
+pour over all a cupful of stock, and roast one hour. Remove the pork,
+then wash with butter and dredge with flour and brown.
+
+"Drain off the gravy, lay the bits of bacon about the rabbit in the
+dish: thicken the gravy with browned flour. Boil up, add a tablespoonful
+of tomato catsup and a glass of claret, then take from the fire."
+
+Wallie reflected, as he sat with his feet on the stove-hearth
+overflowing with ashes, that when it came to the "forcemeat" he was
+"there with the crumbs," since he had an accumulation of ancient biscuit
+too hard to eat. Also he had salt pork and onions. The butter, tomato
+catsup, stock, claret, he must dispense with. After all, the
+prairie-dogs were the main thing and he had them.
+
+He congratulated himself that he had decided to leave on the heads when
+skinning them. The recipe so enthused him that he decided to prepare
+them before starting in with his washing.
+
+Obviously the first thing to do was to thaw the onions, so he put them
+in the oven, after which he went to a box in the corner and selected a
+few biscuit. Crumbs were crumbs, as he viewed it, and biscuit crumbs
+were quite as good as bread crumbs for his purpose.
+
+There were certain marks on these biscuit that were made unmistakably by
+the teeth of mice and chipmunks, but these traces he removed
+painstakingly. As he reduced the biscuit to crumbs with a hammer, he
+recalled that he had been awakened several times by the sound of these
+pestiferous animals frisking in the box in the corner. He did not allow
+his mind to dwell upon this, however, lest it prejudice him when it came
+to the eating of the "forcemeat."
+
+Onions, he found, were not improved by freezing. Those he removed from
+the oven were distinctly pulpy, but since they smelled like onion and
+tasted like it, he mushed them in with the biscuit crumbs, and seasoned.
+
+Then he crammed the prairie-dogs with the mixture and looked for a
+thread among his sewing articles. Since he could find nothing but black
+linen, Wallie threaded a darning needle and did a fancy "feather" stitch
+down the middle of each of them.
+
+This accomplished, he stood off and viewed his handiwork with eminent
+pride and satisfaction, though it occurred to him that owing to his
+generous use of "forcemeat" they had a bloated appearance, as if they
+had died of strychnine poisoning.
+
+The heads, too, were decidedly rat-like, and as the long, sharp teeth of
+the pair of them grinned up at Wallie he covered them hastily and set
+about his washing.
+
+He had come to begrudge every stick of firewood, and it took an
+incredible amount to heat wash-water. A man could very well fill his
+time if he did nothing but collect wood and carry water.
+
+As he set his tub and washboard on a box and rubbed vigorously on his
+undergarments, he smiled to himself and wondered what his friends of The
+Colonial would say if they could see him at the moment. He did not so
+much mind washing, it was easier than digging post holes, but it was not
+much of a way to spend Christmas and he was desperately lonely. He
+wished someone would come along to talk to.
+
+He was so far from the road that there were no passersby, and no one
+wanted to see him anyhow, but his loneliness became so great as he dwelt
+upon it that on the remote chance that he might see someone even in the
+distance he stopped washing and walked to the window, where with his
+elbow he rubbed a spot clear of frost.
+
+Looking out through the loop-hole, it was a white, tractless world he
+gazed upon, and he might have been in the Arctic Circle for all the
+signs of life he could discover. He told himself that he might have
+known better than to hope for any.
+
+As he squinted, he suddenly pressed his eye harder against the window.
+Did he see a speck that moved or did he imagine it? He enlarged the hole
+and strained his eyes until they watered. Surely it moved--surely. It
+would be too disappointing for words if it were only a delusion.
+
+It did! It did! There was now no mistake about it. Someone was coming
+toward the cabin. Wallie shook with excitement at the prospect of a
+visitor. Whoever it might be, Wallie would make him stay for dinner if
+he had to pay him by the hour for his company. That was settled. Very
+likely it was Pinkey, but to-day even Boise Bill would be welcome.
+
+Wallie shoved his Christmas dinner in the oven and slammed the door upon
+it, stoked the fire lavishly, then fell upon the washboard and rubbed
+furiously that he might be done the sooner. At intervals he dashed to
+the window, half afraid to look lest the rider had changed his mind and
+gone in another direction.
+
+But no, he kept coming, and there was something in the way he sat his
+horse which made him think it was Pinkey.
+
+And Pinkey it was, brilliant as a rainbow in orange chaps, red flannel
+shirt, and a buckskin waistcoat. His coat tied behind the cantle
+suggested that he either had become overheated or at only twelve below
+zero had not yet felt the need of it. His horse was snorting steam like
+a locomotive and icicles of frozen breath were pendent from its
+nostrils.
+
+Wallie stood in the door, suds to the elbow and his hands steaming,
+waiting to receive him.
+
+His voice trembled as he greeted him:
+
+"I never was so glad to see anybody in my life, Pinkey."
+
+"This is onct I know you ain't lyin'. Got anything to eat? I'm starvin'.
+I been comin' sence daylight."
+
+"I got something special," Wallie replied, mysteriously. "Tie your horse
+to the haystack. I'll hurry things up a little."
+
+Pinkey returned shortly and sniffed as he entered:
+
+"It smells good, anyhow. There's something homelike about onions. What
+you cookin'?"
+
+"It's a secret, but you'll like 'em. I made 'em out of the cook book."
+
+Pinkey threw his coat on the table and the thud sounded as if it had a
+brick rolled in it.
+
+"Here's something Helene sent--she made it--it's angel food or
+somethin', I reckon."
+
+"Now wasn't that good of her!" Wallie exclaimed, gratefully.
+
+"I can't tell till I taste it. I wouldn't call her much of a cook
+generally." He prodded the cake as he unrolled it and commented:
+
+"Gosh, it's hard! I turned my thumb-nail back on it."
+
+"It's frozen--that's what's the matter," Wallie defended, promptly.
+
+"I think it's a bum cake," declared Pinkey, callously.
+
+"I think you don't know what you're talking about until you try it,"
+Wallie retorted with asperity.
+
+Pinkey looked at him thoughtfully and changed the subject.
+
+"I see you're playin' a tune on the washboard."
+
+Wallie replied stiffly:
+
+"Yes, I'm doing a little laundry." Pinkey's criticism of the cake still
+rankled.
+
+"You ain't washin' that blue shirt a'ready?" Pinkey demanded,
+incredulously. "You only bought it Thanksgivin'."
+
+"The front of it bent like rubber-glass and I couldn't stand it any
+longer." He added reminiscently: "There was a time when I wore a fresh
+shirt daily."
+
+Pinkey stared at him awe-stricken:
+
+"I wouldn't think changin' as often as that would be healthy."
+
+The clothes in the dishpan on the stove boiled over, and as Wallie
+jumped for the broom-handle to poke them under, Pinkey demanded:
+
+"Are you bilin' your flannens?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"A ten-year-ol' boy can't git in that suit of underwear onct you're done
+cookin' it," Pinkey explained, and added, disgustedly: "Wallie, don't
+you know nuthin'?"
+
+Wallie looked his consternation.
+
+"I'll know better next time," he said, humbly.
+
+Pinkey consulted his watch and hinted:
+
+"Don't you want me to make the bread?"
+
+"No, I have some biscuit to warm over, we'll boil potatoes, thaw the
+cake out, open some pineapple, and with what I have in the oven we will
+have a dinner that'll be nothing short of a banquet."
+
+"Great! I'm so hungry I could eat with a Digger Injun."
+
+Wallie opened the oven door.
+
+"They're browning beautifully!" he reported.
+
+"Chickens?"
+
+Wallie shook his head:
+
+"I shan't tell you until you've passed upon them."
+
+"If you've got enough of whatever it is--that's all that's worryin'
+me," declared Pinkey, hungrily. "You'd ought to build you a root cellar
+next winter--if you're livin'," he remarked as the potatoes rattled when
+Wallie dropped them in the kettle.
+
+"Do you suppose I could grow potatoes? Is it too dry?"
+
+"This is a great country for potatoes. There's somethin' in the soil
+that gits in the potatoes' eyes and makes 'em water so they irrigate
+themselves. Shore! you can grow potatoes."
+
+"I want to make a good many improvements here before next winter,"
+announced Wallie, hopefully. "I wish you could come over for awhile and
+help me."
+
+"That mightn't be a bad idea," said Pinkey, thoughtfully. "Sence the
+country went dry I don't much care whether I draw wages or not--they's
+nothin' to spend money for, so what's the use of workin'? If I was over
+here I might add a few feet to my rope and git me a good little start
+off Canby."
+
+"Do you see much of him?" Wallie asked, indifferently.
+
+"Too much," said Pinkey, shortly.
+
+Wallie dropped the pan he was turning in the oven.
+
+"They're browning beautifully," he exclaimed hastily.
+
+"You said that before. Ain't it gittin' time to work on 'em?"
+
+"Remove your feet and I'll set the table."
+
+"Can't you spread a paper for a tablecloth? I always git splinters in my
+elbows when I eat off rough lumber."
+
+Wallie laughed good-humouredly as he obliged him.
+
+"That's shore a great smell comin' from the oven! Let's eat, feller."
+
+"You certainly are hungry, Pinkey. If I may judge by appearances, you
+are not going to be disappointed. You sit down while I put things on the
+table."
+
+Pinkey needed no second invitation.
+
+"I like spuds cooked with the clothes on," he observed as he skinned a
+potato.
+
+"I trust everything is going to be to your liking," Wallie declared,
+cordially, as he drew the prairie-dogs from the oven and laid them on an
+agate-ware platter.
+
+Busy with his potato, Pinkey did not see them until they were before
+him. Then he stopped and stared hard as they lay on their backs grinning
+up at him with the "forcemeat" oozing through the stitching.
+
+"_What are they?_" His emphasis was not flattering.
+
+"I shan't tell you yet," declared Wallie.
+
+Pinkey continued to eye them suspiciously.
+
+"They kinda remind me of a mummy I seen in a side-show; then, again,
+they look like incubator childern--roasted. Them teeth are what git me.
+I can't quite place 'em. 'Tain't wood-pussy or nothin', Wallie? 'Tain't
+no notorious animal like pole-kitty?"
+
+Wallie looked offended.
+
+"I intend to eat some myself," he replied with dignity.
+
+"Are they some kind of a varmint?" Dubiously.
+
+"Varmint?"
+
+"Pack-rat or weasel?"
+
+"Scarcely!"
+
+Wallie looked so injured that Pinkey said apologetically:
+
+"I was jest cur'ous." But inquired further: "Is that stuffin' or in'ards
+coming through the sewin' down the front of 'em?"
+
+"Forcemeat. I made it according to a recipe."
+
+"Indeed?" Politely. "Don't go shy yourself jest because I'm here," he
+protested, as Wallie attempted to cut one in two with the butcher-knife.
+"I ain't feelin' so hungry--somethin' has took my appetite."
+
+As the table swayed under Wallie's efforts to carve a prairie-dog, he
+suggested:
+
+"Perhaps if you took hold of one leg----"
+
+"Ye-ah," said Pinkey, humorously, "and you take holt of the other and
+put your foot on my chest so you kin git a purchase, then we'll both
+pull and somethin's bound to happen."
+
+"If I could only find a joint----"
+
+"Worry one of them legs off and we'll see how we like it before you play
+yourself out on it."
+
+Wallie acted upon the suggestion and presented the severed member.
+
+"Try it," he urged, persuasively.
+
+Pinkey sunk his grinders into the leg and laid back on it.
+
+"Does it seem tough?" Wallie asked, watching him anxiously.
+
+"Tough! I'm scairt it's goin' to snap back and knock me over. Wait till
+I git a fresh holt on it."
+
+"Do you get the flavour at all?"
+
+"I can't pull enough off to taste it," Pinkey replied, plaintively.
+
+"Try the dressing and tell me what you think of it." Wallie scooped out
+a generous spoonful and placed it on his plate, waiting confidently for
+the verdict.
+
+Pinkey conveyed his knife to his mouth while Wallie stood regarding him
+with an expression of pleased expectancy as he tasted.
+
+A startled look was succeeded by one that was unmistakably horror.
+Pinkey knocked over the box upon which he was sitting as he jumped from
+the table and tore the kitchen door open.
+
+Wallie watched him wonderingly:
+
+"Tell you what I think of it!" Pinkey declared, returning. "I ain't got
+words--they ain't none in the dictionary. My Gawd! what is it made of?"
+
+"Just biscuit crumbs and onions," said Wallie, colouring.
+
+"Where did you keep 'em?"
+
+Wallie pointed to the box on the floor in the corner.
+
+Pinkey made a hideous grimace.
+
+"Gimme a drink of water! Gimme a chew of tobacco! Gimme anything to take
+the taste of _mouse_ out'n my mouth. Wallie," solemnly, "men have died
+fer less'n that in this country. If I thought you'd done that on purpose
+I'd slit your throat from ear to ear and leave you."
+
+"I thought I was very particular and cut off everything that looked
+suspicious," said Wallie, meekly, "I must have missed something."
+
+"You shore did! And," Pinkey demanded, "what might them horrors be on
+the platter? Them teeth are mighty familiar."
+
+Wallie quavered:
+
+"Prairie-dog--I was experimenting to see if they were edible."
+
+"Leave me out in the air again!" Pinkey groaned as he swallowed a drink
+of water. "And I passed up a turkey dinner to come and eat with you!"
+
+"Shan't I cook you some bacon?" asked Wallie, contritely.
+
+"I doubt if I ever feel like eatin' agin, but if the cake's thawed out
+I'll try a chunk of it to take my mind off that stuffin'."
+
+Wallie opened the can of pineapple he had been treasuring and Pinkey
+helped himself freely to the Christmas cake.
+
+"They must be about four meals in one of them slices, the way it feels
+inside of me," the latter commented, nibbling delicately on a ring of
+pineapple he held in his fingers.
+
+"It's fruit-cake, and rich; you're not supposed to eat so much of it,"
+Wallie said, sharply.
+
+Pinkey raised his eyebrows and regarded Wallie attentively as he
+continued to nibble.
+
+"Looks like you're turrible touchy about her cookin', and swelled up
+over gittin' a Christmas present," he remarked, finally. "You needn't
+be, because she made eight other cement bricks jest like this one and
+sent 'em around to fellers she's sorry for."
+
+"Oh, did she!" Wallie ejaculated, crestfallen.
+
+"Yes, indeed," Pinkey went on, complacently, feeling a glow of
+satisfaction at Wallie's lengthened countenance; "she does it every
+Christmas. She's kind to the pore and sufferin', but it don't mean
+nothin' more than a dollar she'd drop in a hat somebody was passin'."
+
+Noting the deep gloom which immediately settled upon Wallie, Pinkey
+could think of the prairie-dogs with more equanimity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE WATER WITCH
+
+
+In former days Wallie had wished for a yacht, his own stables, and such
+luxuries, but now he wanted a well with far greater intensity than he
+had desired those extravagances.
+
+The all-important question had been whether he could at present afford
+it, with his money vanishing like a belated snowbank. Then, while he had
+been debating, Rufus Reed appeared at such a timely moment that it had
+seemed providential.
+
+Mr. Reed, lately arrived from Illinois, was now sitting with his feet on
+the stove-hearth and so close to the coals that the cabin was strong
+with the odour of frying rubber, and declaring modestly:
+
+"I may say, without braggin', that I have made an enormous success since
+I gave up my flour and feed store and took to well-diggin' as a
+perfession. By acci-dent I discovered that I was peculiarly gifted."
+
+Watching the smoke rising from Rufus's arctics and speculating as to
+what might be the composition of his soles that he could endure so much
+heat without discomfort, Wallie inquired politely:
+
+"In what way, may I ask?"
+
+Mr. Reed's tone became impressive:
+
+"I am--a water witch."
+
+Wallie looked puzzled.
+
+"Some call it magic, but the fact is, I am able to locate water with a
+forked willer and you can call it anything you want to."
+
+Wallie regarded the worker of miracles with fresh attention. His belief
+in his own powers was evidently so sincere that even a skeptic could not
+fail to be impressed by him.
+
+He continued:
+
+"With my divinin' rod I have flew in the faces of the biggest geologists
+in the country and found water where they said there wasn't any."
+
+"Will the divining rod tell you how far you must dig for it?"
+
+"Pretty close to it. I count a foot to every bob of the willer."
+
+"In a state like Illinois where there is a great deal of moisture I
+presume it would be possible to get water anywhere if one went deep
+enough, but in Wyoming--frankly, I should not like to rely on the
+divining rod in Wyoming, Mr. Reed."
+
+Mr. Reed looked somewhat offended and declared with spirit:
+
+"I'll tell you what I'll do--I'll make you a sportin' proposition. I'll
+test the ground with the willer and if it says we'll get water at a
+certain depth and we don't strike it, I'll dig till we do, for nothin',
+if we have to go till we hear the Chinamen gibber. That's fair, ain't
+it?"
+
+Wallie could not gainsay it.
+
+"I got a willer on my saddle and it won't cost nothin' for a
+demonstration. Say the word," persuasively, "and you've good as got a
+fine, flowing well of water."
+
+It would do no harm to let the water witch make his test, Wallie
+decided, so he followed sheepishly in the wake of Rufus and his willow
+as he walked over the greater part of the one hundred and sixty acres.
+
+"'Tain't nowise plentiful," the latter admitted, as with each hand
+gripping a prong of the willow he kept his eyes fixed upon it. "But if
+it's here I'm bound to find it, so don't get discouraged."
+
+Expecting nothing, Wallie was not disappointed.
+
+At the top of a draw some hundred and fifty yards from the cabin Rufus
+suddenly halted.
+
+"I felt somethin'," he said, hopefully.
+
+"Where?" Wallie asked, interested.
+
+"In my arm--like pins and needles--it's a symptom. She's goin' to bob!"
+Excitedly. "You watch and count along of me."
+
+The willow bobbed unmistakably.
+
+"Sixty-eight!" They finished together.
+
+"I told you!" Rufus cried, triumphantly. He stamped his foot: "Right
+here is where you'll strike it." His tone was as positive as if he saw
+it flowing beneath the surface.
+
+Impressed in spite of himself, Wallie endeavoured to be conservative.
+
+"Could it have been your subconscious mind?" he asked, doubtfully.
+
+"I ain't any. Rufus Reed is right out in the open. I'll stake my
+reputation there's plenty of water if you'll go after it."
+
+"It's rather far from the house for convenience," he objected.
+
+"Water in Wyoming is like whiskey, you have to take it where you can get
+it and not be particular."
+
+It was a temptation, and the cost at three dollars a foot was not
+excessive. Wallie pondered it and said finally:
+
+"You will agree in writing to dig without remuneration until you get
+water if you do not strike it at sixty-eight feet?"
+
+"An iron-clad contract will suit yours truly," Mr. Reed declared,
+emphatically. He added: "I'll bring two men to work the h'ist and empty
+the bucket. Of course you'd aim to board us?"
+
+"Why, yes, I can," Wallie said a little uncertainly. He had not thought
+of that feature, but he realized it would be necessary.
+
+He had figured that with strict economy he had provisions enough to last
+him well toward summer. Three men eating three meals daily might make
+some difference in his calculations, but nothing serious probably.
+
+So the contract was drawn up and signed and Rufus departed, eminently
+satisfied, as was Wallie, who was so eager to see his well started that
+he could hardly wait until the following Monday.
+
+In the interim he dreamed of his well of cold, pure water, and every
+time he made use of his "toe-holts" he told himself that that
+inconvenience would soon be eliminated. He meant to have a windmill as
+soon as he could afford it, for whatever else the country might lack
+there was no dearth of wind for motive power.
+
+There was something permanent-looking about a well and he chuckled as he
+speculated as to what Canby would say when he heard of it, and he wished
+with all his heart that he might be around when Helene Spenceley learned
+that he was sinking a well on his place for household and stock
+purposes.
+
+He had taken advantage of the opportunity which the gift of the cake
+presented to send her a note of thanks and appreciation. In reply he had
+received an invitation which had stung him worse than if she had written
+that she never wanted to see him cross her threshold.
+
+His eyes gleamed every time he read it, which was so often that it was
+worn through the creases from being folded and unfolded:
+
+    Dear "Gentle Annie":
+
+    Won't you stop at the ranch on your way out and pay us a visit?
+    I presume the middle of the summer at latest will see the last
+    of you as I have no idea that you will be able to go through the
+    discouragements and hardships attendant upon proving up on a
+    homestead.
+
+    My brother also will enjoy meeting you as he has heard so much
+    of you.
+
+    Looking for you soon, I am
+                                                    Sincerely,
+                                                    HELENE SPENCELEY.
+
+    P.S. I have a new sweater pattern that I am sure will please you.
+
+Every word had a nettle in it, a taunt that made him tingle. It seemed
+to Wallie he had never known such a "catty" woman, and he meant to tell
+her so, some day, when he was rich and successful and had proved how
+wrong she was in her estimate of him.
+
+He was tempted to send her word, on a postal, anonymously, of the well
+he was digging if he had not feared she would suspect him. It seemed so
+long to wait for Pinkey to convey the tidings.
+
+Rufus arrived on Monday morning, and the "crew" to which he had referred
+proved to be members of his own family--John and Will--whales as to
+size, and clownish.
+
+It came to Wallie's mind that if they did not move any faster when they
+worked than when they were at leisure, the well-digging would be a long
+process, and his heart sank when he saw them feeding their horses so
+liberally from the hay which had cost $20 a ton, delivered.
+
+The first intimation Wallie had of what he had let himself in for was
+when Rufus asked in a confidential tone, as if he were imparting
+something for Wallie's ear only:
+
+"I wonder if we could get a bite to eat before we start in? We eat so
+early this morning that I don't feel as if I had had anything."
+
+Wallie had a pan of biscuit which he had intended for dinner but he
+concealed his reluctance and managed to say with a show of hospitality:
+
+"Come right in; I'll get you something."
+
+"First rate!" declared Mr. Reed with disheartening enthusiasm as Wallie
+placed the biscuit, butter, and molasses before him and his helpers.
+
+Wallie hoped never again to see food--his, at least--disappear with such
+rapidity and in such quantities. When they had finished there was not a
+crumb left in the pan to tell what had been, and Rufus added to Wallie's
+feeling of apprehension by declaring gaily as he polished his mouth on
+the bandanna which he drew from his hip pocket with a flourish:
+
+"Us Reeds are all hearty eaters. We can eat a sheep at a settin' when
+we're all together."
+
+Biscuit-making was Wallie's special antipathy, and he now solaced
+himself with the thought that since they had eaten so many, they would
+eat less for dinner and he would have plenty of the fresh ones left for
+supper.
+
+But disappointment was again his portion. Any hope that he might have
+cherished that once they were well filled up their appetites would
+diminish was dissipated by their performance at supper which surpassed
+that of dinner. The manner in which the biscuits vanished was nothing
+less than appalling. In addition to which, he fried ham twice for them
+when they hinted that they were still hungry after devouring everything
+before them.
+
+He thought grimly that if their capacity for work was commensurate with
+their appetites, the well would be dug in twenty-four hours. But after
+observing them in "action" through the window he had a notion that he
+would have considerable more than that of their society.
+
+As they all sprawled on his bunk in a torpor while he washed their
+supper dishes, he felt not only consternation but a dislike for the Reed
+family growing within him. Long after they were snoring in their
+blankets, he lay awake calculating how long his provisions would last at
+such a rate of depletion.
+
+It did not sound so much of a "sporting proposition" as when Rufus had
+made his proposal, and Wallie sighed in the darkness as he thought that
+there seemed a million ways of making mistakes in Wyoming and this
+already had the earmarks of being one of them.
+
+If they found water at the depth indicated by the divining rod, it might
+not so much matter, but there was the other contingency confronting
+him--feeding the Reeds indefinitely! There was nothing to do in the
+circumstances but await developments, so Wallie slept finally to dream
+that he had discarded the table for a trough to which the Reeds came
+when he went to the door and called: "Soo-ee! Soo-ee!"
+
+The developments, however, were not of an encouraging nature. In
+addition to a capacity for food which placed the Reeds among the world's
+marvels they were of a slowness of movement Wallie never had seen
+equalled. Whenever he looked through the window, it was to see one or
+the other resting from the exertion of emptying a bucket of dirt or
+turning the windlass.
+
+The well deepened by inches rather than feet while Wallie sweated, and
+his suspicion gradually became a conviction as he watched them that they
+were prolonging the work purposely. It seemed to be in the nature of a
+vacation for them with just enough exercise to keep them in condition.
+
+His antipathy had become aversion, and Wallie sometimes caught himself
+with his fork poised in mid air, stopping to hate John, who munched and
+smacked beside him, or Will, who gobbled at the end of the table, or
+Rufus, shovelling opposite him. Again, as they came at a trot in
+response to his dinner call, he visualized himself braining them with
+the axe as they entered, and found pleasure in the picture.
+
+If hatred generated a poison in the system as asserted, Wallie had a
+notion that his bite would have been as fatal as a cobra's.
+
+His feeling reached a point where the well became of secondary
+importance. To find a way to rid himself of the Reed family was in his
+thoughts constantly, but there seemed nothing to do but endure them
+somehow until they had sunk the sixty-eight feet, according to the
+contract, so he went on suffering and cooking with all the grace he
+could muster.
+
+Yet as the hole deepened he could not help a certain feeling of pride in
+it. The sense of possession was a strong trait in him, and this was
+_his_ well on _his_ homestead. He always felt the same pleasant glow of
+ownership when he looked at his cabin and his fence, even at his dry cow
+and his locoed horses, and once he had a well with a curb over it!
+Wallie always expanded his chest a little as he thought of it.
+
+He made frequent pilgrimages to the well, and as he hung over the edge
+and called down, Rufus always replied to his inquiry:
+
+"I don't see any indications yet but I look for it to come with a gush
+when we do strike it."
+
+When they reached sixty-eight feet and there was still no sign of
+moisture Wallie told Reed that he was willing to abrogate the contract.
+
+"No, sir!" Rufus declared, vigorously. "I've staked my reputation on
+this well and I'm goin' to keep on diggin'."
+
+At seventy-two feet Wallie was desperate. The hole was still as dry as
+punk, and boarding the Reeds was nothing less than ruinous; besides, he
+was nauseated with cooking for three persons whom he detested. They
+could not be insulted, he discovered, and were determined to make him
+abide by his contract to board them.
+
+A solution of his problem came in the night with such force and
+suddenness that he rolled to and fro in his bunk, hugging himself in
+ecstasy. He longed for morning to put his idea into execution and when
+it came, for the first time since their arrival, he was delighted to see
+the Reeds seating themselves at the table.
+
+There were potatoes, bacon, and pancakes, with coffee, for breakfast.
+
+John dubiously eyed the transparent fluid in his cup which might as
+easily have been tea, and commented:
+
+"You musta left out somethin'."
+
+Will made a wry face after filling it with half a pancake:
+
+"Gosh! But you throwed in the sody. They ain't fit fer a dog to eat. I
+can't go 'em."
+
+With the intention of taking the taste of soda out of his mouth he
+filled it with potato, and immediately afterward he and John jammed in
+the doorway as they tried to get through it simultaneously.
+
+Wiping their streaming eyes and gulping water, they said accusingly:
+
+"There's a can of cayenne if there's a pinch in them pertaters!"
+
+"And the bacon's burned to a cracklin'," observed Rufus.
+
+"Perhaps you're getting tired of my cooking?" Wallie suggested,
+artlessly.
+
+"I'm tired now if this is a spec'min of what you aim to feed us," John
+declared, suspiciously. "I bleeve you done it on purpose."
+
+Wallie did not deny it.
+
+"I'm holler to the toes and I can't work on an empty stummick," said
+Will, disgustedly.
+
+Only Rufus went on eating as if it took more than a can of soda and a
+box of pepper to spoil his food for him and he explained as they
+wondered at it:
+
+"I ain't no taste sence I had scarlet fever so it don't bother me."
+
+"Ain't you goin' to git us somethin'?" John demanded, finally, seeing
+Wallie made no move to cook fresh food for them.
+
+"No," Wallie answered, bluntly. "There's nothing in the contract which
+specifies the manner in which I shall prepare your food for you or the
+amount of it. Dinner will be worse than breakfast if you want the truth
+from me."
+
+"I'm quittin'!" the two declared together.
+
+"Now, look here, boys!" the old man expostulated. "We got to finish this
+job and you know the reason."
+
+"Reason or no reason, I ain't starvin' myself to oblige nobody," John
+declared, vigorously, "and he's got the drop on us about the eatin'."
+
+"Then go--the two of you!" Reed cried, angrily, "I'm goin' to stay--I
+ain't nothin' to complain of. Him and me," he nodded at Wallie, "can dig
+that well without ye."
+
+Surly, and without speaking, the boys took their departure.
+
+"They got bad dispositions--they take after their mother," Rufus
+remarked, looking after them. "With you to work the windlass and empty
+the bucket we'll make out without them till I pick up another crew
+somewhere."
+
+"I am willing to accept my loss and quit," Wallie pleaded.
+
+"Well, I ain't!" declared Rufus, unnecessarily bellicose. "A contract is
+a contract and I got you in writin'."
+
+Wallie could not deny it and subsided meekly, putting a ham on to boil
+with a cabbage while Rufus smoked until he was ready to assist him.
+
+"If they's anything I like it's a good mess of ham and cabbage," he
+observed.
+
+"I am glad to have found something to stimulate your appetite--it's
+worried me," replied Wallie. But his sarcasm was wasted on Rufus who
+arose, yawning, when Wallie indicated that he was ready.
+
+Turning the windlass according to instructions, Wallie deposited Rufus
+in the bottom. Then at intervals he hoisted the bucket which Rufus
+filled in leisurely fashion, and emptied it, performing the two men's
+work easily.
+
+Wallie went down occasionally to stoke the fire, and upon his return
+reported so favourably upon the ham and cabbage that Rufus took to
+consulting his watch rather frequently after ten-thirty.
+
+"I'll quit at 'leven," he informed Wallie, "and that'll give you plenty
+of time to make a batch of biscuit and get dinner."
+
+Wallie agreed with him that it was an excellent idea and promptly at
+eleven pulled up the bucket of dirt which was to be the last one.
+
+When it did not come down immediately, Rufus called to him:
+
+"Hi! I'm ready! Get a move on, for I'm starvin'."
+
+There was no response at the opening.
+
+"What's the matter with you?" he demanded, impatiently.
+
+The echo of his own voice answered him. Slightly alarmed he called
+louder:
+
+"Macpherson! What's happened to ye?"
+
+Still no answer.
+
+Distinctly nervous, Rufus shouted at the top of his lungs for Wallie
+and the bucket, breaking into a perspiration at the continued silence.
+
+Was he sick? Fainted? Dead? Many things that could occur came to Reed as
+he halloed futilely.
+
+When one o'clock came he was hoarse from yelling and sick with fear at
+his predicament. His imagination painted gruesome pictures as he
+sweated. He saw himself weak and emaciated, dying slowly of starvation,
+collapsing, finally to lie undiscovered for days, weeks maybe. The
+memory of a field mouse that had fallen into a pit haunted him, its
+futile, frantic struggles to scale the steep sides, and he remembered
+that when he had passed that way again he had looked and found it dead
+in the bottom. He wished now that he had rescued it.
+
+His suffering would be worse than that of the field mouse, for he had
+the intelligence to know that it was useless to struggle, that there was
+no hope for him unless someone came to his assistance. And merciful
+heavens, how hungry he was at only an hour past his dinner time; what
+would his sensations be at an hour past his supper time or at one
+o'clock to-morrow? He made a sound like someone groaning in a rain
+barrel as he thought of the ham and cabbage boiling dry in the cabin.
+
+It made the back of his neck ache to watch the opening of his prison and
+the patch of blue sky, from which he prayed, vaguely, that a rope ladder
+might descend to rescue him. So he sat down finally with his back
+against the side of the well, his knees to his chin, and his head bowed,
+to await the inevitable.
+
+When three o'clock came he could no longer doubt but that some accident
+had befallen Wallie. He had given up hope and endeavoured to resign
+himself to the fate awaiting him. Remorse mingled with the pangs of
+hunger and the cold fear of dying which was upon him. He wondered if
+this torturing end was a judgment sent upon him. He could scarcely doubt
+it.
+
+But if by some miracle he got out--if the Lord saw fit to save him--he
+would be a different man. The Almighty had his word for it. Still
+sitting with his back against the wall and his cramped legs extended in
+front of him, Rufus rolled his eyes in supplication to the circular blue
+space above him and registered this vow with all the fervour and
+sincerity of which he was capable.
+
+He moved uneasily. He was vaguely conscious of a dampness. He felt
+mechanically of that section of his overalls upon which he was sitting.
+He sprang to his feet with an exclamation and looked at the spot he had
+occupied. Moisture! A seepage! Water! His eyes grew big with horror.
+Even as he looked with dilating pupils he could see the earth darken
+with the spreading moisture. He had sunk too many wells not to know what
+it portended. Not only his days but his hours perhaps were numbered. If
+it was alkali, it would seep in slowly and prolong his agony, if it were
+not, it would come faster. He would die literally in a grave of his own
+digging.
+
+He sat down again because his shaking legs refused to support him, and
+leaned his head against the side for the same reason. Rufus was no hero
+and there was no need to pretend to be, drowning by himself like a rat
+in a bucket.
+
+As he leaned there, nauseated, he caught a sound, or thought so, which
+increased the sinking sensation, the feeling of collapse that
+overwhelmed him. He took off his hat and laid his ear against the wall
+to be sure of it. He had not been mistaken. His time on earth was
+shorter even than he had imagined. The sound he had heard was the rumble
+of a subterranean current that would soon break through, flowing faster
+and faster as the opening enlarged until it came with a gush, finally.
+He could visualize it because he had seen it happen. It would rise to
+his ankles, his knees, his armpits, then cover him, and he would go to
+his final punishment by the last route he ever had pictured!
+
+Rufus got on his knees in an attitude of prayer and supplication. The
+cracked remnants of his stentorian voice he used to the utmost
+advantage. No Methodist exhorter ever prayed with more passionate
+fervour, and he could not in a lifetime have kept the promises he made
+to his Maker if only He would release him from the trap into which he
+had gotten himself through his own evil doing.
