CHAPTER XXWALLIE QUALIFIES AS A FIRST-CLASS HERO
Pinkey took a triangular piece of glass from between the logs in the bunk-house and regarded himself steadfastly in the bit of broken mirror.
He murmured finally:
"I ain't no prize baby, but if I jest had a classy set of teeth I wouldn't be bad lookin'."
He replaced the mirror in the crack and sauntered down to the cook-shack where he seated himself on the door-sill. The chef was singing as if he meant it: "Ah, I Have Sighed to Rest Me Deep in the Silent Grave."
Pinkey interrupted:
"How do you git to work to get teeth, Mr. Hicks, if they ain't no dentist handy?"
Like Mr. Stott, no question could be put to Mr. Hicks for which he could not find an answer. He now replied promptly:
"Well, there's two ways: you can send to Mungummery-Ward and have a crate sent out on approval, and keep tryin' till you find a set that fits, or you can take the cast off your gooms yourself, send it on and have 'em hammer you out some to order."
"Is that so? What kind of stuff do they use to make the cast of your gooms of?"
"Some uses putty, some uses clay, but I believe they generally recommend plaster of Paris. It's hard, and it's cheap, and it stays where it's put."
A thoughtful silence followed; then Pinkey got up and joined Wallie, who was sitting on the top pole of the corral, smoking moodily.
The "dudes" were at target practice with 22's and six-shooters, having been persuaded finally not to use Mr. Canby's range as a background. They now all walked with a swagger and seldom went to their meals without their weapons.
Pinkey blurted out suddenly:
"I wisht I'd died when I was little!"
"What's the matter?"
"Oh, nothin'."
It was plain that he wished to be interrogated further, but Wallie, who was thinking of Helene Spenceley and her indifference to him, was in no mood to listen to other people's troubles.
After another period of reflection Pinkey asked abruptly:
"Do you believe in signs?"
To which Wallie replied absently:
"Can't say I do. Why?"
"If there's anything in signs I ought to be turrible jealous—the way my eyebrows grow together."
"Aren't you?" indifferently.
"Me—jealous? Nobody could make me jealous, especially a worman."
"You're lucky!" Wallie spoke with unnecessary emphasis. "It's an uncomfortable sensation."
Pinkey shifted uneasily and picked a bit of bark off the corral pole.
"Don't it look kinda funny that Miss Eyester would take any in'trist in Old Man Penrose? A girl like her wouldn't care nothin' about his money, would she?"
Wallie looked dour as he answered:
"You never can tell—maybe." He had been asking himself the same question about Miss Spenceley, whom he had seen rather frequently of late with Canby.
"Guess I'll quirl me a brownie and git into the feathers," glumly. "I thought I'd go into town in the mornin', I want to do me some buyin'."
Wallie nodded, and Pinkey added as he unhooked his heels:
"You want to ride herd pretty clost on Aunt Lizzie. She's bound and determined to go outside the fence huntin' moss-agates. The cattle are liable to hook her. Canby throwed them long-horns in there on purpose."
"I'm sure of it," Wallie said, grimly. "Yes, I'll watch Aunt Lizzie. But she isn't worse than Appel, who was over there catching grasshoppers because he said they were fatter."
"Dudes is aggravatin'," Pinkey admitted. "But," philosophically, "they're our meal-tickets, so we got to swaller 'em."
As Wallie watched his partner go up the path tothe bunk-house he wondered vaguely what purchase he had to make that was so important as to induce him to make a special trip to Prouty. But since Pinkey had not chosen to tell him and Wallie had a talent for minding his own business, he dismissed it; besides, he had more vital things to think about at that moment.
It had hurt him that Helene Spenceley had not been over. Obviously he had taken too much for granted, for he had thought that when she saw he was in earnest once more and in a fair way to make a success of his second venture, things would be different between them. He had imagined she would express her approval in some way, but she seemed to take it all as a matter of course. She was the most difficult woman to impress that he ever had known, but, curiously, the less she was impressed the more eager he was to impress her. Yet her casualness only spurred him to further effort and strengthened his determination to make her realize that there was a great deal in him worth while and that some day he would stand for something in the community.
But somehow he did not seem to make much progress, and now he asked himself grumpily why in the dickens he couldn't have fallen in love with Mattie Gaskett, who followed him like his shadow and had her own income, with wonderful prospects.
He scuffed at the bark on the corral pole with his foot and thought sourly of the rot he had read about love begetting love. He had not noticed it. It more often begot laughter, and his case was an instanceof it. Helene Spenceley laughed at him—he was sure of it—and fool that he was—imbecile—it did not seem to make any difference. There was just one girl for him and always would be—he was like that and it was a misfortune.
In time, very likely, he would be a hermit, or a "sour-ball" like Canby; he would sit at dances looking like a bull-elk that's been whipped out of the herd, and the girls would giggle at him.
Wallie's mood was undoubtedly pessimistic, and, finally, he trudged up the path to bed, hoping he would awaken in a more cheerful humour—which he did—because he dreamed that with Helene Spenceley beside him he was burning up the road in a machine of a splendour "to put Canby's eye out."
The next morning Pinkey was gone when they gathered at the breakfast table. Miss Eyester looked downcast because he had failed to tell her of his intention, while Mrs. Stott declared that it was very inconsiderate for him to go without mentioning it, since he had promised to match embroidery cotton for her and she could not go on with her dresser-scarf until she had some apple-green to put the leaves in with.
The morning passed without incident, except that Mr. Budlong was astonished when Wallie told him that his new high-power rifle was scattering bullets among Mr. Canby's herd of cattle more than a mile distant and that it was great good fortune he had not killed any of them. Otherwise Wallie was engaged as usual in answering questions and lengthening andshortening stirrups for ladies the length of whose legs seemed to change from day to day, making such alterations necessary.
