CHAPTER XIVLIFTING A CACHE
The Prouty barber lathering the face of a customer, after the manner of a man whitewashing a chicken coop, paused on an upward stroke to listen. Then he stepped to the door, looked down the street, and nodded in confirmation. After which he returned, laid down his brush, and pinned on a nickel badge, which act transformed him into the town constable.
The patron in the chair, a travelling salesman, watched the pantomime with interest.
"One moment, please." The barber-officer excused himself and stepped out to the edge of the sidewalk, where he awaited the approach of a pair on horseback who were making the welkin ring with a time-honoured ballad of the country:
I'm a howler from the prairies of the West.If you want to die with terror, look at me.I'm chain-lightnin'—
As they came abreast the constable held out his hand and the pair automatically laid six-shooters in it and went on without stopping in their song:
—if I ain't, may I be blessed.I'm a snorter of the boundless, lone prairee.
Other citizens than the barber recognized the voices, and frowned or smiled as happened, among whom was Mr. Tucker repairing a sofa in the rear of his "Second-Hand Store."
Returning, the constable laid the six-shooters on the shelf among the shaving mugs and removed his badge.
"Who's that?" inquired the patron, since the barber offered no explanation.
"Oh, them toughs—'Gentle Annie' Macpherson and 'Pinkey' Fripp," was the answer in a wearied tone. "I hate to see 'em come to town."
The pair continued to warble on their way to the livery barn on a side street:
I'm the double-jawed hyena from the East.I'm the blazing, bloody blizzard of the States.I'm the celebrated slugger—
The song stopped as Pinkey asked:
"Shall we work together or separate?"
To this mysterious question Wallie replied:
"Let's try it together first."
After attending personally to the matter of feeding their horses oats, the two set forth with the air of having a definite purpose.
Their subsequent actions confirmed it, for they approached divers persons of their acquaintance as if they had business of a confidential nature. The invariable result of these mysterious negotiations, however, was a negative shake of the head.
After another obvious failure Pinkey said gloomily:
"If I put in half the time and thought trying to be a Senator that I do figgerin' how to git a bottle, I'd be elected."
Wallie replied hopefully:
"Something may turn up yet."
"I'd lift a cache from a preacher! I'd steal booze off my blind aunt! I'd——"
"We'll try some more 'prospects' before we give up. It's many months since I've gone out of town sober and I don't like to establish a precedent. I'm superstitious about things like that," said Wallie.
At this unquestionably psychological moment Mr. Tucker beckoned them from his doorway. They responded with such alacrity that their gait approached a trot, although they had no particular reason to believe that it was his intention to offer them a drink. It was merely a hope born of their thirst.
Their reputation was such, however, that any one who wished to demonstrate his friendship invariably evidenced it in this way, taking care, in violation of the ethics of bygone days, to do the pouring himself.
Mr. Tucker winked elaborately when he invited them in, and Wallie and Pinkey exchanged eloquent looks as they followed him to his Land Office in the rear of the store.
Inside, he locked the door and lowered the shade of the single window which looked out on an areaway. No explanation was necessary as he took a hatchet and pried up a plank. This accomplished, he reachedunder the floor and produced a tin cup and a two-gallon jug.
He filled it with a fluid of an unfamiliar shade and passed it to Pinkey, who smelled it and declared that he could drink anything that was wet. Wallie watched him eagerly as it gurgled down his throat.
"Well?" Mr. Tucker waited expectantly for the verdict.
Pinkey wiped his mouth.
"Another like that and I could watch my mother go down for the third time and laugh!"
"Where did you get it?" Wallie in turn emptied the cup and passed it back.
"S-ss-sh!" Mr. Tucker looked warningly at the door. "I made it myself—brown sugar and raisins. You like it then?"
"If I had about 'four fingers' in a wash-tub every half hour—— What would you hold a quart of that at?" Pinkey leaned over the opening in the floor and sniffed.
Mr. Tucker hastily replaced the plank and declared:
"Oh, I wouldn't dast! I jest keep a little on hand for my particular friends that I can trust. By the way, Mr. Macpherson, what are you goin' to do with that homestead you took up?"
"Hold it. Why?"
"I thought I might run across a buyer sometime and I wondered what you asked."
A hardness came into Wallie's face and Tucker added:
"I wasn't goin' to charge you any commission—you've had bad luck and——"
"You're the seventh philanthropist that's wanted to sell that place in my behalf for about $400, because he was sorry for me," Wallie interrupted, drily. "You tell Canby that when he makes me a decent offer I'll consider it."
"No offence—no offence, I hope?" Tucker protested.
