The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Dude WranglerThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The Dude WranglerAuthor: Caroline LockhartIllustrator: Dudley Gloyne SummersRelease date: October 29, 2007 [eBook #23244]Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUDE WRANGLER ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The Dude WranglerAuthor: Caroline LockhartIllustrator: Dudley Gloyne SummersRelease date: October 29, 2007 [eBook #23244]Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
Title: The Dude Wrangler
Author: Caroline LockhartIllustrator: Dudley Gloyne Summers
Author: Caroline Lockhart
Illustrator: Dudley Gloyne Summers
Release date: October 29, 2007 [eBook #23244]
Language: English
Credits: E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUDE WRANGLER ***
E-text prepared by Roger Frankand the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team(http://www.pgdp.net)
"Wallie swung the frying pan with all his strength ... knocking the six-shooter from Boise Bill's hand as he jumped across the fire at him""Wallie swung the frying pan with all his strength ... knocking the six-shooter from Boise Bill's hand as he jumped across the fire at him"
THE DUDE
WRANGLER
BY
CAROLINE LOCKHART
emblem
FRONTISPIECE
BY
DUDLEY GLYNE SUMMERS
GARDEN CITY, N. Y., AND TORONTO
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1921
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BYDOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANYALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATIONINTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIANCOPYRIGHT, 1921, BY STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
CHAPTER ITHE GIRL FROM WYOMING
Conscious that something had disturbed him, Wallie Macpherson raised himself on his elbow in bed to listen. For a full minute he heard nothing unusual: the Atlantic breaking against the sea-wall at the foot of the sloping lawn of The Colonial, the clock striking the hour in the tower of the Court House, and the ripping, tearing, slashing noises like those of a sash-and-blind factory, produced through the long, thin nose of old Mr. Penrose, two doors down the hotel corridor, all sounds to which he was too accustomed to be awakened by them.
While Wallie remained in this posture conjecturing, the door between the room next to him and that of Mr. Penrose was struck smartly several times, and with a vigour to denote that there was temper behind the blows which fell upon it. He had not known that the room was occupied; being considered undesirable on account of the audible slumbers of the old gentleman it was often vacant.
The raps finally awakened even Mr. Penrose, who demanded sharply:
"What are you doing?"
"Hammering with the heel of my slipper," a feminine voice answered.
"What do you want?"
"A chance to sleep."
"Who's stopping you?" crabbedly.
"You're snoring." Indignation gave an edge to the accusation.
"You're impertinent!"
"You're a nuisance!" the voice retorted. Wallie covered his mouth with his hand and hunched his shoulders.
There was a moment's silence while Mr. Penrose seemed to be thinking of a suitable answer. Then:
"It's my privilege to snore if I want to. This is my room—I pay for it!"
"Then this side of the door is mine and I can pound on it, for the same reason."
Mr. Penrose sneered in the darkness: "I suppose you're some sour old maid—you sound like it."
"And no doubt you're a Methuselah with dyspepsia!"
Wallie smote the pillow gleefully—old Mr. Penrose's collection of bottles and boxes and tablets for indigestion were a byword.
"We will see about this in the morning," said Mr. Penrose, significantly. "I have been coming to this hotel for twenty-eight years——"
"It's nothing to boast of," the voice interrupted. "I shouldn't, if I had so little originality."
Mr. Penrose, seeming to realize that the womanwould have the last word if the dialogue lasted until morning, ended it with a loud snort of derision.
He was so wrought up by the controversy that he was unable to compose himself immediately, but lay awake for an hour framing a speech for Mr. Cone, the proprietor, which was in the nature of an ultimatum. Either the woman must move, or he would—but the latter he considered a remote possibility, since he realized fully that a multi-millionaire, socially well connected, is an asset which no hotel will dispense with lightly.
The frequency with which Mr. Penrose had presumed upon this knowledge had much to do with Wallie's delight as he had listened to the encounter.
