CHAPTER XVIICOUNTING THEIR CHICKENS
The "Happy Family" of The Colonial had decided to make up a congenial party and spend the remainder of the summer at the Lolabama Ranch in Wyoming. They were expected on the morrow, everything was in readiness for their coming, and, after supper, down by the corrals Wallie and Pinkey sat on their heels estimating their probable profits.
Pinkey's forehead was furrowed like a corrugated roof with the mental effort as he figured in the dust with a pointed stick while Wallie's face wore a look of absorption as he watched the progress, although he was already as familiar with it as with his multiplication tables.
"Ten head of dudes at $100 a month is a $1,000," said Pinkey. "And twelve months in the year times a $1,000 is $12,000. And, say——"
Wallie interrupted:
"But I've told you a dozen times they all go South in the winter. The most we can count on is two months now and perhaps more next summer."
Pinkey replied confidently:
"You can't figger out ahead what a dude is goin'to do any more than a calf or a sheep. If we treat 'em right and they get stuck on the country they're liable to winter here instead of Floridy. Now, if we could winter—say—ten head of dudes at $150 a month for seven months, that would be $10,500. The trip through the Yellowstone Park and Jackson Hole Country is goin' to be a big item. Ten head of dudes—say—at $5.00 a day for—say—fifteen days is——"
"But you never deduct expenses, Pinkey. It isn't all profit. There's the interest on the investment, interest on the money we borrowed, groceries, the cook's wages, and we'll need helpers through the Yellowstone."
"You're gettin' an awful habit of lookin' on the black side of things," said Pinkey, crossly.
"If we can pay expenses and have a $1,000 clear the first year, I'll be satisfied."
"A thousand dollars!" Pinkey exclaimed, indignantly. "You're easy pleased—I thought you had more ambition. Look at the different ways we got to git their money. Two bits apiece for salt water baths and eight baths a day—some of 'em might not go in reg'lar—every day, but, say eight of 'em do, anyway, eight times two bits is $2.00. Then $10.00 apiece every time they go to town in the stage-coach is, say, $100 a trip—and they go twict a week, say, that's $200."
"But they might not go twice a week," Wallie protested, "nor all of them at a time."
"You shore give me the blues a croakin'. Whydon't you look on the bright side of things like you useta? Do you know, I've been thinkin' we ought to make out a scale of prices for lettin' 'em work around the place. They'd enjoy it if they had to pay for it—dudes is like that, I've noticed. They're all pretty well fixed, ain't they?"
"Oh, yes, they all have a good deal of money, unless, perhaps Miss Eyester, and I don't know much about her in that way. But Mr. Penrose, Mr. Appel, and Mr. Budlong are easily millionaires."
Pinkey's eyes sparkled.
"I s'pose a dollar ain't any more to them than a nickel to us?"
Wallie endeavoured to think of an instance which would indicate that Pinkey's supposition was correct, but, recalling none, declared enthusiastically:
"They are the most agreeable, altogether delightful people you ever knew, and, if I do say it, they think the world of me."
"That's good; maybe they won't deal us so much grief."
"How—grief?"
"Misery," Pinkey explained.
"I can't imagine them doing anything ill-natured or ill-bred," Wallie replied, resentfully. "You must have been unfortunate in the kind of dudes you've met."
Pinkey changed the subject as he did when he was unconvinced but he was in no mood for argument. He climbed to the top pole of the corral fence and looked proudly at the row of ten-by-twelve tents which theguests were to occupy, at the long tar-paper room built on to the original cabin for a dining room, at the new bunk-house for himself and Wallie and the help, at the shed with a dozen new saddles hanging on their nails, while the ponies to wear them milled behind him in the corral. His eyes sparkled as he declared:
"We shore got a good dudin' outfit! But it's nothin' to what wewillhave—watch our smoke! The day'll come when we'll see this country, as you might say, lousy with dudes! So fur as the eye kin reach—dudes! Nothin' but dudes!" He illustrated with a gesture so wide and vigorous that if it had not been for his high heels hooked over a pole he would have lost his balance.
"Yes," Wallie agreed, complacently, "at least we've got a start. And it seems like a good sign, the luck we've had in picking things up cheap."
Instinctively they both looked at the old-fashioned, four-horse stage-coach that they had found scrapped behind the blacksmith shop in Prouty and bought for so little that they had quaked in their boots lest the blacksmith change his mind before they could get it home. But their fears were groundless, since the blacksmith was uneasy from the same cause.