"Oh, no." Wallie shrugged his shoulder. "Only don't keep getting me mixed with the chap that took up that homestead. I've had my eyeteeth cut."
Extending an invitation to call and quench their thirsts with his raisinade when next they came to town, Tucker unlocked the door.
After the two had wormed their way through the bureaus and stoves and were once more in the street, they turned and gave each other a long, inquiring look.
"Pink," demanded Wallie, solemnly, "did you smell anything when he raised that plank?"
"Did I smell anything! Didn't you see me sniff? That joker has got a cache of the real stuff and he gave us raisinade! I couldn't git an answer from a barrel of that. He couldn't have insulted us worse if he'd slapped our faces."
"A man ought to be punished that would do a wicked thing like that."
"You've said somethin', Gentle Annie."
The two looked at each other in an understanding that was beautiful and complete.
The behaviour of the visitors was nearly too good to be true—it was so exemplary, in fact, as to be suspicious, and acting upon this theory, the barber closed his shop early, pinned on his badge of office, and followed them about. But when at ten o'clock they had broken nothing, quarrelled with nobody, and drunk only an incredible quantity of soda pop, he commenced to think he had been wrong.
At eleven, when they were still in a pool-hall playing "solo" for a cent a chip, he decided to go home. There he confided to his wife that no more striking example of the benefits of prohibition had come under his observation than the conduct of this notorious pair who, when sober, were well mannered and docile as lambs.
It was twelve or thereabouts when two figures crept stealthily up the alley behind Mr. Tucker's Second-Hand Store and raised the window looking out on the areaway. As noiselessly as trained burglars they pried up the plank and investigated by the light of a match.
"Well, what do you think of that!"
"I feel like somebody had died and left me a million dollars!" said Pinkey in an awed tone, reaching for a tin cup. "I didn't think they was anybody in the world as mean as Tucker."
"You mustn't get too much," Wallie admonished, noting the size of the drink Pinkey was pouring for himself.
"I've never had too much. I may have hadenough, but never too much," Pinkey grinned. "I don't take no int'rest in startin' less'n a quart."
"I hope he'll have the decency to be ashamed of himself when he finds out we know what he did to us. I shouldn't think he'd want to look us in the face," Wallie declared, virtuously.
"He won't git a chanst to look in my face for some time to come if we kin lift this cache."
Together they filled the grain sack they had brought and carefully replaced the plank, then, staggering under the weight of the load, made their way to a gulch, buried the sack, and marked the hiding-place with a stone. With a righteous sense of having acted as instruments of Providence in punishing selfishness, they returned to town to follow such whims as seized them under the stimulus of a bottle of Mr. Tucker's excellent Bourbon.
The constable had been asleep for hours when a yell—a series of yells—made him sit up. He listened a moment, then with a sigh of resignation got up, dressed, and took the key of the calaboose from its nail by the kitchen sink.
"I'll lock 'em up and be right back," he said to his sleepy wife, who seemed to know whom he meant too well to ask.
Under the arc light in front of the Prouty House he found them doing the Indian "stomp" dance to the delight of the guests who were leaning from their windows to applaud.
"Ain't you two ashamed of yerselves?" the constable demanded, scandalized—referring to the factthat Pinkey and Wallie had divested themselves of their trousers and boots and were dancing in their stocking feet.
"Ashamed?" Wallie asked, impudently. "Where have I heard that word?"
"Who sold liquor to you two?"
"I ate a raisin and it fermented," Wallie replied, pertly.
"Where's your clothes?" To Pinkey.
"How'sh I know?"
"You two ought to be ordered to keep out of town. You're pests. Come along!"
"Jus' waitin' fer you t'put us t'bed," said Pinkey, cheerfully.
The two lurched beside the constable to the calaboose, where they dropped down on the hard pads and temporarily passed out.
The sun was shining in Wallie's face when he awoke and realized where he was. He and Pinkey had been there too many times before not to know. As he lay reading the pencilled messages and criticisms of the accommodation left on the walls by other occupants he subconsciously marvelled at himself that he should have no particular feeling of shame at finding himself in a cell.
He was aware that it was accepted as a fact that he had gone to the bad. He had been penurious as a miser until he had saved enough from his wages as a common cowhand to buy his homestead outright from the State. After that he had never saved a cent, on the contrary, he was usually overdrawn.He gambled, and lost no opportunity to get drunk, since he calculated that he got more entertainment for his money out of that than anything else, even at the "bootlegging" price of $20 per quart which prevailed.