+
+"Lord, it was wrong for me to take that $150, but Canby tempted me. I
+needed the money or I don't know as I would have done it. If You'll jest
+get me out of this, Lord, all the rest of my life I'll do what I can for
+You! I'll go to church--I'll give to the heathen--I'll stop takin' Your
+name in vain, and say my prayers reg'lar! Oh, Lord! Once I stole a
+halter and I ask Your forgiveness. And I left a neighbour's gate open on
+purpose so the stock got into his cornfield, but I ain't a bad man
+naturally, and this is the first real crookedness I ever done
+intentionally. Lord," he pleaded, "hear my humble prayer and send
+somebody!"
+
+At the top of the well Wallie had his suspicions verified. So Canby had
+laid one more straw on the camel's back to break it!
+
+Any compunctions of conscience he might have had for putting Rufus
+through such mental anguish vanished.
+
+Leaning over the edge of the well, he called down cheerily:
+
+"How you making it?"
+
+Wallie's voice sounded like the voice of an angel to the prisoner.
+Relief and joy beyond description filled him. Hoarse as a bullfrog, he
+quavered:
+
+"In Mercy's name let me out of here, Macpherson!"
+
+"You're all right where you are, Rufus," Wallie answered. "When you're
+down there you are out of mischief."
+
+"I'm hungry--I'm starvin'----"
+
+"I don't know when I've eaten such a ham, tender, a delicious flavour,
+and just enough fat on it--I thought of you all through dinner, Rufus."
+
+"We've struck water--a big flow--I can hear it--it'll break through any
+minute!"
+
+"That's fine! Splendid!"
+
+"You don't understand!" Rufus cried, desperately. "I'm liable to be
+drowned before you can h'ist me out of here. I can heard it roar--like a
+cloudburst!"
+
+"Tell me about that deal between you and Canby," Wallie suggested.
+
+"Let down the bucket!" Rufus chattered.
+
+"Couldn't think of it. My eyeteeth are coming through and I don't like
+to interrupt 'em."
+
+"I'll make a clean breast of it."
+
+"I don't want to pollute my well unless I have to, but that's the only
+way you'll get out of there," Wallie told him, grimly.
+
+"Canby's out to break you in one way and another. He thought there was
+no water over here and he paid me to talk you into diggin' for it. He
+seen me and my boys eat one day in the mess house and he said 'twould
+break the Bank of England to board us, so he wanted that clause in the
+contract, and after sixty-eight feet he paid us, besides a hundred and
+fifty dollars bonus. I done wrong, Mr. Macpherson, and I freely admit
+it!"
+
+"And you like my cooking, Rufus? You like your food highly seasoned with
+plenty of soda in the pancakes and dough-goods?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Macpherson," whined Rufus. "I never complained about your
+cookin', I've nothin' against you personal, and I'll knock off somethin'
+on the bill for bringin' in water if you'll jest let down that----" A
+screech finished the sentence. Then:
+
+"C-r-rr-ripes! She's busted through! She's comin' like a river!"
+
+He jumped and clawed at the sides in his frenzy, and Wallie could see
+that Rufus well might do so, for even as Wallie looked the water rushed
+in and rose to Rufus's ankles, and before he could get the bucket over
+the edge and started downward it was well to his knees, bubbling faster
+with every second as the opening widened.
+
+It was indeed time for action, and Wallie himself felt relief when the
+windlass spun and he heard the splash of the bucket in the bottom.
+
+Rufus's shrieks urged haste as he began to wind laboriously, and with
+reason, for Rufus was heavy and though Wallie put forth all his strength
+it was no easy task single-handed, and Rufus rose so slowly that the
+water gained rapidly.
+
+It became a race between Wallie and the subterranean stream that had
+been tapped, and he was panting and all but exhausted when Rufus rose to
+the surface. As he stepped from the bucket the water reached the top,
+poured over the edge, and rushed down the "draw" to Skull Creek.
+
+Wallie looked with bulging eyes for a moment and when he had recovered
+from his astonishment, he turned joyfully, his grudge forgotten, and
+shook Rufus's hand in congratulation.
+
+A moment later his enthusiasm was tempered somewhat by the discovery
+that he had brought to the surface the strongest flow of salt water in
+the country!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+WIPED OUT
+
+
+"It's shore wicked the way you curse, Old Timer," said Pinkey,
+reprovingly, as Wallie came up from the corral carrying an empty milk
+bucket in one hand and testing the other for broken bones. "I could hear
+you talkin' to Rastus from whur I'm settin'."
+
+Wallie exhibited a row of bruised knuckles and replied fiercely:
+
+"If ever I had an immortal soul I've lost it since that calf came!
+Between his bunting on one side and me milking on the other, the cow
+kicked the pail over."
+
+"Quirl you a brownie and blow it threw your hackamore and forgit it,"
+said Pinkey, soothingly, as he handed him a book of cigarette papers,
+with a sack of tobacco and made room for him on the door-sill. "I ain't
+used to cow milk anyhow; air-tight is better."
+
+Wallie took the offering but remained standing, rolling it dextrously as
+he looked off at his eighty acres of spring wheat showing emerald green
+in the light of a July sunset.
+
+Pinkey eyed him critically--the tufts of hair which stood out like
+brushes through the cracks in what had once been a fine Panama hat, his
+ragged shirt, the faded overalls, the riding boots with heels so run
+over that he walked on the side of them.
+
+Unconscious of the scrutiny, Wallie continued to gaze in a kind of holy
+ecstasy at his wheat-field until Pinkey ejaculated:
+
+"My, but you've changed horrible!"
+
+"How, changed?" Wallie asked, absently.
+
+"You're so danged dirty! I should think you'd have to sand that shirt
+before you could hold it to git into it."
+
+"I hardly ever take it off," said Wallie. "I've been so busy I haven't
+had time to think how I looked, but I hope now to have more leisure.
+Pinkey," impressively, "I believe my troubles are about over."
+
+"Don't you think it!" replied Pinkey, bluntly. "A dry-farmer kin have
+six months of hard luck three times a year for four and five years,
+hand-runnin'. In fact, they ain't no limit to the time and the kind of
+things that kin happen to a dry-farmer."
+
+"But what _could_ happen now?" Wallie asked, startled.
+
+"It's too clost to bed-time fer me to start in tellin' you," said Pinkey,
+drily.
+
+"You're too pessimistic, Pinkey. I've prepared the soil and seed
+according to the instructions in the Farmers' Bulletins from Washington,
+and as a result I've got the finest stand of wheat around here--even
+Boise Bill said so when he rode by yesterday."
+
+"Rave on!" Pinkey looked at him mockingly. "It's pitiful to hear you.
+You read them bulletins awhile and you won't know nothin'. I seen a
+feller plant some corn his Congressman sent him and the ears was so hard
+the pigs used to stand and squeal in front of 'em. But of course I'm
+glad you're feelin' so lucky; I'm scairt of the feelin' myself for it
+makes me take chances and I always git a jolt for it."
+
+Wallie's face was sober as he confided:
+
+"If anything went wrong I'd be done for. I'm so near broke that I count
+my nickels like some old woman with her butter-and-egg money."
+
+"I guessed it," said Pinkey, calmly, "from the rabbit fur I see layin'
+around the dooryard."
+
+"Nearly everything has cost double what I thought it would, but if I get
+a good crop and the price of wheat holds up I'll come out a-flying."
+
+"If nothin' happens," Pinkey supplemented.
+
+"I want to show you one of those bulletins."
+
+"I've seen plenty of 'em. You can't stop 'em once you git 'em started.
+Them, and pamphlets tellin' us why we went to war, has killed off many a
+mail-carrier that had to fight his way through blizzards, or be fined
+fer not deliverin' 'em on schedule. I ain't strong fer gover'mint
+literature."
+
+Wallie stepped inside the cabin and brought out a pamphlet with an
+illustration of twelve horses hitched to a combined harvester and
+thresher, standing in a wheat-field of boundless acreage.
+
+"There," he said, proudly, "you see my ambition!"
+
+Pinkey regarded it, unexcited.
+
+"That's a real nice picture," he said, finally, "but I thought you aimed
+to go in for cattle?"
+
+"I did. But I've soured on them since that calf came and I've been
+milking."
+
+Pinkey agreed heartily:
+
+"I'd ruther 'swamp' fer a livin' than do low-down work like milkin'."
+
+"When I come in at night, dog-tired and discouraged, I get out this
+picture and look at it and tell myself that some day I'll be driving
+twelve horses on a thresher. A chap thinks and does curious things when
+he has nobody but himself for company."
+
+"That's me, too," said Pinkey, understandingly. "When I'm off alone
+huntin' stock, I ride fer hours wonderin' if it's so that you kin make
+booze out of a raisin."
+
+"Let's walk out and look at the wheat," Wallie suggested.
+
+Pinkey complied obligingly, though farming was an industry in which he
+took no interest.
+
+Wallie's pride in his wheat was inordinate. He never could get over a
+feeling of astonishment that the bright green grain had come from seeds
+of his planting--that it was his--and he would reap the benefit. Nature
+was more wonderful than he had realized and he never before had
+appreciated her. He always forgot the heart-breaking and back-breaking
+labour when he stood as now, surveying with glowing face the even green
+carpet stretching out before him. In such moments he found his
+compensation for all he had gone through since he arrived in Wyoming,
+and he smiled pityingly as he thought of the people at The Colonial,
+rocking placidly on the veranda.
+
+"Did you ever see anything prettier?" Wallie demanded, his eyes shining.
+
+"It's all right," Pinkey murmured, absently.
+
+"You're not looking," Wallie said, sharply.
+
+"I was watchin' them cattle."
+
+"I don't see any."
+
+Pinkey pointed, but Wallie could see nothing.
+
+"If they got cows on Mars, I'll bet I could read the bran's," Pinkey
+boasted. "Can't you see them specks movin' off yonder?"
+
+Wallie admitted he could not.
+
+"It's cattle, and they act like somebody's drivin' 'em," Pinkey
+declared, positively. "Looks like it's too early to be movin' 'em to the
+mountain."
+
+His curiosity satisfied, he gave the wheat his attention.
+
+"It looks fine, Wallie," he said with sincerity.
+
+Wallie could not resist crowing:
+
+"You didn't think I'd last, did you? Miss Spenceley didn't, either.
+She'll be disappointed very likely when she hears I've succeeded."
+
+"Don't cackle till you've laid your aig, Gentle Annie. When you've
+thrashed and sold your grain and got your money in the bank, then I'll
+help you. We'll git drunk if I have to rob a drug-store."
+
+"You're always putting a damper on me. It was you who advised me to go
+in for dry-farming," Wallie reminded him.
+
+"I figgered that if you lived through a year of it," Pinkey replied,
+candidly, "then almost anything else would look like a snap to you."
+
+It was plain that in spite of his prospects Pinkey was not sanguine, but
+in this moment of his exultation failure seemed impossible to Wallie.
+
+In various small ways Canby had tried to break him and had not
+succeeded. Boise Bill had prophesied that he would not "winter"--yet
+here he was with every reason to believe that he would also "summer."
+Wallie felt rather invincible as he reflected upon it, and the aurora
+borealis did not exceed in colour the outlook his fancy painted that
+evening.
+
+"It's eight-thirty," Pinkey hinted. "When I set up till all hours I
+over-sleep in the morning."
+
+Wallie came to earth reluctantly, and as he returned to the cabin he
+again permitted himself the luxury of pitying the folk of The Colonial
+who knew nothing of such rapturous moments in that stale, uneventful
+world which was so remote and different from the present that it was
+beginning to seem like a dream to him.
+
+They had been asleep for an hour, more possibly, when Pinkey nudged
+Wallie violently.
+
+"What's that huffin', do you reckon?"
+
+Wallie awoke with a start and listened.
+
+"Huffing" was the right word. Lying next to the logs, some large animal
+was breathing so heavily in Wallie's ear that it sounded like a bellows.
+He peered through a crack and saw something that looked like a mastodon
+in the darkness tugging at a sack he had used for chinking. It was not a
+horse and was too large for his Jersey. It flashed through his mind that
+it might be a roaming silvertip from the mountain.
+
+Pinkey was out of the bunk at a bound and around the corner of the
+cabin, where his suspicions were instantly verified.
+
+"It's a bull!" he shouted. "I thought it. Looks like a thousand head of
+cattle tramplin' down your wheat-field!"
+
+Wallie turned sick. He could not move for a moment. His air-castles fell
+so hard he could almost hear them.
+
+"Do you think they've been in long?" he asked, weakly.
+
+"Can't tell till daylight." Pinkey was getting into his clothes
+hurriedly.
+
+Wallie was now in the doorway and he could make out innumerable dark
+shapes browsing contentedly in his grain-field.
+
+"What'll we do?" he asked, despairingly.
+
+"Do?" replied Pinkey, savagely, tugging at his boot straps. "I'll send
+one whur the dogs won't bite him with every ca'tridge. We'll run a
+thousand dollars' worth of taller off the rest of 'em. Git into your
+clothes, Gentle Annie, and we'll smoke 'em up proper."
+
+"I don't see how it could happen," said Wallie, his voice trembling.
+"The fence was good!"
+
+"If it had been twenty feet high 'twould 'a' been all the same," Pinkey
+answered. "Them cattle was _drove_ in."
+
+"You mean----" Wallie's mouth opened.
+
+"Shore--Canby! It come to my mind last night when I seen that bunch
+movin'. Pretty coarse work I call it, but he thought you was alone and
+wouldn't ketch on to it."
+
+"He'll pay for this!" cried Wallie, chokingly.
+
+"You can't do nothin' with him but deal him misery. He's got too much
+money and pull fer you. Do you know what I think's gnawin' on him?"
+
+"My taking up a homestead----"
+
+"That, too, but mostly because Helene dressed him down for sellin' that
+locoed team to you. He's jealous."
+
+Even in his despair Wallie felt pleased that any one, especially Canby,
+should be jealous of him because of Helene Spenceley.
+
+"He aims to marry her," Pinkey added. "I wisht you could beat his time
+and win yerself a home somehow. I don't think you got any show, but if I
+was you I'd take another turn around my saddle-horn and hang on.
+Whenever I kin," kindly, "I'll speak a good word for you. Throw your
+saddle on your horse and step, young feller. I'm gone!"
+
+The faint hope which Wallie had nursed that the damage might not be so
+great as he had feared vanished with daylight. Not only was the grain
+trampled so the field looked like a race course, but panel after panel
+of the fence was down where the quaking-asp posts had snapped like
+lead-pencils.
+
+As Pinkey and Wallie surveyed it in the early dawn Wallie's voice had a
+catch in it when he said finally:
+
+"I guess I'm done farming. They made a good job of it."
+
+"I'm no 'sharp' but it looks to me like some of that wheat would
+straighten up if it got a good wettin'."
+
+Wallie said grimly:
+
+"The only thing I forgot to buy when I was outfitting in Philadelphia
+was a rain-making apparatus."
+
+"On the level," Pinkey declared, earnestly, "I bleeve we're goin' to
+have a shower--the clouds bankin' up over there in the northwest is what
+made me think of it."
+
+Wallie's short laugh was cynical.
+
+"It might drown somebody half a mile from me but it wouldn't settle the
+dust in my dooryard."
+
+"I see you're gittin' homesteaditis," Pinkey commented, "but jest the
+same them clouds look like they meant business."
+
+Wallie felt a glimmer of hope in spite of himself and he scrutinized the
+clouds closely.
+
+"They do look black," he admitted. "But since it hasn't rained for two
+months it seems too much to expect that it will rain when I need it so
+desperately."
+
+"It's liable to do anything. I've seen it snow here in August. A
+fur-lined linen duster is the only coat fer this country. I'll gamble
+it's goin' to do _somethin'_, but only the Big Boss knows what."
+
+During breakfast they got up at intervals to look through the doorway,
+and while they washed dishes and tidied the cabin they watched the
+northwest anxiously.
+
+"She's movin' right along," Pinkey reported. "It might be a stiddy rain,
+and then agin it might be a thunder-shower, though you don't often look
+for 'em in the morning."
+
+The light grew subdued with the approaching storm and Wallie commented
+upon the coolness. Then he went out in the dooryard and stood a moment.
+
+"The clouds are black as ink, and how still it is," he said,
+wonderingly. "There isn't a breath of air stirring."
+
+Pinkey was sitting on the floor oiling his saddle when he tilted his
+head suddenly, and listened. He got up abruptly and stood in the
+doorway, concentrating all his faculties upon some sound of which he
+alone was cognizant, for Wallie was aware of nothing unusual save the
+uncanny stillness.
+
+"Hear that?" The sharp note in Pinkey's voice filled Wallie with a
+nameless fear.
+
+"No--what?"
+
+"That roar--can't you hear it?"
+
+Wallie listened intently.
+
+"Yes--like a crashing--what is it?"
+
+"Hail! And a terror! We've got to run the stock in." He was off with
+Wallie following and together they got the cow and horses under shelter
+with all the haste possible.
+
+The sound preceded the storm by some little time, but each moment the
+roar and the crash of it grew louder and when it finally reached them
+Wallie gazed open-mouthed.
+
+Accustomed to hail like tapioca, he never had seen anything like the
+big, jagged chunks of ice which struck the ground with such force that
+they bounded into the air again. Any one of them would have knocked a
+man unconscious. It seemed as if they would batter his roof in, and they
+came so thick that the stable and corral could be seen only
+indistinctly.
+
+They both stood in the doorway, fascinated and awe-stricken.
+
+"Hear it pound! This is the worst I've seen anywhur. You're licked,
+Gentle Annie."
+
+"Yes," said Wallie with a white face. "This finishes me."
+
+"You'll have to kiss your wheat good-bye. It'll be beat into the ground
+too hard ever to straighten." He laid an arm about Wallie's shoulder and
+there was a sympathy in his voice few had heard there:
+
+"You've put up a good fight, old pardner, and even if you are counted
+out, it's no shame to you. You've done good fer a Scissor-bill, Gentle
+Annie."
+
+Wallie clenched his hands and shook himself free of Pinkey's arm while
+his tense voice rang out above the clatter and crash of the storm:
+
+"I'm not licked! I _won't_ be licked! _I'm going to stick, somehow!_ And
+what's more," he turned to Pinkey fiercely, "if you don't stop calling
+me 'Gentle Annie,' I'll knock your block off!"
+
+Pinkey looked at him with his pale, humorous eyes and beamed
+approvingly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+LIFTING A CACHE
+
+
+The Prouty barber lathering the face of a customer, after the manner of
+a man whitewashing a chicken coop, paused on an upward stroke to listen.
+Then he stepped to the door, looked down the street, and nodded in
+confirmation. After which he returned, laid down his brush, and pinned
+on a nickel badge, which act transformed him into the town constable.
+
+The patron in the chair, a travelling salesman, watched the pantomime
+with interest.
+
+"One moment, please." The barber-officer excused himself and stepped out
+to the edge of the sidewalk, where he awaited the approach of a pair on
+horseback who were making the welkin ring with a time-honoured ballad of
+the country:
+
+    I'm a howler from the prairies of the West.
+    If you want to die with terror, look at me.
+    I'm chain-lightnin'----
+
+As they came abreast the constable held out his hand and the pair
+automatically laid six-shooters in it and went on without stopping in
+their song:
+
+    --if I ain't, may I be blessed.
+    I'm a snorter of the boundless, lone prairee.
+
+Other citizens than the barber recognized the voices, and frowned or
+smiled as happened, among whom was Mr. Tucker repairing a sofa in the
+rear of his "Second-Hand Store."
+
+Returning, the constable laid the six-shooters on the shelf among the
+shaving mugs and removed his badge.
+
+"Who's that?" inquired the patron, since the barber offered no
+explanation.
+
+"Oh, them toughs--'Gentle Annie' Macpherson and 'Pinkey' Fripp," was the
+answer in a wearied tone. "I hate to see 'em come to town."
+
+The pair continued to warble on their way to the livery barn on a side
+street:
+
+    I'm the double-jawed hyena from the East.
+    I'm the blazing, bloody blizzard of the States.
+    I'm the celebrated slugger----
+
+The song stopped as Pinkey asked:
+
+"Shall we work together or separate?"
+
+To this mysterious question Wallie replied:
+
+"Let's try it together first."
+
+After attending personally to the matter of feeding their horses oats,
+the two set forth with the air of having a definite purpose.
+
+Their subsequent actions confirmed it, for they approached divers
+persons of their acquaintance as if they had business of a confidential
+nature. The invariable result of these mysterious negotiations, however,
+was a negative shake of the head.
+
+After another obvious failure Pinkey said gloomily:
+
+"If I put in half the time and thought trying to be a Senator that I do
+figgerin' how to git a bottle, I'd be elected."
+
+Wallie replied hopefully:
+
+"Something may turn up yet."
+
+"I'd lift a cache from a preacher! I'd steal booze off my blind aunt!
+I'd----"
+
+"We'll try some more 'prospects' before we give up. It's many months
+since I've gone out of town sober and I don't like to establish a
+precedent. I'm superstitious about things like that," said Wallie.
+
+At this unquestionably psychological moment Mr. Tucker beckoned them
+from his doorway. They responded with such alacrity that their gait
+approached a trot, although they had no particular reason to believe
+that it was his intention to offer them a drink. It was merely a hope
+born of their thirst.
+
+Their reputation was such, however, that any one who wished to
+demonstrate his friendship invariably evidenced it in this way, taking
+care, in violation of the ethics of bygone days, to do the pouring
+himself.
+
+Mr. Tucker winked elaborately when he invited them in, and Wallie and
+Pinkey exchanged eloquent looks as they followed him to his Land Office
+in the rear of the store.
+
+Inside, he locked the door and lowered the shade of the single window
+which looked out on an areaway. No explanation was necessary as he took
+a hatchet and pried up a plank. This accomplished, he reached under the
+floor and produced a tin cup and a two-gallon jug.
+
+He filled it with a fluid of an unfamiliar shade and passed it to
+Pinkey, who smelled it and declared that he could drink anything that
+was wet. Wallie watched him eagerly as it gurgled down his throat.
+
+"Well?" Mr. Tucker waited expectantly for the verdict.
+
+Pinkey wiped his mouth.
+
+"Another like that and I could watch my mother go down for the third
+time and laugh!"
+
+"Where did you get it?" Wallie in turn emptied the cup and passed it
+back.
+
+"S-ss-sh!" Mr. Tucker looked warningly at the door. "I made it
+myself--brown sugar and raisins. You like it then?"
+
+"If I had about 'four fingers' in a wash-tub every half hour---- What
+would you hold a quart of that at?" Pinkey leaned over the opening in
+the floor and sniffed.
+
+Mr. Tucker hastily replaced the plank and declared:
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't dast! I jest keep a little on hand for my particular
+friends that I can trust. By the way, Mr. Macpherson, what are you goin'
+to do with that homestead you took up?"
+
+"Hold it. Why?"
+
+"I thought I might run across a buyer sometime and I wondered what you
+asked."
+
+A hardness came into Wallie's face and Tucker added:
+
+"I wasn't goin' to charge you any commission--you've had bad luck
+and----"
+
+"You're the seventh philanthropist that's wanted to sell that place in
+my behalf for about $400, because he was sorry for me," Wallie
+interrupted, drily. "You tell Canby that when he makes me a decent offer
+I'll consider it."
+
+"No offence--no offence, I hope?" Tucker protested.
+
+"Oh, no." Wallie shrugged his shoulder. "Only don't keep getting me
+mixed with the chap that took up that homestead. I've had my eyeteeth
+cut."
+
+Extending an invitation to call and quench their thirsts with his
+raisinade when next they came to town, Tucker unlocked the door.
+
+After the two had wormed their way through the bureaus and stoves and
+were once more in the street, they turned and gave each other a long,
+inquiring look.
+
+"Pink," demanded Wallie, solemnly, "did you smell anything when he
+raised that plank?"
+
+"Did I smell anything! Didn't you see me sniff? That joker has got a
+cache of the real stuff and he gave us raisinade! I couldn't git an
+answer from a barrel of that. He couldn't have insulted us worse if he'd
+slapped our faces."
+
+"A man ought to be punished that would do a wicked thing like that."
+
+"You've said somethin', Gentle Annie."
+
+The two looked at each other in an understanding that was beautiful and
+complete.
+
+The behaviour of the visitors was nearly too good to be true--it was so
+exemplary, in fact, as to be suspicious, and acting upon this theory,
+the barber closed his shop early, pinned on his badge of office, and
+followed them about. But when at ten o'clock they had broken nothing,
+quarrelled with nobody, and drunk only an incredible quantity of soda
+pop, he commenced to think he had been wrong.
+
+At eleven, when they were still in a pool-hall playing "solo" for a cent
+a chip, he decided to go home. There he confided to his wife that no
+more striking example of the benefits of prohibition had come under his
+observation than the conduct of this notorious pair who, when sober,
+were well mannered and docile as lambs.
+
+It was twelve or thereabouts when two figures crept stealthily up the
+alley behind Mr. Tucker's Second-Hand Store and raised the window
+looking out on the areaway. As noiselessly as trained burglars they
+pried up the plank and investigated by the light of a match.
+
+"Well, what do you think of that!"
+
+"I feel like somebody had died and left me a million dollars!" said
+Pinkey in an awed tone, reaching for a tin cup. "I didn't think they was
+anybody in the world as mean as Tucker."
+
+"You mustn't get too much," Wallie admonished, noting the size of the
+drink Pinkey was pouring for himself.
+
+"I've never had too much. I may have had enough, but never too much,"
+Pinkey grinned. "I don't take no int'rest in startin' less'n a quart."
+
+"I hope he'll have the decency to be ashamed of himself when he finds
+out we know what he did to us. I shouldn't think he'd want to look us in
+the face," Wallie declared, virtuously.
+
+"He won't git a chanst to look in my face for some time to come if we
+kin lift this cache."
+
+Together they filled the grain sack they had brought and carefully
+replaced the plank, then, staggering under the weight of the load, made
+their way to a gulch, buried the sack, and marked the hiding-place with
+a stone. With a righteous sense of having acted as instruments of
+Providence in punishing selfishness, they returned to town to follow
+such whims as seized them under the stimulus of a bottle of Mr. Tucker's
+excellent Bourbon.
+
+The constable had been asleep for hours when a yell--a series of
+yells--made him sit up. He listened a moment, then with a sigh of
+resignation got up, dressed, and took the key of the calaboose from its
+nail by the kitchen sink.
+
+"I'll lock 'em up and be right back," he said to his sleepy wife, who
+seemed to know whom he meant too well to ask.
+
+Under the arc light in front of the Prouty House he found them doing the
+Indian "stomp" dance to the delight of the guests who were leaning from
+their windows to applaud.
+
+"Ain't you two ashamed of yerselves?" the constable demanded,
+scandalized--referring to the fact that Pinkey and Wallie had divested
+themselves of their trousers and boots and were dancing in their
+stocking feet.
+
+"Ashamed?" Wallie asked, impudently. "Where have I heard that word?"
+
+"Who sold liquor to you two?"
+
+"I ate a raisin and it fermented," Wallie replied, pertly.
+
+"Where's your clothes?" To Pinkey.
+
+"How'sh I know?"
+
+"You two ought to be ordered to keep out of town. You're pests. Come
+along!"
+
+"Jus' waitin' fer you t'put us t'bed," said Pinkey, cheerfully.
+
+The two lurched beside the constable to the calaboose, where they
+dropped down on the hard pads and temporarily passed out.
+
+The sun was shining in Wallie's face when he awoke and realized where he
+was. He and Pinkey had been there too many times before not to know. As
+he lay reading the pencilled messages and criticisms of the
+accommodation left on the walls by other occupants he subconsciously
+marvelled at himself that he should have no particular feeling of shame
+at finding himself in a cell.
+
+He was aware that it was accepted as a fact that he had gone to the bad.
+He had been penurious as a miser until he had saved enough from his
+wages as a common cowhand to buy his homestead outright from the State.
+After that he had never saved a cent, on the contrary, he was usually
+overdrawn. He gambled, and lost no opportunity to get drunk, since he
+calculated that he got more entertainment for his money out of that than
+anything else, even at the "bootlegging" price of $20 per quart which
+prevailed.
+
+So he had drifted, learning in the meantime under Pinkey's tutelage to
+ride and shoot and handle a rope with the best of them. Pinkey had left
+the Spenceley ranch and they were both employed now by the same
+cattleman.
+
+He rarely saw Helene, in consequence, but upon the few occasions they
+had met in Prouty she had made him realize that she knew his reputation
+and disapproved of it. In the East she had mocked him for his
+inoffensiveness, now she criticized him for the opposite. It was plain,
+he thought disconsolately, that he could not please her, yet it seemed
+to make no difference in his own feelings for her.
+
+His face reddened as he recalled the boasts he had made upon several
+occasions and how far he had fallen short of fulfilling them. He was
+going to "show" them, and now all he had to offer in evidence was 160
+acres gone to weeds and grasshoppers, his saddle, and the clothes he
+stood in.
+
+It was not often that Wallie stopped to take stock, for it was an
+uncomfortable process, but his failure seemed to thrust itself upon him
+this morning. He was glad when Pinkey's heavy breathing ceased in the
+cell adjoining and he began to grumble.
+
+"Looks like a town the size of Prouty would have a decent jail in it,"
+he said, crossly. "They go and throw every Tom, Dick, and Harry in this
+here cell, and some buckaroo has half tore up the mattress."
+
+"You can't have your private cell, you know," Wallie suggested.
+
+"I've paid enough in fines to build a cooler the size of this one, and
+looks like I got a little somethin' comin' to me."
+
+"I suppose they don't take that view of it," said Wallie, "but you might
+speak to the Judge this morning."
+
+After a time Pinkey asked, yawning:
+
+"What did we do last night? Was we fightin'?"
+
+"I don't know--I haven't thought about it."
+
+"I guess the constable will mention it," Pinkey observed, drily. "He
+does, generally."
+
+"Let's make a circle and go and have a look at my place," Wallie
+suggested. "It's not far out of the way and we might pick up a few
+strays in that country."
+
+Pinkey agreed amiably and added:
+
+"You'll prob'ly have the blues for a week after."
+
+The key turning in the lock interrupted the conversation.
+
+"You two birds get up. Court is goin' to set in about twenty minutes."
+The constable eyed them coldly through the grating.
+
+"Where's my clothes?" Pinkey demanded, looking at the Law accusingly.
+
+"How should I know?"
+
+"I ain't no more pants than a rabbit!" Pinkey declared, astonished.
+
+"Nor I!" said Wallie.
+
+"You got all the clothes you had on when I put you here."
+
+"How kin we go to court?"
+
+"'Tain't fur."
+
+"Everybody'll look at us," Pinkey protested.
+
+The constable retorted callously:
+
+"Won't many more see you than saw you last night doin' the stomp dance
+in Main Street."
+
+"Did we do that?" Pinkey asked, startled.
+
+"Sure--right in front of the Prouty House, and Helene Spenceley and a
+lot of folks was lookin' out of the windows."
+
+Wallie sat down on the edge of his cot weakly. That settled it! He
+doubted if she would ever speak to him.
+
+"I've got customers waitin'," urged the constable, impatiently. "Wrap a
+soogan around you and step lively."
+
+There was nothing to do but obey, in the circumstances, so the
+shame-faced pair walked the short block to a hardware store in the rear
+of which the Justice of the Peace was at his desk to receive them.
+
+"Ten dollars apiece," he said, without looking up from his writing. "And
+half an hour to get out of town."
+
+Pinkey and Wallie looked at each other.
+
+"The fact is, Your Honour," said the latter, ingratiatingly, "we have
+mislaid our trousers and left our money in the pockets. If you would be
+so kind as to loan us each a ten-spot until we have wages coming we
+shall feel greatly indebted to you."
+
+The Court vouchsafed a glance at them. Showing no surprise at their
+unusual costume, he said as he fumbled in the pocket of his waistcoat:
+
+"Such gall as yours should not go unrewarded. You pay your debts, and
+that's all the good I know of either of you. Now clear out--and if you
+show up for a month the officer here is to arrest you."
+
+He transferred two banknotes to the desk-drawer and went on with his
+scratching.
+
+"Gosh!" Pinkey lamented, as they stood outside clutching their quilts,
+"I wisht I knowed whur to locate them mackinaws. I got 'em in Lethbridge
+before I went to the army, and I think the world of 'em. I don't like
+'poor-boys-serge,' but I guess I'll have to come to it, since I'm
+busted."
+
+"What's that?" Wallie asked, curiously.
+
+"Denim," Pinkey explained, "overalls. That makes me think of a song a
+feller wrote up:
+
+    "A Texas boy in a Northern clime,
+    With a pair of brown hands and a thin little dime.
+    The southeast side of his overalls out--
+    _Yip-yip, I'm freezin' to death_!"
+
+"That's a swell song," Pinkey went on enthusiastically. "I wish I could
+think of the rest of it."
+
+"Don't overtax your brain--I've heard plenty. Let's cut down the alley
+and in the back way of the Emporium. Oh!" He gripped his quilt in
+sudden panic and looked for a hiding-place. Nothing better than a
+telegraph pole offered. He stepped behind it as Helene Spenceley passed
+in Canby's roadster.
+
+"Did she see me?"
+
+"Shore she saw you. You'd oughta seen the way she looked at you."
+
+Wallie, who was too mortified and miserable for words over the incident,
+declared he meant never again to come to town and make a fool of
+himself.
+
+"I know how you feel, but you'll git over it," said Pinkey,
+sympathetically. "It's nothin' to worry about, for I doubt if you ever
+had any show anyhow."
+
+Canby laughed disagreeably after they had passed the two on the
+sidewalk.
+
+"That Montgomery-Ward cowpuncher has been drunk again, evidently," he
+commented.
+
+"I wouldn't call him that. I'm told he can rope and ride with any of
+them."
+
+He looked at her quickly.
+
+"You seem to keep track of him."
+
+She replied bluntly:
+
+"He interests me."
+
+"Why?" curtly. Canby looked malicious as he added: "He's a fizzle."
+
+"He'll get his second wind some day and surprise you."
+
+"He will?" Canby replied, curtly. "What makes you think it?"
+
+"His aunt is a rich woman, and he could go limping back if he wanted to;
+besides, he has what I call the 'makings'."
+
+"He should feel flattered by your confidence in him," he answered,
+uncomfortably.
+
+"He doesn't know it."