They had had it repaired and painted red, with yellow wheels that flashed in the sun. And now, there it stood—the last word in the picturesque discomfort for which dudes were presumed to yearn! They regarded it as their most valuable possession since, at $10.00 a trip, it would quickly pay for itselfand thereafter yield a large return upon a small investment.
Neither of them could look at it without pride, and Pinkey chortled for the hundredth time:
"It shore was a great streak of luck when we got that coach!"
Wallie agreed that it was, and added:
"Everything's been going so well that I'm half scared. Look at that hotel-range we got second hand—as good as new; and the way we stumbled on to a first-class cook; and my friends coming out—it seems almost too good to be true."
He drew a sigh which came from such contentment as he had not known since he came to the State, for it seemed as if he were over the hard part of the road and on the way to see a few of his hopes realized.
With the money he had collected from Canby he had formed a partnership with Pinkey whereby the latter was to furnish the experience and his services as against his, Wallie's, capital.
Once more the future looked roseate; but perhaps the real source of his happiness lay in the fact that he had seen Helene Spenceley in Prouty a good bit of late and she had treated him with a consideration which had been conspicuously lacking heretofore.
If he made a success shemusttake him seriously and—anyway, his train of thought led him to inquire:
"Don't you ever think about getting married, Pink?"
His partner regarded him in astonishment.
"Now wouldn't I look comical tied to one of them quails I see runnin' around Prouty!"
"But," Wallie persisted, "some nice girl——"
"Aw-w—— I'd ruther have a good saddle-horse. I had a pal that tried it onct, and when I seen him, I says: 'How is it, Jess?' He says, 'Well, the first year is the worst, and after that it's worse and worse.' No, sir! Little Pinkey knows when he's well off."
It was obvious that his partner's mood did not fit in with his own. The new moon rose and the crickets chirped as the two sat in silence on the fence and smoked.
"It's a wonderful night!" Wallie said, finally, in a hushed voice.
"It's plumb peaceful," Pinkey agreed. "I feel like I do when I'm gittin' drunk and I've got to the stage whur my lip gits stiff. I've always wisht I could die when I was like that."
Wallie suggested curtly:
"Let's go to bed." He had regretted his partner's lack of sentiment more than once.
"Time to git into the feathers if we make an early start." Pinkey unhooked his heels. "Might have a little trouble hitchin' up. The two broncs I aim to put on the wheel has never been drove."
CHAPTER XVIIITHE MILLIONAIRES
Pinkey was not one to keep his left hand from knowing what his right hand is doing, so the report had been widely circulated that "a bunch of millionaires" were to be the first guests at the new Lolabama Dude Ranch. In consequence of which, aside from the fact that the horses ran across a sidewalk and knocked over a widow's picket-fence, the advent of Pinkey and Wallie in Prouty caused no little excitement, since it was deduced that the party would arrive on the afternoon train.
If to look at one millionaire is a pleasure and a privilege for folk who are kept scratching to make ends meet, the citizens of Prouty might well be excused for leaving their occupations and turning outen masseto see a "bunch." The desire to know how a person might look who could write his check in six or more figures, and get it cashed, explained the appearance of the male contingent on the station platform waiting for the train to come in, while the expectation of a view of the latest styles accounted for their wives.
"Among those present," as the phrase goes, was Mr. Tucker. Although Mr. Tucker had not been ina position to make any open accusations relative to the disappearance of his cache, the cordial relations between Wallie and Pinkey and himself had been seriously disturbed. So much so, in fact, that they might have tripped over him in the street without bringing the faintest look of recognition to his eyes.
Mr. Tucker, however, was too much of a diplomat to harbour a grudge against persons on a familiar footing with nearly a dozen millionaires. Therefore, when the combined efforts of Wallie and Pinkey on the box stopped the coach reasonably close to the station platform, Mr. Tucker stepped out briskly and volunteered to stand at the leaders' heads.
"Do you suppose we'll have much trouble when the train pulls in?" Wallie asked in an undertone.
"I don't look fer it," said Pinkey. "They might snort a little, and jump, when the engine comes, but they'll git used to it. That twenty-mile drive this mornin' took off the wire-aidge some."
Pinkey's premises seemed to be correct, for the four stood with hanging heads and sleepy-eyed while everyone watched the horizon for the smoke which would herald the coming of the train.
"Your y-ears is full of sand and it looks like you woulda shaved or had your whiskers drove in and clinched." Pinkey eyed Wallie critically as they waited together on the seat.