So he had drifted, learning in the meantime under Pinkey's tutelage to ride and shoot and handle a rope with the best of them. Pinkey had left the Spenceley ranch and they were both employed now by the same cattleman.
He rarely saw Helene, in consequence, but upon the few occasions they had met in Prouty she had made him realize that she knew his reputation and disapproved of it. In the East she had mocked him for his inoffensiveness, now she criticized him for the opposite. It was plain, he thought disconsolately, that he could not please her, yet it seemed to make no difference in his own feelings for her.
His face reddened as he recalled the boasts he had made upon several occasions and how far he had fallen short of fulfilling them. He was going to "show" them, and now all he had to offer in evidence was 160 acres gone to weeds and grasshoppers, his saddle, and the clothes he stood in.
It was not often that Wallie stopped to take stock, for it was an uncomfortable process, but his failure seemed to thrust itself upon him this morning. He was glad when Pinkey's heavy breathing ceased in the cell adjoining and he began to grumble.
"Looks like a town the size of Prouty would have a decent jail in it," he said, crossly. "They go andthrow every Tom, Dick, and Harry in this here cell, and some buckaroo has half tore up the mattress."
"You can't have your private cell, you know," Wallie suggested.
"I've paid enough in fines to build a cooler the size of this one, and looks like I got a little somethin' comin' to me."
"I suppose they don't take that view of it," said Wallie, "but you might speak to the Judge this morning."
After a time Pinkey asked, yawning:
"What did we do last night? Was we fightin'?"
"I don't know—I haven't thought about it."
"I guess the constable will mention it," Pinkey observed, drily. "He does, generally."
"Let's make a circle and go and have a look at my place," Wallie suggested. "It's not far out of the way and we might pick up a few strays in that country."
Pinkey agreed amiably and added:
"You'll prob'ly have the blues for a week after."
The key turning in the lock interrupted the conversation.
"You two birds get up. Court is goin' to set in about twenty minutes." The constable eyed them coldly through the grating.
"Where's my clothes?" Pinkey demanded, looking at the Law accusingly.
"How should I know?"
"I ain't no more pants than a rabbit!" Pinkey declared, astonished.
"Nor I!" said Wallie.
"You got all the clothes you had on when I put you here."
"How kin we go to court?"
"'Tain't fur."
"Everybody'll look at us," Pinkey protested.
The constable retorted callously:
"Won't many more see you than saw you last night doin' the stomp dance in Main Street."
"Did we do that?" Pinkey asked, startled.
"Sure—right in front of the Prouty House, and Helene Spenceley and a lot of folks was lookin' out of the windows."
Wallie sat down on the edge of his cot weakly. That settled it! He doubted if she would ever speak to him.
"I've got customers waitin'," urged the constable, impatiently. "Wrap a soogan around you and step lively."
There was nothing to do but obey, in the circumstances, so the shame-faced pair walked the short block to a hardware store in the rear of which the Justice of the Peace was at his desk to receive them.
"Ten dollars apiece," he said, without looking up from his writing. "And half an hour to get out of town."
Pinkey and Wallie looked at each other.
"The fact is, Your Honour," said the latter, ingratiatingly, "we have mislaid our trousers and left our money in the pockets. If you would be sokind as to loan us each a ten-spot until we have wages coming we shall feel greatly indebted to you."
The Court vouchsafed a glance at them. Showing no surprise at their unusual costume, he said as he fumbled in the pocket of his waistcoat:
"Such gall as yours should not go unrewarded. You pay your debts, and that's all the good I know of either of you. Now clear out—and if you show up for a month the officer here is to arrest you."
He transferred two banknotes to the desk-drawer and went on with his scratching.
"Gosh!" Pinkey lamented, as they stood outside clutching their quilts, "I wisht I knowed whur to locate them mackinaws. I got 'em in Lethbridge before I went to the army, and I think the world of 'em. I don't like 'poor-boys-serge,' but I guess I'll have to come to it, since I'm busted."
"What's that?" Wallie asked, curiously.
"Denim," Pinkey explained, "overalls. That makes me think of a song a feller wrote up:
"A Texas boy in a Northern clime,With a pair of brown hands and a thin little dime.The southeast side of his overalls out—Yip-yip, I'm freezin' to death!"
"That's a swell song," Pinkey went on enthusiastically. "I wish I could think of the rest of it."
"Don't overtax your brain—I've heard plenty. Let's cut down the alley and in the back way of the Emporium. Oh!" He gripped his quilt in suddenpanic and looked for a hiding-place. Nothing better than a telegraph pole offered. He stepped behind it as Helene Spenceley passed in Canby's roadster.
