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 perfectfoolsof 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 somethingamusingabout 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 wouldhaveto 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 nothingshecould 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? Withyour 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 giveme 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 simplytoreinto 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 notsaidso."
"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 tothink 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.
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 equipmentof 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 VIIHIS "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 andsagging 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 commencedto 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 overthe 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. "Heonly 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'nlikely 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 toride 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 whatIcall 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 thanclearing 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 henever 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-handledpistol 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 VIIINEIGHBOURS
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-likeresidence 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 theentréeto 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 totackle 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 actuallyafraidof 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 neverseeanybody 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 milesacross 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 foundhimself 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!"