Dropping back upon his pillow, the young man mildly wondered about the woman next door to him. She must have come in on the evening train while he was at the moving pictures, and retired immediately. Very likely she was, as Mr. Penrose asserted, some acrimonious spinster, but, at any rate, she had temporarily silenced the rich old tyrant of whom all the hotel stood in awe.
A second time the ripping sound of yard after yard of calico being viciously torn broke the night's stillness and, grinning, Wallie waited to hear what the woman next door was going to do about it. But only a stranger would have hoped to do anything about it, since to prevent Mr. Penrose from snoring was a task only a little less hopeless than that of stopping the roar of the ocean. Guests whom it annoyed hadeither to move or get used to it. Sometimes they did the one and sometimes the other, but always Mr. Penrose, who was the subject of a hundred complaints a summer, snored on victoriously. The woman next door, of course, could not know this, so no doubt she had a mistaken notion that she might either break the old gentleman of his habit or have him banished to an isolated quarter.
Wallie had not long to wait, for shortly after Mr. Penrose started again the tattoo on the door was repeated.
In response to a snarl that might have come from a menagerie, she advised him curtly:
"You're at it again!"
Another angry colloquy followed, and once more Mr. Penrose was forced to subside for the want of an adequate answer.
All the rest of the night the battle continued at intervals, and by morning not only Wallie but the entire corridor was interested in the occupant of the room adjoining his.
Wallie was in the office when the door of the elevator opened with a clang and Mr. Penrose sprang out of it like a starved lion about to hurl himself upon a Christian martyr. While his jaws did not drip saliva, the thin nostrils of his bothersome nose quivered with eagerness and anger.
"I've been coming here for twenty-eight years, haven't I?" he demanded.
"Twenty-eight this summer," Mr. Cone replied, soothingly.
"In that time I never have put in such a night as last night!"
"Dear me!" The proprietor seemed genuinely disturbed by the information.
"I could not sleep—I have not closed my eyes—for the battering on my door of the female in the room adjoining!"
"You astonish me! Let me see——" Mr. Cone whirled the register around and looked at it. He read aloud:
"Helene Spenceley—Prouty, Wyoming."
Mr. Cone lowered his voice discreetly:
"What was her explanation?"
"She accused me of snoring!" declared Mr. Penrose, furiously. "I heard the clock strike every hour until morning! Not a wink have I slept—not awink, Mr. Cone!"
"We can arrange this satisfactorily, Mr. Penrose," Mr. Cone smiled conciliatingly. "I have no doubt that Miss—er—Spenceley will gladly change her room if I ask her. I shall place one equally good at her disposal—— Ah, I presume this is she—let me introduce you."
Although he would not admit it, Mr. Penrose was quite as astonished as Wallie at the appearance of the person who stepped from the elevator and walked to the desk briskly. She was young and good looking and wore suitable clothes that fitted her; also, while not aggressive, she had a self-reliant manner which proclaimed the fact that she was accustomed to looking after her own interests. While she was as farremoved as possible from the person Mr. Penrose had expected to see, still she was the "female" who had "sassed" him as he had not been "sassed" since he could remember, and he eyed her belligerently as he curtly acknowledged the introduction.
"Mr. Penrose, one of our oldest guests in point of residence, tells me that you have had some little—er—difference——" began Mr. Cone, affably.
"I had a hellish night!" Mr. Penrose interrupted, savagely. "I hope never to put in such another."
"I join you in that," replied Miss Spenceley, calmly. "I've never heard any one snore so horribly—I'd know your snore among a thousand."
"Never mind—we can adjust this matter amicably, I will change your room to-day, Miss Spenceley," Mr. Cone interposed, hastily. "It hasn'tquitethe view, but the furnishings are more luxurious."
"But I don't want to change," Miss Spenceley coolly replied. "It suits me perfectly."
"I came for quiet and I can't stand that hammering," declared Mr. Penrose, glaring at her.
"So did I—my nerves—and your snoring bothers me. But perhaps," with aggravating sweetness, "I can break you of the habit."
"I wouldn't lose another night's sleep for a thousand dollars!"