Miss Gaskett "heeled" Wallie with flattering faithfulness and incidentally imparted the information that a friend from Zanesville, Ohio, Miss Mercy Lane was to join their party in Prouty when the date was definitely set for their tour of the Yellowstone.
"She's a dear, sweet girl whom I knew at boarding-school, and," archly, "you must tell me that you will not fall in love with her."
Wallie, who now thought of even "dear, sweet girls" in terms of dollars and cents, felt that he could safely promise.
It was a relief when the triangle jangled for dinner, and Wallie looked forward to the ride afterward, although it had its attendant irritations—chief of which was the propensity of J. Harry Stott to gallop ahead and then gallop back to see if the party was coming: rare sport for Mr. Stott, but less so for the buckskin. As soon as that sterling young fellow had discovered that he could ride at a gallop without falling off he lost no opportunity to do so, and his horse was already showing the result of it.
Boosting Aunt Lizzie Philbrick on and off her horse to enable her to pick flowers and examine rocks was a part of the routine, as was recovering Mrs. Budlong's hairpins when her hair came down and she lost her hat. Mr. Budlong, too, never failed to lag behind and become separated from the rest of the party, so that he had to be hunted. He persisted inriding in moccasins and said that his insteps "ached him" so that he could not keep up.
Reasoning that every occupation has drawbacks of some kind, Wallie bore these small annoyances with patience, though there were times when he confessed that The Happy Family of The Colonial were not altogether so charming and amiable as he had thought.
He never would have suspected, for instance, that J. Harry Stott, who in his own environment was a person of some little consequence, in another could appear a complete and unmitigated ass. Or that Mrs. Budlong had such a wolfish appetite, or that ten cents looked larger to Mr. Appel than a dollar did to Pink, or that Old Penrose was vain as a peacock about his looks. Still, Wallie consoled himself, everyone had his idiosyncrasies, and if they had not had these they might have had worse ones.
To-day there was the usual commotion over getting off, and then when Wallie was ready to boost Aunt Lizzie on her horse she was nowhere to be found. She was not in her tent, nor had she fallen over the embankment, and the fact that she set great store by her afternoon rides deepened the mystery.
Old Mr. Penrose, who had unslung his field-glasses, declared he saw something that might be the top of Aunt Lizzie's head moving above a small "draw" over on Canby's lease. Mr. Penrose, who had sought ranch life chiefly because he said he was sick of cities and mobs of people, when not riding now spent most of his time with his high-power glasses watching theroad in the hope of seeing someone passing and he had come to be as excited when he saw a load of hay as if he had discovered a planet.
He passed the glasses to Wallie, who adjusted them and immediately nodded:
"That's somebody in the draw; it must be Aunt Lizzie."
There was no doubt about it when she came out and started walking slowly along the top, searching, as she went, for moss-agates. Wallie gave a sharp exclamation, for, in the moment that they watched her, a small herd of the Texas cattle came around a hill and also saw her. They stopped short, and looked at the strange figure. Then, like a band of curious antelope, they edged a little closer. It might be that they would not attack her, but, if they did, it was certain they would gore her to death unless someone was there to prevent it.
Leading his own horse and dragging Aunt Lizzie's stubborn white pony behind him, Wallie threw down the wire gate opening into the Canby lease and sprang into the saddle.
He kept his eyes fixed on the cattle as he rode toward Aunt Lizzie, making the best time he could, with her cayuse pulling back obstinately on the bridle, but, in any case, he could not have seen Helene Spenceley and Canby riding from the opposite direction, for they were still on the other side of a small ridge which hid them.
Helene had stopped at the Canby ranch for luncheon on her way to pay her long-deferred visit to herwhilom acquaintances of The Colonial, and though Canby had not relished the thought that she was going there, he had asked to accompany her across the leases. Pleased that she had stopped without an invitation, he was more likable than ever she had seen him, and he made no pretense of concealing the fact that she could be mistress of the most pretentious house in the country if she chose to.
Helene could not well have been otherwise than impressed by its magnificence. She was aware that with Canby's money and her personal popularity she could make an enviable position for herself very easily, and she was nothing if not ambitious. The traits in Canby which so frequently antagonized her, his arrogance, his selfish egotism and disregard of others' rights and feelings, to-day were not in evidence. He was spontaneous, genial, boyish almost, and she never had felt so kindly disposed toward him nor so tolerant of his failings.
She looked at him speculatively now as he rode beside her and wondered if association would beget an affection that would do as well as love if supplemented by the many things he had to offer?
Her friendlier mood was not lost on Canby who was quick to take advantage of it. He leaned over and laid his hand on hers as it rested on the saddle horn.
"Your thoughts of me are kinder than usual, aren't they, Helene? You are less critical?" He spoke almost humbly.
She smiled at him as she admitted:
"Perhaps so."
"I wish you could think so of me always, because I should be very happy if—you——" His narrow, selfish face had a softness she never had seen in it as he paused while he groped for the exact words he wished in which to express himself.
There was no need for him to finish, for his meaning was unmistakable, and the colour rose in Helene's cheeks as she averted her eyes from his steady gaze and looked on past him.
Their horses had been climbing slowly and had now reached the top of the ridge which gave an uninterrupted view across the flat stretch which lay between them and the ranch that was such an eyesore to Canby.
As she took in the sweep of country her gaze concentrated upon the moving objects she saw in it. Puzzled at first, her look of perplexity was succeeded by one of consternation, then horror. With swift comprehension she grasped fully the meaning of a scene that was being enacted before her.
Her expression attracted Canby's attention even before she pointed and cried sharply:
"Look!"
Aunt Lizzie was still busy with her pebbles, a tiny, tragic figure she looked, in view of what was happening, as she walked along in leisurely fashion, stopping every step or two to pick up and examine a stone that attracted her attention.
The herd of long-horns had come closer, but one had drawn out from the others and was shaking its head as it trotted down upon her.