+
+Canby said no more, but it passed through his mind that Wallie would
+not, either, if there was a way for him to prevent it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+COLLECTING A BAD DEBT
+
+
+Wallie and Pinkey picked up a few stray cattle on their way to the
+homestead on Skull Creek. It was late in the afternoon when they reached
+it, so they decided to spend the night there. The corral was down in
+places, but with a little work it was repaired sufficiently to hold the
+cattle they put in it.
+
+As Pinkey had prophesied, it gave Wallie the "blues" to look at the
+place where he had worked so hard and from which he had hoped so much.
+He felt heartsick as he saw the broken fence-posts and tangled wire, the
+weeds growing in his wheat-field, the broken window-panes, and the
+wreckage inside his cabin.
+
+The door had been left open and the range stock had gone in for shelter,
+while the rats and mice and chipmunks had taken possession. Such of his
+cooking utensils as remained had been used and left unwashed, and the
+stove was partially demolished.
+
+The only thing which remained as he had left it was the stream of salt
+water that had cut a deeper channel for itself but had not diminished in
+volume.
+
+"I'll go over to Canby's and hit the cook for some grub and be back
+pronto," said Pinkey.
+
+Wallie nodded. He was in no mood for conversation, for the realization
+of his failure was strong upon him, and he could not rid himself of the
+mortification he felt at having made a spectacle of himself before
+Helene Spenceley.
+
+The future looked utterly hopeless. Without capital there seemed nothing
+to do but go on indefinitely working for wages. His aunt had sent word
+in a roundabout way that if he wished to come back she would receive
+him, but this he did not even consider.
+
+Sitting on what was left of his doorstep, he awaited Pinkey's return, in
+an attitude of such dejection that that person commented upon it
+jocosely. He rode up finally with a banana in each hip pocket that he
+had pilfered from the cook, together with four doughnuts in the crown of
+his hat and a cake in his shirt front.
+
+"I tried to get away with a pie, but it was too soft to carry, so I put
+a handful of salt under the crust and set it back," he said, as he
+disgorged his plunder. "He charged me for the bread and meat, and
+wouldn't let me have no butter! It's fellers like the Canby outfit that
+spoil a country."
+
+When they had eaten, they spread their saddle-blankets in the dooryard
+and with their saddles for pillows covered themselves with the slickers
+they carried and so slept soundly until morning.
+
+After breakfast, as they were leading their horses up the weed-grown
+path to the cabin to saddle them, Pinkey's eye rested on the flowing
+salt water stream.
+
+"Can you beat it!" he commented. "Good for nuthin' but a bathin' pool
+fer dudes----"
+
+Wallie stopped in the path and looked at the friend of his bosom.
+
+"Pink," he said, solemnly, "why wouldn't this make a dude ranch?"
+
+Pinkey stared back at him.
+
+"Gentle Annie," he replied, finally, "I told you long ago you was good
+fer somethin' if we could jest hit on it. You're a born duder!"
+
+"Thanks! I feel as complimented as the fellow in the Passion Play who is
+cast for Judas Iscariot."
+
+"I don't know what you're talkin' about--I've only seen a few
+draymas--but you got the looks and the figger and a way about you that
+I've noticed takes with women. You'd make a great dude wrangler. Bleeve
+me, you've thought of somethin'!"
+
+"I wasn't thinking of myself, but of the place here--the scenery--the
+climate--fishing in the mountains--hunting in season----"
+
+"_And_"--Pinkey interrupted--"the strongest stream of salt water in the
+state fer mineral baths, with the Yellowstone Park in your front
+dooryard!"
+
+In his enthusiasm he pounded Wallie on the back.
+
+"It _would_ be an asset, having the Park so close," the latter agreed,
+his eyes shining.
+
+Pinkey went on:
+
+"You kin run dudes whur you can't run sheep or cattle. What you need is
+_room_--and we're there with the room. Fresh air, grasshoppers, views
+any way you look--why, man, you got everything!"
+
+"Except money," said Wallie, suddenly.
+
+Pinkey's face lengthened.
+
+"I hadn't thought of that."
+
+For an instant they felt crushed. It was such a precipitous descent to
+earth after their flight.
+
+They walked to the cabin, and saddled in a silence which was broken
+finally by Pinkey, who said vindictively:
+
+"I'd rob a train to git money enough to turn fifty head of dudes loose
+on Canby. He'd be mad enough to bite himself. If he could help it he
+wouldn't have a neighbour within a hundred miles."
+
+Wallie's thoughts were bitter as he remembered the many injuries he had
+suffered at Canby's hands. It was a subject upon which he dared not
+trust himself to talk--it stirred him too much, although he had long ago
+decided that since he was powerless to retaliate there was nothing to do
+but take his medicine. As he made no response, Pinkey continued while he
+tightened the cinch:
+
+"If you could make a dude ranch out o' this and worry him enough, he'd
+give you about any price you asked, to quit."
+
+"I'd ask plenty," Wallie replied, grimly, "but it's no use to talk."
+
+"It wouldn't trouble my conscience none if I hazed a bunch of his horses
+over the line, but horses are so cheap now that it wouldn't pay to take
+the chance."
+
+"There's the Prouty Bank," Wallie suggested, ironically.
+
+"Them bullet-proof screens have made cashiers too hard to git at."
+Pinkey spoke in an authoritative tone.
+
+"Why don't you marry some rich widow and get us a stake?"
+
+"Aw-w!" Resentment and disgust were in Pinkey's voice. "I'd steal
+washings off of clothes lines first." He added: "I don't like them
+jokes."
+
+"I didn't know you were touchy, Pink."
+
+"Everybody's touchy," Pinkey replied, sagely, "if you hit 'em on the
+right spot. But, do you know, this dude ranch sticks in my mind, and I
+can't git it out."
+
+"We might as well let it drop. We haven't the money, so we're wasting
+our breath. We'll lose the jobs we've got if we don't get about our
+business. Let's leave the cattle in the corral and scout a little
+through the hills--it'll save us another trip. I don't want to come here
+again soon--it hurts too much."
+
+Pinkey agreed, and they rode gloomily along the creek bank looking for a
+ford. A few hot days had taken off the heavy snows in the mountains so
+quickly that the stream was running swift and deep.
+
+"That's treach'rous water," Pinkey observed. "They's boulders in there
+as big as a house where it looks all smooth on top. I know a place about
+a mile or so where I think it'll be safe."
+
+They had ridden nearly that distance when, simultaneously, they pulled
+their horses up.
+
+"Look at that crazy fool!" Pinkey ejaculated, aghast.
+
+"It's--Canby!" Wallie exclaimed.
+
+"Nobody else! Watch him," incredulously, "tryin' to quirt his horse
+across the crick!"
+
+"Isn't it the ford?"
+
+"I should say not! It looks like the place but it ain't--he's
+mixed--he'll be in a jack-pot quick if he don't back out. Onct his horse
+stumbles it'll never git its feet in there."
+
+They rode close enough to hear Canby cursing as he whipped.
+
+"Look at him punish the poor brute! See him use that quirt and cut him
+with his spurs! Say, that makes me sick to see a good horse abused!"
+Pinkey cried, indignantly.
+
+Wallie said nothing but watched with hard, narrowed eyes.
+
+"I s'pose I'd oughta yell and warn him," finally Pinkey said,
+reluctantly.
+
+"You let out a yip and I'll slat you across the face!"
+
+Pinkey stared at the words--at Wallie's voice--at an expression he never
+had seen before.
+
+"I know how you feel, but it's pure murder to let him git into that
+crick."
+
+"Will you shut up?" Wallie looked at him with steely eyes, and there was
+a glint in them that silenced Pink.
+
+He waited, wonderingly, to see what it all meant. The battle between man
+and horse continued while they watched from the high bank. In terrified
+protest the animal snorted, reared, whirled, while the rider plied the
+quirt mercilessly and spurred. Finally the sting of leather, the pain of
+sharp steel, and the stronger will won out, and the trembling horse
+commenced to take the water.
+
+Pinkey muttered, as, fascinated, he looked on:
+
+"I've no idea that he knows enough to quit his horse on the down-stream
+side. He'll wash under, tangle up, and be drowned before we get a chanst
+to snake him out. He's a gone goslin' right now."
+
+Cautiously, a few inches to a step, the horse advanced.
+
+"There! He's in the boulders! Watch him flounder! Look at him slip--he's
+hit the current! Good-night--he's down--no, he's goin' to ketch himself!
+Watch him fight! Good ol' horse--good ol' horse!" Pinkey was beside
+himself with excitement now. "He's lost his feet--he's swimmin'--strikin'
+out for the shore--too swift, and the fool don't know enough to give him
+his head!"
+
+They followed along the bank as the current swept horse and rider down.
+
+"He swims too high--he's playin' out--there's so much mud he'll choke up
+quick. It'll soon be over now." Pinkey's face wore a queer,
+half-frightened grin. "Fifty yards more and----"
+
+Wallie commenced to uncoil his saddle rope.
+
+"You goin' to drag him out?"
+
+Wallie made no answer but touched his horse and galloped until he was
+ahead of Canby and the drowning horse. Making a megaphone of his hands
+he yelled.
+
+Canby lifted his wild eyes to the bank.
+
+"Throw me a rope!" he shrieked.
+
+A slow, tantalizing smile came to Wallie's face. Very distinctly he
+called back:
+
+"How much damages will you give me for driving your cattle into my
+wheat?"
+
+"Not a damn cent!"
+
+The rope Wallie had been swinging about his head to test the loop
+promptly dropped.
+
+The horse was swimming lower at every stroke.
+
+"Five hundred!" Fear and rage were in Canby's choking voice.
+
+"Put another cipher on that to cover my mental anguish!" Wallie mocked.
+
+The horse was exhausting itself rapidly with its efforts merely to keep
+its nose out, making no further attempt to swim toward the bank. Canby
+slapped water in its face in the hope of turning it, but it was too
+late. Its breathing could be heard plainly and its distended nostrils
+were blood-red.
+
+Many things passed swiftly through Canby's calculating mind in the few
+seconds that remained for him to decide.
+
+His boots had filled and he was soaked to the waist; he knew that if he
+left the horse and swam for it he had small chance of success. He was
+not a strong swimmer at best, and even if he managed to get to the bank
+its sides were too high and steep for him to climb out without
+assistance. He looked at Wallie's implacable face, but he saw no
+weakening there, it was a matter of a moment more when the horse would
+go under and come up feet first.
+
+"Throw me the rope!" His voice vibrating with chagrin and rage admitted
+his defeat.
+
+Wallie measured the distance with his eye, adjusted the loop, and as it
+cut the air above his head Canby held up his hands to catch it when it
+dropped.
+
+"Good work!" Pinkey cried as it shot out and hit its mark. "You never
+made a better throw than that, old kid!"
+
+Canby slipped the loop under his arm and, as he took his feet from the
+stirrups, shouted for them to tighten up.
+
+The horse, relieved of his weight, took heart and struck out for the
+opposite bank, where a little dirt slide enabled it to scramble out.
+Shaking and dripping, at last it stood still at the top, while Canby, a
+dead weight, was dragged over the edge to dry land.
+
+There was as much fury as relief in his face when he stood up and
+started to loosen the rope around his chest.
+
+Wallie stopped him with a gesture.
+
+"No, you don't! I take no chances when I play with crooks. You make out
+that check."
+
+"Isn't my word good?" Canby demanded.
+
+"Not so far as I can throw my horse."
+
+"I haven't a check-book," he lied.
+
+"Get it, Pink."
+
+The check-book and indelible pencil which every sheep and cattleman
+carries were in the inside pocket of his coat.
+
+"Fill it out." Wallie passed the pencil to him. "And don't leave off a
+cipher by mistake."
+
+"I refuse to be coerced!" Canby declared, defiantly. "I'll keep my word,
+but I didn't say when."
+
+"_I'm_ setting the date," Wallie replied, coolly, "and that's just four
+minutes and a half from _now_," taking out his watch. "If I haven't got
+the check by then you'll pay for those locoed horses, too, or I'll throw
+you back."
+
+"You don't dare!"
+
+"When you haven't anything to lose you'll do considerable to get 'hunks'
+and that's my fix. Besides, I need the money. Two minutes left--think
+fast."
+
+"You'll sweat blood for this before I'm through with you!"
+
+"Time's up--yes or no?"
+
+Canby gritted his teeth.
+
+Silently Wallie passed the end of the rope to Pinkey, who understood and
+took a turn around his saddle-horn.
+
+Before he could resist Wallie gave Canby a shove and pushed him over the
+bank. He struck the water with a splash and went out of sight.
+Immediately the well-trained cow-horse felt the strain it backed up and
+held the rope taut.
+
+Canby came to the surface, then dangled as the horse continued to hold
+off. As he strangled with the water he had taken in his lungs and
+struggled frantically in the air, it seemed beyond human belief that it
+was he, Canby--Canby the all-powerful--in such a plight!
+
+"Pay out a little rope, Pinkey. Give the fish more line."
+
+Once again Canby dropped back and came up gasping, coughing, fighting
+for his breath.
+
+A little anxiously Pinkey asked:
+
+"Don't you bleeve he's had enough?"
+
+"Too much scrap left in him yet," Wallie replied, unmoved.
+
+Canby shrieked at last: "I'll pay! Let me up!"
+
+"You mean that?"
+
+"Good God--YES!"
+
+Pinkey led the horse back and in no gentle fashion Canby was pulled over
+the edge for the second time, where he lay limp. When his breath and
+strength returned he struggled to his feet.
+
+"If you go in again you won't come up." Wallie's voice was metallic and,
+searching his face, Canby saw that he meant exactly what he said.
+
+His hand was shaking as he filled out the check, using the saddle for a
+desk.
+
+Wallie looked at it and handed it back.
+
+"You forgot the horses--six hundred is what they cost."
+
+Canby started to protest, then, with a crafty look which, fleeting as it
+was, Wallie caught, he made out a new check for fifty-six hundred.
+
+Turning to Pinkey, Canby said: "I'll give you a hundred and fifty for
+your horse."
+
+Pinkey hesitated. It was a hundred more than it was worth.
+
+"I guess not." Wallie's voice was curt. "I'm clairvoyant, Canby, and
+I've read your thought. You can't stop payment by telephone, because
+Pink is going to close-herd you right here until I ride to Prouty and
+get this cashed."
+
+Pinkey's jaw dropped.
+
+"By the long-horn toads of Texas! I wouldn't 'a' thought of that in a
+month!"
+
+As Wallie put his foot into the stirrup for the first time his face
+relaxed. He looked over his shoulder and grinned:
+
+"If you listen, maybe you'll hear something making a noise like a dude
+ranch, Pink."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE EXODUS
+
+
+Never had Mr. Cone put in such a summer! The lines in his forehead
+looked as if they had been made with a harrow and there were times when
+his eyes had the expression of a hunted animal. Pacifying disgruntled
+guests was now as much a part of the daily routine as making out the
+menus. In the halcyon days when a guest had a complaint, he made it
+aside, delicately, as a suggestion. Now he made a point of dressing Mr.
+Cone down publicly. In truth, baiting the landlord seemed to be in the
+nature of a recreation with the guests of The Colonial. Threats to leave
+were of common occurrence, and Mr. Cone longed to be once more in a
+position to tell them calmly to use their own pleasure in the matter.
+But what with high taxes, excessive wages, extensive improvements still
+to be paid for, prudence kept him silent.
+
+The only way in which he could explain the metamorphosis was that the
+guests were imbued with the spirit of discontent that prevailed
+throughout the world in the years following the war. The theory did not
+make his position easier, however, nor alter the fact that he all but
+fell to trembling when a patron approached to leave his key or get a
+drink of ice water at the cooler.
+
+As he lay awake wondering what next they would find to complain of, he
+framed splendid answers, dignified yet stinging, but when the time came
+to use them he remembered his expenses and his courage always failed
+him.
+
+In his heart, he felt that this could not go on forever--some day
+someone would speak just the right word and he would surprise them. He
+had come to listen with comparative equanimity to the statement that his
+hotel was badly managed, the service poor, and the food the worst served
+on the beach-front, but there was the very strong possibility that
+someone would inadvertently touch a sensitive nerve and he would "fly
+off the handle." When that happened, Mr. Cone dreaded the outcome.
+
+Such were conditions at The Colonial when the folders arrived announcing
+the opening of the Lolabama Ranch to tourists--the name meaning Happy
+Wigwam. Messrs. Macpherson and Fripp, it stated, were booking guests for
+the remainder of the season and urged those who had a taste for the
+Great Outdoors to consider what they had to offer. The folders created a
+sensation. They came in the morning after a night of excessive heat and
+humidity. The guests found them in their mail when, fishy-eyed and
+irritable, they went in to breakfast.
+
+A new elevator boy who had jarred them by the violence of his stops had
+not improved their tempers, therefore few of them failed to comment to
+Mr. Cone upon the increasing wretchedness of the service.
+
+While they fanned themselves and prophesied a day that was going to be a
+"scorcher" they read of a country where the nights were so cool that
+blankets were necessary, where the air was so invigorating that langour
+was unheard of, with such a variety of scenery that the eye never
+wearied. There were salt baths that made the old young again, big game
+in the mountains for the adventurous, fishing, with bait in untold
+quantities, saddle-horses for equestrians, innumerable walks for
+pedestrians, an excellent table provided with the best the market
+offered, and, finally, a tour of the Yellowstone Park under the personal
+guidance of the hosts of The Lolabama in a stage-coach drawn by four
+horses, by motor, or on horseback as suited their pleasure.
+
+Small wonder that life on The Colonial veranda suddenly looked tame
+after reading the folder and studying the pictures! Their discontent
+took the form of an increasing desire to nag Mr. Cone. Vaguely they held
+him responsible for the heat, the humidity, the monotony of the ocean,
+and their loss of appetite due to lack of exercise.
+
+On an impulse, Mr. Henry Appel, after consulting with his wife, got up
+abruptly and went inside for the purpose of having a plain talk with Mr.
+Cone.
+
+Mr. Cone, who was making out the weekly bills, pretended not to see him
+until he cleared his throat and said very distinctly:
+
+"May I have your attention, Mr. Cone?"
+
+Quaking, Mr. Cone stepped forward briskly and apologized.
+
+Ignoring the apology, Mr. Appel began impressively:
+
+"You cannot have failed to see, Mr. Cone, that my wife and I have been
+thoroughly dissatisfied this summer, as we have been at no great pains
+to conceal it. We have been coming here for twenty-two seasons, but we
+feel that we cannot put up with things any longer and are hereby giving
+you notice that next Thursday our room will be at your disposal."
+
+"Is it anything in particular--anything which I can remedy? Perhaps you
+will reconsider." Mr. Cone pleaded, looking from one to the other.
+
+"Last night--at dinner"--Mrs. Appel eyed him accusingly--"I found--an
+eyewinker--in the hard sauce."
+
+Mr. Cone stammered:
+
+"I'm v-very sorry--it was not my eyewinker--such things will happen--I
+will speak to the pastry cook and ask him to be careful----"
+
+Mr. Budlong, who had come in to lay his grievance before Mr. Cone,
+interrupted:
+
+"For two mornings Mrs. Budlong and myself have been awakened by the man
+with the vacuum cleaner who has wanted to work in our room before we
+were out of it. I should judge," he said, acidly, "that you recruit your
+servants from the Home for the Feeble-minded, and, personally, I am sick
+of it!"
+
+"It is almost impossible to get competent help," Mr. Cone protested.
+"The man shall be discharged and I promise you no further annoyance."
+
+Mr. Budlong, nudged by his wife, was not to be placated.
+
+"Our week is up Monday, and we are leaving."
+
+Miss Mattie Gaskett, encouraged by the conversation to which she had
+listened, declared with asperity:
+
+"There has been fuzz under my bed for exactly one week, Mr. Cone, and I
+have not called the maid's attention to it because I wished to see how
+long it would remain there. I have no reason to believe that it will be
+removed this summer. I am sure it is not necessary to tell you that such
+filth is unsanitary. I have decided that you can make out my bill at
+your earliest convenience."
+
+"But, Miss Gaskett----"
+
+She ignored the protesting hand which Mr. Cone, panic-stricken,
+extended, and made way for a widow from Baltimore, who informed him that
+her faucet dripped and her rocking-chair squeaked, and since no
+attention had been paid to her complaints she was making other
+arrangements.
+
+It was useless for Mr. Cone to explain that with the plumbers striking
+for living wages and the furniture repairers behind with their work, it
+had been impossible to attend immediately to these matters.
+
+Ruin confronted Mr. Cone as he argued and begged them not to act
+hastily. But something of the mob spirit had taken possession of the
+guests in front of the desk who stood and glowered at him, and his
+conciliatory attitude, his obsequiousness, only added to it.
+
+If nothing else had happened to strain Mr. Cone's self-control further,
+he and his guests might have separated with at least a semblance of good
+feeling, but the fatal word which he had feared in his forebodings came
+from Mrs. J. Harry Stott, who majestically descended the broad staircase
+carrying before her a small reddish-brown insect impaled on a
+darning-needle. She walked to the desk and presented it for Mr. Cone's
+consideration. It was a most indelicate action, but the knowledge that
+it was such did not lessen the horror with which the guests regarded it.
+
+Aghast, speechless, Mr. Cone, one of whose proudest boasts had been of
+the hotel's cleanliness, could not have been more shocked if he had
+learned that he was a leper.
+
+There were shudders, ejaculations, and a general determination to leave
+even sooner than anticipated.
+
+"Where did you find it?" Mr. Cone finally managed to ask hoarsely.
+
+"Walking on my pillow!" replied Mrs. Stott, dramatically. "_And I think
+there are others!_ If you will see that my trunks get off on the 4:17 I
+shall be obliged to you."
+
+Mr. Cone knew it was coming. He felt the symptoms which warned him that
+he was going to "fly off the handle." He leaned over the counter. Mrs.
+Stott's eyes were so close together that, like Cyclops, she seemed to
+have but one, and they had the appearance of growing even closer as Mr.
+Cone looked into them.
+
+"Do not give yourself any concern on that score, madam. Your trunks will
+be at the station as soon as they are ready and it will please me if you
+will follow them.
+
+"For twelve years I have been pretending not to know that you used the
+hotel soap to do your washing in the bath-tub, and it is a relief to
+mention it to you.
+
+"And, Miss Gaskett," the deadly coldness of his voice made her shiver,
+"I doubt if the fuzz under your bed has troubled you as much as the fact
+that for three summers your cat has had kittens in the linen closet has
+annoyed me."
+
+The Baltimore widow had his attention:
+
+"It is possible that the drip from your faucet and the squeak in your
+rocking-chair gets on your nerves, my dear lady, but not more than your
+daily caterwauling on the hotel piano gets on mine.
+
+"I shall miss your check, certainly, Mr. Appel, but not nearly so much
+as I shall enjoy the relief from listening to the story of the way you
+got your start as a 'breaker-boy' in the coal region."
+
+He bowed with the irony of Mephistopheles to Mrs. Budlong:
+
+"Instead of discharging the man with the vacuum cleaner, I shall give
+him for his large family the cake and fruit you would have carried away
+from the table in your capacious pocket if you had been here."
+
+His eyes swept them all.
+
+He would have given Mr. Budlong his attention, but that person's
+vanishing back was all he could see of him, so he turned to the others
+and shouted:
+
+"Go! The sooner the better. Get out of my sight--the lot of you! I'M
+GOING TO A REST CURE!"
+
+His hand travelled toward the potato he used as a pen-wiper and there
+was something so significant in the action when taken in connection with
+his menacing expression that, without a word, they obeyed him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+COUNTING THEIR CHICKENS
+
+
+The "Happy Family" of The Colonial had decided to make up a congenial
+party and spend the remainder of the summer at the Lolabama Ranch in
+Wyoming. They were expected on the morrow, everything was in readiness
+for their coming, and, after supper, down by the corrals Wallie and
+Pinkey sat on their heels estimating their probable profits.
+
+Pinkey's forehead was furrowed like a corrugated roof with the mental
+effort as he figured in the dust with a pointed stick while Wallie's
+face wore a look of absorption as he watched the progress, although he
+was already as familiar with it as with his multiplication tables.
+
+"Ten head of dudes at $100 a month is a $1,000," said Pinkey. "And
+twelve months in the year times a $1,000 is $12,000. And, say----"
+
+Wallie interrupted:
+
+"But I've told you a dozen times they all go South in the winter. The
+most we can count on is two months now and perhaps more next summer."
+
+Pinkey replied confidently:
+
+"You can't figger out ahead what a dude is goin' to do any more than a
+calf or a sheep. If we treat 'em right and they get stuck on the country
+they're liable to winter here instead of Floridy. Now, if we could
+winter--say--ten head of dudes at $150 a month for seven months, that
+would be $10,500. The trip through the Yellowstone Park and Jackson Hole
+Country is goin' to be a big item. Ten head of dudes--say--at $5.00 a
+day for--say--fifteen days is----"
+
+"But you never deduct expenses, Pinkey. It isn't all profit. There's the
+interest on the investment, interest on the money we borrowed,
+groceries, the cook's wages, and we'll need helpers through the
+Yellowstone."
+
+"You're gettin' an awful habit of lookin' on the black side of things,"
+said Pinkey, crossly.
+
+"If we can pay expenses and have a $1,000 clear the first year, I'll be
+satisfied."
+
+"A thousand dollars!" Pinkey exclaimed, indignantly. "You're easy
+pleased--I thought you had more ambition. Look at the different ways we
+got to git their money. Two bits apiece for salt water baths and eight
+baths a day--some of 'em might not go in reg'lar--every day, but, say
+eight of 'em do, anyway, eight times two bits is $2.00. Then $10.00
+apiece every time they go to town in the stage-coach is, say, $100 a
+trip--and they go twict a week, say, that's $200."
+
+"But they might not go twice a week," Wallie protested, "nor all of them
+at a time."
+
+"You shore give me the blues a croakin'. Why don't you look on the
+bright side of things like you useta? Do you know, I've been thinkin' we
+ought to make out a scale of prices for lettin' 'em work around the
+place. They'd enjoy it if they had to pay for it--dudes is like that,
+I've noticed. They're all pretty well fixed, ain't they?"
+
+"Oh, yes, they all have a good deal of money, unless, perhaps Miss
+Eyester, and I don't know much about her in that way. But Mr. Penrose,
+Mr. Appel, and Mr. Budlong are easily millionaires."
+
+Pinkey's eyes sparkled.
+
+"I s'pose a dollar ain't any more to them than a nickel to us?"
+
+Wallie endeavoured to think of an instance which would indicate that
+Pinkey's supposition was correct, but, recalling none, declared
+enthusiastically:
+
+"They are the most agreeable, altogether delightful people you ever
+knew, and, if I do say it, they think the world of me."
+
+"That's good; maybe they won't deal us so much grief."
+
+"How--grief?"
+
+"Misery," Pinkey explained.
+
+"I can't imagine them doing anything ill-natured or ill-bred," Wallie
+replied, resentfully. "You must have been unfortunate in the kind of
+dudes you've met."
+
+Pinkey changed the subject as he did when he was unconvinced but he was
+in no mood for argument. He climbed to the top pole of the corral fence
+and looked proudly at the row of ten-by-twelve tents which the guests
+were to occupy, at the long tar-paper room built on to the original
+cabin for a dining room, at the new bunk-house for himself and Wallie
+and the help, at the shed with a dozen new saddles hanging on their
+nails, while the ponies to wear them milled behind him in the corral.
+His eyes sparkled as he declared:
+
+"We shore got a good dudin' outfit! But it's nothin' to what we _will_
+have--watch our smoke! The day'll come when we'll see this country, as
+you might say, lousy with dudes! So fur as the eye kin reach--dudes!
+Nothin' but dudes!" He illustrated with a gesture so wide and vigorous
+that if it had not been for his high heels hooked over a pole he would
+have lost his balance.
+
+"Yes," Wallie agreed, complacently, "at least we've got a start. And it
+seems like a good sign, the luck we've had in picking things up cheap."
+
+Instinctively they both looked at the old-fashioned, four-horse
+stage-coach that they had found scrapped behind the blacksmith shop in
+Prouty and bought for so little that they had quaked in their boots lest
+the blacksmith change his mind before they could get it home. But their
+fears were groundless, since the blacksmith was uneasy from the same
+cause.
+
+They had had it repaired and painted red, with yellow wheels that
+flashed in the sun. And now, there it stood--the last word in the
+picturesque discomfort for which dudes were presumed to yearn! They
+regarded it as their most valuable possession since, at $10.00 a trip,
+it would quickly pay for itself and thereafter yield a large return
+upon a small investment.
+
+Neither of them could look at it without pride, and Pinkey chortled for
+the hundredth time:
+
+"It shore was a great streak of luck when we got that coach!"
+
+Wallie agreed that it was, and added:
+
+"Everything's been going so well that I'm half scared. Look at that
+hotel-range we got second hand--as good as new; and the way we stumbled
+on to a first-class cook; and my friends coming out--it seems almost too
+good to be true."
+
+He drew a sigh which came from such contentment as he had not known
+since he came to the State, for it seemed as if he were over the hard
+part of the road and on the way to see a few of his hopes realized.
+
+With the money he had collected from Canby he had formed a partnership
+with Pinkey whereby the latter was to furnish the experience and his
+services as against his, Wallie's, capital.
+
+Once more the future looked roseate; but perhaps the real source of his
+happiness lay in the fact that he had seen Helene Spenceley in Prouty a
+good bit of late and she had treated him with a consideration which had
+been conspicuously lacking heretofore.
+
+If he made a success she _must_ take him seriously and--anyway, his
+train of thought led him to inquire:
+
+"Don't you ever think about getting married, Pink?"
+
+His partner regarded him in astonishment.
+
+"Now wouldn't I look comical tied to one of them quails I see runnin'
+around Prouty!"
+
+"But," Wallie persisted, "some nice girl----"
+
+"Aw-w---- I'd ruther have a good saddle-horse. I had a pal that tried it
+onct, and when I seen him, I says: 'How is it, Jess?' He says, 'Well,
+the first year is the worst, and after that it's worse and worse.' No,
+sir! Little Pinkey knows when he's well off."
+
+It was obvious that his partner's mood did not fit in with his own. The
+new moon rose and the crickets chirped as the two sat in silence on the
+fence and smoked.
+
+"It's a wonderful night!" Wallie said, finally, in a hushed voice.
+
+"It's plumb peaceful," Pinkey agreed. "I feel like I do when I'm gittin'
+drunk and I've got to the stage whur my lip gits stiff. I've always
+wisht I could die when I was like that."
+
+Wallie suggested curtly:
+
+"Let's go to bed." He had regretted his partner's lack of sentiment more
+than once.
+
+"Time to git into the feathers if we make an early start." Pinkey
+unhooked his heels. "Might have a little trouble hitchin' up. The two
+broncs I aim to put on the wheel has never been drove."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE MILLIONAIRES
+
+
+Pinkey was not one to keep his left hand from knowing what his right
+hand is doing, so the report had been widely circulated that "a bunch of
+millionaires" were to be the first guests at the new Lolabama Dude
+Ranch. In consequence of which, aside from the fact that the horses ran
+across a sidewalk and knocked over a widow's picket-fence, the advent of
+Pinkey and Wallie in Prouty caused no little excitement, since it was
+deduced that the party would arrive on the afternoon train.
+
+If to look at one millionaire is a pleasure and a privilege for folk who
+are kept scratching to make ends meet, the citizens of Prouty might well
+be excused for leaving their occupations and turning out _en masse_ to
+see a "bunch." The desire to know how a person might look who could
+write his check in six or more figures, and get it cashed, explained the
+appearance of the male contingent on the station platform waiting for
+the train to come in, while the expectation of a view of the latest
+styles accounted for their wives.
+
+"Among those present," as the phrase goes, was Mr. Tucker. Although Mr.
+Tucker had not been in a position to make any open accusations relative
+to the disappearance of his cache, the cordial relations between Wallie
+and Pinkey and himself had been seriously disturbed. So much so, in
+fact, that they might have tripped over him in the street without
+bringing the faintest look of recognition to his eyes.
+
+Mr. Tucker, however, was too much of a diplomat to harbour a grudge
+against persons on a familiar footing with nearly a dozen millionaires.
+Therefore, when the combined efforts of Wallie and Pinkey on the box
+stopped the coach reasonably close to the station platform, Mr. Tucker
+stepped out briskly and volunteered to stand at the leaders' heads.
+
+"Do you suppose we'll have much trouble when the train pulls in?" Wallie
+asked in an undertone.
+
+"I don't look fer it," said Pinkey. "They might snort a little, and
+jump, when the engine comes, but they'll git used to it. That
+twenty-mile drive this mornin' took off the wire-aidge some."
+
+Pinkey's premises seemed to be correct, for the four stood with hanging
+heads and sleepy-eyed while everyone watched the horizon for the smoke
+which would herald the coming of the train.
+
+"Your y-ears is full of sand and it looks like you woulda shaved or had
+your whiskers drove in and clinched." Pinkey eyed Wallie critically as
+they waited together on the seat.
+
+"Looks as if you would have had your teeth fixed," Wallie retorted.
+"It's been nearly a year since that horse kicked them out."
+
+"What would I go wastin' money like that for?" Pinkey demanded.
+"They're front ones--I don't need 'em to eat."
+
+"You'd look better," Wallie argued.
+
+"What do I care how I look! I aim to do what's right by these dudes:
+I'll saddle fer 'em, and I'll answer questions, and show 'em the sights,
+but I don't need teeth to do that."
+
+Pinkey was obstinate on some points, so Wallie knew it was useless to
+persist; nevertheless, the absence of so many of his friend's teeth
+troubled him more than a little, for the effect was startling when he
+smiled, and Pinkey was no matinee idol at his best.
+
+"There she comes!"
+
+As one, the spectators on the platform stretched their necks to catch
+the first glimpse of the train bearing its precious cargo of
+millionaires.
+
+Wallie felt suddenly nervous and wished he had taken more pains to
+dress, as he visualized the prosperous-looking, well-groomed folk of The
+Colonial Hotel.
+
+As the mixed train backed up to the station from the Y, it was seen that
+the party was on the back platform of the one passenger coach, ready to
+get off. The engine stopped so suddenly that the cars bumped and the
+party on the rear platform were thrown violently into each other's arms.
+
+The expression on old Mr. Penrose's face was so fiendish as Mrs. C. D.