"Did she see me?"
"Shore she saw you. You'd oughta seen the way she looked at you."
Wallie, who was too mortified and miserable for words over the incident, declared he meant never again to come to town and make a fool of himself.
"I know how you feel, but you'll git over it," said Pinkey, sympathetically. "It's nothin' to worry about, for I doubt if you ever had any show anyhow."
Canby laughed disagreeably after they had passed the two on the sidewalk.
"That Montgomery-Ward cowpuncher has been drunk again, evidently," he commented.
"I wouldn't call him that. I'm told he can rope and ride with any of them."
He looked at her quickly.
"You seem to keep track of him."
She replied bluntly:
"He interests me."
"Why?" curtly. Canby looked malicious as he added: "He's a fizzle."
"He'll get his second wind some day and surprise you."
"He will?" Canby replied, curtly. "What makes you think it?"
"His aunt is a rich woman, and he could go limping back if he wanted to; besides, he has what I call the 'makings'."
"He should feel flattered by your confidence in him," he answered, uncomfortably.
"He doesn't know it."
Canby said no more, but it passed through his mind that Wallie would not, either, if there was a way for him to prevent it.
CHAPTER XVCOLLECTING A BAD DEBT
Wallie and Pinkey picked up a few stray cattle on their way to the homestead on Skull Creek. It was late in the afternoon when they reached it, so they decided to spend the night there. The corral was down in places, but with a little work it was repaired sufficiently to hold the cattle they put in it.
As Pinkey had prophesied, it gave Wallie the "blues" to look at the place where he had worked so hard and from which he had hoped so much. He felt heartsick as he saw the broken fence-posts and tangled wire, the weeds growing in his wheat-field, the broken window-panes, and the wreckage inside his cabin.
The door had been left open and the range stock had gone in for shelter, while the rats and mice and chipmunks had taken possession. Such of his cooking utensils as remained had been used and left unwashed, and the stove was partially demolished.
The only thing which remained as he had left it was the stream of salt water that had cut a deeper channel for itself but had not diminished in volume.
"I'll go over to Canby's and hit the cook for some grub and be back pronto," said Pinkey.
Wallie nodded. He was in no mood for conversation, for the realization of his failure was strong upon him, and he could not rid himself of the mortification he felt at having made a spectacle of himself before Helene Spenceley.
The future looked utterly hopeless. Without capital there seemed nothing to do but go on indefinitely working for wages. His aunt had sent word in a roundabout way that if he wished to come back she would receive him, but this he did not even consider.
Sitting on what was left of his doorstep, he awaited Pinkey's return, in an attitude of such dejection that that person commented upon it jocosely. He rode up finally with a banana in each hip pocket that he had pilfered from the cook, together with four doughnuts in the crown of his hat and a cake in his shirt front.
"I tried to get away with a pie, but it was too soft to carry, so I put a handful of salt under the crust and set it back," he said, as he disgorged his plunder. "He charged me for the bread and meat, and wouldn't let me have no butter! It's fellers like the Canby outfit that spoil a country."
When they had eaten, they spread their saddle-blankets in the dooryard and with their saddles for pillows covered themselves with the slickers they carried and so slept soundly until morning.
After breakfast, as they were leading their horsesup the weed-grown path to the cabin to saddle them, Pinkey's eye rested on the flowing salt water stream.
"Can you beat it!" he commented. "Good for nuthin' but a bathin' pool fer dudes——"
Wallie stopped in the path and looked at the friend of his bosom.
"Pink," he said, solemnly, "why wouldn't this make a dude ranch?"
Pinkey stared back at him.
"Gentle Annie," he replied, finally, "I told you long ago you was good fer somethin' if we could jest hit on it. You're a born duder!"
"Thanks! I feel as complimented as the fellow in the Passion Play who is cast for Judas Iscariot."
"I don't know what you're talkin' about—I've only seen a few draymas—but you got the looks and the figger and a way about you that I've noticed takes with women. You'd make a great dude wrangler. Bleeve me, you've thought of somethin'!"
"I wasn't thinking of myself, but of the place here—the scenery—the climate—fishing in the mountains—hunting in season——"
"And"—Pinkey interrupted—"the strongest stream of salt water in the state fer mineral baths, with the Yellowstone Park in your front dooryard!"
In his enthusiasm he pounded Wallie on the back.
"Itwouldbe an asset, having the Park so close," the latter agreed, his eyes shining.
Pinkey went on:
"You kin run dudes whur you can't run sheep or cattle. What you need isroom—and we're there withthe room. Fresh air, grasshoppers, views any way you look—why, man, you got everything!"