Wallie had long since abandoned the pony he was leading, and with all the speed his own was capable of, was doing his best to intercept the animal before it reached her. But he was still a long way off and even as Helene cried out the steer broke into a gallop.
Canby, too, instantly grasped the situation.
"If I only had a rifle!"
"Perhaps we can turn it! We'll have to make an awful run for it but we can try!"
They had already gathered the reins and were spurring their horses down the declivity.
Canby's thoroughbred leaped into the air as the steel pricked it and Helene was soon left behind. She saw that she could figure only as a spectator, so she slowed down and watched what followed in fascinated horror.
Canby was considerably farther off than Wallie, in the beginning, but the racing blood in the former's horse's veins responded gallantly to the urge of its rider. It stretched out and laid down to its work like a hare with the hounds behind it, quickly equalizing the distance.
Aunt Lizzie was poking at a rock with her toe when she looked up suddenly and saw her danger. The steer with a spread of horns like antlers and tapering to needle points was rushing down upon her, infuriated.
For a moment she stood, weak with terror, unable to move, until her will asserted itself and then, shrieking, she ran as fast as her stiff old legs could carry her.
Wallie and Canby reached the steer almost together.A goodly distance still intervened between it and Aunt Lizzie, but the gap was shortening with sickening rapidity and Helene grew cold as she saw that, try as they might, they could not head it.
The animal seemed to be conscious only of its fleeing victim. When she ran, her flight appeared to excite and enrage it further, for it bawled with anger. The fluttering petticoats were a challenge, and the steer was bent on reaching and destroying the strange object with the weapons nature had given it. It was accustomed to horsemen and had no fear of them, but it saw a menace in the little old woman screaming just ahead, so it ignored Canby and Wallie, and they could not swerve it.
Helene wrung her hands in a frenzy as she watched their futile efforts. Wallie always carried a rope on his saddle, why didn't he use it? Was he afraid? Couldn't he? She felt a swift return of her old contempt for him. Was he only a "yellow-back" cowpuncher after all, underneath his Western regalia? Momentarily she despised him. Notwithstanding his brave appearance he was as useless in a crisis like this as Canby. Pinkey was more of a man than either of them. He would stop that steer somehow if he had only his pocketknife to do it. Her lip curled disdainfully for she had an innate contempt of impotency and failure.
She cried out sharply as Aunt Lizzie stumbled and pitched headlong. Between exhaustion and terror that paralyzed her she was unable to get up, thoughshe tried. The steer, flaming-eyed, was now less than fifty yards from her.
Helene felt herself grow nauseated. She meant to close her eyes when it happened. She had seen a horse gored to death by a bull and it was a sight she did not wish to see repeated.
Canby in advance of Wallie was a little ahead of the steer, slapping at it with his bridle-reins, Wallie behind had been crowding its shoulder. But nothing could divert it from its purpose.
Helene was about to turn her head away when she saw Wallie lay the reins on his horse's neck and lean from the saddle.
His purpose flashed through Helene's mind instantly. Then she cried aloud—incredulously:
"He's going to trythat!" And added in a frightened whisper: "He can't do it! He can never do it!"
Wallie's horse, which had been running at the steer's shoulder, missed his hand on the reins and lagged a little, so that the distance between them was such as to make what he meant to attempt seemingly impossible. For a second he rode with his arm outstretched as if gauging the distance, then Helene grew rigid as she saw him leave the saddle.
He made it—barely. The gap was so big that it seemed as if it were not humanly possible more than to touch the short mane on the animal's neck with his finger-tips. But he clung somehow, his feet and body dragging, while the steer's speed increased rather than slackened. First with one hand and then theother he worked his way to a grip on the horns, which was what he wanted.
The steer stopped to fight him. Its feet ploughed up the dirt as it braced them to resist him. Then they struggled. The steer was a big one, raw-boned, leggy, a typical old-time long-horn of the Texas ranges, and now in fear and rage it put forth all the strength of which it was capable.
With his teeth grinding, Wallie fought it in desperation, trying to give the twist that drops the animal. Its breath in his face, the froth from its mouth blinded him, but still he clung while it threw him this and that way. He himself never knew where his strength came from. Suddenly the steer fell heavily and the two lay panting together.
Helene drew the back of her hand across her eyes and brushed away the tears that blurred her vision, while a lump rose in her throat too big to swallow. "Gentle Annie" of The Colonial veranda, erstwhile authority on Battenburg and sweaters, had accomplished the most reckless of the dare-devil feats of the cow-country—he had "bull-dogged" a steer from horseback!
CHAPTER XXI"WORMAN! WORMAN!"
Business which had to do with the cache they had lifted from Tucker detained Pinkey in town longer than expected. He returned in the night and did not get up when the triangle jangled for breakfast. In fact, it was well into the forenoon when he appeared, only to learn that Miss Eyester had gone off with old Mr. Penrose to look at an eagle's nest.
"What did he do that for?" Pinkey demanded of Wallie.
"I presume he wanted her company," Wallie replied, composedly, entertained by the ferocity of Pinkey's expression.
"Is he a dude or is he a duder that he has to go guidin' people to see sights they prob'ly don't want to look at?"
"She seemed willing enough to go," Wallie answered.
Pinkey sneered:
"Mebbe I'd better git me a blue suit with brass buttons and stand around and open gates and unsaddle fer 'em."
Wallie regarded his partner calmly.
"Pinkey, you'rejealous."
"Jealous! Me jealous of an old Methuselah that don't know enough to make a mark in the road?" Unconsciously Pinkey's hand sought his eyebrows, as he laughed hollowly. "Why, I could show her a barrel of eagles' nests! I know whur there's a coyote den with pups in it! I know whur there's a petrified tree and oceans of Injun arrer heads, if she'd jest waited. But if anybody thinks I'm goin' to melt my boot-heels down taggin' a worman, they're mistaken!" Pinkey stamped off to the bunk-house and slammed the door behind him.