+Budlong toppled backward and stood on his bunion that Wallie forgot the
+graceful speech of welcome he had framed. Mr. Penrose had travelled all
+the way in one felt slipper and now, as the lady inadvertently ground
+her heel into the tender spot, Mr. Penrose looked as he felt--murderous.
+
+"Get off my foot!" he shouted.
+
+Mrs. Budlong obeyed by stepping on his other foot.
+
+Mr. Appel, who had lurched over the railing, observed sarcastically:
+
+"They ought to put that engineer on a stock train."
+
+The party did not immediately recognize Wallie in his Western clothes,
+but when they did they waved grimy hands at him and cried delightedly:
+
+"Here we are, Wallie!"
+
+Wallie made no reply to this self-evident fact and, indeed, he could
+not, for he was too aghast at the shabby appearance of his wealthy
+friends to think of any that was appropriate. They looked as if they had
+ransacked their attics for clothes in which to make the trip.
+
+The best Wallie could immediately manage was a limp handshake and a
+sickly grin as the coal baron and street-railway magnate, Mr. Henry
+Appel, stepped off in a suit of which he had undoubtedly been defrauding
+his janitor for some years.
+
+Mrs. J. Harry Stott was handed down in a pink silk creation, through the
+lace insertion of which one could see the cinders that had settled in
+the fat crease of her neck. While Mrs. Stott recognized its
+inappropriateness, she had decided to give it a final wear and save a
+fresh gown.
+
+Upon her heels was Mr. Stott, in clothes which bore mute testimony to
+the fact that he led a sedentary life. Mr. Stott was a "jiner" for
+business purposes and he was wearing all his lodge pins in the
+expectation of obtaining special privileges from brother members while
+travelling.
+
+C. D. Budlong wore a "blazer" and a pair of mountain boots that had
+involved him in a quarrel with a Pullman conductor, who had called him a
+vandal for snagging a plush seat with the hob-nails. At his wife's
+request, Mr. Budlong was bringing a canvas telescope filled with a
+variety of tinned fruits. It was so heavy that it sagged from the handle
+as he bore it in front of him with both hands, so no one was deceived by
+his heroic efforts to carry it jauntily and make it appear that he did
+not notice the weight.
+
+The only stranger in the party was Mrs. Henry Appel's maiden aunt--Miss
+Lizzie Philbrick--sixty or thereabouts. "Aunt Lizzie" was a refugee from
+the City of Mexico, and had left that troublesome country in such a
+panic that she had brought little besides a bundle of the reports of a
+Humane Society with which she had been identified, and an onyx apple, to
+which it was assumed there was much sentiment attached, since she
+refused to trust it to the baggage car, and was carrying it in her hand.
+
+"Aunt Lizzie" looked as if she had been cast for a period play--early
+General Grant, perhaps--as she descended wearing a beaded silk mantle
+and a bonnet with strings.
+
+"Be careful, Aunt Lizzie! Look where you step!"
+
+The chorus of warnings was due to the fact that Aunt Lizzie already had
+fallen fourteen times in transit, a tack-head seeming sufficient to trip
+her up, and now, quite as though they had shouted the reverse, Aunt
+Lizzie stumbled and dropped the onyx apple upon old Mr. Penrose's
+felt-shod foot.
+
+This was too much. Mr. Penrose shouted furiously:
+
+"I wish you'd lose that damned thing!"
+
+When it came to altered looks, Wallie had no monopoly on surprise. The
+Happy Family found it difficult to reconcile this rather tough-looking
+young man with the nice, neat boy who had blown them kisses from the
+motor bus.
+
+"Now, what sort of a conveyance have you provided?" inquired Mr. Stott,
+who had taken the initiative in such matters during the trip.
+
+Wallie pointed proudly to the stage-coach with Pinkey on the box and Mr.
+Tucker standing faithfully at the leaders' heads.
+
+Everybody exclaimed in delight and lost no time in greeting Pinkey,
+whose response was cordial but brief. To Wallie he said, out of the
+corner of his mouth:
+
+"Load 'em on. The roan is gittin' a hump in his back."
+
+"We have twenty-five miles to make," Wallie hinted.
+
+"Our luggage? How about that?" inquired Mr. Stott.
+
+"It will follow." Wallie opened the stage-coach door as a further hint.
+
+"I want to get some snap-shots of the town," said Mr. Penrose, who had
+his camera and a pair of field-glasses slung over his shoulder.
+
+"What an experience this will be to write home!" gushed Miss Gaskett.
+"Let's stop at the office and mail post-cards."
+
+Pinkey leaned over the side and winked at Wallie, who urged uneasily:
+
+"We must start. Twenty-five miles is a good distance to make before
+dark."
+
+"Switzerland has nothing to surpass this view!" declared Mr. Stott, who
+had never been in Switzerland.
+
+Everyone took a leisurely survey of the mountains.
+
+"And the air is very like that of the Scotch moors." No one ever would
+have suspected from his positive tone that Mr. Stott never had been in
+Scotland, either.
+
+"I am sorry to insist," said Wallie in response to another significant
+look from Pinkey, "but we really will have to hurry."
+
+Thus urged, they proceeded to clamber in, except Miss Gertie Eyester,
+who was patting the roan on the nose.
+
+"Dear 'ittie horsey!"
+
+"'Ittie horse eats human flesh, you'd better not git too close," said
+Pinkey.
+
+Miss Eyester looked admiringly at Pinkey in his red shirt and declared
+with an arch glance:
+
+"You're so droll, Mr. Fripp!"
+
+Since Mr. Fripp thought something of the sort himself he did not
+contradict her, but told himself that she was "not so bad--for a dude."
+
+"I hope the horses are perfectly safe, because my heart isn't good, and
+when I'm frightened it goes bad and my lips get just as _b-l-u-e_!"
+
+"They look all right now," said Pinkey, after giving them his careful
+attention.
+
+Miss Eyester observed wistfully:
+
+"I hope I will get well and strong out here."
+
+"If you'd go out in a cow-camp fer a couple of months it would do you a
+world of good," Pinkey advised her. "You'd fatten up."
+
+Mr. Budlong, who had gotten in the coach, got out again to inquire of
+Pinkey if he was sure the horses were perfectly gentle.
+
+"I'd trust my own step-mother behind 'em anywhere."
+
+Mr. Budlong, who had had a step-mother, intimated that that was not
+convincing proof, and returned to the coach declaring that he had no
+fears for himself, but his wife was nervous.
+
+To show his contempt of danger, Mr. Stott said: "Poof!"
+
+Wallie, having closed the door, climbed up beside Pinkey, who unlocked
+the brake.
+
+"I always feel helpless shut inside a vehicle," declared Mr. Budlong.
+
+Mr. Stott again said recklessly: "Poof!"
+
+Just as he said "poof!", the leaders rose on their hind legs. Mr.
+Tucker, who rose with them, clung valiantly to their bits and dangled
+there. One of the wheel horses laid down and the other tried to climb
+over the back of the leader in front of him, while the bystanders
+scattered.
+
+"There seems to be some kind of a ruckus," Mr. Appel remarked as he
+stood up and leaned out the window.
+
+Before he had time to report, however, two side wheels went over the
+edge of the station platform, tipping the coach to an angle which sent
+all the passengers on the upper side into the laps of those on the
+lower.
+
+Aunt Lizzie pitched headlong and with such force that when she struck
+Mr. Stott on the mouth with her onyx apple she cut his lip.
+
+"You'll kill somebody with that yet!" Mr. Stott glared at the keepsake.
+
+Aunt Lizzie scrambled back into her seat and looked composedly at the
+drop of blood he offered in evidence, on the corner of his handkerchief.
+
+Mr. Appel, who undoubtedly would have gone on through the window when
+the coach lurched had it not been for his wife's presence of mind in
+clutching him by the coat, demanded in an angry voice--instead of
+showing the gratitude she had reason to expect:
+
+"Whatch you doin'? Tearin' the clothes off'n m'back? Wisht you'd leave
+me be!"
+
+It had been years since Mr. Appel had spoken to his wife like that. Mrs.
+Appel opened her reticule, took out a handkerchief and held it to her
+eyes.
+
+In the meantime the side wheels had dropped off the station platform and
+the coach had righted itself, but in spite of all that Pinkey and Wallie
+could do the leaders swung sharply to the left and dragged the wheel
+horses after them down the railroad track.
+
+When the wheels struck the ties, Miss Mattie Gaskett bounded into the
+air as if she had been sitting upon a steel coil that had suddenly been
+released. She was wearing a tall-crowned hat of a style that had not
+been in vogue for some years and as she struck the roof it crackled and
+went shut like an accordeon, so that it was of an altogether different
+shape when she dropped back to the seat.
+
+"Oh, my!" she exclaimed, blinking in a dazed fashion as she felt of her
+hat.
+
+Old Mr. Penrose, who had elongated his naturally long neck preparatory
+to looking out the window, also struck the roof and with such force that
+his neck was bent like the elbow in a stove-pipe when he came down. He
+said such a bad word that Aunt Lizzie Philbrick exclaimed: "Oh, how
+dread-ful!" and asked him to remember where he was.
+
+Mr. Penrose replied that he did not care where he was--that if her neck
+had been driven into her shoulders a foot she would say something, too.
+
+Mrs. J. Harry Stott and Mr. Budlong, who had bumped heads so hard that
+the thud was heard, were eyeing each other in an unfriendly fashion as
+they felt of their foreheads, waiting for the lump.
+
+Mr. Stott, who was still patting his lip with his handkerchief,
+declared:
+
+"Such roads as these retard the development of a county."
+
+"Undoubtedly," agreed Mr. Appel, getting up out of the aisle. "They are
+a disgrace!"
+
+"We are going _away_ from the mountains--I don't understand----"
+
+Mr. Stott smiled reassuringly at Mrs. Budlong and told her that Wallie
+and Pinkey, of course, knew the road.
+
+"I don't care," she insisted, stoutly, "I believe something's wrong. We
+are going awfully fast, and if I thought it was as rough as this all the
+way I should prefer to walk."
+
+"You must remember that you are now in the West, Mrs. Budlong," Mr.
+Stott replied in a kind but reproving tone, "and we cannot expect----"
+
+Mrs. Budlong, who had just bitten her tongue, retorted sharply:
+
+"We certainly could expect a more comfortable conveyance than this. If I
+live to get out I shall never step foot in it again."
+
+"When we stop at the post-office," said Mr. Budlong in a tone of
+decision as he clung to the window frame, "I shall hire a machine and go
+out--the rest of you can do as you like."
+
+If there was dissatisfaction inside the coach it was nothing at all
+compared to the excitement on the box as the horses galloped down the
+railroad track. The leaders' mouths might have been bound in cast-iron
+for all the attention they paid to the pull on their bits, although
+Pinkey and Wallie were using their combined strength in their efforts
+to stop the runaways.
+
+"Them dudes must be gittin' an awful churnin'," said Pinkey through his
+clenched teeth.
+
+"We'll be lucky if we are not ditched," Wallie panted as he braced his
+feet.
+
+"Wouldn't that be some rank! Even if we 'rim a tire' we got to swing off
+this track, for there's a culvert somewheres along here and----"
+
+"Pink!"
+
+Pinkey had no time to look, but he knew what the sharp exclamation
+meant.
+
+"Pull my gun out--lay it on the seat--I can stop 'em if I must."
+
+Pinkey's face was white under its sunburn and his jaw was set.
+
+"How far we got?"
+
+"About a hundred yards," Wallie answered, breathing heavily.
+
+"We'll give 'em one more try. My hands are playin' out. You pop it to
+the roan when I say. Cut him wide open! If I can't turn him, I'll drop
+him. They'll pile up and stop. It's the only way."
+
+Pinkey dug his heels into the foot-brace in front and took a tighter
+wrap of the lines around his hands. He could see the culvert ahead. His
+voice was hoarse as he gave the word.
+
+Wallie stood up and swung the long rawhide braided whip. At the same
+time Pinkey put all his failing strength on one line. As the roan felt
+the tremendous pull on his mouth and the whip-thongs stung his head and
+neck, he turned at a sharp angle, dragging his mate. The wheel horses
+followed, and some of the stout oak spokes splintered in the wheels as
+they jerked the coach over the rail.
+
+The pallid pair exchanged a quick glance of unutterable relief. The
+horses were still running but their speed was slackening as Pinkey swung
+them in a circle toward the town. Dragging the heavy coach over
+sagebrush hummocks and through sand had winded them so that they were
+almost ready to quit when they turned down the main street.
+
+"If we'd 'a' hit that culvert we mighta killed off half our dudes. That
+woulda been what I call notorious hard luck," Pinkey had just observed,
+when Wallie commenced to whip the horses to a run once more.
+
+"What you doin' that for?" He turned in astonishment.
+
+"Let 'em go--I know what I'm about!"
+
+"I think you're crazy, but I'll do what you say till I'm sure," Pinkey
+answered as Wallie continued to lay on the lash.
+
+Imperative commands were coming from inside the coach as it tore through
+the main street.
+
+"Let me out of this death-trap!" Old Mr. Penrose's bellow of rage was
+heard above the chorus of voices demanding that Pinkey stop.
+
+But it was not until they were well on the road to the ranch, and Prouty
+was a speck, that the horses were permitted to slow down; then Pinkey
+turned and looked at Wallie admiringly.
+
+"You shore got a head on you, old pard! We wouldn't 'a' had a dude left
+if we'd let 'em out while they was mad."
+
+"It just occurred to me in time," said Wallie, complacently.
+
+"You don't s'pose any of 'em'll slip out and run back?"
+
+"No, I think we're all right if nothing more happens between here and
+the ranch."
+
+After a time Pinkey remarked:
+
+"That lady with the bad heart--she must 'a' been scairt. I'll bet her
+lips were purple as a plum, don't you?"
+
+But Wallie, who was far more interested in the probable fact that the
+coach as a source of revenue could no longer be counted on than in the
+colour of Miss Eyester's lips, mumbled that he didn't know.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A SHOCK FOR MR. CANBY
+
+
+The morning following their arrival at The Lolabama, The Happy Family,
+looking several shades less happy, began coming from their tents shortly
+after daylight. By five o'clock they were all up and dressed, since,
+being accustomed to darkened rooms, they found themselves unable to
+sleep owing to the glare coming through the white canvas.
+
+Out of consideration for his guests, whom he remembered as late risers,
+Wallie had set the breakfast hour at eight-thirty. This seemed an
+eternity to The Happy Family who, already famished, consulted their
+watches with increasing frequency while they watched the door of the
+bunk-house like cats at a mouse-hole for the cook to make his
+appearance.
+
+After a restless night due to strange beds and surroundings, still
+fatigued with their long journey, their muscles stiff from the
+"churning" in the stagecoach, they were not better natured for being
+ferociously hungry.
+
+After wandering around to look listlessly at the ponies, and at the
+salt-water plunge that was to rejuvenate them, they sat down on the edge
+of the platforms in front of their tents to endure somehow the three
+hours which must pass before breakfast.
+
+The dawn was sweet-scented, the song of the meadow-lark celestial, and
+the colours of the coming day reflected on the snow-covered peaks a
+sight to be remembered, but the guests had no eyes or ears or nose for
+any of the charms of the early morning. The rising of the sun was
+nothing as compared to the rising of the cook who would appease their
+savage hunger.
+
+Conversation was reduced to monosyllables as, miserable and apathetic,
+they sat thinking of the food they had sent back to Mr. Cone's kitchen
+with caustic comments, of the various dishes for which the chef of The
+Colonial was celebrated.
+
+Mr. Stott thought that his watch must be slow until it was found that
+every other watch agreed with his exactly. He declared that when the
+cook did appear he meant to urge him to hurry breakfast.
+
+The cook came out, finally, at seven-thirty, and, after a surprised
+glance at the row on the platforms, strode into the kitchen where he
+rattled the range as if it were his purpose to wreck it.
+
+When the smoke rose from the chimney Mr. Stott went to the door to carry
+out his intention of asking the cook to speed up breakfast.
+
+A large sign greeted him:
+
+DUDES KEEP OUT
+
+The cook was a gaunt, long-legged person with a saturnine countenance.
+He wore a seersucker coat with a nickel badge pinned on the lapel of
+it.
+
+As an opening wedge Mr. Stott smiled engagingly and pointed to it:
+
+"For exceptional gallantry, I presume--a war medal?"
+
+The hero stopped long enough to offer it for Mr. Stott's closer
+inspection.
+
+It read:
+
+    UNITED ORDER OF PASTRY COOKS OF THE WORLD
+
+Taken somewhat aback, Mr. Stott said feebly:
+
+"Very nice, indeed--er----"
+
+"Mr. Hicks, at your service!" the cook supplemented, bowing formally.
+
+"Hicks," Mr. Stott added.
+
+"Just take a second longer and say 'Mister.'"
+
+The cook eyed him in such a fashion as he administered the reprimand for
+his familiarity that Mr. Stott backed off without mentioning his
+starving condition.
+
+"What did he say?" they asked, eagerly, as he sat down on his platform,
+somewhat crestfallen.
+
+"He seems a temperamental person," Mr. Stott replied, evasively. "But we
+shall have breakfast in due season."
+
+It was suspected that Mr. Stott had failed in his mission, and they were
+sure of it as the hands dragged around to eight-thirty.
+
+At that hour precisely Mr. Hicks came out and hammered on a triangle as
+vigorously as if it were necessary. In spite of their efforts to appear
+unconcerned when it jangled, the haste of the guests was nothing less
+than indecent as they hurried to the dining room and scrambled for seats
+at the table.
+
+The promise of food raised their spirits a trifle and Mr. Appel was able
+to say humorously as, with his table knife, he scalped his agate-ware
+plate loose from the oil-cloth:
+
+"I suppose we shall soon learn the customs of the country. In a month we
+should all be fairly well ac'climated."
+
+"Acclim'ated," Mr. Stott corrected.
+
+"Ac'climated," Mr. Appel maintained, obstinately. "At least with your
+kind permission I shall continue to so pronounce it."
+
+"I beg your pardon," Mr. Stott apologized with elaborate sarcasm, "but
+when I am wrong I like to be told of it." Which was not the strict truth
+for the reason that no one ever was able to convince him that he ever
+was mistaken. As a result of the discussion everyone was afraid to use
+the word for fear of offending one or the other.
+
+The silence that followed while breakfast was being placed upon the
+table was broken by Miss Eyester, who said timidly:
+
+"In the night I thought I heard something sniffing, and it frightened
+me."
+
+Not to be outdone in sensational experiences, Mrs. Stott averred
+positively:
+
+"There was some _wild animal_ running over our tent. I could hear its
+sharp claws sticking into the canvas. A coyote, I fancy."
+
+"A ground-squirrel, more likely," remarked Mr. Appel.
+
+Mr. Stott smiled at him:
+
+"Squee-rrel, if you will allow me to again correct you."
+
+"I guess I can't help myself," replied Mr. Appel, drily.
+
+Mr. Stott shrugged a shoulder and his tolerant look said plainly that,
+after all, one should not expect too much of a man who had begun life as
+a "breaker-boy."
+
+"The squee-rrel or coyote or whatever it was," Mrs. Stott continued,
+"went pitter-patter, pitter-patter--so!" She illustrated with her
+finger-tips on the oil-cloth.
+
+"Prob'ly a chipmunk," said Pinkey, prosaically.
+
+"Are they dangerous, Mr. Fripp?" inquired Miss Gaskett.
+
+"Not unless cornered or wounded," he replied, gravely.
+
+This was a joke, obviously, so everybody laughed, which stimulated
+Pinkey to further effort. When Mr. Hicks poured his cup so full that the
+coffee ran over he remarked facetiously:
+
+"It won't stack, cookie."
+
+Coffee-pot in hand, Mr. Hicks drew himself up majestically and his eyes
+withered Pinkey.
+
+"I beg to be excused from such familiarity, and if you wish our pleasant
+relations to continue you will not repeat it."
+
+"I bet I won't josh _him_ again," Pinkey said, ruefully, when Mr. Hicks
+returned to the kitchen in the manner of offended royalty.
+
+"Cooks are sometimes very peculiar," observed Mr. Stott, buttering his
+pancakes lavishly. "I remember that my mother--my mother, by the way,
+Mr. Penrose, was a Sproat----"
+
+"Shoat?" Old Mr. Penrose, who complained of a pounding in his ears, was
+not hearing so well in the high altitude.
+
+Mr. Appel and Pinkey tittered, which nettled Mr. Stott and he shouted:
+
+"Sproat! An old Philadelphia family."
+
+"Oh, yes," Mr. Penrose recollected. "I recall Amanda Sproat--she married
+a stevedore. Your sister?"
+
+Mr. Stott chose to ignore the inquiry, and said coldly:
+
+"My father was in public life." He might have added that his father was
+a policeman, and therefore his statement was no exaggeration.
+
+Everybody felt that it served Mr. Penrose right for telling about the
+stevedore when he was seized with a violent fit of coughing immediately
+afterward. Wiping his streaming eyes, he looked from Wallie to Pinkey
+and declared resentfully:
+
+"This is the result of your reckless driving. The cork came out of my
+cough syrup in the suitcase. The only way I can get relief from the
+irritation is to apply my tongue to the puddle. I shall have to lick my
+valise until I can have the prescription refilled in Prouty."
+
+The culprits mumbled that they "were sorry," to which Mr. Penrose
+replied disagreeably that that did not keep him from "coughing his head
+off!"
+
+Looking sympathetically at Pinkey, Miss Eyester, for the purpose of
+diverting the irascible old gentleman's attention from the subject,
+asked when she might take her first riding lesson.
+
+Pinkey said promptly: "This mornin'--they's nothin' to hinder."
+
+"That's awfully good of you, Mr. Fripp," she said, gratefully.
+
+Pinkey, who always jumped when any one called him "Mister," replied
+bluntly:
+
+"Tain't--I wantta."
+
+"We'll all go!" Mrs. Stott cried, excitedly.
+
+"Shore." There was less enthusiasm in the answer.
+
+"We were so fortunate as to be able to purchase our equipment for riding
+broncos before coming out here," explained Mr. Budlong. "There is an
+excellent store on the Boardwalk and we found another in Omaha."
+
+"We have divided skirts and everything! Just wait till you see us!"
+cried Mrs. Budlong. "And you'll take our pictures, won't you, Mr.
+Penrose?"
+
+"I don't mind wasting a couple of films," he consented.
+
+Between the pancakes and the prospective riding lesson the atmosphere
+cleared and everyone's spirits rose so that the slightly strained
+relations were again normal by the time they got up from the table.
+
+They were as eager as children as they opened their trunks for their
+costumes, and even Aunt Lizzie Philbrick, who had once ridden a burro in
+Old Mexico, declared her intention of trying it.
+
+While the "dudes" dressed, Pinkey and Wallie went down to the corral to
+saddle for them.
+
+"We better let her ride the pinto," said Pinkey, casually.
+
+"'Her?'" Wallie looked at his partner fixedly. "Which 'her'?"
+
+"That lady that's so thin she could hide behind a match and have room
+left to peek around the corner. She seems sickly, and the pinto is
+easy-gaited," Pinkey explained, elaborately.
+
+"All right," Wallie nodded, "and we'll put Aunt Lizzie on the white one
+and give Mrs. Budlong----"
+
+"Kindly assign me a spirited mount," interrupted Mr. Stott, who, as to
+costume, was a compromise between an English groom and a fox-hunter.
+
+Wallie looked dubious.
+
+"Oh, I understand horses," declared Mr. Stott, "I used to ride like an
+Indian."
+
+"The buckskin?" Wallie asked doubtfully of Pinkey.
+
+Pinkey hesitated.
+
+"You need not be afraid that he will injure me. I can handle him."
+
+Wallie, who never had heard of Mr. Stott's horsemanship, consented
+reluctantly.
+
+"I prefer to saddle and bridle myself, also," said Mr. Stott, when the
+buckskin was pointed out to him.
+
+Wallie's misgivings returned to him and Pinkey rolled his eyes
+eloquently when they saw "the man who understood horses" trying to
+bridle with the chin-strap and noted that he had saddled without a
+blanket.
+
+Mr. Stott laughed inconsequently when the mistake was pointed out to him
+and declared that it was an oversight merely.
+
+"Now, if you will get me something to stand on I am ready to mount."
+
+Once more Pinkey and Wallie exchanged significant glances as the man
+"who used to ride like an Indian" climbed into the saddle like someone
+getting into an upper berth in a Pullman.
+
+Mr. Stott was sitting with the fine, easy grace of a clothespin when the
+rest of the party came down the path ready for their riding lesson.
+
+Neither Pinkey nor Wallie was easily startled, but when they saw their
+guests the most their astonishment permitted was an inarticulate gurgle.
+Dismay also was among their emotions as they thought of conducting the
+party through Prouty and the Yellowstone. Wallie had his share of moral
+courage, but when they first met his vision he doubted if he was strong
+enough for the ordeal.
+
+Mrs. Budlong, whose phlegmatic exterior concealed a highly romantic
+nature and an active imagination, was dressed to resemble a cow-girl of
+the movies as nearly as her height and width permitted. Her Stetson,
+knotted kerchief, fringed gauntlets, quirt, spurs to delight a Mexican,
+and swagger--which had the effect of a barge rocking at anchor--so
+fascinated Pinkey that he could not keep his eyes from her.
+
+Old Mr. Penrose in a buckskin shirt ornate with dyed porcupine quills,
+and a forty-five Colt slung in a holster, looked like the next to the
+last of the Great Scouts, while Mr. Budlong, in a beaded vest that would
+have turned bullets, was happy though uncomfortable.
+
+Mr. Budlong was dressed like a stage bandit, except that he wore
+moccasins in spite of Pinkey's warning that he would find it misery to
+ride in them unless he was accustomed to wearing them.
+
+Simultaneous with Miss Gaskett's appearance in plaid bloomers a
+saddle-horse lay back and broke his bridle-reins, for which Pinkey had
+not the heart to punish him in the circumstances.
+
+Aunt Lizzie wore long, voluminous, divided skirts and a little white hat
+like a pate-tin, while by contrast Mrs. Harry Stott looked very smart
+and ultra in a tailored coat and riding breeches.
+
+This was the party that started up Skull Creek under Pinkey's guidance,
+and the amazing aggregation that greeted the choleric eye of Mr. Canby
+on one of the solitary rides which were his greatest diversion. He had
+just returned from the East and had not yet learned of the use to which
+Wallie had put his check. But now he recalled Wallie's parting speech to
+Pinkey when he had started to get the paper cashed, and this fantastic
+company was the result!
+
+As Canby drew in his horse, he stared in stony-eyed unfriendliness
+while they waved at him gaily and Mr. Stott called out that they were
+going to be neighbourly and visit him soon.
+
+The feeling of helpless wrath in which he now looked after the party was
+a sensation that he had experienced only a few times in his life. Pinkey
+had warned him that at the first openly hostile act he would "blab" the
+story of the Skull Creek episode far and wide. He had hit Canby in his
+most vulnerable spot, for ridicule was something which he found it
+impossible to endure, and he could well appreciate the glee with which
+his many enemies would listen to the tale, taking good care that it
+never died.
+
+By all the rules of the game as he had played it often, and always with
+success, Wallie should long since have "faded"--scared, starved out.
+Yet, somehow, in some unique and extraordinary way that only a "dude"
+would think of, he had managed to come out on top.
+
+But the real basis for Canby's grievance, and one which he would not
+admit even to himself, was that however Wallie was criticized, Helene
+Spenceley never failed to find something to say in his defence.
+
+There was not much that Canby could do in the present circumstances to
+put difficulties in Wallie's way, but the next day he found it
+convenient to turn a trainload of long-horn Texas cattle loose on the
+adjacent range, and posted warnings to the effect that they were
+dangerous to pedestrians, and persons going among them on foot did so at
+their own risk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+WALLIE QUALIFIES AS A FIRST-CLASS HERO
+
+
+Pinkey took a triangular piece of glass from between the logs in the
+bunk-house and regarded himself steadfastly in the bit of broken mirror.
+
+He murmured finally:
+
+"I ain't no prize baby, but if I jest had a classy set of teeth I
+wouldn't be bad lookin'."
+
+He replaced the mirror in the crack and sauntered down to the cook-shack
+where he seated himself on the door-sill. The chef was singing as if he
+meant it: "Ah, I Have Sighed to Rest Me Deep in the Silent Grave."
+
+Pinkey interrupted:
+
+"How do you git to work to get teeth, Mr. Hicks, if they ain't no
+dentist handy?"
+
+Like Mr. Stott, no question could be put to Mr. Hicks for which he could
+not find an answer. He now replied promptly:
+
+"Well, there's two ways: you can send to Mungummery-Ward and have a
+crate sent out on approval, and keep tryin' till you find a set that
+fits, or you can take the cast off your gooms yourself, send it on and
+have 'em hammer you out some to order."
+
+"Is that so? What kind of stuff do they use to make the cast of your
+gooms of?"
+
+"Some uses putty, some uses clay, but I believe they generally recommend
+plaster of Paris. It's hard, and it's cheap, and it stays where it's
+put."
+
+A thoughtful silence followed; then Pinkey got up and joined Wallie, who
+was sitting on the top pole of the corral, smoking moodily.
+
+The "dudes" were at target practice with 22's and six-shooters, having
+been persuaded finally not to use Mr. Canby's range as a background.
+They now all walked with a swagger and seldom went to their meals
+without their weapons.
+
+Pinkey blurted out suddenly:
+
+"I wisht I'd died when I was little!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"Oh, nothin'."
+
+It was plain that he wished to be interrogated further, but Wallie, who
+was thinking of Helene Spenceley and her indifference to him, was in no
+mood to listen to other people's troubles.
+
+After another period of reflection Pinkey asked abruptly:
+
+"Do you believe in signs?"
+
+To which Wallie replied absently:
+
+"Can't say I do. Why?"
+
+"If there's anything in signs I ought to be turrible jealous--the way my
+eyebrows grow together."
+
+"Aren't you?" indifferently.
+
+"Me--jealous? Nobody could make me jealous, especially a worman."
+
+"You're lucky!" Wallie spoke with unnecessary emphasis. "It's an
+uncomfortable sensation."
+
+Pinkey shifted uneasily and picked a bit of bark off the corral pole.
+
+"Don't it look kinda funny that Miss Eyester would take any in'trist in
+Old Man Penrose? A girl like her wouldn't care nothin' about his money,
+would she?"
+
+Wallie looked dour as he answered:
+
+"You never can tell--maybe." He had been asking himself the same
+question about Miss Spenceley, whom he had seen rather frequently of
+late with Canby.
+
+"Guess I'll quirl me a brownie and git into the feathers," glumly. "I
+thought I'd go into town in the mornin', I want to do me some buyin'."
+
+Wallie nodded, and Pinkey added as he unhooked his heels:
+
+"You want to ride herd pretty clost on Aunt Lizzie. She's bound and
+determined to go outside the fence huntin' moss-agates. The cattle are
+liable to hook her. Canby throwed them long-horns in there on purpose."
+
+"I'm sure of it," Wallie said, grimly. "Yes, I'll watch Aunt Lizzie. But
+she isn't worse than Appel, who was over there catching grasshoppers
+because he said they were fatter."
+
+"Dudes is aggravatin'," Pinkey admitted. "But," philosophically,
+"they're our meal-tickets, so we got to swaller 'em."
+
+As Wallie watched his partner go up the path to the bunk-house he
+wondered vaguely what purchase he had to make that was so important as
+to induce him to make a special trip to Prouty. But since Pinkey had not
+chosen to tell him and Wallie had a talent for minding his own business,
+he dismissed it; besides, he had more vital things to think about at
+that moment.
+
+It had hurt him that Helene Spenceley had not been over. Obviously he
+had taken too much for granted, for he had thought that when she saw he
+was in earnest once more and in a fair way to make a success of his
+second venture, things would be different between them. He had imagined
+she would express her approval in some way, but she seemed to take it
+all as a matter of course. She was the most difficult woman to impress
+that he ever had known, but, curiously, the less she was impressed the
+more eager he was to impress her. Yet her casualness only spurred him to
+further effort and strengthened his determination to make her realize
+that there was a great deal in him worth while and that some day he
+would stand for something in the community.
+
+But somehow he did not seem to make much progress, and now he asked
+himself grumpily why in the dickens he couldn't have fallen in love with
+Mattie Gaskett, who followed him like his shadow and had her own income,
+with wonderful prospects.
+
+He scuffed at the bark on the corral pole with his foot and thought
+sourly of the rot he had read about love begetting love. He had not
+noticed it. It more often begot laughter, and his case was an instance
+of it. Helene Spenceley laughed at him--he was sure of it--and fool that
+he was--imbecile--it did not seem to make any difference. There was just
+one girl for him and always would be--he was like that and it was a
+misfortune.
+
+In time, very likely, he would be a hermit, or a "sour-ball" like Canby;
+he would sit at dances looking like a bull-elk that's been whipped out
+of the herd, and the girls would giggle at him.
+
+Wallie's mood was undoubtedly pessimistic, and, finally, he trudged up
+the path to bed, hoping he would awaken in a more cheerful humour--which
+he did--because he dreamed that with Helene Spenceley beside him he was
+burning up the road in a machine of a splendour "to put Canby's eye
+out."
+
+The next morning Pinkey was gone when they gathered at the breakfast
+table. Miss Eyester looked downcast because he had failed to tell her of
+his intention, while Mrs. Stott declared that it was very inconsiderate
+for him to go without mentioning it, since he had promised to match
+embroidery cotton for her and she could not go on with her dresser-scarf
+until she had some apple-green to put the leaves in with.
+
+The morning passed without incident, except that Mr. Budlong was
+astonished when Wallie told him that his new high-power rifle was
+scattering bullets among Mr. Canby's herd of cattle more than a mile
+distant and that it was great good fortune he had not killed any of
+them. Otherwise Wallie was engaged as usual in answering questions and
+lengthening and shortening stirrups for ladies the length of whose legs
+seemed to change from day to day, making such alterations necessary.
+
+Miss Gaskett "heeled" Wallie with flattering faithfulness and
+incidentally imparted the information that a friend from Zanesville,
+Ohio, Miss Mercy Lane was to join their party in Prouty when the date
+was definitely set for their tour of the Yellowstone.
+
+"She's a dear, sweet girl whom I knew at boarding-school, and," archly,
+"you must tell me that you will not fall in love with her."