"Except money," said Wallie, suddenly.
Pinkey's face lengthened.
"I hadn't thought of that."
For an instant they felt crushed. It was such a precipitous descent to earth after their flight.
They walked to the cabin, and saddled in a silence which was broken finally by Pinkey, who said vindictively:
"I'd rob a train to git money enough to turn fifty head of dudes loose on Canby. He'd be mad enough to bite himself. If he could help it he wouldn't have a neighbour within a hundred miles."
Wallie's thoughts were bitter as he remembered the many injuries he had suffered at Canby's hands. It was a subject upon which he dared not trust himself to talk—it stirred him too much, although he had long ago decided that since he was powerless to retaliate there was nothing to do but take his medicine. As he made no response, Pinkey continued while he tightened the cinch:
"If you could make a dude ranch out o' this and worry him enough, he'd give you about any price you asked, to quit."
"I'd ask plenty," Wallie replied, grimly, "but it's no use to talk."
"It wouldn't trouble my conscience none if I hazed a bunch of his horses over the line, but horses are so cheap now that it wouldn't pay to take the chance."
"There's the Prouty Bank," Wallie suggested, ironically.
"Them bullet-proof screens have made cashiers too hard to git at." Pinkey spoke in an authoritative tone.
"Why don't you marry some rich widow and get us a stake?"
"Aw-w!" Resentment and disgust were in Pinkey's voice. "I'd steal washings off of clothes lines first." He added: "I don't like them jokes."
"I didn't know you were touchy, Pink."
"Everybody's touchy," Pinkey replied, sagely, "if you hit 'em on the right spot. But, do you know, this dude ranch sticks in my mind, and I can't git it out."
"We might as well let it drop. We haven't the money, so we're wasting our breath. We'll lose the jobs we've got if we don't get about our business. Let's leave the cattle in the corral and scout a little through the hills—it'll save us another trip. I don't want to come here again soon—it hurts too much."
Pinkey agreed, and they rode gloomily along the creek bank looking for a ford. A few hot days had taken off the heavy snows in the mountains so quickly that the stream was running swift and deep.
"That's treach'rous water," Pinkey observed. "They's boulders in there as big as a house where it looks all smooth on top. I know a place about a mile or so where I think it'll be safe."
They had ridden nearly that distance when, simultaneously, they pulled their horses up.
"Look at that crazy fool!" Pinkey ejaculated, aghast.
"It's—Canby!" Wallie exclaimed.
"Nobody else! Watch him," incredulously, "tryin' to quirt his horse across the crick!"
"Isn't it the ford?"
"I should say not! It looks like the place but it ain't—he's mixed—he'll be in a jack-pot quick if he don't back out. Onct his horse stumbles it'll never git its feet in there."
They rode close enough to hear Canby cursing as he whipped.
"Look at him punish the poor brute! See him use that quirt and cut him with his spurs! Say, that makes me sick to see a good horse abused!" Pinkey cried, indignantly.
Wallie said nothing but watched with hard, narrowed eyes.
"I s'pose I'd oughta yell and warn him," finally Pinkey said, reluctantly.
"You let out a yip and I'll slat you across the face!"
Pinkey stared at the words—at Wallie's voice—at an expression he never had seen before.
"I know how you feel, but it's pure murder to let him git into that crick."
"Will you shut up?" Wallie looked at him with steely eyes, and there was a glint in them that silenced Pink.
He waited, wonderingly, to see what it all meant. The battle between man and horse continued whilethey watched from the high bank. In terrified protest the animal snorted, reared, whirled, while the rider plied the quirt mercilessly and spurred. Finally the sting of leather, the pain of sharp steel, and the stronger will won out, and the trembling horse commenced to take the water.
Pinkey muttered, as, fascinated, he looked on:
"I've no idea that he knows enough to quit his horse on the down-stream side. He'll wash under, tangle up, and be drowned before we get a chanst to snake him out. He's a gone goslin' right now."
Cautiously, a few inches to a step, the horse advanced.
"There! He's in the boulders! Watch him flounder! Look at him slip—he's hit the current! Good-night—he's down—no, he's goin' to ketch himself! Watch him fight! Good ol' horse—good ol' horse!" Pinkey was beside himself with excitement now. "He's lost his feet—he's swimmin'—strikin' out for the shore—too swift, and the fool don't know enough to give him his head!"
They followed along the bank as the current swept horse and rider down.
"He swims too high—he's playin' out—there's so much mud he'll choke up quick. It'll soon be over now." Pinkey's face wore a queer, half-frightened grin. "Fifty yards more and——"
Wallie commenced to uncoil his saddle rope.
