CHAPTER IXCUTTING 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 wasof 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 blasé 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 ofskin 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'tmistaken, 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'tbelieve 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, whileCanby 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 radicallywrong 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 XTHE 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 witheven 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, hesaw 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 shinbones 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 thoughtsas 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 manœuvre 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 aman 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 itdidmake 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 withboth 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 shehadresented Canby's dishonesty for him—thatwas 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 XIMERRY 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 thatif 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 contrastedhis 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 containedknotholes 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 sometimesit 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 letterbut, 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 glassballs 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 wasrabbit, 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 glacé, 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 wilycoureur 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 andrubbed 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 hiscompany. 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 Icouldn'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 allthat'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 ofmouseout'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.