"Where's Pinkey?" The question was general when it was observed that his chair was vacant at dinner.
"Still reposing, I imagine," Wallie answered, humorously.
Mrs. Budlong commented:
"A night ride like that must be very fatiguing."
"Oh, very." Wallie winked at himself figuratively, thinking that the 99 per cent. alcoholic content of one of Mr. Tucker's bottles undoubtedly accounted for his weariness.
"You are sure he's not ill?" inquired Miss Eyester. She had not enjoyed her revenge upon Pinkey, for going away without telling her, as much as she had anticipated; besides, the eagle's nest turned out to be a crows' nest with no birds in it, and that was disappointing.
Mr. Hicks, who frequently joined in the conversationwhen anything interested him, snorted from the kitchen doorway:
"Ill? You couldn't make him 'ill' with a club with nails in it—that feller."
"Oh, how dread-ful!" Aunt Lizzie clasped her hands, and looked at the brutal cook reprovingly.
"Perhaps one of us had better awaken him," Miss Eyester suggested. "He should eat something."
"Hor! Hor! Hor!" Mr. Hicks laughed raucously. "Maybe he don't feel like eating. Let him alone and he'll come out of it."
Miss Eyester resented the aspersion the meaning of which was now plain to everybody, and said with dignity, rising:
"If no one else will call him, I shall."
"Rum has been the curse of the nation," observed Mr. Budlong to whom even a thimbleful gave a headache.
"I wish I had a barrel of it," growled old Mr. Penrose. "When I get home I'm going to get me a worm and make moonshine."
"Oh, how dread-ful!"
"'Tain't," Mr. Penrose contradicted Aunt Lizzie, curtly.
"'Tis!" retorted Aunt Lizzie.
They glared at each other balefully, and while everybody waited to hear if she could think of anything else to say to him, Miss Eyester returned panting:
"The door's locked and there's a towel pinned over the window."
"No!" They exclaimed in chorus, and looked at Wallie. "Do you suppose any thing's happened?"
"He locked the door because he does not want to be disturbed, and the towel is to keep the light out," Mr. Stott deduced.
"Ofcourse!" They all laughed heartily and admired Mr. Stott's shrewdness.
"Any fool would have thought of that," growled Mr. Penrose.
"You think you know everything," said Aunt Lizzie, in whom his threat to make moonshine and break the law still rankled.
"I know quite a lot, if I could just think of it," replied Mr. Penrose almost good-naturedly.
"All the same," declared the cook, scouring a frying-pan in the doorway, "it's not like him to go to all that trouble just to sleep. I'll go up and see if I can raise him."
Even in the dining room they could hear Mr. Hicks banging on the door with the frying-pan, and calling. He returned in a few minutes.
"There's something queer about it. It's still as a graveyard. He ain't snoring."
"Could he have made way with himself?" Mr. Appel's tone was sepulchral.
"Oh-h-h!" Miss Eyester gasped faintly.
"Perhaps he has merely locked the door and he is outside," Mr. Stott suggested.
"I'll go down and see if I can notice his legs stickin' out of the crick anywhere," said Mr. Hicks, briskly.
"It is very curious—very strange indeed," theydeclared solemnly, though they all continued eating spare-ribs—a favourite dish with The Happy Family.
The cook, returning, said in a tone that had a note of disappointment. "He ain't drowned."
"Is his horse in the corral?" asked Wallie.
Mr. Hicks took observations from the doorway and reported that it was, which deepened the mystery.
Since no human being, unless he was drugged or dead, could sleep through the cook's battering with the frying-pan, Wallie himself grew anxious. He recalled Pinkey's gloom of the evening before he had gone to Prouty. "I wisht I'd died when I was little," he remembered his saying.
Also Pinkey's moroseness of the morning and the ferocity of his expression took on special significance in the light of his strange absence. Instinctively Wallie looked at Miss Eyester. That young lady was watching him closely and saw his gravity. Unexpectedly she burst into tears so explosively that Mrs. Budlong moved back the bread plate even as she tried to comfort her.
"I know something has happened! Ifeelit! When Aunt Sallie choked on a fish-bone at Asbury Park I knew it before we got the wire. I'm sort of clairvoyant! Please excuse me!" Miss Eyester left the table, sobbing. It seemed heartless to go on eating when Pinkey, the sunshine of the ranch, as they suddenly realized, might be lying cold in death in the bunk-house, so they followed solemnly—all except Mrs. Henry Appel, who lingered to pick herselfout another spare-rib, which she took with her in her fingers.
They proceeded in a body to the bunk-house, where Wallie applied his eye to the keyhole and found it had been stuffed with something. This confirmed his worst suspicions. Nobody could doubt now but that something sinister had happened.
Mr. Penrose, who had been straining his eyes at the window, peering through a tiny space between the towel and the window frame, declared he saw somebody moving. This, of course, was preposterous, for if alive Pinkey would have made a sound in response to their clamour, so nobody paid any attention to his assertion.
"We'll have to burst the door in," said Mr. Stott in his masterful manner, but Wallie already had run for the axe for that purpose.
Mrs. Appel, alternately gnawing her bone and crying softly, begged them not to let her see him if he did not look natural, while Miss Eyester leaned against the door-jamb in a fainting condition.
"Maybe I can bust it with my shoulder," said Mr. Hicks, throwing his weight against the door.
Immediately, as the lock showed signs of giving, a commotion, a shuffling, was heard, a sound as if a shoulder braced on the inside was resisting.
There was a second's astonished silence and then a chorus of voices demanded:
"Let us in! Pinkey! Whatisthe matter?"
The answer was an inarticulate, gurgling sound that was blood-curdling.
"He's cut his wind-pipe and all he can do is gaggle!" cried Mr. Hicks, excitedly, and made a frenzied attack on the door that strained the lock to the utmost.