"You goin' to drag him out?"
Wallie made no answer but touched his horse and galloped until he was ahead of Canby and the drowninghorse. Making a megaphone of his hands he yelled.
Canby lifted his wild eyes to the bank.
"Throw me a rope!" he shrieked.
A slow, tantalizing smile came to Wallie's face. Very distinctly he called back:
"How much damages will you give me for driving your cattle into my wheat?"
"Not a damn cent!"
The rope Wallie had been swinging about his head to test the loop promptly dropped.
The horse was swimming lower at every stroke.
"Five hundred!" Fear and rage were in Canby's choking voice.
"Put another cipher on that to cover my mental anguish!" Wallie mocked.
The horse was exhausting itself rapidly with its efforts merely to keep its nose out, making no further attempt to swim toward the bank. Canby slapped water in its face in the hope of turning it, but it was too late. Its breathing could be heard plainly and its distended nostrils were blood-red.
Many things passed swiftly through Canby's calculating mind in the few seconds that remained for him to decide.
His boots had filled and he was soaked to the waist; he knew that if he left the horse and swam for it he had small chance of success. He was not a strong swimmer at best, and even if he managed to get to the bank its sides were too high and steep for him to climb out without assistance. He looked atWallie's implacable face, but he saw no weakening there, it was a matter of a moment more when the horse would go under and come up feet first.
"Throw me the rope!" His voice vibrating with chagrin and rage admitted his defeat.
Wallie measured the distance with his eye, adjusted the loop, and as it cut the air above his head Canby held up his hands to catch it when it dropped.
"Good work!" Pinkey cried as it shot out and hit its mark. "You never made a better throw than that, old kid!"
Canby slipped the loop under his arm and, as he took his feet from the stirrups, shouted for them to tighten up.
The horse, relieved of his weight, took heart and struck out for the opposite bank, where a little dirt slide enabled it to scramble out. Shaking and dripping, at last it stood still at the top, while Canby, a dead weight, was dragged over the edge to dry land.
There was as much fury as relief in his face when he stood up and started to loosen the rope around his chest.
Wallie stopped him with a gesture.
"No, you don't! I take no chances when I play with crooks. You make out that check."
"Isn't my word good?" Canby demanded.
"Not so far as I can throw my horse."
"I haven't a check-book," he lied.
"Get it, Pink."
The check-book and indelible pencil which everysheep and cattleman carries were in the inside pocket of his coat.
"Fill it out." Wallie passed the pencil to him. "And don't leave off a cipher by mistake."
"I refuse to be coerced!" Canby declared, defiantly. "I'll keep my word, but I didn't say when."
"I'msetting the date," Wallie replied, coolly, "and that's just four minutes and a half fromnow," taking out his watch. "If I haven't got the check by then you'll pay for those locoed horses, too, or I'll throw you back."
"You don't dare!"
"When you haven't anything to lose you'll do considerable to get 'hunks' and that's my fix. Besides, I need the money. Two minutes left—think fast."
"You'll sweat blood for this before I'm through with you!"
"Time's up—yes or no?"
Canby gritted his teeth.
Silently Wallie passed the end of the rope to Pinkey, who understood and took a turn around his saddle-horn.
Before he could resist Wallie gave Canby a shove and pushed him over the bank. He struck the water with a splash and went out of sight. Immediately the well-trained cow-horse felt the strain it backed up and held the rope taut.
Canby came to the surface, then dangled as the horse continued to hold off. As he strangled with the water he had taken in his lungs and struggledfrantically in the air, it seemed beyond human belief that it was he, Canby—Canby the all-powerful—in such a plight!
"Pay out a little rope, Pinkey. Give the fish more line."
Once again Canby dropped back and came up gasping, coughing, fighting for his breath.
A little anxiously Pinkey asked:
"Don't you bleeve he's had enough?"
"Too much scrap left in him yet," Wallie replied, unmoved.
Canby shrieked at last: "I'll pay! Let me up!"
"You mean that?"
"Good God—YES!"
Pinkey led the horse back and in no gentle fashion Canby was pulled over the edge for the second time, where he lay limp. When his breath and strength returned he struggled to his feet.
"If you go in again you won't come up." Wallie's voice was metallic and, searching his face, Canby saw that he meant exactly what he said.
His hand was shaking as he filled out the check, using the saddle for a desk.
Wallie looked at it and handed it back.
"You forgot the horses—six hundred is what they cost."