"It will be cheaper to change your room, for I don't mean to changemine."
The millionaire turned to the proprietor. "Either this person goes or I do—that's my ultimatum!"
"I will not be bullied in any such fashion, and Ican't very well be put out forcibly, can I?" and Miss Spenceley smiled at both of them. Mr. Cone looked from one to the other, helplessly.
"Then," Mr. Penrose retorted, "I shall leaveimmediately!Mr. Cone," dramatically, "the room I have occupied for twenty-eight summers is at your disposal." His voice rose in a crescendo movement so that even in the furthermost corner of the dining room they heard it: "I have a peach orchard down in Delaware, and I shall go there, where I can snore as much as I damn please; and don't you forget it!"
Mr. Cone, his mouth open and hands hanging, looked after him as he stamped away, too astonished to protest.
CHAPTER II"THE HAPPY FAMILY"
The guests of the Colonial Hotel arose briskly each morning to nothing. After a night of refreshing and untroubled sleep they dressed and hurried to breakfast after the manner of travellers making close connections. Then each repaired to his favourite chair placed in the same spot on the wide veranda to wait for luncheon. The more energetic sometimes took a wheel-chair for an hour and were pushed on the Boardwalk or attended an auction sale of antiques and curios, but mostly their lives were as placid and as eventful as those of the inmates of an institution.
The greater number of the male guests of The Colonial had retired from something—banking, wholesale drugs, the manufacture of woolens. The families were all perfectly familiar with one another's financial rating and histories, and although they came from diverse sections of the country they were for two months or more like one large, supremely contented family. In truth, they called themselves facetiously "The Happy Family," and in this way Mr. Cone, who took an immense pride in them and in the fact that they returned to his hospitableroof summer after summer, always referred to them.
Strictly speaking, there were two branches of the "Family": those whose first season antedated 1900, and the "newcomers," who had spent only eight, or ten, or twelve summers at The Colonial. They were all on the most friendly terms imaginable, yet each tacitly recognized the distinction. The original "Happy Family" occupied the rocking chairs on the right-hand side of the wide veranda, while the "newcomers" took the left, where the view was not quite so good and there was a trifle less breeze than on the other.
The less said of the "transients" the better. The few who stumbled in did not stay unless by chance they were favourably known to one of the "permanents." Of course there was no rudeness ever—merely the polite surprise of the regular occupants when they find a stranger in the pew on Sunday morning. Sometimes the transient stayed out his or her vacation, but usually he confided to the chambermaid, and sometimes Mr. Cone, that the guests were "doodledums" and "fossils" and found another hotel where the patrons, if less solid financially, were more interesting and sociable.
Wallace Macpherson belonged in the group of older patrons, as his aunt, Miss Mary Macpherson, had been coming since 1897, and he himself from the time he wore curls and ruffled collars, or after his aunt had taken him upon the death of his parents.
"Wallie," as he was called by everybody, as theone eligible man under sixty, was, in his way, as much of an asset to the hotel as the notoriously wealthy Mr. Penrose. Of an amiable and obliging disposition, he could always be relied upon to escort married women with mutinous husbands, and ladies who had none, mutinous or otherwise. He was twenty-four, and, in appearance, a credit to any woman he was seen with, to say nothing of the two hundred thousand it was known he would inherit from Aunt Mary, who now supported him.
Wallie's appearance upon the veranda was invariably in the nature of a triumphal entry. He was received with lively acclaim and cordiality as he flitted impartially from group to group, and that person was difficult indeed with whom he could not find something in common, for his range of subjects extended from the "rose pattern" in Irish crochet to Arctic currents.
The morning on the veranda promised to be a lively one, since, in addition to the departure of old Mr. Penrose, who had sounded as if he was wrecking the furniture while packing his boxes, the return from the war of Will Smith, the gardener's son, was anticipated, and the guests as an act of patriotism meant to give him a rousing welcome. There was bunting over the doorway and around the pillars, with red, white, and blue ice cream for luncheon, and flags on the menu, not to mention a purse of $17.23 collected among the guests that was to be presented in appreciation of the valour which, it was understood fromletters to his father, Will had shown on the field of battle.