If the noise he made was any criterion it was judged that Pinkey's head must be nearly severed from his body—which made the resistance he displayed all the more remarkable. He was a madman, of course—that was taken for granted—and the ladies were warned to places of safety lest he come out slashing right and left with a razor.
They ran and locked themselves in the kitchen, where they could look through the window—all except Miss Eyester, who declared dramatically that she had no further interest in life anyhow and wished to die by his hand, knowing herself responsible for what had happened.
Wallie, breathless from running, arrived with the axe, which he handed to Mr. Hicks, who called warningly as he swung it:
"Stand back, Pinkey!—I'm comin'!"
The door crashed and splintered, and when it opened, Mr. Hicks fell in with it.
He fell out again almost as quickly, for there was Pinkey with the glaring eyes of a wild man, his jaws open, and from his mouth there issued a strange white substance.
"He's frothin'!" Mr. Hicks yelled shrilly. "He's got hydrophoby! Look out for him everybody!"
"G-gg-ggg-ough!" gurgled Pinkey.
"Who bit you, feller?" the cook asked, soothingly.
"G-ggg-gg-ough!" was the agonized answer.
"We'll have to throw and hog-tie him." Mr. Hicks looked around to see if there was a rope handy.
"Don't let him snap at you," called Mr. Stott from a safe distance. "If it gets in your blood, you're goners."
The cook who, as Pinkey advanced shaking his head and making vehement gestures, had retreated, was suddenly enlightened:
"That ain't froth—it's plaster o' Paris—I bet you! Wait till I get a stick and poke it!"
Pinkey nodded.
"That's it!" Mr. Hicks cried, delightedly: "He's takin' a cast of his gooms—I told him about it."
The look he received from Pinkey was murderous.
"How are we going to get it out?" Wallie asked in perplexity.
"It's way bigger than his mouth," said Mr. Appel, and old Mr. Penrose suggested humorously: "You might push it down and make him swallow it."
"Maybe you could knock a little off at a time or chisel it," ventured Mr. Budlong. "It's hard as a rock," feeling of it. "You'll have to crack it."
"It's like taking a hook out of a cat-fish," said the cook, facetiously. "Say, can you open your mouth any wider?"
Pinkey made vehement signs that his mouth was stretched to the limit.
"It's from ear to ear now, you might say," observed Mr. Budlong. "If you go to monkeying you'll have the top of his head off."
"If I could just get my fist up in the roof somehow and then pry down on it." The size of Mr. Hicks' fist, however, made the suggestion impractical.
"I believe I can pick it off little by little with a hairpin or a pair of scissors or something." Miss Eyester spoke both confidently and sympathetically.
Pinkey nodded, his eyes full of gratitude and suffering.
"Don't laugh at him," she pleaded, as they now were howling uproariously. "Just leave us alone and I'll manage it somehow."
It proved that Miss Eyester was not over-sanguine for, finally, with the aid of divers tools and implements, Pinkey was able to spit out the last particle of the plaster of Paris.
"I s'pose the story'll go all over the country and make me ridic'lous," he said, gloomily. Feeling the corners of his mouth tenderly: "I thought at first I'd choke to death before I'd let anybody see me. What I'll do to that cook," his eyes gleaming, "won't stand repeatin'. And if anybody dast say 'teeth' to me——"
"Whatever made you do it?"
Too angry for finesse, Pinkey replied bluntly:
"I done it fer you. I thought you'd like me better if I had teeth, and now I s'pose you can't ever look at me without laughin'."
Miss Eyester flipped a bit of plaster from his shirtsleeve with her thumb and finger.
"I wouldn't do anything to hurt your feelings, ever."
"Never?"
"Never."
"Then don't you go ridin' again with that old gummer."
"Do you care, really?" shyly.
"I'll tell the world I do!"
Miss Eyester fibbed without a pang of conscience:
"I never dreamed it."
"I thought you wouldn't look at anybody unless they had money—you bein' rich 'n' ever'thing."
"In the winter I earn my living cataloguing books in a public library. I hate it."
Pinkey laid an arm about her thin shoulders.
"Say, what's the chanct of gittin' along with you f'rever an' ever?"
"Pretty good," replied Miss Eyester, candidly.
CHAPTER XXII"KNOCKING 'EM FOR A CURVE"
It had been put to a vote as to whether the party should make the trip through the Yellowstone Park by motor, stopping at the hotels, or on horseback with a camping outfit.
Mr. Stott, after the persuasive manner in which he addressed a jury, argued:
"We can ride in automobiles at home. That is no novelty. Than horseback riding, there is no more healthful exercise. We are all agreed that we have had enough of hotels, while camping will be a new and delightful experience. In the brief period that we shall lie next to nature's heart we will draw strength from her bosom. By camping, we can loaf along in leisurely fashion, taking our own time for seeing the wonders of the Yellowstone, and fishing."
The programme he outlined was so sensible and attractive that everybody was in favour of it strongly except old Mr. Penrose, who declared that sleeping on the ground would give him rheumatism, and the fear that bugs would crawl in his ears made him restless. Mr. Stott, however, overcame his objection by assuring him that the ground was too dry to give any one rheumatism and he couldprovide himself with cotton against the other contingency.
The outlook for a successful trip from every viewpoint was most promising, yet there were moments when Wallie had his doubts and misgivings. He supposed that it was his experience in dry-farming which had made him pessimistic concerning all untried ventures. Certainly it had destroyed his beautiful, child-like faith in the teaching that the hairs of his head were numbered and no harm could come to him. He had noticed that everyone who ever had dry-farmed carried the scars afterward. It was an unforgettable experience, like a narrow escape from lynching.
Pinkey, on the contrary, had no sombre thoughts to disturb him. He was filled with boundless enthusiasm; though this condition was chronic since he had become engaged to Miss Eyester.
Pinkey, in love, was worse than useless. Escorting Miss Eyester was now his regular business, with dude wrangling reduced to a side issue. Therefore it had devolved upon Wallie to buy teepees, extra bedding, food, and the thousand and one things necessary to comfort when camping.