Canby started to protest, then, with a crafty look which, fleeting as it was, Wallie caught, he made out a new check for fifty-six hundred.
Turning to Pinkey, Canby said: "I'll give you a hundred and fifty for your horse."
Pinkey hesitated. It was a hundred more than it was worth.
"I guess not." Wallie's voice was curt. "I'm clairvoyant, Canby, and I've read your thought. You can't stop payment by telephone, because Pink is going to close-herd you right here until I ride to Prouty and get this cashed."
Pinkey's jaw dropped.
"By the long-horn toads of Texas! I wouldn't 'a' thought of that in a month!"
As Wallie put his foot into the stirrup for the first time his face relaxed. He looked over his shoulder and grinned:
"If you listen, maybe you'll hear something making a noise like a dude ranch, Pink."
CHAPTER XVITHE EXODUS
Never had Mr. Cone put in such a summer! The lines in his forehead looked as if they had been made with a harrow and there were times when his eyes had the expression of a hunted animal. Pacifying disgruntled guests was now as much a part of the daily routine as making out the menus. In the halcyon days when a guest had a complaint, he made it aside, delicately, as a suggestion. Now he made a point of dressing Mr. Cone down publicly. In truth, baiting the landlord seemed to be in the nature of a recreation with the guests of The Colonial. Threats to leave were of common occurrence, and Mr. Cone longed to be once more in a position to tell them calmly to use their own pleasure in the matter. But what with high taxes, excessive wages, extensive improvements still to be paid for, prudence kept him silent.
The only way in which he could explain the metamorphosis was that the guests were imbued with the spirit of discontent that prevailed throughout the world in the years following the war. The theory did not make his position easier, however, nor alter the fact that he all but fell to trembling when a patronapproached to leave his key or get a drink of ice water at the cooler.
As he lay awake wondering what next they would find to complain of, he framed splendid answers, dignified yet stinging, but when the time came to use them he remembered his expenses and his courage always failed him.
In his heart, he felt that this could not go on forever—some day someone would speak just the right word and he would surprise them. He had come to listen with comparative equanimity to the statement that his hotel was badly managed, the service poor, and the food the worst served on the beach-front, but there was the very strong possibility that someone would inadvertently touch a sensitive nerve and he would "fly off the handle." When that happened, Mr. Cone dreaded the outcome.
Such were conditions at The Colonial when the folders arrived announcing the opening of the Lolabama Ranch to tourists—the name meaning Happy Wigwam. Messrs. Macpherson and Fripp, it stated, were booking guests for the remainder of the season and urged those who had a taste for the Great Outdoors to consider what they had to offer. The folders created a sensation. They came in the morning after a night of excessive heat and humidity. The guests found them in their mail when, fishy-eyed and irritable, they went in to breakfast.
A new elevator boy who had jarred them by the violence of his stops had not improved their tempers, therefore few of them failed to comment to Mr.Cone upon the increasing wretchedness of the service.
While they fanned themselves and prophesied a day that was going to be a "scorcher" they read of a country where the nights were so cool that blankets were necessary, where the air was so invigorating that langour was unheard of, with such a variety of scenery that the eye never wearied. There were salt baths that made the old young again, big game in the mountains for the adventurous, fishing, with bait in untold quantities, saddle-horses for equestrians, innumerable walks for pedestrians, an excellent table provided with the best the market offered, and, finally, a tour of the Yellowstone Park under the personal guidance of the hosts of The Lolabama in a stage-coach drawn by four horses, by motor, or on horseback as suited their pleasure.
Small wonder that life on The Colonial veranda suddenly looked tame after reading the folder and studying the pictures! Their discontent took the form of an increasing desire to nag Mr. Cone. Vaguely they held him responsible for the heat, the humidity, the monotony of the ocean, and their loss of appetite due to lack of exercise.
On an impulse, Mr. Henry Appel, after consulting with his wife, got up abruptly and went inside for the purpose of having a plain talk with Mr. Cone.
Mr. Cone, who was making out the weekly bills, pretended not to see him until he cleared his throat and said very distinctly:
"May I have your attention, Mr. Cone?"
Quaking, Mr. Cone stepped forward briskly and apologized.
Ignoring the apology, Mr. Appel began impressively:
"You cannot have failed to see, Mr. Cone, that my wife and I have been thoroughly dissatisfied this summer, as we have been at no great pains to conceal it. We have been coming here for twenty-two seasons, but we feel that we cannot put up with things any longer and are hereby giving you notice that next Thursday our room will be at your disposal."
"Is it anything in particular—anything which I can remedy? Perhaps you will reconsider." Mr. Cone pleaded, looking from one to the other.