The guests were in their usual places when Wallie came from breakfast and stood for a moment in the spacious double doorway. A cheerful chorus welcomed him as soon as he was discovered, and Mrs. C. D. Budlong put out her plump hand and held his. He did not speak instantly, for his eye was roving over the veranda as if in search of somebody, and when it rested upon Miss Spenceley sitting alone at the far end he seemed satisfied and inquired solicitously of Mrs. Budlong: "Did you sleep well? You are looking splendid!"
There were some points of resemblance between Mrs. Budlong and the oleander in the green tub beside which she was sitting. Her round, fat face had the pink of the blossoms and she was nearly as motionless as if she had been potted. She often sat for hours with nothing save her black, sloe-like eyes that saw everything, to show that she was not in a state of suspended animation. Her husband called her "Honey-dumplin'," and they were a most affectionate and congenial couple, although she was as silent as he was voluble.
"My rest was broken." Mrs. Budlong turned her eyes significantly toward the far end of the veranda.
"Did you hear that terrible racket?" demanded Mr. Budlong of Wallie.
"Not so loud, 'C. D.,'" admonished Mrs. Budlong. Mrs. Budlong ran the letters together so that strangersoften had the impression she was calling her husband "Seedy," though the name was as unsuitable as well could be, since Mr. Budlong in his neat blue serge suit, blue polka-dot scarf, silk stockings, and polished tan oxfords was well groomed and dapper always.
"She's driven away our oldest guest." Mr. Budlong lowered his indignant voice a little.
"Hewasa nuisance with his snoring," Wallie defended.
"She could have changed her room," said Mrs. Budlong, taking her hand away from him. "She need not have been so obstinate."
"He was very rude to her," Wallie maintained stoutly. "Sleeping next door, I heard it all—and this morning in the office."
"Anyway, I think Mr. Cone made a mistake in not insisting upon her changing her room, and so I shall tell him." Mr. Budlong, who had made "his" in white lead and paint and kept a chauffeur and a limousine, felt that his disapproval would mean something to the proprietor.
"Oh, Wallie!"
Wallie felt relieved when he saw Mrs. Henry Appel beckoning him. As he was on his way to Mrs. Appel Miss Mattie Gaskett clutched at his arm and detained him.
"Did you see the robins this morning, Wallie?"
"Are they here?"
"Yes, a dozen of them. They do remind me so of my dear Southland." Miss Gaskett was from Maryland.
"The summer wouldn't be the same without either of you," he replied, gallantly.
Miss Gaskett shook a coquettish finger at him.
"You flirt! You have pretty speeches for everyone."
Wallie did not seem displeased by the accusation as he passed on to Mrs. Appel.
The Appels were among the important families of The Colonial because the richest next to Mr. Penrose. They were from Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania. Mr. Appel owned anthracite coal land and street railways, so if Mr. Appel squeezed pennies and Mrs. Appel dressed in remnants from the bargain counter their economies were regarded merely as eccentricities.
Mrs. Appel held up a sweater: "Won't you tell me how to turn this shoulder? I've forgotten. Do you purl four and knit six, or purl six and knit four, Wallie?"
Wallie laughed immoderately.
"Eight, Mrs. Appel! Purl eight and knit four—I told you yesterday. That's a lovely piece of Battenburg, Mrs. Stott. When did you start it?"
"Last month, but I've been so busy with teas and parties—so many, many things going on. Don't you think it will make a lovely dresser-scarf? What would you line it with?"
"Pink, absolutely—that delicate shade like the inside of a sea-shell."
"Youaresuch an artist, Wallie! Your taste is perfect."
Wallie did not contradict her.
Strictly, Mrs. Stott did not belong in the group in which she was seated. She had been coming to The Colonial only eleven years, so really, she should have been on the other side of the veranda, but Mrs. Stott had such an insidious way of getting where and what she wanted that she was "one of them" almost before they knew it.