"Looks as if you would have had your teeth fixed," Wallie retorted. "It's been nearly a year since that horse kicked them out."
"What would I go wastin' money like that for?"Pinkey demanded. "They're front ones—I don't need 'em to eat."
"You'd look better," Wallie argued.
"What do I care how I look! I aim to do what's right by these dudes: I'll saddle fer 'em, and I'll answer questions, and show 'em the sights, but I don't need teeth to do that."
Pinkey was obstinate on some points, so Wallie knew it was useless to persist; nevertheless, the absence of so many of his friend's teeth troubled him more than a little, for the effect was startling when he smiled, and Pinkey was no matinee idol at his best.
"There she comes!"
As one, the spectators on the platform stretched their necks to catch the first glimpse of the train bearing its precious cargo of millionaires.
Wallie felt suddenly nervous and wished he had taken more pains to dress, as he visualized the prosperous-looking, well-groomed folk of The Colonial Hotel.
As the mixed train backed up to the station from the Y, it was seen that the party was on the back platform of the one passenger coach, ready to get off. The engine stopped so suddenly that the cars bumped and the party on the rear platform were thrown violently into each other's arms.
The expression on old Mr. Penrose's face was so fiendish as Mrs. C. D. Budlong toppled backward and stood on his bunion that Wallie forgot the graceful speech of welcome he had framed. Mr. Penrosehad travelled all the way in one felt slipper and now, as the lady inadvertently ground her heel into the tender spot, Mr. Penrose looked as he felt—murderous.
"Get off my foot!" he shouted.
Mrs. Budlong obeyed by stepping on his other foot.
Mr. Appel, who had lurched over the railing, observed sarcastically:
"They ought to put that engineer on a stock train."
The party did not immediately recognize Wallie in his Western clothes, but when they did they waved grimy hands at him and cried delightedly:
"Here we are, Wallie!"
Wallie made no reply to this self-evident fact and, indeed, he could not, for he was too aghast at the shabby appearance of his wealthy friends to think of any that was appropriate. They looked as if they had ransacked their attics for clothes in which to make the trip.
The best Wallie could immediately manage was a limp handshake and a sickly grin as the coal baron and street-railway magnate, Mr. Henry Appel, stepped off in a suit of which he had undoubtedly been defrauding his janitor for some years.
Mrs. J. Harry Stott was handed down in a pink silk creation, through the lace insertion of which one could see the cinders that had settled in the fat crease of her neck. While Mrs. Stott recognized its inappropriateness, she had decided to give it a final wear and save a fresh gown.
Upon her heels was Mr. Stott, in clothes which bore mute testimony to the fact that he led a sedentary life. Mr. Stott was a "jiner" for business purposes and he was wearing all his lodge pins in the expectation of obtaining special privileges from brother members while travelling.
C. D. Budlong wore a "blazer" and a pair of mountain boots that had involved him in a quarrel with a Pullman conductor, who had called him a vandal for snagging a plush seat with the hob-nails. At his wife's request, Mr. Budlong was bringing a canvas telescope filled with a variety of tinned fruits. It was so heavy that it sagged from the handle as he bore it in front of him with both hands, so no one was deceived by his heroic efforts to carry it jauntily and make it appear that he did not notice the weight.
The only stranger in the party was Mrs. Henry Appel's maiden aunt—Miss Lizzie Philbrick—sixty or thereabouts. "Aunt Lizzie" was a refugee from the City of Mexico, and had left that troublesome country in such a panic that she had brought little besides a bundle of the reports of a Humane Society with which she had been identified, and an onyx apple, to which it was assumed there was much sentiment attached, since she refused to trust it to the baggage car, and was carrying it in her hand.
"Aunt Lizzie" looked as if she had been cast for a period play—early General Grant, perhaps—as she descended wearing a beaded silk mantle and a bonnet with strings.
"Be careful, Aunt Lizzie! Look where you step!"
The chorus of warnings was due to the fact that Aunt Lizzie already had fallen fourteen times in transit, a tack-head seeming sufficient to trip her up, and now, quite as though they had shouted the reverse, Aunt Lizzie stumbled and dropped the onyx apple upon old Mr. Penrose's felt-shod foot.
This was too much. Mr. Penrose shouted furiously:
"I wish you'd lose that damned thing!"
When it came to altered looks, Wallie had no monopoly on surprise. The Happy Family found it difficult to reconcile this rather tough-looking young man with the nice, neat boy who had blown them kisses from the motor bus.
"Now, what sort of a conveyance have you provided?" inquired Mr. Stott, who had taken the initiative in such matters during the trip.