"Last night—at dinner"—Mrs. Appel eyed him accusingly—"I found—an eyewinker—in the hard sauce."
Mr. Cone stammered:
"I'm v-very sorry—it was not my eyewinker—such things will happen—I will speak to the pastry cook and ask him to be careful——"
Mr. Budlong, who had come in to lay his grievance before Mr. Cone, interrupted:
"For two mornings Mrs. Budlong and myself have been awakened by the man with the vacuum cleaner who has wanted to work in our room before we were out of it. I should judge," he said, acidly, "that you recruit your servants from the Home for the Feeble-minded, and, personally, I am sick of it!"
"It is almost impossible to get competent help,"Mr. Cone protested. "The man shall be discharged and I promise you no further annoyance."
Mr. Budlong, nudged by his wife, was not to be placated.
"Our week is up Monday, and we are leaving."
Miss Mattie Gaskett, encouraged by the conversation to which she had listened, declared with asperity:
"There has been fuzz under my bed for exactly one week, Mr. Cone, and I have not called the maid's attention to it because I wished to see how long it would remain there. I have no reason to believe that it will be removed this summer. I am sure it is not necessary to tell you that such filth is unsanitary. I have decided that you can make out my bill at your earliest convenience."
"But, Miss Gaskett——"
She ignored the protesting hand which Mr. Cone, panic-stricken, extended, and made way for a widow from Baltimore, who informed him that her faucet dripped and her rocking-chair squeaked, and since no attention had been paid to her complaints she was making other arrangements.
It was useless for Mr. Cone to explain that with the plumbers striking for living wages and the furniture repairers behind with their work, it had been impossible to attend immediately to these matters.
Ruin confronted Mr. Cone as he argued and begged them not to act hastily. But something of the mob spirit had taken possession of the guests in front of the desk who stood and glowered at him, and hisconciliatory attitude, his obsequiousness, only added to it.
If nothing else had happened to strain Mr. Cone's self-control further, he and his guests might have separated with at least a semblance of good feeling, but the fatal word which he had feared in his forebodings came from Mrs. J. Harry Stott, who majestically descended the broad staircase carrying before her a small reddish-brown insect impaled on a darning-needle. She walked to the desk and presented it for Mr. Cone's consideration. It was a most indelicate action, but the knowledge that it was such did not lessen the horror with which the guests regarded it.
Aghast, speechless, Mr. Cone, one of whose proudest boasts had been of the hotel's cleanliness, could not have been more shocked if he had learned that he was a leper.
There were shudders, ejaculations, and a general determination to leave even sooner than anticipated.
"Where did you find it?" Mr. Cone finally managed to ask hoarsely.
"Walking on my pillow!" replied Mrs. Stott, dramatically. "And I think there are others!If you will see that my trunks get off on the 4:17 I shall be obliged to you."
Mr. Cone knew it was coming. He felt the symptoms which warned him that he was going to "fly off the handle." He leaned over the counter. Mrs. Stott's eyes were so close together that, like Cyclops, she seemed to have but one, and they had the appearanceof growing even closer as Mr. Cone looked into them.
"Do not give yourself any concern on that score, madam. Your trunks will be at the station as soon as they are ready and it will please me if you will follow them.
"For twelve years I have been pretending not to know that you used the hotel soap to do your washing in the bath-tub, and it is a relief to mention it to you.
"And, Miss Gaskett," the deadly coldness of his voice made her shiver, "I doubt if the fuzz under your bed has troubled you as much as the fact that for three summers your cat has had kittens in the linen closet has annoyed me."
The Baltimore widow had his attention:
"It is possible that the drip from your faucet and the squeak in your rocking-chair gets on your nerves, my dear lady, but not more than your daily caterwauling on the hotel piano gets on mine.
"I shall miss your check, certainly, Mr. Appel, but not nearly so much as I shall enjoy the relief from listening to the story of the way you got your start as a 'breaker-boy' in the coal region."
He bowed with the irony of Mephistopheles to Mrs. Budlong:
"Instead of discharging the man with the vacuum cleaner, I shall give him for his large family the cake and fruit you would have carried away from the table in your capacious pocket if you had been here."
His eyes swept them all.
He would have given Mr. Budlong his attention,but that person's vanishing back was all he could see of him, so he turned to the others and shouted:
"Go! The sooner the better. Get out of my sight—the lot of you!I'm going to a rest cure!"
His hand travelled toward the potato he used as a pen-wiper and there was something so significant in the action when taken in connection with his menacing expression that, without a word, they obeyed him.