Mr. Stott was a rising young attorney of forty-eight, and it was anticipated that he would one day be a leading trial lawyer because of his aggressiveness.
Wallie's voice took on a sympathetic tone. He stopped in front of a chair where a very thin young lady was reclining languidly.
"How's the bad heart to-day, Miss Eyester?"
"About as usual, Wallie, thank you," she replied, gratefully.
"Your lips have more colour."
Miss Eyester opened a handbag and, taking out a small, round mirror which she carried for the purpose, inspected her lips critically.
"It does seem so," she admitted. "If I can just keep from getting excited."
"I can't imagine a better place than The Colonial." The reply contained a grain of irony.
"That's why I come here," Miss Eyester sighed, "though I'mpiningto go somewhere livelier."
Wallie wagged his head playfully.
"Treason! Treason! Why, you've been coming here for—" Miss Eyester's alarmed expression caused him to finish lamely—"for ever so long."
"Wallie!" It was his aunt's voice calling and hewent instantly to a tall, austere lady in a linen collar who was knitting wash-rags with the feverish haste of a piece-worker in a factory.
He stood before her obediently.
"Don't go in to-day."
"Why, Auntie?" In his voice there was a world of disappointment.
"It's too rough—there must have been a storm at sea."
"But, Auntie," he protested, "I missed yesterday, taking Mrs. Appel to the auction. It isn't very rough——"
"Look at the white-caps," she interrupted, curtly, "I don't want you to go, Wallie."
"Oh, very well." He turned away abruptly, wondering if she realized how keenly he was disappointed—a disappointment that was not made less by the fact that her fears were groundless, since not only was it not "rough" but he was an excellent swimmer.
"The girl from Wyoming," as he called Miss Spenceley to himself, had overheard and was looking at him with an expression in her eyes which made him redden. It was mocking; she was laughing at him for being told not to go in bathing, as if he were a child of seven.
He sauntered past her, humming, to let her know that he did not care what she thought about him. When he turned around she had vanished and a few minutes after he saw her with her suit over her arm on the way to the bath-house on the exclusive beach in front of The Colonial.
CHAPTER IIIPINKEY
The train upon which Will Smith was expected was not due until twelve-thirty, so, since he could not go swimming and still felt rebellious over being forbidden, Wallie went upstairs to put the finishing touches on a lemonade tray of japanned tin which he had painted and intended presenting to Mr. Cone.
The design was his own, and very excellent it seemed to Wallie as he stopped at intervals and held it from him. On a moss-green background of rolling clouds a most artistic cluster of old-fashioned cabbage roses was tossed carelessly, with a brown slug on a leaf as a touch of realism.
The gods have a way of apportioning their gifts unevenly, for not only did Wallie paint but he wrote poetry—free verse mostly; free chiefly in the sense that his contributions to the smaller magazines were, perforce, gratuitous. Also he sang—if not divinely, at least so acceptably that his services were constantly asked for charity concerts.
In addition to these he had manlier accomplishments, playing good games of tennis, golf, and shuffle-board. Besides, Mr. Appel was his only dangerousopponent on the bowling alley, and he had learned to ride at the riding academy.
Now, as he worked, he speculated as to whether he had imagined it or "the girl from Wyoming" really had laughed at him. He could not dismiss her from his mind and the incident rankled. He told himself that she had not been there long enough to appreciate him; she knew nothing of his talents or of his popularity. She would learn that to be singled out by him for special attention meant something, and he did not consider himself a conceited man either.
Yet Wallie continued to tingle each time that he thought of the laughter in her eyes—actual derision he feared it was. Then he had an idea, a very clever one it seemed to him. By this time she would have returned from bathing and he would go down and exhibit the cabbage roses. They would be praised and she would hear it. It was nearly time for Will Smith to arrive, and he had to stop painting, anyhow.
Bearing the lemonade tray carefully in order not to smudge it, Wallie stepped out of the elevator and stood in the wide doorway, agreeably aware that he was a pleasing figure in his artist's smock and the flowing scarf which he always put on when he painted.