Wallie pointed proudly to the stage-coach with Pinkey on the box and Mr. Tucker standing faithfully at the leaders' heads.
Everybody exclaimed in delight and lost no time in greeting Pinkey, whose response was cordial but brief. To Wallie he said, out of the corner of his mouth:
"Load 'em on. The roan is gittin' a hump in his back."
"We have twenty-five miles to make," Wallie hinted.
"Our luggage? How about that?" inquired Mr. Stott.
"It will follow." Wallie opened the stage-coach door as a further hint.
"I want to get some snap-shots of the town," said Mr. Penrose, who had his camera and a pair of field-glasses slung over his shoulder.
"What an experience this will be to write home!" gushed Miss Gaskett. "Let's stop at the office and mail post-cards."
Pinkey leaned over the side and winked at Wallie, who urged uneasily:
"We must start. Twenty-five miles is a good distance to make before dark."
"Switzerland has nothing to surpass this view!" declared Mr. Stott, who had never been in Switzerland.
Everyone took a leisurely survey of the mountains.
"And the air is very like that of the Scotch moors." No one ever would have suspected from his positive tone that Mr. Stott never had been in Scotland, either.
"I am sorry to insist," said Wallie in response to another significant look from Pinkey, "but we really will have to hurry."
Thus urged, they proceeded to clamber in, except Miss Gertie Eyester, who was patting the roan on the nose.
"Dear 'ittie horsey!"
"'Ittie horse eats human flesh, you'd better not git too close," said Pinkey.
Miss Eyester looked admiringly at Pinkey in his red shirt and declared with an arch glance:
"You're so droll, Mr. Fripp!"
Since Mr. Fripp thought something of the sort himself he did not contradict her, but told himself that she was "not so bad—for a dude."
"I hope the horses are perfectly safe, because my heart isn't good, and when I'm frightened it goes bad and my lips get just asb-l-u-e!"
"They look all right now," said Pinkey, after giving them his careful attention.
Miss Eyester observed wistfully:
"I hope I will get well and strong out here."
"If you'd go out in a cow-camp fer a couple of months it would do you a world of good," Pinkey advised her. "You'd fatten up."
Mr. Budlong, who had gotten in the coach, got out again to inquire of Pinkey if he was sure the horses were perfectly gentle.
"I'd trust my own step-mother behind 'em anywhere."
Mr. Budlong, who had had a step-mother, intimated that that was not convincing proof, and returned to the coach declaring that he had no fears for himself, but his wife was nervous.
To show his contempt of danger, Mr. Stott said: "Poof!"
Wallie, having closed the door, climbed up beside Pinkey, who unlocked the brake.
"I always feel helpless shut inside a vehicle," declared Mr. Budlong.
Mr. Stott again said recklessly: "Poof!"
Just as he said "poof!", the leaders rose on their hind legs. Mr. Tucker, who rose with them, clungvaliantly to their bits and dangled there. One of the wheel horses laid down and the other tried to climb over the back of the leader in front of him, while the bystanders scattered.
"There seems to be some kind of a ruckus," Mr. Appel remarked as he stood up and leaned out the window.
Before he had time to report, however, two side wheels went over the edge of the station platform, tipping the coach to an angle which sent all the passengers on the upper side into the laps of those on the lower.
Aunt Lizzie pitched headlong and with such force that when she struck Mr. Stott on the mouth with her onyx apple she cut his lip.
"You'll kill somebody with that yet!" Mr. Stott glared at the keepsake.
Aunt Lizzie scrambled back into her seat and looked composedly at the drop of blood he offered in evidence, on the corner of his handkerchief.
Mr. Appel, who undoubtedly would have gone on through the window when the coach lurched had it not been for his wife's presence of mind in clutching him by the coat, demanded in an angry voice—instead of showing the gratitude she had reason to expect:
"Whatch you doin'? Tearin' the clothes off'n m'back? Wisht you'd leave me be!"
It had been years since Mr. Appel had spoken to his wife like that. Mrs. Appel opened her reticule, took out a handkerchief and held it to her eyes.
In the meantime the side wheels had dropped off the station platform and the coach had righted itself, but in spite of all that Pinkey and Wallie could do the leaders swung sharply to the left and dragged the wheel horses after them down the railroad track.
When the wheels struck the ties, Miss Mattie Gaskett bounded into the air as if she had been sitting upon a steel coil that had suddenly been released. She was wearing a tall-crowned hat of a style that had not been in vogue for some years and as she struck the roof it crackled and went shut like an accordeon, so that it was of an altogether different shape when she dropped back to the seat.