+
+Wallie, who now thought of even "dear, sweet girls" in terms of dollars
+and cents, felt that he could safely promise.
+
+It was a relief when the triangle jangled for dinner, and Wallie looked
+forward to the ride afterward, although it had its attendant
+irritations--chief of which was the propensity of J. Harry Stott to
+gallop ahead and then gallop back to see if the party was coming: rare
+sport for Mr. Stott, but less so for the buckskin. As soon as that
+sterling young fellow had discovered that he could ride at a gallop
+without falling off he lost no opportunity to do so, and his horse was
+already showing the result of it.
+
+Boosting Aunt Lizzie Philbrick on and off her horse to enable her to
+pick flowers and examine rocks was a part of the routine, as was
+recovering Mrs. Budlong's hairpins when her hair came down and she lost
+her hat. Mr. Budlong, too, never failed to lag behind and become
+separated from the rest of the party, so that he had to be hunted. He
+persisted in riding in moccasins and said that his insteps "ached him"
+so that he could not keep up.
+
+Reasoning that every occupation has drawbacks of some kind, Wallie bore
+these small annoyances with patience, though there were times when he
+confessed that The Happy Family of The Colonial were not altogether so
+charming and amiable as he had thought.
+
+He never would have suspected, for instance, that J. Harry Stott, who in
+his own environment was a person of some little consequence, in another
+could appear a complete and unmitigated ass. Or that Mrs. Budlong had
+such a wolfish appetite, or that ten cents looked larger to Mr. Appel
+than a dollar did to Pink, or that Old Penrose was vain as a peacock
+about his looks. Still, Wallie consoled himself, everyone had his
+idiosyncrasies, and if they had not had these they might have had worse
+ones.
+
+To-day there was the usual commotion over getting off, and then when
+Wallie was ready to boost Aunt Lizzie on her horse she was nowhere to be
+found. She was not in her tent, nor had she fallen over the embankment,
+and the fact that she set great store by her afternoon rides deepened
+the mystery.
+
+Old Mr. Penrose, who had unslung his field-glasses, declared he saw
+something that might be the top of Aunt Lizzie's head moving above a
+small "draw" over on Canby's lease. Mr. Penrose, who had sought ranch
+life chiefly because he said he was sick of cities and mobs of people,
+when not riding now spent most of his time with his high-power glasses
+watching the road in the hope of seeing someone passing and he had come
+to be as excited when he saw a load of hay as if he had discovered a
+planet.
+
+He passed the glasses to Wallie, who adjusted them and immediately
+nodded:
+
+"That's somebody in the draw; it must be Aunt Lizzie."
+
+There was no doubt about it when she came out and started walking slowly
+along the top, searching, as she went, for moss-agates. Wallie gave a
+sharp exclamation, for, in the moment that they watched her, a small
+herd of the Texas cattle came around a hill and also saw her. They
+stopped short, and looked at the strange figure. Then, like a band of
+curious antelope, they edged a little closer. It might be that they
+would not attack her, but, if they did, it was certain they would gore
+her to death unless someone was there to prevent it.
+
+Leading his own horse and dragging Aunt Lizzie's stubborn white pony
+behind him, Wallie threw down the wire gate opening into the Canby lease
+and sprang into the saddle.
+
+He kept his eyes fixed on the cattle as he rode toward Aunt Lizzie,
+making the best time he could, with her cayuse pulling back obstinately
+on the bridle, but, in any case, he could not have seen Helene Spenceley
+and Canby riding from the opposite direction, for they were still on the
+other side of a small ridge which hid them.
+
+Helene had stopped at the Canby ranch for luncheon on her way to pay her
+long-deferred visit to her whilom acquaintances of The Colonial, and
+though Canby had not relished the thought that she was going there, he
+had asked to accompany her across the leases. Pleased that she had
+stopped without an invitation, he was more likable than ever she had
+seen him, and he made no pretense of concealing the fact that she could
+be mistress of the most pretentious house in the country if she chose
+to.
+
+Helene could not well have been otherwise than impressed by its
+magnificence. She was aware that with Canby's money and her personal
+popularity she could make an enviable position for herself very easily,
+and she was nothing if not ambitious. The traits in Canby which so
+frequently antagonized her, his arrogance, his selfish egotism and
+disregard of others' rights and feelings, to-day were not in evidence.
+He was spontaneous, genial, boyish almost, and she never had felt so
+kindly disposed toward him nor so tolerant of his failings.
+
+She looked at him speculatively now as he rode beside her and wondered
+if association would beget an affection that would do as well as love if
+supplemented by the many things he had to offer?
+
+Her friendlier mood was not lost on Canby who was quick to take
+advantage of it. He leaned over and laid his hand on hers as it rested
+on the saddle horn.
+
+"Your thoughts of me are kinder than usual, aren't they, Helene? You are
+less critical?" He spoke almost humbly.
+
+She smiled at him as she admitted:
+
+"Perhaps so."
+
+"I wish you could think so of me always, because I should be very happy
+if--you----" His narrow, selfish face had a softness she never had seen
+in it as he paused while he groped for the exact words he wished in
+which to express himself.
+
+There was no need for him to finish, for his meaning was unmistakable,
+and the colour rose in Helene's cheeks as she averted her eyes from his
+steady gaze and looked on past him.
+
+Their horses had been climbing slowly and had now reached the top of the
+ridge which gave an uninterrupted view across the flat stretch which lay
+between them and the ranch that was such an eyesore to Canby.
+
+As she took in the sweep of country her gaze concentrated upon the
+moving objects she saw in it. Puzzled at first, her look of perplexity
+was succeeded by one of consternation, then horror. With swift
+comprehension she grasped fully the meaning of a scene that was being
+enacted before her.
+
+Her expression attracted Canby's attention even before she pointed and
+cried sharply:
+
+"Look!"
+
+Aunt Lizzie was still busy with her pebbles, a tiny, tragic figure she
+looked, in view of what was happening, as she walked along in leisurely
+fashion, stopping every step or two to pick up and examine a stone that
+attracted her attention.
+
+The herd of long-horns had come closer, but one had drawn out from the
+others and was shaking its head as it trotted down upon her.
+
+Wallie had long since abandoned the pony he was leading, and with all
+the speed his own was capable of, was doing his best to intercept the
+animal before it reached her. But he was still a long way off and even
+as Helene cried out the steer broke into a gallop.
+
+Canby, too, instantly grasped the situation.
+
+"If I only had a rifle!"
+
+"Perhaps we can turn it! We'll have to make an awful run for it but we
+can try!"
+
+They had already gathered the reins and were spurring their horses down
+the declivity.
+
+Canby's thoroughbred leaped into the air as the steel pricked it and
+Helene was soon left behind. She saw that she could figure only as a
+spectator, so she slowed down and watched what followed in fascinated
+horror.
+
+Canby was considerably farther off than Wallie, in the beginning, but
+the racing blood in the former's horse's veins responded gallantly to
+the urge of its rider. It stretched out and laid down to its work like a
+hare with the hounds behind it, quickly equalizing the distance.
+
+Aunt Lizzie was poking at a rock with her toe when she looked up
+suddenly and saw her danger. The steer with a spread of horns like
+antlers and tapering to needle points was rushing down upon her,
+infuriated.
+
+For a moment she stood, weak with terror, unable to move, until her will
+asserted itself and then, shrieking, she ran as fast as her stiff old
+legs could carry her.
+
+Wallie and Canby reached the steer almost together. A goodly distance
+still intervened between it and Aunt Lizzie, but the gap was shortening
+with sickening rapidity and Helene grew cold as she saw that, try as
+they might, they could not head it.
+
+The animal seemed to be conscious only of its fleeing victim. When she
+ran, her flight appeared to excite and enrage it further, for it bawled
+with anger. The fluttering petticoats were a challenge, and the steer
+was bent on reaching and destroying the strange object with the weapons
+nature had given it. It was accustomed to horsemen and had no fear of
+them, but it saw a menace in the little old woman screaming just ahead,
+so it ignored Canby and Wallie, and they could not swerve it.
+
+Helene wrung her hands in a frenzy as she watched their futile efforts.
+Wallie always carried a rope on his saddle, why didn't he use it? Was he
+afraid? Couldn't he? She felt a swift return of her old contempt for
+him. Was he only a "yellow-back" cowpuncher after all, underneath his
+Western regalia? Momentarily she despised him. Notwithstanding his brave
+appearance he was as useless in a crisis like this as Canby. Pinkey was
+more of a man than either of them. He would stop that steer somehow if
+he had only his pocketknife to do it. Her lip curled disdainfully for
+she had an innate contempt of impotency and failure.
+
+She cried out sharply as Aunt Lizzie stumbled and pitched headlong.
+Between exhaustion and terror that paralyzed her she was unable to get
+up, though she tried. The steer, flaming-eyed, was now less than fifty
+yards from her.
+
+Helene felt herself grow nauseated. She meant to close her eyes when it
+happened. She had seen a horse gored to death by a bull and it was a
+sight she did not wish to see repeated.
+
+Canby in advance of Wallie was a little ahead of the steer, slapping at
+it with his bridle-reins, Wallie behind had been crowding its shoulder.
+But nothing could divert it from its purpose.
+
+Helene was about to turn her head away when she saw Wallie lay the reins
+on his horse's neck and lean from the saddle.
+
+His purpose flashed through Helene's mind instantly. Then she cried
+aloud--incredulously:
+
+"He's going to try _that_!" And added in a frightened whisper: "He can't
+do it! He can never do it!"
+
+Wallie's horse, which had been running at the steer's shoulder, missed
+his hand on the reins and lagged a little, so that the distance between
+them was such as to make what he meant to attempt seemingly impossible.
+For a second he rode with his arm outstretched as if gauging the
+distance, then Helene grew rigid as she saw him leave the saddle.
+
+He made it--barely. The gap was so big that it seemed as if it were not
+humanly possible more than to touch the short mane on the animal's neck
+with his finger-tips. But he clung somehow, his feet and body dragging,
+while the steer's speed increased rather than slackened. First with one
+hand and then the other he worked his way to a grip on the horns, which
+was what he wanted.
+
+The steer stopped to fight him. Its feet ploughed up the dirt as it
+braced them to resist him. Then they struggled. The steer was a big one,
+raw-boned, leggy, a typical old-time long-horn of the Texas ranges, and
+now in fear and rage it put forth all the strength of which it was
+capable.
+
+With his teeth grinding, Wallie fought it in desperation, trying to give
+the twist that drops the animal. Its breath in his face, the froth from
+its mouth blinded him, but still he clung while it threw him this and
+that way. He himself never knew where his strength came from. Suddenly
+the steer fell heavily and the two lay panting together.
+
+Helene drew the back of her hand across her eyes and brushed away the
+tears that blurred her vision, while a lump rose in her throat too big
+to swallow. "Gentle Annie" of The Colonial veranda, erstwhile authority
+on Battenburg and sweaters, had accomplished the most reckless of the
+dare-devil feats of the cow-country--he had "bull-dogged" a steer from
+horseback!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+"WORMAN! WORMAN!"
+
+
+Business which had to do with the cache they had lifted from Tucker
+detained Pinkey in town longer than expected. He returned in the night
+and did not get up when the triangle jangled for breakfast. In fact, it
+was well into the forenoon when he appeared, only to learn that Miss
+Eyester had gone off with old Mr. Penrose to look at an eagle's nest.
+
+"What did he do that for?" Pinkey demanded of Wallie.
+
+"I presume he wanted her company," Wallie replied, composedly,
+entertained by the ferocity of Pinkey's expression.
+
+"Is he a dude or is he a duder that he has to go guidin' people to see
+sights they prob'ly don't want to look at?"
+
+"She seemed willing enough to go," Wallie answered.
+
+Pinkey sneered:
+
+"Mebbe I'd better git me a blue suit with brass buttons and stand around
+and open gates and unsaddle fer 'em."
+
+Wallie regarded his partner calmly.
+
+"Pinkey, you're _jealous_."
+
+"Jealous! Me jealous of an old Methuselah that don't know enough to make
+a mark in the road?" Unconsciously Pinkey's hand sought his eyebrows, as
+he laughed hollowly. "Why, I could show her a barrel of eagles' nests! I
+know whur there's a coyote den with pups in it! I know whur there's a
+petrified tree and oceans of Injun arrer heads, if she'd jest waited.
+But if anybody thinks I'm goin' to melt my boot-heels down taggin' a
+worman, they're mistaken!" Pinkey stamped off to the bunk-house and
+slammed the door behind him.
+
+"Where's Pinkey?" The question was general when it was observed that his
+chair was vacant at dinner.
+
+"Still reposing, I imagine," Wallie answered, humorously.
+
+Mrs. Budlong commented:
+
+"A night ride like that must be very fatiguing."
+
+"Oh, very." Wallie winked at himself figuratively, thinking that the 99
+per cent. alcoholic content of one of Mr. Tucker's bottles undoubtedly
+accounted for his weariness.
+
+"You are sure he's not ill?" inquired Miss Eyester. She had not enjoyed
+her revenge upon Pinkey, for going away without telling her, as much as
+she had anticipated; besides, the eagle's nest turned out to be a crows'
+nest with no birds in it, and that was disappointing.
+
+Mr. Hicks, who frequently joined in the conversation when anything
+interested him, snorted from the kitchen doorway:
+
+"Ill? You couldn't make him 'ill' with a club with nails in it--that
+feller."
+
+"Oh, how dread-ful!" Aunt Lizzie clasped her hands, and looked at the
+brutal cook reprovingly.
+
+"Perhaps one of us had better awaken him," Miss Eyester suggested. "He
+should eat something."
+
+"Hor! Hor! Hor!" Mr. Hicks laughed raucously. "Maybe he don't feel like
+eating. Let him alone and he'll come out of it."
+
+Miss Eyester resented the aspersion the meaning of which was now plain
+to everybody, and said with dignity, rising:
+
+"If no one else will call him, I shall."
+
+"Rum has been the curse of the nation," observed Mr. Budlong to whom
+even a thimbleful gave a headache.
+
+"I wish I had a barrel of it," growled old Mr. Penrose. "When I get home
+I'm going to get me a worm and make moonshine."
+
+"Oh, how dread-ful!"
+
+"'Tain't," Mr. Penrose contradicted Aunt Lizzie, curtly.
+
+"'Tis!" retorted Aunt Lizzie.
+
+They glared at each other balefully, and while everybody waited to hear
+if she could think of anything else to say to him, Miss Eyester returned
+panting:
+
+"The door's locked and there's a towel pinned over the window."
+
+"No!" They exclaimed in chorus, and looked at Wallie. "Do you suppose
+any thing's happened?"
+
+"He locked the door because he does not want to be disturbed, and the
+towel is to keep the light out," Mr. Stott deduced.
+
+"Of _course_!" They all laughed heartily and admired Mr. Stott's
+shrewdness.
+
+"Any fool would have thought of that," growled Mr. Penrose.
+
+"You think you know everything," said Aunt Lizzie, in whom his threat to
+make moonshine and break the law still rankled.
+
+"I know quite a lot, if I could just think of it," replied Mr. Penrose
+almost good-naturedly.
+
+"All the same," declared the cook, scouring a frying-pan in the doorway,
+"it's not like him to go to all that trouble just to sleep. I'll go up
+and see if I can raise him."
+
+Even in the dining room they could hear Mr. Hicks banging on the door
+with the frying-pan, and calling. He returned in a few minutes.
+
+"There's something queer about it. It's still as a graveyard. He ain't
+snoring."
+
+"Could he have made way with himself?" Mr. Appel's tone was sepulchral.
+
+"Oh-h-h!" Miss Eyester gasped faintly.
+
+"Perhaps he has merely locked the door and he is outside," Mr. Stott
+suggested.
+
+"I'll go down and see if I can notice his legs stickin' out of the crick
+anywhere," said Mr. Hicks, briskly.
+
+"It is very curious--very strange indeed," they declared solemnly,
+though they all continued eating spare-ribs--a favourite dish with The
+Happy Family.
+
+The cook, returning, said in a tone that had a note of disappointment.
+"He ain't drowned."
+
+"Is his horse in the corral?" asked Wallie.
+
+Mr. Hicks took observations from the doorway and reported that it was,
+which deepened the mystery.
+
+Since no human being, unless he was drugged or dead, could sleep through
+the cook's battering with the frying-pan, Wallie himself grew anxious.
+He recalled Pinkey's gloom of the evening before he had gone to Prouty.
+"I wisht I'd died when I was little," he remembered his saying.
+
+Also Pinkey's moroseness of the morning and the ferocity of his
+expression took on special significance in the light of his strange
+absence. Instinctively Wallie looked at Miss Eyester. That young lady
+was watching him closely and saw his gravity. Unexpectedly she burst
+into tears so explosively that Mrs. Budlong moved back the bread plate
+even as she tried to comfort her.
+
+"I know something has happened! I _feel_ it! When Aunt Sallie choked on
+a fish-bone at Asbury Park I knew it before we got the wire. I'm sort of
+clairvoyant! Please excuse me!" Miss Eyester left the table, sobbing. It
+seemed heartless to go on eating when Pinkey, the sunshine of the ranch,
+as they suddenly realized, might be lying cold in death in the
+bunk-house, so they followed solemnly--all except Mrs. Henry Appel, who
+lingered to pick herself out another spare-rib, which she took with her
+in her fingers.
+
+They proceeded in a body to the bunk-house, where Wallie applied his eye
+to the keyhole and found it had been stuffed with something. This
+confirmed his worst suspicions. Nobody could doubt now but that
+something sinister had happened.
+
+Mr. Penrose, who had been straining his eyes at the window, peering
+through a tiny space between the towel and the window frame, declared he
+saw somebody moving. This, of course, was preposterous, for if alive
+Pinkey would have made a sound in response to their clamour, so nobody
+paid any attention to his assertion.
+
+"We'll have to burst the door in," said Mr. Stott in his masterful
+manner, but Wallie already had run for the axe for that purpose.
+
+Mrs. Appel, alternately gnawing her bone and crying softly, begged them
+not to let her see him if he did not look natural, while Miss Eyester
+leaned against the door-jamb in a fainting condition.
+
+"Maybe I can bust it with my shoulder," said Mr. Hicks, throwing his
+weight against the door.
+
+Immediately, as the lock showed signs of giving, a commotion, a
+shuffling, was heard, a sound as if a shoulder braced on the inside was
+resisting.
+
+There was a second's astonished silence and then a chorus of voices
+demanded:
+
+"Let us in! Pinkey! What _is_ the matter?"
+
+The answer was an inarticulate, gurgling sound that was blood-curdling.
+
+"He's cut his wind-pipe and all he can do is gaggle!" cried Mr. Hicks,
+excitedly, and made a frenzied attack on the door that strained the lock
+to the utmost.
+
+If the noise he made was any criterion it was judged that Pinkey's head
+must be nearly severed from his body--which made the resistance he
+displayed all the more remarkable. He was a madman, of course--that was
+taken for granted--and the ladies were warned to places of safety lest
+he come out slashing right and left with a razor.
+
+They ran and locked themselves in the kitchen, where they could look
+through the window--all except Miss Eyester, who declared dramatically
+that she had no further interest in life anyhow and wished to die by his
+hand, knowing herself responsible for what had happened.
+
+Wallie, breathless from running, arrived with the axe, which he handed
+to Mr. Hicks, who called warningly as he swung it:
+
+"Stand back, Pinkey!--I'm comin'!"
+
+The door crashed and splintered, and when it opened, Mr. Hicks fell in
+with it.
+
+He fell out again almost as quickly, for there was Pinkey with the
+glaring eyes of a wild man, his jaws open, and from his mouth there
+issued a strange white substance.
+
+"He's frothin'!" Mr. Hicks yelled shrilly. "He's got hydrophoby! Look
+out for him everybody!"
+
+"G-gg-ggg-ough!" gurgled Pinkey.
+
+"Who bit you, feller?" the cook asked, soothingly.
+
+"G-ggg-gg-ough!" was the agonized answer.
+
+"We'll have to throw and hog-tie him." Mr. Hicks looked around to see if
+there was a rope handy.
+
+"Don't let him snap at you," called Mr. Stott from a safe distance. "If
+it gets in your blood, you're goners."
+
+The cook who, as Pinkey advanced shaking his head and making vehement
+gestures, had retreated, was suddenly enlightened:
+
+"That ain't froth--it's plaster o' Paris--I bet you! Wait till I get a
+stick and poke it!"
+
+Pinkey nodded.
+
+"That's it!" Mr. Hicks cried, delightedly: "He's takin' a cast of his
+gooms--I told him about it."
+
+The look he received from Pinkey was murderous.
+
+"How are we going to get it out?" Wallie asked in perplexity.
+
+"It's way bigger than his mouth," said Mr. Appel, and old Mr. Penrose
+suggested humorously: "You might push it down and make him swallow it."
+
+"Maybe you could knock a little off at a time or chisel it," ventured
+Mr. Budlong. "It's hard as a rock," feeling of it. "You'll have to crack
+it."
+
+"It's like taking a hook out of a cat-fish," said the cook, facetiously.
+"Say, can you open your mouth any wider?"
+
+Pinkey made vehement signs that his mouth was stretched to the limit.
+
+"It's from ear to ear now, you might say," observed Mr. Budlong. "If you
+go to monkeying you'll have the top of his head off."
+
+"If I could just get my fist up in the roof somehow and then pry down on
+it." The size of Mr. Hicks' fist, however, made the suggestion
+impractical.
+
+"I believe I can pick it off little by little with a hairpin or a pair
+of scissors or something." Miss Eyester spoke both confidently and
+sympathetically.
+
+Pinkey nodded, his eyes full of gratitude and suffering.
+
+"Don't laugh at him," she pleaded, as they now were howling
+uproariously. "Just leave us alone and I'll manage it somehow."
+
+It proved that Miss Eyester was not over-sanguine for, finally, with the
+aid of divers tools and implements, Pinkey was able to spit out the last
+particle of the plaster of Paris.
+
+"I s'pose the story'll go all over the country and make me ridic'lous,"
+he said, gloomily. Feeling the corners of his mouth tenderly: "I thought
+at first I'd choke to death before I'd let anybody see me. What I'll do
+to that cook," his eyes gleaming, "won't stand repeatin'. And if anybody
+dast say 'teeth' to me----"
+
+"Whatever made you do it?"
+
+Too angry for finesse, Pinkey replied bluntly:
+
+"I done it fer you. I thought you'd like me better if I had teeth, and
+now I s'pose you can't ever look at me without laughin'."
+
+Miss Eyester flipped a bit of plaster from his shirtsleeve with her
+thumb and finger.
+
+"I wouldn't do anything to hurt your feelings, ever."
+
+"Never?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Then don't you go ridin' again with that old gummer."
+
+"Do you care, really?" shyly.
+
+"I'll tell the world I do!"
+
+Miss Eyester fibbed without a pang of conscience:
+
+"I never dreamed it."
+
+"I thought you wouldn't look at anybody unless they had money--you bein'
+rich 'n' ever'thing."
+
+"In the winter I earn my living cataloguing books in a public library. I
+hate it."
+
+Pinkey laid an arm about her thin shoulders.
+
+"Say, what's the chanct of gittin' along with you f'rever an' ever?"
+
+"Pretty good," replied Miss Eyester, candidly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+"KNOCKING 'EM FOR A CURVE"
+
+
+It had been put to a vote as to whether the party should make the trip
+through the Yellowstone Park by motor, stopping at the hotels, or on
+horseback with a camping outfit.
+
+Mr. Stott, after the persuasive manner in which he addressed a jury,
+argued:
+
+"We can ride in automobiles at home. That is no novelty. Than horseback
+riding, there is no more healthful exercise. We are all agreed that we
+have had enough of hotels, while camping will be a new and delightful
+experience. In the brief period that we shall lie next to nature's heart
+we will draw strength from her bosom. By camping, we can loaf along in
+leisurely fashion, taking our own time for seeing the wonders of the
+Yellowstone, and fishing."
+
+The programme he outlined was so sensible and attractive that everybody
+was in favour of it strongly except old Mr. Penrose, who declared that
+sleeping on the ground would give him rheumatism, and the fear that bugs
+would crawl in his ears made him restless. Mr. Stott, however, overcame
+his objection by assuring him that the ground was too dry to give any
+one rheumatism and he could provide himself with cotton against the
+other contingency.
+
+The outlook for a successful trip from every viewpoint was most
+promising, yet there were moments when Wallie had his doubts and
+misgivings. He supposed that it was his experience in dry-farming which
+had made him pessimistic concerning all untried ventures. Certainly it
+had destroyed his beautiful, child-like faith in the teaching that the
+hairs of his head were numbered and no harm could come to him. He had
+noticed that everyone who ever had dry-farmed carried the scars
+afterward. It was an unforgettable experience, like a narrow escape from
+lynching.
+
+Pinkey, on the contrary, had no sombre thoughts to disturb him. He was
+filled with boundless enthusiasm; though this condition was chronic
+since he had become engaged to Miss Eyester.
+
+Pinkey, in love, was worse than useless. Escorting Miss Eyester was now
+his regular business, with dude wrangling reduced to a side issue.
+Therefore it had devolved upon Wallie to buy teepees, extra bedding,
+food, and the thousand and one things necessary to comfort when camping.
+
+It all had been accomplished finally, and the day came when the caravan
+was drawn up beside the Prouty House ready to start toward the
+Yellowstone.
+
+A delighted populace blocked the sidewalk while they awaited the
+appearance of Miss Gaskett's friend, Miss Mercy Lane, who had arrived on
+a night train according to arrangement.
+
+The cavalcade, if not imposing, was at least arresting. No one could
+pass it yawning. There was no one who had come to see the party start
+who did not feel repaid for the effort.
+
+First, there was Mr. Hicks, driving four horses and the "grub-wagon,"
+and leading the procession. He handled the lines with an aplomb
+reminiscent of the coaching days of Reginald Vanderbilt, together with
+the noble bearing of the late Ben Hur tooling his chariot. Mr. Hicks
+dignified the "grub-wagon" to such an extent that it was a treat to look
+at him.
+
+Second in place was Pinkey, driving the tent-and-bed-wagon, with Miss
+Eyester on the high spring-seat beside him. Behind Pinkey came "Red"
+McGonnigle, driving a surrey provided for those who should become
+fatigued with riding horseback. The vehicle, like the stage-coach, was a
+bargain, sold cheaply by the original owner because of the weakness of
+the springs, which permitted the body to hit the axle when any amount of
+weight was put in it. This was a discovery they made after purchase.
+Aunt Lizzie Philbrick was the only passenger, though it was anticipated
+that Miss Mercy Lane would prefer to drive also, since she had had no
+previous riding.
+
+Behind the surrey was the riding party, even more startling than when
+they had first burst upon Wallie in their bead-work and curio-store
+trappings. Mr. Stott was wearing a pair of "chaps" spotted like a pinto,
+while Mr. Budlong in flame-coloured angora at a little distance looked
+as if his legs were afire.
+
+Their ponies peered out shamefacedly through brilliant,
+penitentiary-made, horse-hair bridles, and old Mr. Penrose was the envy
+of everybody in a greasy, limp-brimmed Stetson he had bought from a
+freighter. Also he had acquired a pair of 22-inch, "eagle's bill"
+tapaderas. He looked like a mounted pirate, and, in his evil moments,
+after sleeping badly, he acted like one.
+
+Everyone was in high spirits and eager to get started. Mr. Stott
+surreptitiously spurred his horse to make him cavort more spiritedly
+before the spectators, and the horse responded in such a manner that the
+rising young attorney was obliged to cling with both hands to the
+saddle-horn.
+
+When he came back, slightly paler, Wallie said curtly:
+
+"You don't need spurs on that horse."
+
+"I'm the best judge of that," Stott retorted.
+
+Wallie said nothing further, for at the moment the crowd parted to
+permit the passing of the newcomer from Zanesville, Ohio.
+
+As he saw her, Wallie felt willing to renew his promise to Miss Gaskett
+not to fall in love with her. Wallie was a charitable soul, and
+chivalrous, but he could not but think that Miss Mercy, who was a
+trained nurse, must have changed greatly since she and Miss Gaskett were
+school-girls.
+
+She wore a masculine hat with a quill in it and a woollen skirt that
+bagged at the knees like trousers. Her hair was thin at the temples, and
+she wore gold glasses astride her long, "foxy" nose. Although no average
+cake would have held the candles to which Miss Mercy's birthdays
+entitled her, she was given to "middy" blouses and pink sweaters.
+
+"Merce has such a unique personality that I am sure you are going to
+enjoy her," beamed Miss Gaskett in presenting Wallie.
+
+Wallie murmured that he had no doubt of it, and boosted Miss Mercy into
+the surrey.
+
+With nothing further to detain them, Mr. Hicks swung his lash and the
+four went off at a gallop, with the cooking utensils in the rear
+rattling so that it sounded like a runaway milk-wagon.
+
+He had been instructed to drive ahead and select a suitable place for
+the noon-day luncheon in order that everything should be in readiness
+upon their arrival, but to the others Wallie had suggested that they
+ride and drive more slowly to save the horses.
+
+In spite of Wallie's request, however, Mr. Stott, seeing the cook
+getting ahead, started off at a gallop to overtake him. In no uncertain
+voice Wallie called to him.
+
+"You will oblige me if you will ride more slowly," Wallie said, speaking
+very distinctly when Mr. Stott came back to ask what was wanted.
+
+"Why, what's the matter?"
+
+His feigned innocence added to Wallie's anger.
+
+"I don't want that horse ruined."
+
+"I am paying for him," Stott returned, insolently.
+
+"I still own him, and it's my privilege to say how he shall be ridden."
+
+Stott dropped back suddenly but Wallie foresaw trouble with him before
+the trip was finished, though he meant to hold his temper as long as
+possible.
+
+The reprimand had a beneficial effect upon the other equestrians, who
+had contemplated dashing after Mr. Stott, but now concluded to jog along
+at a reasonable gait, working off their superfluous energy in asking
+questions. Did eagles really carry off children? And was the earth under
+the Yellowstone Park hollow?
+
+In the surrey "Red" McGonnigle was putting forth his best efforts to
+entertain Aunt Lizzie and Miss Mercy, which he considered as much a part
+of his duties as driving.
+
+A portion of the road was through a canon, cut from the solid rock in
+places, with narrow turnouts, and a precipitous descent of hundreds of
+feet to a sinister-looking green river roaring in the bottom.
+
+"Now, here," said Mr. McGonnigle, as they entered it, lolling back in
+the seat and crossing his legs in leisurely fashion, "is where there's
+been all kinds of accee-dents."
+
+He pointed with the stub of a buggy-whip:
+
+"About there is where four horses on a coal-wagon run away and went
+over. Two was killed and one was crippled so they had to shoot it."
+
+"Oh, how dread-ful!" Aunt Lizzie exclaimed, nervously.
+
+Miss Mercy's contralto voice boomed at him:
+
+"What happened to the driver?"
+
+"His bones was broke in a couple of dozen places, but they picked him
+up, and sence, he has growed together."
+
+Miss Mercy snickered.
+
+"You see that p'int ahead of us? Onct a feller ridin' a bronc backed off
+there. They rolled two hundred feet together. Wonder it didn't kill
+'em."
+
+Aunt Lizzie was twisting her fingers and whispering:
+
+"Oh, how dread-ful!"
+
+"Jest around that bend," went on the entertainer, expectorating with
+deliberation before he continued, "a buggy tried to pass a hay-wagon. It
+was a brand-new buggy, cost all of $250, and the first time he'd took
+his family out in it. Smashed it to kindlin' wood. The woman threw the
+baby overboard and it never could see good out of one eye afterward. She
+caught on a tree when she was rollin' and broke four ribs, or some such
+matter. He'd ought to a-knowed better than to pass a hay-wagon where it
+was sidlin'. Good job, says I, fer havin' no judgment though I was one
+of his pall-bearers, as an accommodation."
+
+Aunt Lizzie was beyond exclaiming, and Miss Mercy's toes were curling
+and uncurling, though she preserved a composed exterior.
+
+After setting the brake, McGonnigle went on humorously, gesticulating
+spaciously while the slack of the lines swung on the single-tree:
+
+"On this here hill the brake on a dude's automo-bubbly quit on him. When
+he come to the turn he went on over. Ruined the car, plumb wrecked it,
+and it must a cost $1,500 to $2,000. They shipped his corp' back East
+somewhere."
+
+Pale, and shaking like an aspen, Aunt Lizzie clung tightly to Miss
+Mercy. The scenery was sublime, but they had no eye for it. Their gaze
+was riveted upon the edge of the precipice some six or eight inches from
+the outer wheels of the surrey, and life at the moment looked as sweet
+as it seemed uncertain.
+
+Driving with one hand and pointing with the other, McGonnigle went on
+with the fluency for which he was celebrated:
+
+"That sharp curve we're comin' to is where they was a head-on collision
+between a chap on a motorcycle and a traction en-jine they was takin'
+through the canon. He was goin' too fast, anyhow--the motorcycle--and it
+jest splattered him, as you might say, all over the front of the
+en-jine."
+
+Mr. McGonnigle put the lines between his knees and gripped them while he
+readjusted his hat with one hand and pointed with the other:
+
+"You see that hangin' rock? There where it sticks over? Well, sir, two
+cayuses tryin' to unload their packs bounced off there and----"
+
+A shriek in his ear interrupted McGonnigle at this juncture. He turned,
+startled, to see Aunt Lizzie with her fingers in her ears screaming that
+she was going to have hysterics.
+
+To prove that she was a woman of her word, she had them, while Mr.
+McGonnigle, utterly unconscious that he was the cause, regarded her in
+astonishment.
+
+"She's got a fit," he said to Wallie, who hurried forward.
+
+"He's scared her out of her wits," declared Miss Mercy, glaring at him.
+
+"Me?"
+
+"You! You're a careless driver. I don't believe you understand horses,
+and I shan't ride any further with you."
+
+"Red" jammed the whip in its socket and wrapped the lines around it.
+Springing over the wheel he stood by the roadside and declared
+defiantly:
+
+"I'm quittin'. Hate to leave you in a pinch, Wallie, but I take sass
+from no female. I'd ruther herd sheep than wrangle dudes, anyhow. I
+tried to be entertainin', and this is the thanks I git fer it."