No one noticed him, however, for everyone was discussing the return of the "Smith boy," and the five dollars which Mr. Appel, the railway magnate, had unexpectedly contributed to the purse that he was going to present to him on behalf of the guests.
Miss Spenceley was on the veranda as he had surmised she would be, and Wallie debated as to whetherhe should wait until discovered and urged to show his roses, or frankly offer his work for criticism.
While he hesitated, the clatter of hoofs and what appeared to be a serious runaway on the side avenue brought everyone up standing. The swaying vehicle was a laundry wagon, and when it turned in at the entrance to the grounds of The Colonial, the astonished guests saw that not only had the horse a driver but a rider!
It was not a runaway. On the contrary, the person on the horse's back was using his heels and his hat at every jump to get more speed out of the amazed animal.
The wagon stopped in front of the hotel with the driver grinning uncertainly, while a soldierly figure sprang over the wheel to wring the hand of Smith, the gardener. Another on the horse's back replaced his service cap at an extraordinary angle and waited nonchalantly for the greetings to be over.
Before he went to the army "Willie" Smith had been a bashful boy who blushed when the guests spoke to him, but he faced them now with the assurance of a vaudeville entertainer as he introduced his "buddy":
"Pinkey Fripp, of Wyoming—a hero, ladies and gentlemen! The grittiest little soldier in the A.E.F., with a medal to prove it!"
Followed an account of the deed of reckless courage for which Pinkey had been decorated, and the Smith boy told it so well that everyone's eyes had tears in them. Mrs. Appel, fumbling for her handkerchief,dropped her ball of yarn over the railing, where the cat wound it among the rose bushes so effectively that to disentangle it were an endless task.
The subject of the eulogy stared back unabashed at the guests, who stared at him in admiration and curiosity. Unflattered, unmoved, he sagged to one side of the bare-backed horse with the easy grace of one accustomed to the saddle. No one just like him ever had come under the observation of the august patrons of The Colonial.
Pinkey Fripp was about five feet four and square as a bulldog. "Hard-boiled" is a word which might have been coined specially to describe him. The cropped hair on his round head was sandy, his skin a sun-blistered red, and his lips had deep cracks in them. His nose did not add to his beauty any more than the knife-scar around his neck, which looked as if someone had barely failed in an attempt to cut off his head.
The feature that saved the young fellow's face from a look of unmitigated "toughness" was his pale gray eyes, whose steady, fearless look seemed to contend with a whimsical gleam of humour.
Pinkey listened, with the disciplined patience of the army, to the recital of the exploit that had won the War Cross for him, but there was a peculiar glint in his light eyes. As Smith drew to a conclusion, Pinkey slowly lifted his leg, stiffened by a machine-gun bullet, over the horse's neck and sat sideways.
The applause was so vociferous, so spontaneous and hearty, that nothing approaching it ever had beenheard at The Colonial. But it stopped as suddenly, for in the middle of it Pinkey gathered himself and sprang through the air like a flying-squirrel, to bowl the Smith boy over. "You said you wouldn't tell about that 'Craw de gare,' ner call me a hero, an' you've gone and done it!" he said, accusingly, as he sat astride of him. "I got feelin's jest like grown-up folks, and I don't like to be laughed at. Sorry, Big Boy, but you got this comin'!" Thereupon, with a grin, Pinkey banged his host's head on the gravel.
The two were surrounded when this astonishing incident was over and it was found that not only was the Smith boy not injured but seemed to be used to it and bore no malice. The guests shook hands with the boys and congratulated them; they examined the War Cross that Pinkey produced reluctantly from the bottom of the flour-sack in which he carried his clothing, and finally Mr. Appel presented the purse in a speech to which nobody listened—and the Smith boy shocked everybody by his extravagance when he gave five of it to the driver of the laundry wagon.
"I was shore pinin' to step in the middle of a horse," was Pinkey's explanation of their eccentric arrival. "It kinda rests me."