"Oh, my!" she exclaimed, blinking in a dazed fashion as she felt of her hat.
Old Mr. Penrose, who had elongated his naturally long neck preparatory to looking out the window, also struck the roof and with such force that his neck was bent like the elbow in a stove-pipe when he came down. He said such a bad word that Aunt Lizzie Philbrick exclaimed: "Oh, how dread-ful!" and asked him to remember where he was.
Mr. Penrose replied that he did not care where he was—that if her neck had been driven into her shoulders a foot she would say something, too.
Mrs. J. Harry Stott and Mr. Budlong, who had bumped heads so hard that the thud was heard, were eyeing each other in an unfriendly fashion as they felt of their foreheads, waiting for the lump.
Mr. Stott, who was still patting his lip with his handkerchief, declared:
"Such roads as these retard the development of a county."
"Undoubtedly," agreed Mr. Appel, getting up out of the aisle. "They are a disgrace!"
"We are goingawayfrom the mountains—I don't understand——"
Mr. Stott smiled reassuringly at Mrs. Budlong and told her that Wallie and Pinkey, of course, knew the road.
"I don't care," she insisted, stoutly, "I believe something's wrong. We are going awfully fast, and if I thought it was as rough as this all the way I should prefer to walk."
"You must remember that you are now in the West, Mrs. Budlong," Mr. Stott replied in a kind but reproving tone, "and we cannot expect——"
Mrs. Budlong, who had just bitten her tongue, retorted sharply:
"We certainly could expect a more comfortable conveyance than this. If I live to get out I shall never step foot in it again."
"When we stop at the post-office," said Mr. Budlong in a tone of decision as he clung to the window frame, "I shall hire a machine and go out—the rest of you can do as you like."
If there was dissatisfaction inside the coach it was nothing at all compared to the excitement on the box as the horses galloped down the railroad track. The leaders' mouths might have been bound in cast-iron for all the attention they paid to the pull on their bits, although Pinkey and Wallie were usingtheir combined strength in their efforts to stop the runaways.
"Them dudes must be gittin' an awful churnin'," said Pinkey through his clenched teeth.
"We'll be lucky if we are not ditched," Wallie panted as he braced his feet.
"Wouldn't that be some rank! Even if we 'rim a tire' we got to swing off this track, for there's a culvert somewheres along here and——"
"Pink!"
Pinkey had no time to look, but he knew what the sharp exclamation meant.
"Pull my gun out—lay it on the seat—I can stop 'em if I must."
Pinkey's face was white under its sunburn and his jaw was set.
"How far we got?"
"About a hundred yards," Wallie answered, breathing heavily.
"We'll give 'em one more try. My hands are playin' out. You pop it to the roan when I say. Cut him wide open! If I can't turn him, I'll drop him. They'll pile up and stop. It's the only way."
Pinkey dug his heels into the foot-brace in front and took a tighter wrap of the lines around his hands. He could see the culvert ahead. His voice was hoarse as he gave the word.
Wallie stood up and swung the long rawhide braided whip. At the same time Pinkey put all his failing strength on one line. As the roan felt the tremendous pull on his mouth and the whip-thongs stunghis head and neck, he turned at a sharp angle, dragging his mate. The wheel horses followed, and some of the stout oak spokes splintered in the wheels as they jerked the coach over the rail.
The pallid pair exchanged a quick glance of unutterable relief. The horses were still running but their speed was slackening as Pinkey swung them in a circle toward the town. Dragging the heavy coach over sagebrush hummocks and through sand had winded them so that they were almost ready to quit when they turned down the main street.
"If we'd 'a' hit that culvert we mighta killed off half our dudes. That woulda been what I call notorious hard luck," Pinkey had just observed, when Wallie commenced to whip the horses to a run once more.
"What you doin' that for?" He turned in astonishment.
"Let 'em go—I know what I'm about!"
"I think you're crazy, but I'll do what you say till I'm sure," Pinkey answered as Wallie continued to lay on the lash.
Imperative commands were coming from inside the coach as it tore through the main street.
"Let me out of this death-trap!" Old Mr. Penrose's bellow of rage was heard above the chorus of voices demanding that Pinkey stop.
But it was not until they were well on the road to the ranch, and Prouty was a speck, that the horses were permitted to slow down; then Pinkey turned and looked at Wallie admiringly.
"You shore got a head on you, old pard! We wouldn't 'a' had a dude left if we'd let 'em out while they was mad."