+
+"Nobody asked you to talk," Miss Mercy snapped at him.
+
+Wallie succeeded in pacifying "Red" finally and suggested that he and
+Pinkey exchange places. Pinkey consented reluctantly, and "Red" climbed
+upon the seat of the bed-wagon with a dark look at the "female" who had
+questioned his knowledge of horses, while he mumbled something about
+"fixin' her."
+
+By ten-thirty food was the chief topic of conversation, and everyone was
+keeping an eye out for Hicks and the "grub-wagon." At eleven the
+hilarity had simmered to monosyllables, and old Mr. Penrose, who always
+became incredibly cross when he was hungry, rode along with his face
+screwed up like a bad youngster that is being carried out of church for
+a spanking in the vestibule.
+
+"I'm so weak I can scarcely sit in the saddle!" Mrs. J. Harry Stott
+snapped at Wallie as if she held him responsible.
+
+"I'm simply ravenous--starving!" declared Mrs. Budlong. She also looked
+at him accusingly.
+
+By eleven-thirty they were all complaining bitterly that the cook had
+been allowed to get so far ahead that they should all perish of hunger
+before they could overtake him. Mr. Stott galloped ahead as if he were
+pursued by hostile Indians to see if he could see Hicks, and galloped
+back again to say that he could not.
+
+At twelve the animals in a zoo just before feeding time had "nothing on"
+The Happy Family when it came to ferocity, but they brightened
+immediately as they finally caught a glimpse of Hicks' camp-fire, and
+grew almost cheerful when they saw him cutting bread on the lowered
+tail-board of the wagon, where the lunch was waiting for them.
+
+The spot he had selected could not truthfully be called ideal, viewed
+from any angle, since there was no shade and the sand, sizzling hot,
+reflected the glare of the mid-day sun as painfully as a mirror. None,
+however, had the temerity to offer any criticism to Mr. Hicks
+personally, for his vitriolic tongue had long since properly subjugated
+even the rambunctious attorney.
+
+The "dudes" dismounted stiffly and stood at a respectful distance,
+sniffing the bubbling coffee and watching the cook slice ham with a
+knife that had a blade like the sword of a Crusader.
+
+Mr. Hicks had an alert, suspicious manner as if he feared that someone
+would jump forward and snatch something before he had given the signal.
+
+When the operation of bread-slicing was completed, Mr. Hicks stuck the
+point of the knife in the tail-board and, gripping the handle, struck a
+pose like that of the elder Salvini, while in a sonorous voice he
+enumerated the delicacies he had to offer. It sounded like a roll-call,
+and his tone was so imperative that almost one expected the pickles and
+cheese to answer--"present."
+
+"Come and get it!" he finished, abruptly, and retired to sit down under
+sagebrush as if he were disgusted with food and people who ate it. There
+Wallie joined him and from the vantage point watched his guests eat
+their first meal in the open.
+
+If there was one thing upon which The Happy Family at The Colonial had
+prided itself more than another it was upon its punctilious observance
+of the amenities. There were those among the "newcomers" who averred
+that they carried their elaborate politeness to a point which made them
+ridiculous. For example, when two or more met at the door of the
+elevator they had been known to stand for a full minute urging
+precedence upon the other, and no gentleman, however bald or susceptible
+to draughts, would converse with a lady with his head covered.
+
+Now Wallie felt that his eyes must have deceived him when Mr. Budlong
+prodded Miss Eyester in the ribs with his elbow in his eagerness to get
+in ahead of her, while old Mr. Penrose reached a long arm over Aunt
+Lizzie Philbrick's shoulder and took away a piece of apple pie upon
+which she already had closed her fingers.
+
+When Miss Gaskett and Mr. Appel chanced to select the same slice of ham
+neither seemed disposed to relinquish it but displayed considerable
+spirit as they pulled until it gave way in its weakest sector, leaving
+Mr. Appel with only an inch of fat between his thumb and finger. He
+regarded his portion with chagrin while Miss Gaskett went off
+triumphantly to make a sandwich.
+
+Mr. Stott with his usual enterprise and shrewdness had gotten next to
+the tail-board, where he stood munching and reviewing the food with an
+eye to his next selection. He was astonished to see Miss Mercy's alpine
+hat rising, as it were, from the earth at his feet to crowd him from his
+desirable position. As she stood up she jabbed him in the nostril with
+the quill, and Mr. Stott gave ground before he realized it. Miss Mercy
+snickered in appreciation of the cleverness of her manoeuvre.
+
+As Wallie observed them while waiting his opportunity to get a dill
+pickle or whatever crumb they might leave him, he thought grimly that if
+they had been without food for twenty-four hours instead of less than
+half a dozen, they would have been close to cannibalism. He, for one,
+would not care to be adrift in an open boat with Mrs. Budlong--hungry
+and armed with a hatchet--while Stott, he was sure would murder him for
+a frankfurter in those circumstances.
+
+Aunt Lizzie, to whom accidents of an unusual nature seemed always to be
+happening, wandered off with a wedge of pie and a cup of coffee and sat
+down on an ant-hill.
+
+While she sipped her coffee and drank in the scenery simultaneously, the
+inhabitants of the hill came out in swarms to investigate the monster
+who was destroying their home. They attacked her with the ferocity for
+which red ants are noted, and she dropped her pie and coffee and ran
+screaming to the wagon.
+
+Fearful that she would be pursued by them, she got into the surrey,
+where she became involved in a quarrel with Miss Mercy, who was eating
+her lunch there.
+
+Miss Mercy caught a butterfly that lighted on a seat-cover and pulled
+off first one wing and then the other in spite of Aunt Lizzie's
+entreaties. She dropped it on the bottom of the surrey and put her
+astonishingly large foot upon it.
+
+"There," she snickered, "I squashed it."
+
+Aunt Lizzie, to whom anything alive was as if it were human, wrung her
+hands in anguish.
+
+"I think you are horrid!"
+
+"What good is it?"
+
+"What good are you, either? I shan't ride with you." Aunt Lizzie climbed
+into the third seat of the surrey, where she refused to answer Miss
+Mercy when she spoke to her.
+
+The rest and food freshened the party considerably but by four o'clock
+they were again hungry and drooping in their saddles. Only Mr. Stott,
+endowed, as it seemed, with the infinite wisdom of the Almighty,
+retained his spirits and kept up an unending flow of instructive
+conversation upon topics of which he had the barest smattering of
+knowledge. Constantly dashing off on his part to investigate gulches and
+side trails caused Wallie's smouldering wrath to burn brighter, as the
+buckskin hourly grew more jaded.
+
+Complaints increased that their horses were hard-gaited, and the voices
+of the ladies held plaintive notes as they declared their intention of
+riding in the surrey when they overtook it. Pinkey was stopped finally,
+and his passengers augmented by the addition of Mrs. Stott, Miss
+Gaskett, and Mrs. Budlong, who carefully folded their jackets to sit on.
+
+At five o'clock Mr. Stott raced forward and returned to announce that
+Hicks had camped just around the bend of the river.
+
+"You're wearing that horse out, Stott," said Wallie, coldly.
+
+"He's feeling good--watch him!" cried the lawyer, gaily, putting spurs
+to the horse and disappearing.
+
+It was a beautiful camping spot that Hicks had selected, though "Red"
+McGonnigle grumbled that it was not level enough for the teepees.
+
+Old Mr. Penrose, who had fallen off his horse rather than dismounted,
+declared he was so tired that he could sleep on the teeth of a harrow,
+like a babe in its cradle.
+
+"We'll be all right when we get seasoned," said Mr. Appel, cheerfully,
+hunting in his wife's handbag for the vaseline.
+
+"You couldn't have a better place to start in at," "Red" commented,
+grimly.
+
+On the whole, the day might be regarded as a pleasant one, and if the
+remainder of the trip equalled it, there was no doubt but that the party
+would return satisfied, which meant that they would advertise it and the
+next season would be even more successful.
+
+Everyone carried wood to build a camp-fire after supper, but by the time
+they had it going they were too sleepy to sit up and enjoy it. They
+stumbled away to their several teepees with their eyes half closed and
+for the first time since they had known each other failed to say
+"pleasant dreams!" when separating for the night.
+
+Mr. Stott lingered to regale Pinkey and Wallie for the fourteenth time
+with the story of the hoot-owl which had frightened him while hunting in
+Florida, but since it was received without much enthusiasm and he was
+not encouraged to tell another, he, too, retired to crawl between his
+blankets and "sleep on Nature's bosom" with most of his clothes on.
+
+"I wouldn't wonder but that we'll have to hit him between the horns
+before the trip is over," Pinkey remarked, looking after Stott.
+
+Wallie said nothing, but his face spoke for him.
+
+Pinkey continued in a tone of satisfaction:
+
+"Outside of him, everything's goin' splendid. The Yellowstone Park is
+the fightin'est place anybody ever heard of. I've seen life-time
+friends go in there campin' and come out enemies--each one sittin' on
+his own grub-box and not speakin'. But it don't look as if we was goin'
+to have any serious trouble--they're nice people."
+
+"And they think the world of me," Wallie reiterated.
+
+"I've been thinkin' I could lose the horses for two or three days and
+that would count up considerable. Ten dudes at $5.00 a day for three
+days, say---- Oh, we're sittin' pretty! We'll come out of this with
+a roll as big as a gambler's."
+
+"It _looks_ encouraging," Wallie replied more guardedly, though in his
+heart he was sharing Pinkey's optimism.
+
+They kicked out the camp-fire and rolled up in their respective
+blankets, Pinkey to die temporarily, and Wallie to lie awake listening
+to the roar of the river and speculating as to whether Helene Spenceley
+had any special prejudice against the dude business.
+
+Of course, he admitted, had he a choice in the matter, he would have
+preferred to have been an ambassador, a lawyer of international
+reputation, even a great artist; but for a start, as the foundation of a
+fortune, dudes were at least as good as _herring_.
+
+With this consoling thought, Wallie turned over on a pillow which would
+have engaged the earnest attention of the most lax health officer, and
+fell into a contented slumber.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+RIFTS
+
+
+Before the birds had taken their heads from under their wings Miss Mercy
+Lane was up and crashing through the brambles on a hunt for "Red"
+McGonnigle.
+
+It was a morning to thrill the soul of a taxi-cab driver, but it had no
+interest for Miss Mercy. The dew on the petals of the wild-rose, the
+opaline tints of a sweet-scented dawn meant nothing to that lady as,
+without a collar, her shirt-waist wrongly buttoned, her hair twisted
+into a hard "Psyche" knot, she searched for her enemy.
+
+In her earnest desire to get in touch with Mr. McGonnigle as soon as
+possible, she clumped about, peering into the faces of the helpers, who
+had thrown their tarps down upon whatever spot looked a likely place for
+sleeping.
+
+Pinkey she found without difficulty; also Mr. Hicks, who, awakened by
+the feeling that someone was looking at him, sat up and in a scandalized
+tone told her to go right away, from him. "Red" McGonnigle, however,
+whether by accident or premeditation, had repaired with his blankets to
+a bed-ground where the Almighty could not have found him with a
+spy-glass. In consequence, Wallie was awakened suddenly by the booming
+voice of Miss Mercy demanding to know Red's whereabouts.
+
+Her lids were puffed as if she had not closed them, and through the
+slits her eyes gleamed at him. She looked so altogether formidable as
+she stood over him that his first impulse was to duck his head under the
+covers.
+
+Since it was manifestly impossible for Wallie to get to his feet as
+politeness demanded, and it seemed ridiculous to sit up in bed and
+converse with a lady he knew so slightly, it appeared that the best
+thing to do in the circumstances was to remain as he was, prostrate and
+helpless, and this he did--to take such a dressing down as made him
+tingle.
+
+Aiming her finger at him, Miss Mercy declared that deliberately,
+wilfully, maliciously, "Red" McGonnigle had set her tent on a _hump_.
+More than that, he had cut down an alder, leaving some three or four
+sharp prongs over which he had spread her blankets. She would have been
+as comfortable on the teeth of a hay-rake, and had not even dozed in
+consequence. With her own ears she had heard "Red" McGonnigle threaten
+to "fix" her, and he had done it. If he was not discharged she would
+return to Prouty at the first opportunity. This was final.
+
+Wallie argued vainly that it was an accident, that "Red" was altogether
+too chivalrous to take such a low-down revenge upon a lady, and
+explained that in any event it would be impossible to dispense with his
+services at this juncture. He declared that he regretted the matter
+deeply and promised to prevent a recurrence.
+
+But Miss Mercy was adamant, and intimated that Wallie was in sympathy
+with his hireling if not in actual "cahoots" with him.
+
+Wallie realized that it would be impossible to resent the implication
+with proper dignity while lying on the flat of his back looking up at
+his accuser, so he said nothing, whereupon Miss Mercy flung at him as
+she departed:
+
+"I intend to ask a ride back to Prouty from the first passerby, and I
+shall _knock_ you and your ranch at every opportunity!"
+
+She returned to her teepee to complete her toilette while Wallie took
+his boots from under his pillow and drew them on glumly, feeling that
+much of the joy had been taken from what promised to be a perfect
+morning.
+
+Mr. Hicks, too, started breakfast in a mood that was clearly melancholy,
+for as he rattled the pots and pans Wallie heard him reciting:
+
+"And when my time comes, let me go--not like the galley slave at night
+scourged to his dungeon--but like one sustained and soothed by an
+unfaltering trust----" He stopped suddenly, and then in a voice that
+chilled Wallie's blood he shouted:
+
+"Jumping Je-hoshaphat! Git out o' that grub-box!"
+
+He had caught Mrs. Budlong in the act of spreading jam on a cracker.
+
+"How dare you speak so to me?" she demanded, indignantly.
+
+For answer, Mr. Hicks replied autocratically:
+
+"You ought to know by this time that I don't allow dudes snooping around
+when I'm cooking."
+
+"You are insulting--I shall report you."
+
+Mr. Hicks laughed mockingly:
+
+"You do that and see what it gets you."
+
+The cook quite evidently knew his power, for when Mrs. Budlong carried
+out her threat Wallie could only reply that he dared not antagonize
+Hicks, since to replace him would cause delay, inconvenience, and
+additional expense to everybody.
+
+Mrs. Budlong rested all her chins upon her cameo breastpin and received
+the explanation coldly.
+
+"Verra well," she said, incisively, "verra, verra well! I shall buy jam
+and crackers at the first station, Mr. Macpherson, and carry them with
+me."
+
+Wallie had no heart to say more than:
+
+"Indeed, Mrs. Budlong, I am so sorry----"
+
+But she was already on the way to report the controversy to her husband.
+
+When they had bathed their faces and hands in the river the evening
+before someone had referred to it poetically as "Nature's wash-basin."
+Wallie, seeing Mrs. Appel with her soap and towel on the way to
+"Nature's wash-basin," was inspired by some evil spirit to inquire how
+she had rested.
+
+"Rested!" she hissed at him. "Who could rest, to say nothing of
+sleeping, within six blocks of Mr. Penrose? A man who snores as he does
+should not be permitted to have his tent among human beings. If it is
+ever placed near mine again, Wallie, I shall insist upon having it
+removed if it is midnight. Knowing the trouble he has had everywhere, I
+am surprised at your not being more considerate."
+
+"To-night I will attend to it. I regret very much----" Wallie mumbled.
+
+Mrs. J. Harry Stott beckoned him aside as breakfast was being placed on
+the table.
+
+Mrs. Stott had a carefully cultivated mispronunciation of great elegance
+when she wished to be impressive, and as soon as she began Wallie
+realized that something portentous was about to be imparted to him. Even
+the way she raised her eyebrows made him warm all over with a sense of
+guilt of something of which he was ignorant.
+
+"You will excuse me if I speak frankly?"
+
+Wallie gulped, wondering fearfully what she knew and how much.
+
+She went on in a voice which seemed to have hoarfrost on it:
+
+"But the fact is, I am not in the habit of eating with the _help_."
+
+Wallie felt relief surge over him. His face cleared and he laughed
+light-heartedly.
+
+"I know that, of course, Mrs. Stott, but out here it is different.
+Camping is particularly democratic. It has never occurred to 'Red' or
+Hicks that they are not welcome at the table, and I fear that they would
+be greatly offended if I should suggest----"
+
+Mrs. Stott drew herself up haughtily.
+
+"That is no concern of mine, Wallie. It is a matter of principle with
+me to keep servants in their places. I am not a snob, but----"
+
+"Sh-ss-sh!" Wallie looked over his shoulder in Hicks' direction.
+
+In clarion tones she continued:
+
+"I cannot consent to letting down the barriers even in these
+unconventional surroundings. You can adjust the matter to suit yourself,
+but I ab-so-lute-ly refuse to sit cheek by jowl with the cook and
+McGonnigle!"
+
+Wallie grew solemn, as well he might, for along with the tact of a
+diplomat to a Balkan state it required the courage of a lion to convey
+the information to one of Hicks' violent disposition that he was not fit
+to sit at table with the wife of the rising young attorney.
+
+It weighed on his mind through breakfast, and he was not made more
+comfortable by the fact that "Red," stimulated to effervescence by so
+large an audience, tossed off his _bon-mots_ in a steady stream,
+unconscious that his wit was not a treat to all who heard him and that
+his presence was regarded as anything but highly desirable, while Mr.
+Hicks brought his tin-plate and, by chance purely, elbowed himself a
+place beside Mrs. Stott with the greatest assurance.
+
+Wallie decided to postpone the delicate talk of dropping a hint to Mr.
+Hicks until later in the day, as he had plenty to engage his attention
+with Miss Mercy's departure confronting him.
+
+"Red" denied the crime with which he was charged with a face of
+preternatural innocence, declaring that he was shocked that any one
+should attribute to him such a heinous offence as purposely leaving four
+sharp alder prongs under a lady's blankets. Nobody--bar none--had a
+greater respect for the sex than "Red" McGonnigle!
+
+But Miss Mercy was not to be pacified by apologies however abject, or
+explanations however convincing. Implacable, and maintaining a haughty
+silence, she packed her suitcase and put an outing flannel
+nightgown--with a nap so long that it looked like a fur garment--in a
+fishnet bag. Having made stiff adieux to the party, she went and sat
+down on a rock by the roadside to await some passerby who would take her
+to Prouty.
+
+She quite enjoyed herself for a time, thinking what a strong character
+she was, and how independent. A weaker woman would have allowed herself
+to be persuaded to overlook the incident, but she was of different
+metal. For nearly an hour this thought gave her great satisfaction, but,
+gradually, the monotony began to pall and she had a growing feeling of
+resentment that nobody missed her. It seemed deceitful, after making
+such an ado over her decision to leave them, to resign themselves so
+quickly to her absence. Mattie Gaskett might come and renew her
+entreaties for her to return, or, at least, keep her company!
+
+The occasional bursts of laughter that reached her were like personal
+affronts and, finally, she included everybody in her indignation at
+"Red" McGonnigle. But, as the time dragged, her mood changed
+perceptibly. Though she would not admit it in her secret heart, she
+wished that someone would come and coax her to reconsider. From this
+stage, while the tents were being dismantled and packed into the
+bed-wagon accompanied by much merriment, she came to a point where she
+tried to think of some excuse that would enable her to return without
+seeming to make any concession.
+
+As it happened, the only person who gave Miss Mercy any thought as she
+waited forlornly by the roadside was Aunt Lizzie Philbrick. Although she
+and Miss Mercy had not been speaking since the episode of the butterfly,
+her tender conscience was troubled that she had not said good-bye to
+her. The more she thought about it the more strongly it urged her to be
+forgiving and magnanimous to the extent of wishing Miss Mercy a pleasant
+journey. With this purpose in view Aunt Lizzie left the others and
+started for the roadside. If she had not been otherwise engaged at the
+moment, Miss Mercy might have seen Aunt Lizzie's white sailor hat
+bobbing above the intervening bushes, but she was intent on learning the
+cause of a rustling she had heard in the leaves behind her. It was a
+snake, undoubtedly, and it flashed through Miss Mercy's mind that here
+was her opportunity not only to return to camp but to go back a heroine.
+
+She set her fishnet bag on the stump she vacated and provided herself
+with a cudgel before starting to investigate. Advancing cautiously, she
+saw a bunch of tall grass wave in a suspicious manner. She smote the
+clump with her cudgel, and a large, warty toad jumped out into the open.
+It was stunned, and stood blinking as if trying to locate the danger.
+
+"Nasty thing!" exclaimed Miss Mercy, viciously, and raised her club to
+finish it.
+
+The blow landed, and Miss Mercy and the toad saw stars simultaneously,
+for Aunt Lizzie brought down a four-foot stick and crushed in the crown
+of Miss Mercy's alpine hat.
+
+"You dread-ful woman!" Aunt Lizzie shrieked at her, and it was her
+purpose to strike again but the stick was rotten, and since only some
+six inches remained in her hand, she had to content herself with crying:
+
+"You horrible creature! You unnatural woman! 'Shady' Lane--you belong in
+an asylum!"
+
+Since Miss Mercy had been told this before, she resented it doubly, and
+no one can say what else might have happened if Wallie, hearing the
+disturbance, had not hurried forward to discover what was occurring.
+
+"She was killing a hop-toad!" Aunt Lizzie screamed, hysterically. Then
+her legs collapsed, while Miss Mercy boomed that if she did, it was none
+of Aunt Lizzie's business--it was not her hop-toad.
+
+The astounding news passed from mouth to mouth that Aunt Lizzie and Miss
+Mercy had been fighting in the brush with clubs, like Amazons, and
+everyone rushed forward to view the combatants and to learn the
+details, but the chugging of a motor sent Miss Mercy into the middle of
+the road to flag it before they could hear her side of the story.
+
+It proved to be no less a person than Rufus Reed, who was transporting
+provisions on a truck between Prouty and a road-camp in the Park. Rufus
+welcomed company and intimated that his only wonder was that they were
+not all leaving.
+
+So Miss Mercy clambered up beside Rufus and without looking back started
+on her return journey to Zanesville, Ohio, to soothe the brow of the
+suffering and minister to the wants of the dying in her professional
+capacity.
+
+Pinkey sombrely looked after the cloud of dust in which Rufus and the
+Angel of Mercy vanished.
+
+"That's one chicken we counted before it was hatched," he observed,
+regretfully, to Wallie.
+
+The scenery was sublime that morning and the party were in ecstasies,
+but mere mountains, waterfalls, and gorges could not divert Wallie's
+mind from the disquieting fact that he must somehow convey the
+information to Mr. Hicks that his presence at table with the guests was
+undesirable.
+
+As he rode, he framed tactful sentences in which to break the news to
+that formidable person, and he had finally a complete and carefully
+prepared speech which he meant to deliver in a friendly but firm manner.
+The result he could only guess at. Hicks might quit, or he might resent
+the affront to his dignity with any convenient weapon, or after a savage
+outburst of sarcasm he might make the best of the situation. The only
+thing that Wallie could not imagine was a calm acquiescence. It would be
+easier to replace Mr. Hicks, however, than to acquire a new party of
+dudes at this late season, so Wallie nerved himself to the ordeal.
+
+The passengers who preferred to ride in the surrey had now increased to
+a number which made it necessary for them to sit in each other's laps,
+and it devolved upon Wallie to drive their horses. Herding loose horses
+is sometimes a task to strain the temper, and these were that kind of
+horses, so that by the time the party reached the noon-day camp Wallie
+was in a more fitting mood to confront Mr. Hicks than when they had
+started.
+
+The cook was busy over the camp-fire when Wallie determined to speak and
+have it over.
+
+"Don't let him tree you or run you into the river." Pinkey, who knew
+Wallie's purpose, warned him jocosely. "I'm glad it ain't me has the job
+of tellin' that hyena that he ain't as welcome as the President."
+
+Wallie could not share Pinkey's amusement. On the contrary, it annoyed
+him. That was the worst of his partner nowadays, he was so happy that
+nothing troubled him. Perhaps envy was at the bottom of this irritation;
+at any rate, Wallie frowned and told himself that he never would have
+believed that love could make such a simpleton of anybody.
+
+As Wallie drew nearer, through the smoke and steam rising from various
+cooking utensils he noted that Mr. Hicks' expression was particularly
+melancholy and his colour indicated that a large amount of bile had
+accumulated in his system. There was something tragic in the very way he
+stirred the frying potatoes, and as Wallie hesitated Hicks set his fists
+on his hips and recited in a voice vibrating with feeling:
+
+    "Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
+    Nor whence, like water will-nilly flowing,
+    And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
+    I know not whither willy-nilly blowing."
+
+It did not seem a propitious moment to "put Mr. Hicks in his place," as
+Mrs. Stott had phrased it, but Wallie had no desire to nerve himself
+twice for the same ordeal; therefore, with something of the desperate
+courage which comes to high-strung persons about to have a tooth
+extracted, Wallie advanced and inquired cordially:
+
+"Well, Mr. Hicks, how are things coming?"
+
+"I am not complaining," replied Mr. Hicks, in a tone which intimated
+that once he started enumerating his grievances he would not know where
+to finish.
+
+"Pleasant people, aren't they?" Wallie suggested.
+
+"So is a menagerie--after it's eaten."
+
+"They do have appetites," Wallie admitted. "I suppose it's living in the
+open."
+
+"I've cooked for section hands on the Burlington, and they were
+canary-birds beside these Poland Chinas. We had ought to brought troughs
+instead of tinware."
+
+"You mustn't speak so of our guests," Wallie reprimanded.
+
+Hicks went on wrathfully:
+
+"That fat sister in the cameo breastpin--she swiped a can of potted
+chicken on me yesterday--she's a regular 'camp-robber'."
+
+Wallie interposed hastily:
+
+"We mustn't have any trouble. I want to get through this trip peaceably.
+In fact, Mr. Hicks, it's along this line that I wished to have a word
+with you."
+
+Mr. Hicks looked at him quickly and suspiciously.
+
+"Has any of 'em been kickin' on me?"
+
+Wallie hesitated, casting a furtive eye about as he did so for the most
+convenient exit.
+
+"Not kicking, I wouldn't say _kicking_, Mr. Hicks, but it has been
+suggested--I have been thinking that it might be _pleasanter_ for you
+and Red to have your own table."
+
+Mr. Hicks stopped turning over the potatoes and looked at him for what
+seemed to Wallie a full minute.
+
+"In other words," he said, finally, in a voice that was oily and
+coaxing, as if he wanted the truth from him, "the dudes don't want the
+cook and the horse-wrangler to eat with them?"
+
+Wallie noticed uneasily that while Hicks spoke he was tentatively
+feeling the edge of the knife he had been using. Instinctively Wallie's
+eyes sought the route he had selected, as he replied conciliatingly:
+
+"No reflection upon you and Red is intended, Mr. Hicks; it is just that
+Eastern people have different customs, and we have to humour them,
+although we may not agree with them."
+
+There was another silence, in which Hicks continued to thumb the knife
+in a manner that kept Wallie at a tension, then he said with a suavity
+which somehow was more menacing than an outburst:
+
+"Perhaps it _would_ be better for us rough-necks to eat at the second
+table. It hadn't occurred to me that our society might not be agreeable
+to ladies and gentlemen. I'm glad you mentioned it."
+
+Hicks seemed to purr, actually. His tone was caressing--like the velvet
+touch of a tiger--and his humble acceptance of the situation was so
+unnatural that Wallie felt himself shiver with apprehension. Was he
+capable of putting ground-glass in the sugar, he wondered, or dropping a
+spider in something?
+
+"Red" was plainly disgruntled when he found himself, as it were,
+segregated, and he sulked openly; but Hicks, on the contrary, was so
+urbane and respectful that everyone remarked his changed manner, and
+Mrs. Stott triumphantly demanded to know if it were not proof of her
+contention that servants were the better for being occasionally reminded
+of their position.
+
+"I am not a snob," she reiterated, "but common people really spoil my
+appetite when I am obliged to eat with them."
+
+Wallie, however, could not share her elation, for there was that in Mr.
+Hicks' eye whenever he met it which renewed his uneasy forebodings as to
+ground glass and spiders.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+HICKS THE AVENGER
+
+
+The remarkable change in Mr. Hicks' manner continued the next morning.
+It was so radical that no one could fail to observe it and the comments
+were frequent, while Mrs. Stott crowed openly.
+
+From haughty independence he had become so anxious to please that he was
+almost servile, and his manner toward the wife of the rising young
+attorney particularly was that of a humble retainer fawning at the feet
+of royalty. During breakfast he stood at a respectful distance, speaking
+only when spoken to, and jumping to serve them.
+
+This attitude quickly dissipated the fear which he had inspired in The
+Happy Family, and by noon they were not only calling him "Hicks" but
+"Ellery." Then, this stage of familiarity having been passed in safety,
+Mr. Stott humorously dubbed him "Cookie," and the name was adopted by
+everyone.
+
+Mrs. Budlong ventured to complain that there was too much shortening in
+the biscuit. This was a real test of the sincerity of his reformation
+since, if such a thing were possible, he had been even more "touchy"
+upon the subject of his cooking than his dignity. No one could doubt
+but that the change was genuine when he not only received the criticism
+meekly but actually thanked her for calling his attention to it.
+
+Thus encouraged, Mr. Appel declared that he wished he would not fry the
+ham to chips and boil the "daylights" out of the coffee. Mr. Hicks bowed
+servilely and replied that he would try to remember in future. Mrs.
+Stott took occasion to remark that his vegetables would be better for
+less seasoning and more cooking, and Miss Gaskett thought his dried
+fruit would be improved by soaking over night and additional sweetening.
+
+Mr. Hicks received these criticisms in a humility that was pathetic when
+compared with his former arrogance. He looked crushed as he stood with
+bowed head and drooping shoulders as if his proud, untrammelled spirit
+had been suddenly broken.
+
+Miss Eyester felt sorry for him and asserted that she could not recall
+when she had enjoyed food so much and eaten so heartily. Indeed, she had
+been such a gourmand that she had gained a pound and six ounces, if the
+scales upon which she had been weighed in Prouty were accurate.
+
+Mr. Stott, however, who was in one of his waggish moods, undid all that
+she might have accomplished in the way of soothing Hicks' injured
+feelings, by inquiring facetiously if he would mind rolling him out a
+couple of pie-crusts to be tanned and made into bedroom slippers.
+
+Mr. Hicks laughed heartily along with the others, and only Wallie
+caught the murderous glitter through his downcast lashes.
+
+It developed that the Yellowstone Park was a place with which Hicks was
+thoroughly familiar from having made several trips around the Circle. He
+was not only acquainted with points of interest off the beaten track
+passed unseen by the average tourist, but he suggested many original and
+diverting sports--like sliding down a snowbank in a frying-pan--which
+would not have occurred to any of them.
+
+By the time the party had reached the Lake Hotel they were consulting
+him like a Baedeker, and he answered every question, however foolish,
+with a patience and an affability that were most praiseworthy. Their
+manner toward him was a kind of patronizing camaraderie, while Mrs.
+Stott treated him with the gracious tolerance of a great lady unbending.
+
+A disbelief in the ability of the leopard to change its spots made
+Wallie sceptical regarding Hicks' altered disposition, yet he did his
+best to convince himself that he was wrong when Hicks went out and
+caught a trout from the Yellowstone Lake expressly for Mrs. Stott's
+supper.
+
+It was a beautiful fish as it lay on the platter, brown, crisp, and
+ornamented with lemon. Mr. Hicks offered it much as the head of John the
+Baptist might have been brought to Salome.
+
+"Thank you, Hicks," said Mrs. Stott, kindly.
+
+"I hope you'll like it, ma'am," he murmured, humbly.
+
+The mark of favour seemed to bear out Mrs. Stott's contention that
+inferiors should not be treated as equals in any circumstances. Now,
+with her fork in the fish, Mrs. Stott looked around the table and
+inquired graciously if she might not divide it with someone?
+
+Everyone politely declined except Mrs. Budlong, who looked at it so
+wistfully that Mrs. Stott lost no time in transferring it to her plate.
+She ate with gusto and declared after tasting it:
+
+"It is delicious, simply delicious! I never remember eating another with
+quite the same delicate flavour. I presume," addressing herself to Mr.
+Hicks, who was standing with arms akimbo enjoying her enjoy it, "it is
+due to something in the water?"
+
+"I presume so," he replied, respectfully, and added: "The trout in the
+Yellowstone Lake are said to be very nourishing."
+
+It was natural that Mrs. Stott should feel a little flattered by this
+evidence of partiality even from a menial, also she noticed that Mrs.
+Budlong was following each mouthful with the eyes of a hungry bird-dog
+so she could not refrain from saying further:
+
+"It is such a delightful change from ham and bacon. I am not sure," she
+averred, laughingly, "that I shall not eat the head and fins, even."
+
+"I wish _I_ was in such favour," Mrs. Budlong declared, enviously.
+
+"Never mind, Honey Dumplin'," said Mr. Budlong, "I shall go out after
+supper and catch your breakfast."
+
+"You ought to get a boatload," Hicks added quickly, "if you find the
+right place."
+
+"I saw them jumping by the million where I was walking before supper."
+Mr. Appel volunteered to conduct Mr. Budlong to the spot as soon as they
+were finished eating.
+
+Everyone who had fishing-tackle decided to avail himself of this
+wonderful opportunity, and they all followed Mr. Appel except Mr. and
+Mrs. Stott, who preferred to fish by themselves from the bridge over the
+Yellowstone river.
+
+They were the last to leave but returned in not more than twenty
+minutes, Mr. Stott supporting his wife in what seemed to be a fainting
+condition.
+
+Wallie hastened forward to lend his assistance if necessary.
+
+"Is she ill?" he inquired, solicitously.
+
+"Ill! She is sick at her stomach and no wonder!" He was plainly angry
+and appeared to direct his wrath at Wallie.
+
+While Wallie wondered, it did not seem a propitious moment to ask
+questions, and he would have turned away had Mr. Stott not said
+peremptorily:
+
+"Wait a minute. I want to speak to you."
+
+Having laid Mrs. Stott, who was shuddering, on her blankets and
+administered a few drops of aromatic spirits of ammonia, he dropped the
+flap of her teepee and beckoned Wallie curtly:
+
+"You come with me."
+
+Wallie could not do else than follow him, his wonder growing as he led
+the way to the camp kitchen where Mr. Hicks was engaged at the moment
+in the task which he referred to as "pearl-diving."