It all had been accomplished finally, and the day came when the caravan was drawn up beside the Prouty House ready to start toward the Yellowstone.
A delighted populace blocked the sidewalk while they awaited the appearance of Miss Gaskett's friend, Miss Mercy Lane, who had arrived on a night train according to arrangement.
The cavalcade, if not imposing, was at least arresting. No one could pass it yawning. There was no one who had come to see the party start who did not feel repaid for the effort.
First, there was Mr. Hicks, driving four horses and the "grub-wagon," and leading the procession. He handled the lines with an aplomb reminiscent of the coaching days of Reginald Vanderbilt, together with the noble bearing of the late Ben Hur tooling his chariot. Mr. Hicks dignified the "grub-wagon" to such an extent that it was a treat to look at him.
Second in place was Pinkey, driving the tent-and-bed-wagon, with Miss Eyester on the high spring-seat beside him. Behind Pinkey came "Red" McGonnigle, driving a surrey provided for those who should become fatigued with riding horseback. The vehicle, like the stage-coach, was a bargain, sold cheaply by the original owner because of the weakness of the springs, which permitted the body to hit the axle when any amount of weight was put in it. This was a discovery they made after purchase. Aunt Lizzie Philbrick was the only passenger, though it was anticipated that Miss Mercy Lane would prefer to drive also, since she had had no previous riding.
Behind the surrey was the riding party, even more startling than when they had first burst upon Wallie in their bead-work and curio-store trappings. Mr. Stott was wearing a pair of "chaps" spotted like a pinto, while Mr. Budlong in flame-coloured angora at a little distance looked as if his legs were afire.
Their ponies peered out shamefacedly throughbrilliant, penitentiary-made, horse-hair bridles, and old Mr. Penrose was the envy of everybody in a greasy, limp-brimmed Stetson he had bought from a freighter. Also he had acquired a pair of 22-inch, "eagle's bill" tapaderas. He looked like a mounted pirate, and, in his evil moments, after sleeping badly, he acted like one.
Everyone was in high spirits and eager to get started. Mr. Stott surreptitiously spurred his horse to make him cavort more spiritedly before the spectators, and the horse responded in such a manner that the rising young attorney was obliged to cling with both hands to the saddle-horn.
When he came back, slightly paler, Wallie said curtly:
"You don't need spurs on that horse."
"I'm the best judge of that," Stott retorted.
Wallie said nothing further, for at the moment the crowd parted to permit the passing of the newcomer from Zanesville, Ohio.
As he saw her, Wallie felt willing to renew his promise to Miss Gaskett not to fall in love with her. Wallie was a charitable soul, and chivalrous, but he could not but think that Miss Mercy, who was a trained nurse, must have changed greatly since she and Miss Gaskett were school-girls.
She wore a masculine hat with a quill in it and a woollen skirt that bagged at the knees like trousers. Her hair was thin at the temples, and she wore gold glasses astride her long, "foxy" nose. Although no average cake would have held the candles to whichMiss Mercy's birthdays entitled her, she was given to "middy" blouses and pink sweaters.
"Merce has such a unique personality that I am sure you are going to enjoy her," beamed Miss Gaskett in presenting Wallie.
Wallie murmured that he had no doubt of it, and boosted Miss Mercy into the surrey.
With nothing further to detain them, Mr. Hicks swung his lash and the four went off at a gallop, with the cooking utensils in the rear rattling so that it sounded like a runaway milk-wagon.
He had been instructed to drive ahead and select a suitable place for the noon-day luncheon in order that everything should be in readiness upon their arrival, but to the others Wallie had suggested that they ride and drive more slowly to save the horses.
In spite of Wallie's request, however, Mr. Stott, seeing the cook getting ahead, started off at a gallop to overtake him. In no uncertain voice Wallie called to him.
"You will oblige me if you will ride more slowly," Wallie said, speaking very distinctly when Mr. Stott came back to ask what was wanted.
"Why, what's the matter?"
His feigned innocence added to Wallie's anger.
"I don't want that horse ruined."
"I am paying for him," Stott returned, insolently.
"I still own him, and it's my privilege to say how he shall be ridden."
Stott dropped back suddenly but Wallie foresawtrouble with him before the trip was finished, though he meant to hold his temper as long as possible.
The reprimand had a beneficial effect upon the other equestrians, who had contemplated dashing after Mr. Stott, but now concluded to jog along at a reasonable gait, working off their superfluous energy in asking questions. Did eagles really carry off children? And was the earth under the Yellowstone Park hollow?
In the surrey "Red" McGonnigle was putting forth his best efforts to entertain Aunt Lizzie and Miss Mercy, which he considered as much a part of his duties as driving.
A portion of the road was through a cañon, cut from the solid rock in places, with narrow turnouts, and a precipitous descent of hundreds of feet to a sinister-looking green river roaring in the bottom.
"Now, here," said Mr. McGonnigle, as they entered it, lolling back in the seat and crossing his legs in leisurely fashion, "is where there's been all kinds of accee-dents."
He pointed with the stub of a buggy-whip:
"About there is where four horses on a coal-wagon run away and went over. Two was killed and one was crippled so they had to shoot it."
"Oh, how dread-ful!" Aunt Lizzie exclaimed, nervously.
Miss Mercy's contralto voice boomed at him:
"What happened to the driver?"
"His bones was broke in a couple of dozen places,but they picked him up, and sence, he has growed together."
Miss Mercy snickered.
"You see that p'int ahead of us? Onct a feller ridin' a bronc backed off there. They rolled two hundred feet together. Wonder it didn't kill 'em."
Aunt Lizzie was twisting her fingers and whispering:
"Oh, how dread-ful!"