"It just occurred to me in time," said Wallie, complacently.
"You don't s'pose any of 'em'll slip out and run back?"
"No, I think we're all right if nothing more happens between here and the ranch."
After a time Pinkey remarked:
"That lady with the bad heart—she must 'a' been scairt. I'll bet her lips were purple as a plum, don't you?"
But Wallie, who was far more interested in the probable fact that the coach as a source of revenue could no longer be counted on than in the colour of Miss Eyester's lips, mumbled that he didn't know.
CHAPTER XIXA SHOCK FOR MR. CANBY
The morning following their arrival at The Lolabama, The Happy Family, looking several shades less happy, began coming from their tents shortly after daylight. By five o'clock they were all up and dressed, since, being accustomed to darkened rooms, they found themselves unable to sleep owing to the glare coming through the white canvas.
Out of consideration for his guests, whom he remembered as late risers, Wallie had set the breakfast hour at eight-thirty. This seemed an eternity to The Happy Family who, already famished, consulted their watches with increasing frequency while they watched the door of the bunk-house like cats at a mouse-hole for the cook to make his appearance.
After a restless night due to strange beds and surroundings, still fatigued with their long journey, their muscles stiff from the "churning" in the stagecoach, they were not better natured for being ferociously hungry.
After wandering around to look listlessly at the ponies, and at the salt-water plunge that was to rejuvenate them, they sat down on the edge of theplatforms in front of their tents to endure somehow the three hours which must pass before breakfast.
The dawn was sweet-scented, the song of the meadow-lark celestial, and the colours of the coming day reflected on the snow-covered peaks a sight to be remembered, but the guests had no eyes or ears or nose for any of the charms of the early morning. The rising of the sun was nothing as compared to the rising of the cook who would appease their savage hunger.
Conversation was reduced to monosyllables as, miserable and apathetic, they sat thinking of the food they had sent back to Mr. Cone's kitchen with caustic comments, of the various dishes for which the chef of The Colonial was celebrated.
Mr. Stott thought that his watch must be slow until it was found that every other watch agreed with his exactly. He declared that when the cook did appear he meant to urge him to hurry breakfast.
The cook came out, finally, at seven-thirty, and, after a surprised glance at the row on the platforms, strode into the kitchen where he rattled the range as if it were his purpose to wreck it.
When the smoke rose from the chimney Mr. Stott went to the door to carry out his intention of asking the cook to speed up breakfast.
A large sign greeted him:
DUDES KEEP OUT
The cook was a gaunt, long-legged person with a saturnine countenance. He wore a seersuckercoat with a nickel badge pinned on the lapel of it.
As an opening wedge Mr. Stott smiled engagingly and pointed to it:
"For exceptional gallantry, I presume—a war medal?"
The hero stopped long enough to offer it for Mr. Stott's closer inspection.
It read:
UNITED ORDER OF PASTRY COOKS OF THE WORLD
Taken somewhat aback, Mr. Stott said feebly:
"Very nice, indeed—er——"
"Mr. Hicks, at your service!" the cook supplemented, bowing formally.
"Hicks," Mr. Stott added.
"Just take a second longer and say 'Mister.'"
The cook eyed him in such a fashion as he administered the reprimand for his familiarity that Mr. Stott backed off without mentioning his starving condition.
"What did he say?" they asked, eagerly, as he sat down on his platform, somewhat crestfallen.
"He seems a temperamental person," Mr. Stott replied, evasively. "But we shall have breakfast in due season."
It was suspected that Mr. Stott had failed in his mission, and they were sure of it as the hands dragged around to eight-thirty.
At that hour precisely Mr. Hicks came out and hammered on a triangle as vigorously as if it werenecessary. In spite of their efforts to appear unconcerned when it jangled, the haste of the guests was nothing less than indecent as they hurried to the dining room and scrambled for seats at the table.
The promise of food raised their spirits a trifle and Mr. Appel was able to say humorously as, with his table knife, he scalped his agate-ware plate loose from the oil-cloth:
"I suppose we shall soon learn the customs of the country. In a month we should all be fairly well ac'climated."
"Acclim'ated," Mr. Stott corrected.
"Ac'climated," Mr. Appel maintained, obstinately. "At least with your kind permission I shall continue to so pronounce it."
"I beg your pardon," Mr. Stott apologized with elaborate sarcasm, "but when I am wrong I like to be told of it." Which was not the strict truth for the reason that no one ever was able to convince him that he ever was mistaken. As a result of the discussion everyone was afraid to use the word for fear of offending one or the other.