+
+He did not appear surprised to see them in his domain, on the contrary
+he seemed rather to be expecting them, for immediately he took his hands
+out of the dish-water, wiped them on the corner of his apron, and
+reaching for a convenient stick of stove-wood laid it on the corner of
+the table with a certain significance in the action.
+
+"Make yourself to home, gents," he said, hospitably, indicating the
+wagon-tongue and a cracker-box for seats, respectively. "Anything in
+particular I can do for you?" He looked at Mr. Stott guilelessly.
+
+"You can answer me a few questions." Mr. Stott fixed a sternly accusing
+eye upon him. "Hicks, was, or was not, that trout you gave my wife,
+wormy?"
+
+Mr. Hicks, who seemed to relish the situation, pursed his lips and
+considered. Finally he asked in a tone which showed that he had pride in
+his legal knowledge:
+
+"Will I or will I not incriminate myself by answering?"
+
+"You probably will if I'm correct in my suspicions. I want the truth."
+
+"Then," replied Mr. Hicks, while his hand slipped carelessly to the
+stick of stove-wood, "if you force the issue, I will say that I've seen
+a good many wormy trout come out of the Yellowstone but that was the
+worst I ever met up with."
+
+Mr. Stott advanced belligerently.
+
+"And you dare boast of it!"
+
+"I'm not boasting--I'm just telling you," replied Mr. Hicks, calmly. "An
+Eye for an Eye, a Tooth for a Tooth, that's my motto, and your wife
+thought I wasn't good enough to eat at the table with her."
+
+"You hear?" Stott turned to Wallie furiously. "He did it on purpose. I
+demand that you discharge this fellow!"
+
+Mr. Hicks' fingers caressed the stove-wood while he waited Wallie's
+answer.
+
+Wallie squirmed between the two of them.
+
+"It was reprehensible, Mr. Stott, I am more distressed than I can tell
+you. I have no excuse to offer for Hicks' action, but the truth is, as
+he knows and has taken advantage of it, I cannot replace him and it is
+impossible to get along without a cook with so large a party."
+
+"You will, then, not discharge him?" Stott demanded.
+
+"I am helpless," Wallie reiterated.
+
+Hicks grinned triumphantly.
+
+"In that case," Mr. Stott declared in a tone which implied that a
+tremendous upheaval of some kind would follow his decision, "my wife and
+I will leave your party and continue through the Park by motor."
+
+Wallie felt that it was useless to argue with any one so determined, so
+he made no effort to persuade Mr. Stott to remain, though the deflection
+of two more persons was a serious matter to him and Pinkey.
+
+Without waiting to say good-bye to the others, the Stotts paid their
+bill and departed, walking so erect in their indignation as they started
+down the road toward the Lake Hotel that they seemed to lean backward.
+
+It was not yet dark when Mr. Stott, stepping briskly and carrying his
+Gladstone bag, raincoat, and umbrella in a jaunty manner, came into camp
+announcing breezily that he had decided, upon reflection, not to "bite
+off his nose to spite his face." He declared that he would not let the
+likes of Ellery Hicks upset his plans for touring the Yellowstone, and
+while his wife refused to return he meant to carry out his original
+intention.
+
+But the real reason for Mr. Stott's decision, as Wallie suspected from
+the frequency with which he had discovered him sitting upon a log in
+secluded spots counting his money, was that the hotel rates and motor
+fare were far higher then he had anticipated.
+
+Mrs. Stott's absence did not leave the gap which she had anticipated. In
+fact, after the first evening her name was never mentioned, and Mr.
+Stott's marital ties rested so lightly upon him that a stranger would
+never have known they existed. He gravitated toward Miss Gaskett with a
+promptitude which gave rise to the suspicion that he had had his eye
+upon her, and Miss Gaskett responded so enthusiastically that it was a
+matter for gossip.
+
+It was noted that she took to doing her hair up at night on "wavers" and
+used her lipstick with greater frequency, and whereas she had vowed she
+meant never again to get in the saddle she now rode with Mr. Stott
+daily.
+
+The ladies who had known Miss Gaskett for twenty-five years, and nothing
+to her discredit, were not prepared to say that she was a huzzy and a
+vampire without further evidence, but they admitted to each other
+privately that they always had felt there was something queer and not
+quite straightforward about Mattie.
+
+Miss Gaskett, who looked like a returned missionary that had had a hard
+time of it carrying the Light into the dark places, seemed rather elated
+than depressed at the aspersions cast upon her character, and by the
+time they reached the "Paint Pots" she was flaunting Mr. Stott
+shamelessly, calling him "Harry" before everybody, and in the evening
+sitting with him by the camp-fire on the same saddle-blanket.
+
+At Mammoth Hot Springs Mrs. Budlong showed her disapproval by refusing
+to speak to Miss Gaskett, and Miss Gaskett replied by putting on a
+peek-a-boo blouse that was a scandal.
+
+But Mrs. Budlong herself was not in too high favour, since to the sin of
+gluttony she had added that of lying and been caught at it. It was a
+small matter, but, as Mrs. Appel declared indignantly, it is trifles
+that betray character, and Mrs. Budlong was treated with marked coldness
+by the ladies to whom she had prevaricated.
+
+It was known beyond the question of a doubt that Mrs. Budlong had
+purchased food and kept it in her teepee. Therefore, when asked for
+something to ward off a faint feeling before dinner and she had denied
+having anything, they were outspoken in their resentment.
+
+"There she stood and lied to our faces," Mrs. Appel declared to her
+husband afterward, "while her mouth was shining. I could smell sardines
+on her and a big cracker crumb was lying on her bosom. Indeed, it's a
+true saying they have in this country that to know people you must camp
+with them. I never would have thought that of Hannah Budlong!"
+
+It was because of this incident, and the strained relations which
+resulted from her perfidy, that none of her erstwhile friends responded
+to her invitation to join her in a bath in a beaver dam of which Mr.
+Hicks told her when they camped early the next afternoon.
+
+Mrs. Budlong's phlegmatic body contained an adventurous spirit, and the
+delights of a bath in a beaver dam in the heart of a primeval forest
+appealed to her strongly.
+
+To Mr. Hicks, who sought her out purposely to tell her about it, she
+confided:
+
+"Hicks, underneath my worldly exterior I am a Child of Nature. I love
+the simple, the primitive. I would live as a Wild Thing if I could
+choose my environment."
+
+Mr. Hicks nodded sympathetically and understandingly, and returned the
+confidence.
+
+"I am convinced that I was a faun when the world was young. There are
+times when I feel the stirrings of my wild nature."
+
+Mrs. Budlong regarded him attentively. She never had thought of him as a
+faun but now she noticed that his ears _were_ peculiar.
+
+Nobody could have been more obliging and interesting than Mr. Hicks as
+he guided her to the beaver dam and explained its construction. It had
+long since been abandoned by the industrious animals that had built it,
+but their work had been so well done that it was in as good condition as
+when they had left it.
+
+There was nothing to fear from beavers; anyway, Hicks assured her, he
+never had known a beaver to attack anybody. In this isolated spot she
+was as safe from intrusion as if she were in her own bathroom, and,
+after tramping down a spot in the brush for her to stand on, he went
+away declaring that he was sure she would have an experience she always
+would remember.
+
+Left alone, Mrs. Budlong felt of the water. It was, as Hicks had said,
+even warmer than tepid from standing--an ideal temperature. The brush
+grew high around the pond formed by the back-water and made a perfect
+shelter. No fear of prying eyes need disturb her.
+
+Then a daring thought came to her which made her black eyes sparkle.
+Suppose she did not wear any bathing suit! What an adventure to relate
+to her intimate friends when she returned to Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania!
+It laid hold of her imaginative mind, and the result was that Mrs.
+Budlong hung her suit on a bush and went in _au naturelle_.
+
+She waded in cautiously, for the bottom was soft and oozy and there were
+little patches of green floating on the surface that she did not so much
+like the looks of. Otherwise conditions were perfect, and Mrs. Budlong
+submerged like a submarine when she reached the middle of it. She came
+up and stood looking at the sky above her, enjoying the feeling of the
+sunshine on her skin, and the soft, warm breeze that caressed her. She
+smiled at an interested blue-jay, then submerged again, deeper, and the
+tide rose so that the water lapped bushes and pebbles that had not been
+wet all summer.
+
+Her smile grew wider as she thought what the others were missing, and
+was considering how much she dared embellish the adventure without being
+detected, when, suddenly, a look of horror came to her face and stayed
+there, while screams that sounded more like the screeches of a lynx or
+mountain-lion than those of a human being scared the blue-jay and
+brought those in camp up standing. Piercing, hair-raising, unnatural as
+they were, Mr. Budlong recognized them.
+
+"My wife! Help! Murder! Hicks, where is she? Find a weapon and come with
+us!"
+
+"I gotta get supper," Hicks replied, heartlessly.
+
+Mr. Appel, Mr. Stott, and old Mr. Penrose dashed into their tents and
+dashed out carrying firearms that had been sealed by the Park officials,
+as is customary, while Mr. Budlong in his frenzy snatched a pair of
+scissors from Miss Eyester and headed the posse which expected to pursue
+the murderer. He was not a murderer yet, however, for Mrs. Budlong's
+screams had not diminished in volume, although it was feared that worse
+than death might already have befallen her. Her shrieks guided them like
+a lighthouse siren, so they lost no time in taking wrong directions but,
+at that, it was a considerable distance and Mr. Budlong, in spite of the
+agonized thoughts which goaded him forward, was so handicapped by his
+asthma that he gradually fell to the rear of the rescue party.
+
+Mr. Stott was then in the lead, with Mr. Appel a close second, until the
+latter, who was wearing bedroom slippers, stumped his toes against a
+rock with such force that he believed them broken. He dropped down
+immediately with the pain of it and sat weaving to and fro, clasping his
+foot to his breast while the others passed him.
+
+Mr. Stott called that help was arriving as he crashed through the brush
+in the vicinity of the beaver dam. To his astonishment Mrs. Budlong
+shrieked:
+
+"Don't come!" and went on screaming. When he reached the pond he stopped
+short and stood there, and old Mr. Penrose joined him an instant later.
+
+Mr. Appel, alternately limping and hopping yet covering ground with
+surprising rapidity, reached the others ahead of Mr. Budlong, who,
+staggering with exhaustion, huge drops on his pallid face, and wheezing
+like an old accordeon, all but fainted when he saw the wife of his
+bosom.
+
+Mrs. Budlong, looking like a corn-fed Aphrodite, stood in the middle of
+the pool, with her fat white back, wet and glistening, flecked with
+brown particles that resembled decayed vegetation.
+
+"What's the matter, Honey Dumplin'?" cried Mr. Budlong, shocked and
+bewildered.
+
+For answer, Mrs. Budlong screamed the harder.
+
+"I know!" piped up Mr. Appel. "She's covered with
+leeches--blood-suckers--and can't get 'em off. I got 'em once swimmin'
+in stagnant water."
+
+When he spoke he called attention to the fact of his presence and that
+of Mr. Stott and old Mr. Penrose. Instead of being grateful for the
+information, and for the assistance the others had expected to render,
+Mr. Budlong turned upon them all furiously:
+
+"Get out of here you Peeping Toms and spying libertines! Haven't you any
+shame about you?"
+
+He raised the scissors so threateningly that as soon as they recovered
+from their astonishment they retreated, but, at that, their haste was
+not sufficient to appease an outraged husband. Mr. Budlong picked up a
+pebble and threw it with such a sure aim that it bounced between Mr.
+Stott's shoulder-blades.
+
+When he had picked off the blood-suckers that were battening on Mrs.
+Budlong, the two returned to camp and lost no time in serving notice on
+Wallie that they were leaving by the first passing conveyance if they
+had to buy it.
+
+Whether or not Mr. Hicks had known of the leeches was a matter for much
+discussion, and opinion was about equally divided as to his innocence.
+He disclaimed all knowledge of them, however, and went about with the
+air of one cruelly maligned.
+
+His martyr-like pose was not convincing to Wallie, who could not rid
+himself of the suspicion that the incident had been planned, though
+Pinkey contended that he did not believe Hicks was "deep" enough to
+think of anything like that.
+
+"Anyhow, he's cost us three dudes," said Wallie, which remark was
+sufficient to set Pinkey figuring with a stick.
+
+"Three head of dudes at $5.00 a day for, say, eleven days is, say----"
+
+"They're gone and that's all there is to it. The thing for us to do is
+to see that no more leave," Wallie interrupted practically.
+
+"I'm not worryin' about them," Pinkey replied, confidently, "if we can
+jest hold that cook. We've got to humour him till we git through this
+trip, then after he's paid off I aim to work him over and leave him for
+somebody to drag out."
+
+But as if to make amends for the loss he had caused his employers,
+Hicks' manner grew increasingly saccharine and he redoubled his efforts
+to provide entertainment for the guests. By the time they arrived at the
+Canon Hotel Wallie was questioning his suspicions of Hicks and felt
+inclined to believe that he had been hasty in his judgment.
+
+He was undoubtedly an asset, for the entire party hung on his words and
+relied upon him to see that they missed nothing of interest. Mr. Stott
+was indebted to him for an experience which relegated the Florida
+hoot-owl to the background, though the thrill of the adventure was so
+intermingled with anguish that it was impossible to tell where one left
+off and the other began.
+
+Sliding down the snow-covered side of a mountain in a frying-pan was
+fraught with all the sensations Hicks had described and some he had
+omitted.
+
+When they had reached the particular spot which he had recommended for
+the sport, in lieu of a frying-pan, Hicks gave Mr. Stott a well-worn
+gold-pan that he had found somewhere.
+
+Starting at the top with the party as spectators, Mr. Stott shot down
+the side like the proverbial bullet, but midway his whoops of ecstasy
+changed to cries of acute distress, owing to the fact that the friction
+wore a hole through the pan to the size of a dollar, and Mr. Stott,
+unable to stop his unique toboggan or endure the torture longer, turned
+over and finished the trip on his stomach.
+
+Mr. Stott's eyes often rested upon Hicks afterward with a questioning
+look in them, but the cook's solicitude had been so genuine that cynical
+as his legal training had made him, he was obliged to think that it was
+purely an accident which might not happen one time in a million.
+
+No point in the Park had been anticipated more than the camp at the
+Canon where Mr. Hicks averred that the bears came in swarms to regale
+themselves upon the hotel garbage. Their tour thus far had been a
+disappointment in that the wild animals, with which they had been
+informed the Park teemed, were nowhere in evidence.
+
+A deer had crossed the road ahead of them and they had gazed at a band
+of elk through Mr. Penrose's field-glasses, but otherwise they had seen
+nothing that they could not have seen in Pennsylvania.
+
+Mr. Hicks' tales of the bears had aroused their interest to such a point
+that as soon as the camp site was selected they loaded their cameras and
+kodaks and set off immediately to get pictures while the light was
+favourable.
+
+It chanced to be one of the days, however, when the bears had no taste
+for garbage and although they waited until nearly supper-time not a bear
+put in its appearance. Mr. Penrose, in particular, was disappointed and
+vexed about it, and while it was unreasonable to hold Hicks in any way
+accountable for their absence, he could not refrain from saying
+disagreeably:
+
+"I think you have exaggerated this bear business, Hicks. I have no doubt
+that a bear or two may come down occasionally, I have the word of others
+for it, but as for droves of bears--swarms--I think you have
+overstated."
+
+Mr. Hicks cringed under the criticism, and admitted with a conciliatory
+whine in his voice that was rather sickening:
+
+"Perhaps I did enlarge a little, Mr. Penrose. Possibly I was
+over-anxious to be interesting. I apologize sincerely if I have misled
+and disappointed you. I hope, however, that you will yet have the
+opportunity of seeing at least one before we leave here."
+
+"No such luck," Mr. Penrose growled at him. "I haven't any idea that
+I'll see even the tracks. It's a good idea to cut in two everything
+you're told in this country and then divide it."
+
+Mr. Penrose was so hard on Hicks that Mr. Appel interposed quickly:
+
+"Do they ever come around at night, Cookie?"
+
+"So I have been informed," Mr. Hicks replied, conservatively.
+
+Pinkey was about to say that bears travelled more by night than in
+daytime, when Mr. Appel declared that he intended to sleep in the
+sleeping bag he had brought with him but which Mrs. Appel had not
+permitted him to use because she felt nervous alone, in her teepee.
+
+Mrs. Appel protested against Mr. Appel thus recklessly exposing himself
+to danger but Mr. Appel was mulish in the matter.
+
+"If, by chance, one _should_ come into camp I would have a good look at
+him. I may never have another such opportunity."
+
+"If you want to take your life in your hands, well and good."
+
+So, after supper, Mr. Appel unrolled his sleeping bag and spread it on a
+level spot not far from the supply wagon. Then he kissed Mrs. Appel, who
+turned her cheek to him, and buttoned himself into the bag.
+
+The talk of bears had made Aunt Lizzie Philbrick so nervous that as an
+extra precaution she pinned the flap of her tent down securely with a
+row of safety-pins and Mr. Stott not only slept in more of his clothes
+than usual but put a pair of brass knuckles under his pillow.
+
+These brass knuckles had been presented to Mr. Stott by a grateful
+client for whom he had obtained damages from a street railway company
+for injuries received through being ejected from a saloon six months
+prior to the date upon which he had fallen off the car step.
+
+Brass knuckles and a convenient length of lead-pipe were favourite
+weapons with the clientele which gave to the waiting room of Mr. Stott's
+law office an odour reminiscent of a Wayfarers' Lodging House.
+
+The night was a dark one, so dark in fact that old Mr. Penrose felt some
+little hesitation when it came bed-time over going off to sleep by
+himself in the brush where, owing to his unfortunate habit of snoring so
+loud as to be beyond anything human, they now placed his teepee.
+
+There was not a glimmer of moonlight or starlight to guide him as he
+went stumbling and crashing through the brush to his rag residence. His
+thoughts were not so much of four-footed visitors as of footpads and the
+ease with which they could attack him and get away with his
+grandfather's watch which he was wearing.
+
+Out in the open, Mr. Appel was enjoying the novelty tremendously, though
+he was a little too warm for comfort in his fleece-lined bag. But after
+the last candle had been extinguished he called to his wife cheerily:
+
+"Are you all right, dearie?"
+
+Mrs. Appel was not to be so easily propitiated and did not answer, so he
+called again:
+
+"This is great--simply great! I wish you were with me."
+
+Only Mr. Appel and his Maker knew that he screwed up his cheek and
+winked at the fabrication.
+
+Sleep came quickly to the tired tourists, and soon there was no sound
+save the distant tinkle of the bell on one of the horses and the faint
+rumble of Mr. Penrose's slumbers.
+
+It was eleven o'clock or thereabouts, and the clouds had rifted letting
+through the starlight, when dark forms began to lumber from the
+surrounding woods and pad around the camp, sniffing at various objects
+and breathing heavily.
+
+There were bears of all sizes and ages, ranging from yearlings to
+grandfathers whose birthdays were lost in antiquity. Mr. Appel, who was
+a light sleeper and the first to discover them, would have sworn on a
+monument of Bibles that there were at least fifty of them--the size of
+mastodons.
+
+Palpitating in his sleeping bag in the midst of them, he may be excused
+for exaggeration, although, exactly, there were only eight of them.
+
+The cold sweat broke out on Mr. Appel and he thought that surely the
+thumping of his heart must attract their attention. In such mortal
+terror as he never had experienced or imagined he quaked while he
+speculated as to whether the bear that first discovered him would
+disembowel him with one stroke of his mighty paw, and leave him, or
+would scrunch his head between his paws and sit down and eat on him?
+
+But once the bears had located the supply-wagon, they went about their
+business like trained burglars. Standing on their hind legs, they
+crowded about it, tearing open sacks, scattering food, tossing things
+hither and thither, jostling each other and grunting when they found
+something to their liking.
+
+Their grunting and quarrelling finally awakened Hicks and McGonnigle,
+who started up in their blankets, yelling. Their whoops aroused
+everybody except old Mr. Penrose, who was sleeping with his deaf ear
+uppermost and would not have heard a Big Bertha.
+
+Mr. Stott slipped on his brass knuckles and stood with his head out of
+the tent opening, adding his shouts to those of Hicks and McGonnigle,
+who, by now, were hurling such missiles as they could lay their hands
+on. Instead of having hysterics as might have been expected, Aunt Lizzie
+Philbrick astonished herself and others by standing out in the open with
+her petticoat over her nightgown, prepared to give battle with the heel
+of her slipper to the first bear that attacked her.
+
+It was not until Mr. Hicks got hold of two washbasins and used them as
+cymbals that the bears paid any attention. But this sound, added to the
+pandemonium of screaming women, finally frightened them. Then,
+scattering in all directions, they started back to the shadows.
+
+Suddenly Mr. Appel let out such a cry as seemed that it must not only
+split his throat but rend the very heavens. Small wonder! A cinnamon
+bear weighing in the neighbourhood of eight hundred pounds planted its
+left hind foot in the pit of his stomach as it went galloping away to
+the timber.
+
+In the brush where Mr. Penrose had been sleeping tranquilly other things
+were happening. In the midst of his slumbers, a dream in which he
+thought he was being dragged to the fire like a calf for branding came
+to him. The dream grew so real that it awakened him. He received a swift
+and unpleasant impression that he was moving, then he was startled to
+find that he was not only moving, but moving so rapidly that the canvas
+bottom of his tent was scraping on the rocks and brush over which it
+travelled.
+
+Mr. Penrose was enraged instantly. At best he had little patience with
+practical jokers and none at all with one who had the impudence to
+awaken him. He called out angrily.
+
+The tent stopped moving and there was quiet.
+
+Mr. Penrose, who had raised himself on his elbow, laid down and was
+about to begin where he had left off when his domicile resumed its
+journey.
+
+Now thoroughly aroused, he sprang up and tore at the flap-fastenings.
+
+"This is going to stop right here!" he cried, furiously. "I do not
+appreciate this odious Western humour. You have chosen the wrong person
+to play your jokes on!"
+
+He reached for the pointed fish-pole which was lying in its case in the
+bottom of the tent and stepped through the opening.
+
+A burly figure in a big overcoat stood in the deep shadow confronting
+him.
+
+Mr. Penrose was bare-footed and his soles were tender but he advanced
+far enough to bring the pole down with a thwack upon the head of the
+intruder.
+
+"Woof! Woof!"
+
+The answer raised his hair and galvanized his whiskers.
+
+"Woof! Woof!" A great paw fanned the air--he could feel the wind from it
+plainly as it reached out to cuff him--and the claws on the end of it
+tore the front of the flannel shirt in which he slept to ribbons.
+
+"Woof! Woof!" And then a roar that reverberated through the timber.
+
+Mr. Penrose swore afterward that the hot breath of the brute was in his
+face, but the statement is open to question since at the first "Woof!"
+he had fallen into his tent backward.
+
+No one dreamed of the adventure Mr. Penrose was having until he appeared
+among them with his shirt bosom in shreds and trembling like an aspen.
+In one hand he carried a sizeable chunk of bacon.
+
+"This," he cried, brandishing it, "is what I found tied to my teepee!"
+
+The explanation was obvious, someone had baited his tent for bear on
+purpose, and, since there was no way of obtaining evidence against the
+culprit, Mr. Penrose in his unreasoning rage accused everybody.
+
+"Ever since I came, you have all had a pick on me!" He glared at them.
+"You needn't think you're so smart I haven't seen it."
+
+Everyone was so surprised at the accusation that they could only stare,
+speechless, at him. With his white beard, rags, and bare-footed, Mr.
+Penrose looked like the Count of Monte Cristo telling the world what he
+was going to do to it as he added, waving the bacon:
+
+"I'm going home to-morrow--to Delaware--back to my peach orchard--and if
+any one of you ever say you know me--much less speak to me--I shall deny
+it. I'm done with the whole caboodle of you!"
+
+Protestations were useless and efforts to dissuade him from his purpose
+of leaving. The next morning he packed his bag and started down the road
+without saying good-bye to any one.
+
+His departure reduced the party to half its original number, and that
+was bad enough, but when by lunch-time Mr. Appel had developed a
+soreness which led him to believe he was injured internally and should
+consult a physician, the situation became infinitely worse to Wallie and
+Pinkey.
+
+As a matter of course they expected his wife to accompany him, but what
+they had not known was that Miss Gaskett had been put in Mrs. Appel's
+charge by her parents and in the light of her indiscreet conduct with
+Mr. Stott it was deemed best that she should return with them.
+
+It was a terrible disappointment to Miss Gaskett, who cried bitterly and
+in an unguarded moment told her age, approximately, sobbing that it was
+preposterous that one of her years should not be permitted to finish a
+trip which she was so enjoying.
+
+But Mrs. Appel was obdurate, declaring that she did not care to take the
+responsibility of leaving her without a proper chaperon, since Aunt
+Lizzie was too unworldly to be a safe guardian and Miss Eyester was
+herself unmarried.
+
+Miss Gaskett was compelled to succumb to the argument and the three were
+driven to the nearest hotel after luncheon, leaving Wallie and Pinkey
+with the sickening knowledge that now it was not possible to "break
+even," to say nothing of a profit. Every day they were out would put
+them in debt a little deeper, but they both were agreed they would
+finish the trip whatever happened.
+
+The evening was a gloomy one as compared to others, and although they
+built a camp-fire as usual there was none of the customary gaiety around
+it.
+
+Mr. Stott sat alone on his saddle-blanket lost in meditation of a sombre
+nature, and Pinkey and Miss Eyester whispered apart.
+
+Wallie was in no mood for conversation, while Mr. Hicks, with the
+delicacy which now marked his every action, smoked alone in the shadow,
+making no effort to intrude himself upon his betters. Even "Red"
+McGonnigle, reclining on his elbow staring into the embers, seemed
+pensive and disinclined to take advantage of the opportunity which the
+silence gave him to hear his own voice. So only Aunt Lizzie Philbrick
+remained to give life to the party, and Aunt Lizzie, while a woman of
+high principle and fine character, was, admittedly, not stimulating.
+
+Aunt Lizzie had snow-white hair drawn tightly from her forehead and a
+corpse-like pallor to match it. She could not possibly look any
+different in her coffin, because so far as appearances went she might
+have been dead for a decade. Her manner was helpless, her voice gentle
+and hesitating, while in repose she ordinarily gave the impression of
+being in a state of suspended animation.
+
+But to-night she was strangely restless, her thin white hands fluttered
+nervously, and she moved her camp chair so often that everyone wondered
+silently what was the matter with her. There was a red spot on either
+cheek which might have been the heat of the fire or excitement. At any
+rate, it was plain to the least observant that Aunt Lizzie was perturbed
+by something.
+
+Finally, during one of her frequent movings, she inadvertently set the
+leg of her camp chair in a hole and went over backward. Mr. Hicks, who
+bounded from the shadow, was the first to reach her and everyone was
+astonished to hear her cry, when he would have assisted her.
+
+"Don't touch me!"
+
+Everyone felt rather sorry for Hicks when he returned to his seat
+crestfallen while Aunt Lizzie went off at a stiff-legged trot to her
+teepee without saying good-night to anybody.
+
+When some extraordinary accident was not befalling Aunt Lizzie, who
+seemed the essence of mediocrity, she was always doing the unexpected,
+so little was thought of it after the first surprise at her rudeness,
+and the others shortly said good-night and retired also.
+
+Wallie stood alone by the dying camp-fire, wondering what the morrow
+might hold for him--if any bad luck could come that had not already
+happened. If so, he could not imagine it, for it seemed he had run the
+gamut of misfortune.
+
+In this he was mistaken, for when they stopped at noon-day he received a
+blow from the last quarter he had expected--Aunt Lizzie.
+
+The day had not begun too auspiciously, for when something like two
+miles on their journey Mr. Stott remembered that he had left his soap on
+a rock, and since it was expensive soap felt he must return for it. He
+had galloped the distance and back again, joining the party with his
+horse sweating, and Wallie had warned him curtly that the day promised
+to be a hot one and he must ride slowly.
+
+"_Please_ do not get ahead of the grub-wagon," Wallie had said with
+emphasis.
+
+Mr. Stott had done as requested just so long as it suited him, and then
+passing Wallie with a little laugh of defiance had raced to lead the
+procession. In consequence, when Hicks pulled to the roadside for lunch
+somewhat earlier than usual, Mr. Stott did not know it and continued
+riding.
+
+The heat was terrific, and animals and humans suffered alike while the
+gypsum dust which rose in clouds added to the discomfort. Gnats and
+mosquitoes, deer-flies and "no-see-ems" attacked in clouds and as
+viciously as if they had double rows of teeth and rapiers. It was the
+most unpleasant day they had encountered, everyone's nerves were on
+edge, and there has been more gaiety in a mourner's carriage than in the
+surrey where "Red" tried vainly to interest Aunt Lizzie.
+
+Wallie was too angry with Mr. Stott to care for luncheon, so after a
+bite he betook himself to the shade of a tree, and sat down to smoke,
+with his back against it.
+
+He was thinking of the buckskin and how jaded it had looked that morning
+and wondering if its already stiffened shoulders would get over it if he
+pulled off its shoes and turned it into a soft pasture. His speculations
+were interrupted by Aunt Lizzie, who stood before him twisting her
+fingers in embarrassment.
+
+A peerless beauty could not have passed unscathed through such a
+morning, but the havoc it had wrought in Aunt Lizzie's looks was nothing
+short of startling.
+
+Her lids were inflamed and swollen from the bites of the "no-see-ems,"
+her nose was red, and her eyes watered from the gypsum dust which
+affected her like hay-fever, her sailor hat had slipped to the back of
+her head and her "scolding locks" were hanging like a fringe over a
+soiled linen collar. One would have said that Aunt Lizzie could have
+traversed the earth unmolested, not excepting the bandits because of
+whom she had fled Mexico.
+
+Something of the sort passed through Wallie's mind as he waited the
+explanation of her obvious confusion.
+
+"I have something--very awkward--to say to you, Wallie."
+
+The harried expression which was becoming chronic leaped into his eyes
+at the introduction, as he asked himself what now might be portending.
+
+"It's rather indelicate to discuss with a gentleman," she continued,
+braiding her fingers.
+
+Wallie was alarmed but, anxious to set her at her ease, he said
+encouragingly:
+
+"You can talk as freely to me as if I were your--father."
+
+He had not had time to visualize himself as Aunt Lizzie's father when
+she went on in a short-breathed fashion:
+
+"I fear that I shall have to leave you, Wallie, as soon as possible."
+
+Wallie's wonder grew, but he said nothing.
+
+"I think--I fear--I believe," she stammered, "that Mr. Hicks is of a
+very ardent temperament."
+
+Wallie could not have spoken now had he wanted to.
+
+"Since yesterday I have found him looking at me frequently in a peculiar
+manner. Last night he stared at me with his burning eyes until I could
+feel his hypnotic influence. I hope--I trust you will believe I have not
+given him any encouragement?"
+
+Wallie's jaw, which had fallen, prevented him from reassuring her that
+he believed her blameless.
+
+"So far, the tongue of scandal has never laid hands on me," she
+declared, mixing her metaphors in her agitation, "but I feel that it is
+a risk I should not take to travel about the country with a company of
+men and only an unmarried woman in the party."
+
+Wallie managed to mumble:
+
+"You are as safe here as if you were in a convent, Aunt Lizzie."
+
+It would have seemed from her expression that she preferred not to think
+so, however.
+
+"You understand how I feel, don't you?" she pleaded.
+
+"Perfectly! Perfectly!" Wallie replied, too dazed to make any other
+answer. He would have been only a little less astounded if the old lady
+had announced her intention of opening a dance-hall upon her return to
+Prouty.
+
+Aunt Lizzie's desertion, and for such a reason, was the last thing he
+had anticipated. It seemed like the final straw laid upon a back already
+breaking. He watched her toddle away, and sat down again gloomily.
+
+At the supply-wagon Mr. Hicks was putting the food away, commenting
+profanely upon the flies, the heat, the tardiness of Mr. Stott, the
+injustice of things in general, and in particular the sordid necessity
+which obliged him to occupy this humble position when he was so
+eminently fitted to fill a higher one.
+
+He threw a stick at a "camp-robber" that had flown down and taken a
+pick at a plate on a stump which contained the lunch he had saved for
+Mr. Stott, and his expression was so diabolic that it was the first time
+for many days that he had looked natural.
+
+"Red" McGonnigle, with his hat over his face, dozed in the shade of the
+bed-wagon. Aunt Lizzie busied herself with preparations for departure.
+Miss Eyester perused the testimonials for a patent medicine contained in
+a pamphlet left by previous campers. Insects droned, heat waves
+shimmered, the horses stood sleeping in their nose-bags. It was a
+peaceful noon-day scene, but Macpherson and Company, now sitting on
+their heels discussing their prospects, or lack of them, had no eye for
+it.
+
+One thought was uppermost, their bubble was punctured, they were worse
+than ruined, for their horses and outfit were mortgaged almost up to
+their value, and in addition, they had borrowed at the bank, counting on
+paying off all their indebtedness when the Park trip was finished.
+
+"I s'pose I can git a job herdin' sheep--they's good money in it--but
+I'll be an old man before I can afford to git married, to say nothin' of
+the disgrace of it." Pinkey's voice sounded hopeless.
+
+The plaint gave Wallie such a pang that he could not answer, but with a
+twig played a game of tick-tack-toe in the dust, while he thought
+bitterly that no one could blame Helene Spenceley for preferring Canby
+to a person who seemed destined to failure in whatever he attempted.
+
+He was another of the "four-flushers," he told himself, and the country
+was full of them, who just fell short of doing something and being
+somebody. Probably, in time, he would have no ambition beyond working
+for a "grub-stake" in summer so he could "shack up" in winter. He would
+let his hair grow, and go sockless, and buy new clothes rather than wash
+his old ones, and eat from soiled dishes, and read mail-order catalogues
+for entertainment, and dog-gone it! why couldn't he bring himself to
+think of marrying some respectable girl like the blacksmith's daughter
+there in Prouty, who had no chin and a fine complexion and cooked like
+an angel and never said a cross word to anybody?
+
+Since Wallie was too uncommunicative to be interesting, Pinkey got up
+and left him to his reflections, remarking philosophically as he
+departed to join Miss Eyester:
+
+"Well, I never heard of anybody bein' hanged for owin' money, so I guess
+there's no use in us goin' around with the double-breasted blues over
+it. We might as well whistle and say we like it."