"Jest around that bend," went on the entertainer, expectorating with deliberation before he continued, "a buggy tried to pass a hay-wagon. It was a brand-new buggy, cost all of $250, and the first time he'd took his family out in it. Smashed it to kindlin' wood. The woman threw the baby overboard and it never could see good out of one eye afterward. She caught on a tree when she was rollin' and broke four ribs, or some such matter. He'd ought to a-knowed better than to pass a hay-wagon where it was sidlin'. Good job, says I, fer havin' no judgment though I was one of his pall-bearers, as an accommodation."
Aunt Lizzie was beyond exclaiming, and Miss Mercy's toes were curling and uncurling, though she preserved a composed exterior.
After setting the brake, McGonnigle went on humorously, gesticulating spaciously while the slack of the lines swung on the single-tree:
"On this here hill the brake on a dude's automo-bubbly quit on him. When he come to the turn he went on over. Ruined the car, plumb wrecked it,and it must a cost $1,500 to $2,000. They shipped his corp' back East somewhere."
Pale, and shaking like an aspen, Aunt Lizzie clung tightly to Miss Mercy. The scenery was sublime, but they had no eye for it. Their gaze was riveted upon the edge of the precipice some six or eight inches from the outer wheels of the surrey, and life at the moment looked as sweet as it seemed uncertain.
Driving with one hand and pointing with the other, McGonnigle went on with the fluency for which he was celebrated:
"That sharp curve we're comin' to is where they was a head-on collision between a chap on a motorcycle and a traction en-jine they was takin' through the cañon. He was goin' too fast, anyhow—the motorcycle—and it jest splattered him, as you might say, all over the front of the en-jine."
Mr. McGonnigle put the lines between his knees and gripped them while he readjusted his hat with one hand and pointed with the other:
"You see that hangin' rock? There where it sticks over? Well, sir, two cayuses tryin' to unload their packs bounced off there and——"
A shriek in his ear interrupted McGonnigle at this juncture. He turned, startled, to see Aunt Lizzie with her fingers in her ears screaming that she was going to have hysterics.
To prove that she was a woman of her word, she had them, while Mr. McGonnigle, utterly unconscious that he was the cause, regarded her in astonishment.
"She's got a fit," he said to Wallie, who hurried forward.
"He's scared her out of her wits," declared Miss Mercy, glaring at him.
"Me?"
"You! You're a careless driver. I don't believe you understand horses, and I shan't ride any further with you."
"Red" jammed the whip in its socket and wrapped the lines around it. Springing over the wheel he stood by the roadside and declared defiantly:
"I'm quittin'. Hate to leave you in a pinch, Wallie, but I take sass from no female. I'd ruther herd sheep than wrangle dudes, anyhow. I tried to be entertainin', and this is the thanks I git fer it."
"Nobody asked you to talk," Miss Mercy snapped at him.
Wallie succeeded in pacifying "Red" finally and suggested that he and Pinkey exchange places. Pinkey consented reluctantly, and "Red" climbed upon the seat of the bed-wagon with a dark look at the "female" who had questioned his knowledge of horses, while he mumbled something about "fixin' her."
By ten-thirty food was the chief topic of conversation, and everyone was keeping an eye out for Hicks and the "grub-wagon." At eleven the hilarity had simmered to monosyllables, and old Mr. Penrose, who always became incredibly cross when he was hungry, rode along with his face screwed up like a badyoungster that is being carried out of church for a spanking in the vestibule.
"I'm so weak I can scarcely sit in the saddle!" Mrs. J. Harry Stott snapped at Wallie as if she held him responsible.
"I'm simply ravenous—starving!" declared Mrs. Budlong. She also looked at him accusingly.
By eleven-thirty they were all complaining bitterly that the cook had been allowed to get so far ahead that they should all perish of hunger before they could overtake him. Mr. Stott galloped ahead as if he were pursued by hostile Indians to see if he could see Hicks, and galloped back again to say that he could not.
At twelve the animals in a zoo just before feeding time had "nothing on" The Happy Family when it came to ferocity, but they brightened immediately as they finally caught a glimpse of Hicks' camp-fire, and grew almost cheerful when they saw him cutting bread on the lowered tail-board of the wagon, where the lunch was waiting for them.
The spot he had selected could not truthfully be called ideal, viewed from any angle, since there was no shade and the sand, sizzling hot, reflected the glare of the mid-day sun as painfully as a mirror. None, however, had the temerity to offer any criticism to Mr. Hicks personally, for his vitriolic tongue had long since properly subjugated even the rambunctious attorney.
The "dudes" dismounted stiffly and stood at a respectful distance, sniffing the bubbling coffee andwatching the cook slice ham with a knife that had a blade like the sword of a Crusader.
Mr. Hicks had an alert, suspicious manner as if he feared that someone would jump forward and snatch something before he had given the signal.
When the operation of bread-slicing was completed, Mr. Hicks stuck the point of the knife in the tail-board and, gripping the handle, struck a pose like that of the elder Salvini, while in a sonorous voice he enumerated the delicacies he had to offer. It sounded like a roll-call, and his tone was so imperative that almost one expected the pickles and cheese to answer—"present."
"Come and get it!" he finished, abruptly, and retired to sit down under sagebrush as if he were disgusted with food and people who ate it. There Wallie joined him and from the vantage point watched his guests eat their first meal in the open.
If there was one thing upon which The Happy Family at The Colonial had prided itself more than another it was upon its punctilious observance of the amenities. There were those among the "newcomers" who averred that they carried their elaborate politeness to a point which made them ridiculous. For example, when two or more met at the door of the elevator they had been known to stand for a full minute urging precedence upon the other, and no gentleman, however bald or susceptible to draughts, would converse with a lady with his head covered.
Now Wallie felt that his eyes must have deceived him when Mr. Budlong prodded Miss Eyester in theribs with his elbow in his eagerness to get in ahead of her, while old Mr. Penrose reached a long arm over Aunt Lizzie Philbrick's shoulder and took away a piece of apple pie upon which she already had closed her fingers.