The silence that followed while breakfast was being placed upon the table was broken by Miss Eyester, who said timidly:
"In the night I thought I heard something sniffing, and it frightened me."
Not to be outdone in sensational experiences, Mrs. Stott averred positively:
"There was somewild animalrunning over ourtent. I could hear its sharp claws sticking into the canvas. A coyote, I fancy."
"A ground-squirrel, more likely," remarked Mr. Appel.
Mr. Stott smiled at him:
"Squee-rrel, if you will allow me to again correct you."
"I guess I can't help myself," replied Mr. Appel, drily.
Mr. Stott shrugged a shoulder and his tolerant look said plainly that, after all, one should not expect too much of a man who had begun life as a "breaker-boy."
"The squee-rrel or coyote or whatever it was," Mrs. Stott continued, "went pitter-patter, pitter-patter—so!" She illustrated with her finger-tips on the oil-cloth.
"Prob'ly a chipmunk," said Pinkey, prosaically.
"Are they dangerous, Mr. Fripp?" inquired Miss Gaskett.
"Not unless cornered or wounded," he replied, gravely.
This was a joke, obviously, so everybody laughed, which stimulated Pinkey to further effort. When Mr. Hicks poured his cup so full that the coffee ran over he remarked facetiously:
"It won't stack, cookie."
Coffee-pot in hand, Mr. Hicks drew himself up majestically and his eyes withered Pinkey.
"I beg to be excused from such familiarity, and if you wish our pleasant relations to continue you will not repeat it."
"I bet I won't joshhimagain," Pinkey said, ruefully, when Mr. Hicks returned to the kitchen in the manner of offended royalty.
"Cooks are sometimes very peculiar," observed Mr. Stott, buttering his pancakes lavishly. "I remember that my mother—my mother, by the way, Mr. Penrose, was a Sproat——"
"Shoat?" Old Mr. Penrose, who complained of a pounding in his ears, was not hearing so well in the high altitude.
Mr. Appel and Pinkey tittered, which nettled Mr. Stott and he shouted:
"Sproat! An old Philadelphia family."
"Oh, yes," Mr. Penrose recollected. "I recall Amanda Sproat—she married a stevedore. Your sister?"
Mr. Stott chose to ignore the inquiry, and said coldly:
"My father was in public life." He might have added that his father was a policeman, and therefore his statement was no exaggeration.
Everybody felt that it served Mr. Penrose right for telling about the stevedore when he was seized with a violent fit of coughing immediately afterward. Wiping his streaming eyes, he looked from Wallie to Pinkey and declared resentfully:
"This is the result of your reckless driving. The cork came out of my cough syrup in the suitcase. The only way I can get relief from the irritation is to apply my tongue to the puddle. I shall have to lick my valise until I can have the prescription refilled in Prouty."
The culprits mumbled that they "were sorry," to which Mr. Penrose replied disagreeably that that did not keep him from "coughing his head off!"
Looking sympathetically at Pinkey, Miss Eyester, for the purpose of diverting the irascible old gentleman's attention from the subject, asked when she might take her first riding lesson.
Pinkey said promptly: "This mornin'—they's nothin' to hinder."
"That's awfully good of you, Mr. Fripp," she said, gratefully.
Pinkey, who always jumped when any one called him "Mister," replied bluntly:
"Tain't—I wantta."
"We'll all go!" Mrs. Stott cried, excitedly.
"Shore." There was less enthusiasm in the answer.
"We were so fortunate as to be able to purchase our equipment for riding broncos before coming out here," explained Mr. Budlong. "There is an excellent store on the Boardwalk and we found another in Omaha."
"We have divided skirts and everything! Just wait till you see us!" cried Mrs. Budlong. "And you'll take our pictures, won't you, Mr. Penrose?"
"I don't mind wasting a couple of films," he consented.
Between the pancakes and the prospective riding lesson the atmosphere cleared and everyone's spirits rose so that the slightly strained relations were again normal by the time they got up from the table.
They were as eager as children as they opened their trunks for their costumes, and even Aunt Lizzie Philbrick, who had once ridden a burro in Old Mexico, declared her intention of trying it.
While the "dudes" dressed, Pinkey and Wallie went down to the corral to saddle for them.
"We better let her ride the pinto," said Pinkey, casually.
"'Her?'" Wallie looked at his partner fixedly. "Which 'her'?"