+
+Wallie looked after his partner almost angrily.
+
+Oh, yes, it was well enough for him to talk about being cheerful and not
+worrying, but he guessed he would not be so chipper and so easily
+resigned to disappointment if he had nothing more to which to look
+forward than he had.
+
+The lugubrious voice of Mr. Hicks declaiming reached him:
+
+    "Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
+    Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling!
+    The Bird of Time has but a little way
+    To flutter--and the bird is on the wing."
+
+That was the worst of it, Wallie thought despairingly. The Bird of Time
+had but a little way to flutter. He was so old--twenty-seven! The
+realization that he was still a failure at this advanced age increased
+his misery. He was a fool to go on hoping that he meant anything to
+Helene Spenceley or ever would; but, just the same--Wallie stood up and
+squared his shoulders--if he couldn't have the woman he wanted there
+wouldn't be any other! He would sell his place for what he could get for
+it, pay his debts, and go to Tahiti and be a beach-comber, or to
+Guatemala and start a revolution, or live a hermit in the Arctic Circle,
+trapping for a fur company! He would do whatever he could to forget her.
+
+Then, suddenly, he wished that he was a little boy again and could sit
+on Aunt Mary's lap and lay his head on her shoulder the way he used to
+when he came home from school with a sick headache. It always had
+comforted him. A heartache was worse than a headache by a whole lot.
+Somehow he was so lonely--so inexpressibly lonely. He had not felt like
+this even that first winter on his homestead.
+
+A lump rose in his throat to choke him, and he was about to turn away
+lest someone see the mist in his eyes that blinded him, and that he felt
+horribly ashamed of, when the sound of hoofs attracted his attention and
+caused him to grow alert in an instant.
+
+He was sure that it was Stott returning, and then he caught a glimpse of
+him through the trees--galloping.
+
+"Oh, here you are!" exclaimed that person, irritably, as he turned off
+the road and came through the brush toward Wallie.
+
+There was a bright shine in Wallie's eyes as he walked toward him.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me you were going to camp in the middle of the
+morning?" Stott demanded in his rasping voice as he dismounted.
+
+Wallie returned evenly:
+
+"You know as well as I do that choosing a camp is left to Hicks'
+judgment. I told you not to get ahead of the supply-wagon."
+
+"If you think I'm going to poke along behind like a snail, you're
+mistaken!" Stott retorted.
+
+Wallie's face went white under its tan, though his voice was quiet
+enough as he answered:
+
+"You'll 'poke' this afternoon, I'm thinking."
+
+Stott turned sharply.
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Just what I said. Look at that horse!"
+
+The buckskin's head was hanging, its legs were trembling, there was not
+a dry hair on it and the sweat was running in rivulets. Its sides were
+swollen at the stirrup where the spurs had pricked it, and the corners
+of its mouth were raw and bleeding.
+
+Wallie continued and his voice now was savage:
+
+"You're one of the people, and there's plenty like you, that ought to be
+prevented by law from owning either a horse or a gun. This afternoon
+you'll ride in the surrey or walk, as suits you."
+
+Stott laughed insolently.
+
+"Oh, I guess not!"
+
+Wallie calmly loosened the latigo.
+
+Stott took a step toward him with his heavy jaw thrust out and his hand
+sought his hip pocket.
+
+"Don't you take the saddle off that horse!" His tone was menacing.
+
+A machine that had been purring in the distance passed, slowed up, and
+stopped a little way beyond the camp. Wallie heard it but did not look
+to see whom it might be bringing, as in answer to Stott's threat he
+dropped the cinch and laid his hand upon the horn.
+
+"If you think I'm bluffing----"
+
+For answer, Wallie pulled off the saddle.
+
+Stott hesitated for the fraction of a second, then his arm shot out and
+Wallie dropped heavily from the blow beneath the ear which Stott dealt
+him.
+
+There was a sharp cry behind him, but Wallie did not look around as,
+still dazed, he got to his feet slowly, with his eyes upon his
+antagonist.
+
+"I warned you!" Stott chortled, and he put his hand behind him to
+conceal the brass knuckles he was wearing.
+
+Helene Spenceley was there; her voice had told him; but he took no
+account of that in the choking, blinding rage which now controlled him.
+
+Before Stott could use his cowardly weapon again Wallie sprang for him,
+and with the force and rapidity of a trained fighter landed blow after
+blow on the heavy jaw which made a fine target.
+
+"You----horse-killer! You----braggart and cheapskate! You----shyster
+and ambulance chaser!" And with every epithet Wallie landed a punch that
+made the lawyer stagger.
+
+It was not "nice" language; it was not a "nice" thing to do, possibly,
+and perhaps the "soft answer" would have been better, but the time had
+passed when Wallie set any store by being merely "nice," and he had
+forgotten Helene Spenceley's presence, though in any event it would have
+made no difference.
+
+There was only one thought in his mind as he sat astride Stott's chest
+when Stott went down finally, and that was to make him say "Enough!" if
+he had to hammer him past recognition.
+
+This did not require so long as one would have thought, considering that
+person's boasts as to his courage, but, at that, Stott might well be
+excused for wishing to end the punishment he was receiving. In the face
+above him, almost brutal in the fury that stamped it, there was no trace
+to remind Stott of the youth who had painted cabbage roses and knit
+sweaters.
+
+"Let me up!" he cried, finally, struggling under the merciless blows
+that rained upon him.
+
+"Say it!" Wallie's voice was implacable.
+
+"'Nough!" Stott whined it.
+
+Wallie stopped immediately, and the attorney got to his feet, sullen
+and humiliated. He stood for a moment rubbing his neck and eyeing
+Wallie; then with a return of defiance flung at him:
+
+"You'll pay for this, young fellow!"
+
+Wallie's short laugh was mocking.
+
+"Why don't you sue me for damages? I'd be flattered to death at the
+implication that I had any money. It might help my credit."
+
+With a shrug he turned and walked toward Helene Spenceley. Her eyes were
+shining, and there was a singular smile on her face as he went up to
+her, but whether she smiled or frowned did not seem to matter much to
+Wallie.
+
+He was not a pretty sight at the moment, and he knew it. A lump had
+risen on his jaw and one eye was closing, his hair was powdered with
+gypsum dust, and the sleeve of his shirt was torn out at the shoulder,
+but he had no apologies to make for anything and there was that in his
+manner which said so.
+
+Helene laughed as she put out her hand to him.
+
+"Was that a part of the regular programme or an impromptu feature of the
+day's entertainment?"
+
+"It's been brewing," Wallie replied, briefly.
+
+"Aren't you surprised to see me?"
+
+"Not particularly."
+
+"Or glad?"
+
+"I'm always that."
+
+"This came yesterday while I was in Prouty, and I volunteered to deliver
+it. I thought it might be important." She handed him a telegram.
+
+"That was good of you." His face softened a little, and still more as he
+read the message.
+
+He passed it to Helene:
+
+     Will you come home if I tell you I was wrong and want you?
+
+                                                      AUNT MARY.
+
+
+Wallie mused softly:
+
+"It must have been hard for her to write that."
+
+"Will you go?" Helene asked, quickly.
+
+Wallie did not answer. He stood motionless, staring at the road where
+the heat waves shimmered, his absent gaze following a miniature cyclone
+that picked up and whirled a little cloud of powdered gypsum, while
+Helene waited.
+
+Her eyes were upon his face with an expression that would have arrested
+his attention if he had seen it, but he seemed to have forgotten her and
+her question.
+
+When he spoke, finally, it was to himself, rather, as if in denunciation
+of the momentary temptation which the telegram had been to him.
+
+"No!" emphatically, "I'm not going back like a prodigal who can't stand
+the gaff any longer! I won't slink into a soft berth because it's
+offered, and admit that I'm not man enough to stand up and take what
+comes to me! I'm licked again--proper--and," harshly, "I don't expect
+anybody to believe in me, but I won't _stay_ licked if I can help it!"
+
+"I'm said to be a good 'picker,' and I've always believed in you,
+Wallace Macpherson," Helene said, slowly.
+
+He stared his incredulity, then replied with ungracious irony:
+
+"You've concealed it well."
+
+"Flattery is bad for growing boys," she smiled mischievously.
+
+"I'm sure you've never spoiled any one by it. You've treated me like a
+hound, mostly."
+
+Her eyes sparkled as she answered:
+
+"I like hounds, if they have mettle."
+
+"Even when they run themselves down following a cold trail?" he asked in
+self-derision.
+
+Her reply was interrupted by voices raised in altercation in the
+vicinity of the supply-wagon. A clump of bushes concealed the
+disputants, but they easily recognized the rasping nasal tones of Mr.
+Stott and the menacing bellow peculiar to the cook in moments of
+excitement.
+
+The wrangle ended abruptly, and while Helene and Wallie stood wondering
+as to what the silence meant, Pinkey with a wry smile upon his face came
+toward them.
+
+"Well, I guess we're out of the dude business," he said, laconically.
+
+"What's the matter now?" Wallie demanded so savagely that the two burst
+out laughing.
+
+"Nothin' much, except that Hicks is runnin' Stott with the butcher-knife
+and aims to kill him. I don't know as I blame him. He said his grub was
+full of ants and looked like scraps for Fido."
+
+Wallie was alarmed, but Pinkey reassured him.
+
+"Don't worry! He won't catch him, unless he's got wings, the gait Stott
+was travellin'. He'll be at the hotel in about twenty minutes--it's only
+five miles. What do you make of this, pardner?" Pinkey handed him a worn
+and grimy envelope as he added in explanation:
+
+"I found it stuck in the cupboard of the wagon."
+
+Wallie took the envelope, wondering grimly as he turned it over if there
+was anything left that could surprise him. There was. On the back was
+written:
+
+     Ellery Hicks INSULTED August 3rd, this year of our Lord, 1920.
+
+Below, in pencil, was a list of the party with every name crossed out
+save Mr. Stott's, and at the bottom, ornamented with many curlicues and
+beautifully shaded, was the significant sentence, with the date as yet
+blank:
+
+     Ellery Hicks AVENGED, August ---- this year of our Lord, 1920.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+"AND JUST THEN----"
+
+
+Mr. Cone stood at his desk, looking all of ten years younger for his
+rest at the Sanatorium. Indeed, it was difficult to reconcile this
+smiling, affable host of the Magnolia House with the glaring maniac of
+homicidal tendencies who had hung over the counter of The Colonial
+Hotel, fingering the potato pen-wiper and hurling bitter personalities
+at his patrons.
+
+The Florida hostelry had just opened and the influx of guests promised a
+successful season, yet there was a regret and a wistfulness in Mr.
+Cone's brown eyes as they scanned the register, for in the long list
+there was no name of any member of The Happy Family.
+
+As all the world knows, sentiment has no place in business, yet for
+sentimental reasons solely Mr. Cone had to date refused to rent to
+strangers the rooms occupied for so many winters by the same persons.
+Ordinarily, it was so well understood between them that they would
+return and occupy their usual quarters that he reserved their rooms as a
+matter of course and they notified him only when something occurred to
+change their plans or detain them. But this winter, owing to the
+circumstances in which they had parted, his common sense told him that
+if they intended to return to the Magnolia House they would have so
+informed him.
+
+Nevertheless, so strong were the ties of friendship that Mr. Cone
+determined to give them forty-eight hours longer, and if by then he had
+no word from them, of course there was nothing to think but that the
+one-time pleasant relations were ended forever.
+
+There were strangers aplenty, the "newcomers" had arrived, and Miss Mary
+Macpherson, but he wanted to see Henry Appel sitting on his veranda, and
+Mrs. Budlong and "C. D.," and Miss Mattie Gaskett--in fact, he missed
+one not more than another.
+
+What did it matter, after all, he reflected, if "Cutie" had kittens in
+the linen closet, and that Mrs. Appel used the hotel soap to do her
+laundry? As Mr. Cone looked off across the blue waters of the Gulf,
+which he could see through the wide open doorway, he wished with all his
+heart that he had not "flown off the handle."
+
+The Happy Family had been friends as well as patrons, and without
+friends what did life amount to? The hotel was full of new people, but
+in spite of his professional affability Mr. Cone was not one to "cotton"
+to everybody, and it would be a long time, he told himself sadly, before
+these old friends could be replaced in his affections.
+
+He would have listened gladly to the story of how Mr. Appel got his
+start in life; he was hungry for the sight of Mrs. C. D. Budlong sitting
+like a potted oleander; he would have welcomed----
+
+Mr. Cone's generous ears seemed suddenly to quiver, almost they went
+forward like those of a startled burro. A voice--obstinate,
+cantankerous--a voice that could belong to no one on earth but old Mr.
+Penrose, was engaged outside in a wrangle with a taxi-cab driver!
+
+Before Mr. Cone could get around the desk and at the door to greet him,
+Mr. Penrose was striding across the office with the porter behind him,
+round-shouldered under the weight of two portmanteaux and a bag of golf
+clubs.
+
+Mr. Penrose was the same, yet different in an elusive way that Mr. Cone
+could not define exactly. There was an air about him which on the spur
+of the moment he might have called "brigandish"--the way he wore his
+hat, a slight swagger, a something lawless that surely he never had
+acquired in his peach orchard in Delaware. When Mr. Penrose extended his
+hand across the counter Mr. Cone noticed that he was wearing a leather
+bracelet.
+
+As they greeted each other like reunited brothers there was nothing in
+the manner of either to indicate that they had parted on any but the
+happiest terms, though Mr. Penrose's gaze wavered for an instant when he
+asked:
+
+"Is my room ready?"
+
+"Since the day before yesterday," replied Mr. Cone, turning to the
+key-rack. Then generously:
+
+"What kind of a summer did you have? I trust, a pleasant one."
+
+Mr. Penrose's faded eyes grew luminous. His voice quavered with eager
+enthusiasm as he ignored the efforts of the bell-boy to draw his
+attention to the fact that he was waiting to open his room for him.
+
+"Superb! Magnificent! A wonderful experience! The Land of Adventure!
+Cone," Mr. Penrose peered at him solemnly from under his bushy eyebrows,
+"I know what it is to look into the jaws of Death, literally!" Mr.
+Penrose could look into Mr. Cone's jaws also, for he was so impressive
+that the lower one dropped automatically. He added: "I am thankful to be
+alive to tell the story."
+
+"You don't mean it!"
+
+"Yes. Alone, unarmed, I defended myself against an attack from one of
+the savage grizzlies of the Rocky Mountains."
+
+Mr. Cone's eyes were as round as a child's awaiting a fairy tale. If Mr.
+Penrose had needed encouragement they would have furnished it. He
+continued:
+
+"We were camped near the Canon Hotel where the bears swarm--swarm like
+flies over the garbage. A remarkable sight. It was a very dark night--so
+dark, in fact, that I hesitated to go to my teepee, which was placed
+apart that I might not be disturbed by the others. I must have my rest,
+as you will remember.
+
+"I had been asleep only a few minutes when I was awakened by the feeling
+that something was happening. It was. My tent was moving--actually
+bounding over rocks and hummocks.
+
+"Believing myself the victim of a practical joke, I sprang out and
+brought my fish-pole down on what I supposed to be the head of a fellow
+disguised in a big overcoat. There was a roar that was plainly heard for
+miles, and a monster grizzly struck at me.
+
+"If it had not been for my presence of mind, that would have been the
+end of me. Now it was all that saved me. As the bear, on his hind legs,
+came toward me with his arms outstretched, to grapple, I ducked and came
+up between them, and so close to his body that he was unable to sink his
+terrible claws into me.
+
+"He let out another roar--simply appalling--it will ring in my ears
+forever--almost deafened me. Again my remarkable presence of mind came
+to my rescue. I reached up and held his jaws open. It was my purpose to
+dislocate the lower one, if possible.
+
+"For fifteen minutes--twenty--perhaps--we fought desperately. Writhing,
+struggling, I could feel the brute's hot breath on my face and his
+lolling tongue dripped saliva. Finally, his heavy breathing told me he
+was getting winded, and I knew that if my strength did not fail me I
+should be the victor. Fortunately, I was in splendid physical condition.
+Not once did I lose my presence of mind in this terrible crisis. I was
+as calm as I am this minute, while the bear was letting out roars of
+rage and pain that curdled the blood of those who heard them.
+
+"At last I made a superhuman effort and backed the brute up against a
+tree. Gripping his nose and jaw, I had doubled up my leg and thrust my
+knee into his stomach, which was of course cruel punishment--when, just
+then----"
+
+A slight cough made Mr. Penrose turn quickly. Miss Mattie Gaskett, whose
+eyes were nearly as large as Mr. Cone's at this version of the
+encounter, was standing behind him with "Cutie" in a wicker basket.
+
+Mr. Penrose looked disconcerted for a moment, and then that presence of
+mind of which he boasted came to his assistance and he said
+ingratiatingly:
+
+"This young lady will vouch for the fact that my clothes were in
+shreds--ribbons----"
+
+"Why--er--yes, you had lost your shirt bosom," Miss Gaskett agreed,
+doubtfully.
+
+Remarking that he would finish the story when Mr. Cone had more leisure,
+Mr. Penrose "skedaddled" after the bell-boy with unmistakable alacrity.
+
+"And how is kitty?" inquired Mr. Cone, beaming upon Miss Gaskett. "Did
+you take her with you this summer?"
+
+As he lifted the cover and looked in the basket, "Cutie's" pupils
+enlarged and she shrank from him. "Cutie" had a good memory.
+
+"Luckily for her I did not," Miss Gaskett answered. "If I had, I should
+have lost her."
+
+"Lost her?"
+
+"Coyotes."
+
+"They would have _eaten_ her?"
+
+Miss Gaskett nodded.
+
+"Undoubteely. They were thick as anything. They howled hideously every
+morning before sunrise, and it was not safe to leave one's tent at night
+without a weapon."
+
+"Whew!" Mr. Cone's lips puckered in a whistle.
+
+His astonishment inspired Miss Gaskett to continue:
+
+"Yes, indeed! And once when I was out walking ever so far from everybody
+I met one face to face. My first impulse was to run, but I thought if I
+did so it might attack me, so, trying not to show that I was frightened,
+I picked up a stick, and just then----"
+
+Seeing that Mr. Cone's gaze wandered, Miss Gaskett paused to learn the
+cause of it. She flushed as she found that Mrs. Budlong, with a smile
+wreathing her face, was listening to the recital.
+
+"I'll tell you the rest when you are not so busy," Miss Mattie said,
+taking her key from Mr. Cone hastily.
+
+Mrs. Budlong declared that her pleasure equalled his own when Mr. Cone
+expressed his delight at seeing her, and there was no thought on the
+minds of either as to the hotel rules she had violated or the food she
+had carried away from the table in the front of her blouse and her
+reticule.
+
+"You are looking in splendid health, Mrs. Budlong," he asserted, quite
+as if that lady ever had looked otherwise.
+
+"Yes, the change benefited me greatly." A stranger might have gathered
+from the plaintive note in her voice that prior to her trip she had
+been an invalid.
+
+"You, too, found the Western country interesting?"
+
+"Oh, very! At heart, Mr. Cone, I am a Child of Nature, and the primitive
+always appeals to me strongly," Mrs. Budlong hesitated and seemed
+debating. Having made her decision she asked in an undertone:
+
+"I can trust you?"
+
+"_Absolutely_," replied Mr. Cone with emphasis, which intimated that the
+torture chamber could not wring from him any secret she chose to
+deposit.
+
+"I had a very peculiar experience in the Yellowstone. I should never
+mention it, if you were not more like a brother to me than a stranger.
+It is altogether shocking."
+
+Mr. Cone's eyes sparkled.
+
+"Purely in a spirit of adventure, I took a bath in a beaver dam. It was
+in a secluded spot, and so well protected that I went in--er--I did not
+wear my bathing suit. The birds twittered. The arched trees made a green
+canopy above me. The sunshine sparkled on the placid bosom of the water.
+A gentle breeze, warm, sweet-scented, caressed me as I drank in the
+beauty of the scene.
+
+"Then I plunged in--the temperature was warmer than tepid--delightful. I
+felt like a nymph, a water-sprite, or something, as I swam out to the
+middle and found a footing. The bottom was rather oozy, and there were
+green patches floating on the surface, otherwise it was ideal.
+
+"Noticing a brown spot on my arm, I touched it. It was squashy and
+pulpy. Then it moved! A leech--and it sunk a million feet into me as
+soon as I attempted to remove it. I was _black_ with them, if you will
+believe me, literally _covered_. Repulsive, disgusting--blood-suckers,
+sucking my blood like vacuum-cleaners, Mr. Cone! Imagine my horror."
+
+Mr. Cone tried to.
+
+"Another woman would have screamed or fainted," Mrs. Budlong continued,
+"but I come of different stock, and ancestry will tell at such moments.
+I am a Daughter of the Revolution and my father fought all through the
+Civil War as a sutler. Not a sound passed my lips as I got back to
+shore, somehow, and, weak from loss of blood, sank down to consider how
+to get rid of the leeches.
+
+"In emergencies I am a resourceful woman. Recalling that I had a
+match--only one little match--in my sweater pocket, it occurred to me
+that I might build a smudge and smoke them off. I scraped some leaves
+together, struck my match, and, just then----"
+
+But just then Mr. Budlong, who had stopped to look after the trunks,
+scuffled in the doorway, and in his eagerness to greet him Mr. Cone
+forgot completely the narrative Mrs. Budlong was reciting for his
+benefit. Nor did he ever hear its termination.
+
+Even as the proprietor stood at his desk wondering if the later train
+had brought any more prodigals, a commotion on the veranda was followed
+by the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Appel.
+
+Mr. Appel was using a stick and walking with such difficulty that Mr.
+Cone hurried forward and asked with real solicitude:
+
+"My dear friend, whatever is the matter? Has your old enemy Rheumatism
+again got his clutches on you?"
+
+"Rheumatism!" Mr. Appel snorted. "You lie on your back with 2,000 pounds
+on top of you and see how you like it!"
+
+Mr. Cone was puzzled, and said so.
+
+Mr. Appel explained tersely:
+
+"A bear walked on me--that's all that happened. A silvertip stood on
+the pit of my stomach and ground his heel into me."
+
+"_Tsch! tsch! tsch!_" Mr. Cone's eyes were popping.
+
+"If it were not for the fact that I'm quick in the head my wife would be
+a widow. I was in my sleeping bag and saw the bear coming. I knew what
+was going to happen, and that I had one chance in a thousand. It flashed
+through my mind that a horned toad when threatened with danger will
+inflate itself to such an extent that a wagon may pass over it, leaving
+the toad uninjured. I drew a deep breath, expanded my diaphragm to its
+greatest capacity, and lay rigid. It was all that saved me."
+
+Again Mr. Cone's tongue against his teeth clicked his astonishment at
+this extraordinary experience, and while he congratulated Mr. Appel upon
+his miraculous escape he noted that he was wearing souvenirs of his trip
+in the way of an elk-tooth scarf-pin and a hat-band of braided horse
+hair.
+
+The same train had brought Mrs. J. Harry Stott apparently, for the
+elevator was barely closed upon the victim of the picturesque accident
+to which Mr. Cone had just listened, when the office was illumined by
+her gracious presence.
+
+The last time that lady had extended a supine hand it had been to offer
+him one of the most serious affronts that can befall a self-respecting
+landlord; now the hand contained only cordiality, and in that spirit Mr.
+Cone took it.
+
+"You enjoyed your summer?" As Mr. Cone passed the pen for her to
+register.
+
+"Delightful! Altogether unique! Do you know, Mr. Cone, I never before
+have fully appreciated my husband--his splendid courage?"
+
+"Is that so?" Mr. Cone replied with polite interest.
+
+"Yes, when put to the test he was magnificent. You see, we had a cook,
+oh, a most offensive--a rully violent and dangerous person. In fact, it
+was because of him that I left the party prematurely.
+
+"It was plain that both Wallie and Pinkey were afraid of him, and dared
+not discharge him, so, one day when he had been more objectionable than
+usual, my husband took things into his own hands--he simply _had_ to!
+
+"Hicks--his name was Hicks--was disrespectful when Mr. Stott reprimanded
+him for something, and then he attempted to strike my husband with a
+pair of brass knuckles. Brass knuckles, it seems, are not a gentleman's
+weapon, and the cowardly attack so infuriated Mr. Stott that he knocked
+the bully down and took them away from him. He still has them. Before
+he let him up he pummelled him well, I assure you. Mr. Stott doesn't
+know how strong he is when angry. Such muscles!
+
+"He punished the cook until he begged for mercy and promised to do
+better. But as soon as he was on his feet he tried to _stab_ my husband
+with a bread-knife. Fancy! Mr. Stott took this away from him, also, and
+ran him down the road with it. He ran him for seven miles--_seven
+miles_, mind you! The cook was nearly dead when Mr. Stott let up on him.
+I had to _drag_ this story from my husband, little by little. But wasn't
+it exciting?"
+
+Mr. Cone, who never had thought of Mr. Stott as such a warrior, tried to
+visualize the episode, and though he failed to do so he was greatly
+impressed by it.
+
+He stood for some time after Mrs. Stott had left him, reflecting
+enviously that his life was dull and uneventful, and that he must seem a
+poor stick to the heroes and heroines of such adventures. He wished that
+he could think of some incident in his past to match these tales of
+valour, but as he looked back the only thing that occurred to him was
+the occasion upon which the laundress had stolen the cooking sherry and
+gone to sleep in her chemise on the front veranda. She had fought like a
+tiger when the patrol wagon came for her, and he had been the one to
+hold her feet as she was carried to it. At the time he had been
+congratulated upon the able and fearless manner in which he had met the
+emergency, but a bout with an intoxicated laundress, though it had its
+dangers, seemed a piffling affair as compared to a hand-to-hand combat
+with a grizzly.
+
+Gazing absently through the doorway and comforting himself by thinking
+that perhaps he, too, had latent courage which would rise to heights of
+heroism in propitious circumstances, he did not see Miss Eyester, who
+had come in the side entrance, until she stood before him.
+
+He had not expected Miss Eyester, because she was usually employed
+during the winter, and it was only when a well-to-do relative sent her a
+check that she could afford a few weeks in Florida. But Miss Eyester was
+one of his favourites, and he immediately expressed the hope that she
+was to stay the entire season, while he noticed that she was wearing a
+mounted bear-claw for a hat-pin.
+
+"No," she replied, blushing.
+
+Not until then had Mr. Cone observed the Montana diamond flashing on her
+finger.
+
+"Ah-h?" He raised his eyebrows inquiringly.
+
+Miss Eyester nodded.
+
+"In January."
+
+"A Western millionaire, I venture?" he suggested playfully.
+
+"A stockman."
+
+"Indeed?" A new respect was in Mr. Cone's manner. "Cattle?"
+
+"Sheep," replied Miss Eyester, proudly. "Mr. Fripp is herding at
+present."
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a week Mr. Cone was as familiar with the glorious summer which The
+Happy Family had spent in the West as if he had been there. Although he
+knew the story by heart he still thrilled when Mr. Penrose backed the
+bear up against a tree and separated its jaws until it "moaned like a
+human."
+
+He continued to listen with flattering attention to the recital of the
+intrepid spinster who would have given battle to a hungry coyote if it
+had attacked her, as he did to the account of Mr. Stott's reckless
+courage in putting to flight a notorious outlaw who had hired out as a
+cook for some sinister purpose.
+
+But, gradually, Mr. Cone began to detect discrepancies, and he noticed
+also that the descriptions not only varied but grew more hair-raising
+with repetition. Also, he guessed shrewdly that the reason the members
+of The Happy Family never contradicted one another was that they dared
+not.
+
+The day came, finally, when Mr. Cone found it not only expedient but
+necessary to arrange a signal with the operator at the switchboard for
+certain contingencies. A close observer might have noticed that a
+preliminary "That reminds me" was invariably followed by an imperative
+announcement from the operator that Mr. Cone was wanted on the
+telephone.
+
+A haste which resembled flight frequently marked the departure of other
+guests when a reminiscence seemed threatening until, forsooth, the time
+arrived when they had only themselves for audience and their "That
+reminds me" became "Do you remember?" The only wonder was, to those less
+travelled, that The Happy Family ever had brought themselves to leave
+that earthly paradise in Wyoming, even for the winter.
+
+The only person whom their enthusiasm did not weary was Miss Mary
+Macpherson, because directly and indirectly it all redounded to the
+credit of her nephew, whom she now carefully called Wallace, as more
+befitting the dignity of a successful "Dude Wrangler" than the
+diminutive.
+
+Wallie's refusal to accept her offer had brought tears of disappointment
+to the eyes of the lonely woman, yet secretly she respected his pride
+and boasted to strangers of his independence.
+
+"My nephew, Wallace Macpherson--you may have heard of him? He has large
+interests in Wyoming. Went West without a penny, practically; too proud
+to accept help from any one--that's the Macpherson of it--and now, they
+tell me, he is one of the important men of the country."
+
+She was sometimes tempted to mention the extent of his holdings, and put
+the acreage well up into the thousands, but since Miss Macpherson was a
+truthful woman with a sensitive conscience, she contented herself with
+declaring, merely:
+
+"My nephew, Wallace Macpherson, has a large ranch, oh, a very large
+place--several days' ride around it."
+
+He was all she had, and blood is far thicker than water. She was hungry
+for a sight of him, and every day increased her yearning. While letters
+from him now arrived regularly, he said nothing in any of them of
+coming to Florida. His extensive interests, she presumed, detained him,
+and he was too good a business man to neglect affairs that needed him.
+
+She had promised to go to him next summer, but next summer was a long
+way off and there were times when she was strongly tempted to make the
+journey in winter in spite of the northern blizzards of which, while
+fanning themselves, they read with gusto.
+
+A blizzard was raging at present, according to the paper from which Mr.
+Appel was reading the headlines aloud to the group on the veranda. All
+trains were stalled west of the Mississippi and there was three feet of
+snow on the level in Denver.
+
+"That reminds me----"
+
+Only too well Mr. Cone knew what Mr. Budlong's remark portended. The
+hotel proprietor was having an interesting conversation with Mrs. Appel
+upon the relative merits of moth-preventatives, but he arose abruptly.
+
+Mr. Budlong squared away again.
+
+"That reminds me that I was wondering this morning how deep the snow
+would be at that point where Mr. Stott slid down the glacier in the
+gold-pan. By the way, Mr. Cone, have you heard that story? It's a good
+one."
+
+Edging toward the doorway, Mr. Cone fairly chattered in his vehemence:
+
+"Oh, yes--yes--yes!"
+
+Mr. Penrose interrupted eagerly:
+
+"The drifts must be about forty feet high on that stretch south of The
+Lolabama. There's a gap in the mountain where the wind comes through
+a-whoopin'. I mean the place where the steer chased Aunt Lizzie--did any
+one ever tell you that yarn, Cone?"
+
+Mr. Cone, with one foot over the door-sill and clinging to the jamb, as
+if he half expected they would wrench him loose and make him go back and
+listen, answered with unmistakable irony:
+
+"I think I recall having heard someone mention it."
+
+It required more than irony to discourage Mr. Penrose, however, and he
+insisted petulantly:
+
+"Come on back here, Cone! I'll explain just how Wallie jumped that steer
+and went to the ground with him. It's worth listening to twice."
+
+Twice! Mr. Cone had heard it more times than he had fingers and toes.
+
+"The telephone's ringing," he pleaded.
+
+"Go answer it, then; looks like you'd want to learn something!"
+
+Miss Macpherson had heard the story an even greater number of times than
+Mr. Cone, but now she urged Mr. Penrose to repeat it, and he did so with
+such spirit and so vividly that she shuddered almost continuously
+through the telling. He concluded by asserting emphatically that if it
+had not been for his foresight in providing himself with field-glasses,
+the steer would have been running over the flat with Aunt Lizzie empaled
+on its horns like a naturalist's butterfly, before any one could have
+prevented it.
+
+Mr. Appel opined, when Mr. Penrose had finished, that "Canby made a poor
+showing."
+
+"I could have done as well myself if I had been able to get there." He
+added speculatively: "I suppose Canby and Miss Spenceley are engaged by
+now--or married. Wallie hasn't mentioned it in his letters, has he?"
+
+Miss Macpherson replied in the negative.
+
+"He might not, anyway," remarked Mrs. Appel. "Helene was a nice girl,
+and attractive, but I could see that she did not interest him."
+
+Mrs. Budlong, who had one eye closed trying to thread a needle without
+her glasses, observed succinctly:
+
+"Men are funny."
+
+She intended to qualify her statement by saying that some are funnier
+than others, only, before she had time to do so, an exclamation from
+Miss Macpherson attracted her attention. Following Miss Macpherson's
+unbelieving stare she saw Helene and Wallie getting out of the motor-bus
+with a certain air which her experienced eye recognized as "married."
+
+Mrs. Budlong specialized in detecting newly wedded people and she was
+seldom mistaken. Her cleverness along this line sometimes amounted to
+clairvoyancy, but, in this instance, no one needed to be supernaturally
+gifted to recognize the earmarks, for no man could look so radiantly
+happy as Wallie unless he had inherited a million dollars--or married
+the girl he wanted.
+
+Miss Mary Macpherson threw her arms about her nephew's neck and kissed
+him with an impetuosity seemingly incompatible with a lady who wore a
+high starched collar in summer, and the others welcomed him with a
+sincerity and warmth which made his eyes grow misty.
+
+It was hard to believe, as he looked at them beaming upon him in genuine
+fondness, that only a few short months before they had been barely
+speaking to him, or that he had wished The Happy Family had, as the
+saying is, a single neck that he might wring it.
+
+Above the volley of questions and chatter he heard old Mr. Penrose's
+querulous voice reproaching him:
+
+"I hope you have the grace to be ashamed of yourself for not telling us,
+Wallace!"
+
+"If I look sheepish," Wallie replied, smiling, "it may be due to the
+nature of my new occupation. You see," in reply to their looks of
+inquiry, "Canby bought me out, to get rid of me, and for a far more
+munificent sum than I ever expected. I re-invested, and am now," with
+mock dignity, "a wool-grower--with one Mr. Fripp engaged as foreman."
+Wallie's eyes twinkled as he added:
+
+"I trust that the percentage of loss will not be so great as in the dude
+business."
+
+
+
+The Country Life Press,
+Garden City, N. Y.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUDE WRANGLER***
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