When Miss Gaskett and Mr. Appel chanced to select the same slice of ham neither seemed disposed to relinquish it but displayed considerable spirit as they pulled until it gave way in its weakest sector, leaving Mr. Appel with only an inch of fat between his thumb and finger. He regarded his portion with chagrin while Miss Gaskett went off triumphantly to make a sandwich.
Mr. Stott with his usual enterprise and shrewdness had gotten next to the tail-board, where he stood munching and reviewing the food with an eye to his next selection. He was astonished to see Miss Mercy's alpine hat rising, as it were, from the earth at his feet to crowd him from his desirable position. As she stood up she jabbed him in the nostril with the quill, and Mr. Stott gave ground before he realized it. Miss Mercy snickered in appreciation of the cleverness of her manœuvre.
As Wallie observed them while waiting his opportunity to get a dill pickle or whatever crumb they might leave him, he thought grimly that if they had been without food for twenty-four hours instead of less than half a dozen, they would have been close to cannibalism. He, for one, would not care to be adrift in an open boat with Mrs. Budlong—hungry and armed with a hatchet—while Stott, he was surewould murder him for a frankfurter in those circumstances.
Aunt Lizzie, to whom accidents of an unusual nature seemed always to be happening, wandered off with a wedge of pie and a cup of coffee and sat down on an ant-hill.
While she sipped her coffee and drank in the scenery simultaneously, the inhabitants of the hill came out in swarms to investigate the monster who was destroying their home. They attacked her with the ferocity for which red ants are noted, and she dropped her pie and coffee and ran screaming to the wagon.
Fearful that she would be pursued by them, she got into the surrey, where she became involved in a quarrel with Miss Mercy, who was eating her lunch there.
Miss Mercy caught a butterfly that lighted on a seat-cover and pulled off first one wing and then the other in spite of Aunt Lizzie's entreaties. She dropped it on the bottom of the surrey and put her astonishingly large foot upon it.
"There," she snickered, "I squashed it."
Aunt Lizzie, to whom anything alive was as if it were human, wrung her hands in anguish.
"I think you are horrid!"
"What good is it?"
"What good are you, either? I shan't ride with you." Aunt Lizzie climbed into the third seat of the surrey, where she refused to answer Miss Mercy when she spoke to her.
The rest and food freshened the party considerablybut by four o'clock they were again hungry and drooping in their saddles. Only Mr. Stott, endowed, as it seemed, with the infinite wisdom of the Almighty, retained his spirits and kept up an unending flow of instructive conversation upon topics of which he had the barest smattering of knowledge. Constantly dashing off on his part to investigate gulches and side trails caused Wallie's smouldering wrath to burn brighter, as the buckskin hourly grew more jaded.
Complaints increased that their horses were hard-gaited, and the voices of the ladies held plaintive notes as they declared their intention of riding in the surrey when they overtook it. Pinkey was stopped finally, and his passengers augmented by the addition of Mrs. Stott, Miss Gaskett, and Mrs. Budlong, who carefully folded their jackets to sit on.
At five o'clock Mr. Stott raced forward and returned to announce that Hicks had camped just around the bend of the river.
"You're wearing that horse out, Stott," said Wallie, coldly.
"He's feeling good—watch him!" cried the lawyer, gaily, putting spurs to the horse and disappearing.
It was a beautiful camping spot that Hicks had selected, though "Red" McGonnigle grumbled that it was not level enough for the teepees.
Old Mr. Penrose, who had fallen off his horse rather than dismounted, declared he was so tired that he could sleep on the teeth of a harrow, like a babe in its cradle.
"We'll be all right when we get seasoned," said Mr. Appel, cheerfully, hunting in his wife's handbag for the vaseline.
"You couldn't have a better place to start in at," "Red" commented, grimly.
On the whole, the day might be regarded as a pleasant one, and if the remainder of the trip equalled it, there was no doubt but that the party would return satisfied, which meant that they would advertise it and the next season would be even more successful.
Everyone carried wood to build a camp-fire after supper, but by the time they had it going they were too sleepy to sit up and enjoy it. They stumbled away to their several teepees with their eyes half closed and for the first time since they had known each other failed to say "pleasant dreams!" when separating for the night.
Mr. Stott lingered to regale Pinkey and Wallie for the fourteenth time with the story of the hoot-owl which had frightened him while hunting in Florida, but since it was received without much enthusiasm and he was not encouraged to tell another, he, too, retired to crawl between his blankets and "sleep on Nature's bosom" with most of his clothes on.
"I wouldn't wonder but that we'll have to hit him between the horns before the trip is over," Pinkey remarked, looking after Stott.
Wallie said nothing, but his face spoke for him.
Pinkey continued in a tone of satisfaction:
"Outside of him, everything's goin' splendid. The Yellowstone Park is the fightin'est place anybodyever heard of. I've seen life-time friends go in there campin' and come out enemies—each one sittin' on his own grub-box and not speakin'. But it don't look as if we was goin' to have any serious trouble—they're nice people."
"And they think the world of me," Wallie reiterated.
"I've been thinkin' I could lose the horses for two or three days and that would count up considerable. Ten dudes at $5.00 a day for three days, say—— Oh, we're sittin' pretty! We'll come out of this with a roll as big as a gambler's."
"Itlooksencouraging," Wallie replied more guardedly, though in his heart he was sharing Pinkey's optimism.
They kicked out the camp-fire and rolled up in their respective blankets, Pinkey to die temporarily, and Wallie to lie awake listening to the roar of the river and speculating as to whether Helene Spenceley had any special prejudice against the dude business.
Of course, he admitted, had he a choice in the matter, he would have preferred to have been an ambassador, a lawyer of international reputation, even a great artist; but for a start, as the foundation of a fortune, dudes were at least as good asherring.
With this consoling thought, Wallie turned over on a pillow which would have engaged the earnest attention of the most lax health officer, and fell into a contented slumber.