"That lady that's so thin she could hide behind a match and have room left to peek around the corner. She seems sickly, and the pinto is easy-gaited," Pinkey explained, elaborately.
"All right," Wallie nodded, "and we'll put Aunt Lizzie on the white one and give Mrs. Budlong——"
"Kindly assign me a spirited mount," interrupted Mr. Stott, who, as to costume, was a compromise between an English groom and a fox-hunter.
Wallie looked dubious.
"Oh, I understand horses," declared Mr. Stott, "I used to ride like an Indian."
"The buckskin?" Wallie asked doubtfully of Pinkey.
Pinkey hesitated.
"You need not be afraid that he will injure me. I can handle him."
Wallie, who never had heard of Mr. Stott's horsemanship, consented reluctantly.
"I prefer to saddle and bridle myself, also," said Mr. Stott, when the buckskin was pointed out to him.
Wallie's misgivings returned to him and Pinkey rolled his eyes eloquently when they saw "the man who understood horses" trying to bridle with the chin-strap and noted that he had saddled without a blanket.
Mr. Stott laughed inconsequently when the mistake was pointed out to him and declared that it was an oversight merely.
"Now, if you will get me something to stand on I am ready to mount."
Once more Pinkey and Wallie exchanged significant glances as the man "who used to ride like an Indian" climbed into the saddle like someone getting into an upper berth in a Pullman.
Mr. Stott was sitting with the fine, easy grace of a clothespin when the rest of the party came down the path ready for their riding lesson.
Neither Pinkey nor Wallie was easily startled, but when they saw their guests the most their astonishment permitted was an inarticulate gurgle. Dismay also was among their emotions as they thought of conducting the party through Prouty and the Yellowstone. Wallie had his share of moral courage, but when they first met his vision he doubted if he was strong enough for the ordeal.
Mrs. Budlong, whose phlegmatic exterior concealed a highly romantic nature and an active imagination, was dressed to resemble a cow-girl of the movies as nearly as her height and width permitted. Her Stetson, knotted kerchief, fringed gauntlets, quirt, spurs to delight a Mexican, and swagger—which hadthe effect of a barge rocking at anchor—so fascinated Pinkey that he could not keep his eyes from her.
Old Mr. Penrose in a buckskin shirt ornate with dyed porcupine quills, and a forty-five Colt slung in a holster, looked like the next to the last of the Great Scouts, while Mr. Budlong, in a beaded vest that would have turned bullets, was happy though uncomfortable.
Mr. Budlong was dressed like a stage bandit, except that he wore moccasins in spite of Pinkey's warning that he would find it misery to ride in them unless he was accustomed to wearing them.
Simultaneous with Miss Gaskett's appearance in plaid bloomers a saddle-horse lay back and broke his bridle-reins, for which Pinkey had not the heart to punish him in the circumstances.
Aunt Lizzie wore long, voluminous, divided skirts and a little white hat like a paté-tin, while by contrast Mrs. Harry Stott looked very smart and ultra in a tailored coat and riding breeches.
This was the party that started up Skull Creek under Pinkey's guidance, and the amazing aggregation that greeted the choleric eye of Mr. Canby on one of the solitary rides which were his greatest diversion. He had just returned from the East and had not yet learned of the use to which Wallie had put his check. But now he recalled Wallie's parting speech to Pinkey when he had started to get the paper cashed, and this fantastic company was the result!
As Canby drew in his horse, he stared in stony-eyedunfriendliness while they waved at him gaily and Mr. Stott called out that they were going to be neighbourly and visit him soon.
The feeling of helpless wrath in which he now looked after the party was a sensation that he had experienced only a few times in his life. Pinkey had warned him that at the first openly hostile act he would "blab" the story of the Skull Creek episode far and wide. He had hit Canby in his most vulnerable spot, for ridicule was something which he found it impossible to endure, and he could well appreciate the glee with which his many enemies would listen to the tale, taking good care that it never died.
By all the rules of the game as he had played it often, and always with success, Wallie should long since have "faded"—scared, starved out. Yet, somehow, in some unique and extraordinary way that only a "dude" would think of, he had managed to come out on top.
But the real basis for Canby's grievance, and one which he would not admit even to himself, was that however Wallie was criticized, Helene Spenceley never failed to find something to say in his defence.
There was not much that Canby could do in the present circumstances to put difficulties in Wallie's way, but the next day he found it convenient to turn a trainload of long-horn Texas cattle loose on the adjacent range, and posted warnings to the effect that they were dangerous to pedestrians, and persons going among them on foot did so at their own risk.