While all this was happening Wallie stood holding his lemonade tray. When he could get close, he welcomed the Smith boy and was introduced to Pinkey, and stood around long enough to learn that the latter and Helene Spenceley knew each other.
Nobody, however, was interested in seeing his roses. Even Miss Mattie Gaskett, who always clunglike a burr to woollen clothing with the least encouragement, said carelessly when he showed her the lemonade tray:
"As good as your best, Wallie," and edged over to hear what Pinkey was saying.
There was nothing to do but withdraw unobtrusively, though Wallie realized with chagrin that he could have gone upstairs on his hands and knees without attracting the least attention. For the first time he regretted deeply that his eyesight had kept him out of the army, for he, too, might have been winning war crosses in the trenches instead of rolling bandages and knitting socks and sweaters.
Wallie almost hated the lemonade tray as he slammed it on the table, for in his utter disgust with everything and everybody the design seemed to look more like cabbages than roses.
CHAPTER IVTHE BRAND OF CAIN
There never was a nose so completely out of joint as Wallie's nor an owner more thoroughly humiliated and embittered by the fickleness and ingratitude of human nature. The sacrifices he had made in escorting dull ladies to duller movies were wasted. The unfailing courtesy with which he had retrieved their yarn and handkerchiefs, the sympathy and attention with which he had listened to their symptoms, his solicitude when they were ailing—all were forgotten now that Pinkey was in the vicinity.
The ladies swarmed around that person, quoted his sayings delightedly, and declared a million times in Wallie's hearing that "he was a character!" And the worst of it was that Helene Spenceley did not seem sufficiently aware of Wallie's existence even to laugh at him.
As the displaced cynosure sat brooding in his room the third morning after Pinkey's arrival he wished that he could think of some perfectly well-bred way to attract attention.
He believed in the psychology of clothes. Perhaps if he appeared on the veranda in something to emphasizehis personality, something suggesting strength and virility, like tennis flannels, he could regain his hold on his audience.
With this thought in mind Wallie opened his capacious closet filled with wearing apparel, and the moment his eyes fell upon his riding breeches he had his inspiration. If "the girl from Wyoming" thought her friend Pinkey was the only person who could ride a horse, he would show her!
It took Wallie only so long to order a horse as it required to get the Riding Academy on the telephone.
"I want a good-looking mount—something spirited," he instructed the person who answered.
"We've just bought some new horses," the voice replied. "I'll send you the pick of them."
Wallie hung up the receiver, fairly trembling with eagerness to dress himself and get down on the veranda. He looked well in riding togs—everyone mentioned it—and if he could walk out swinging his crop nonchalantly, well, they would at leastnoticehim! And when he would spring lightly into the saddle and gallop away—he saw it as plainly as if it were happening.
Although Wallie actually broke his record he seemed to himself an unconscionable time in dressing, but when he gave himself a final survey in the mirror, he had every reason to feel satisfied with the result. He was correct in every detail and he thought complacently that he could not but contrast favourably with the appearance of that "roughneck" from Montana—or was it Wyoming?
"What you taking such a hot day to ride for?" Mrs. Appel called when she caught sight of Wallie.
The question jarred on him and he replied coolly:
"I had not observed that it was warmer than usual, Mrs. Appel."
"It's ninety, with the humidity goodness knows how much!" she retorted.
Without seeming to look, Wallie could see that both Miss Spenceley and Pinkey were on the veranda and regarding him with interest. His pose became a little theatrical while he waited for his mount, striking his riding boot smartly with his crop as he stood in full view of them.
Everyone was interested when they saw the horse coming, and a few sauntered over to have a look at him, Miss Spenceley and Pinkey among the others.
"Is that the horse you always ride, Wallie?" inquired Miss Gaskett.
"No; it's a new one I'm going to try out for them," Wallie replied, indifferently.
"Wallie,dobe careful!" his aunt admonished him. "I don't like you to ride strange horses."
Wallie laughed lightly, and as he went down to meet the groom who was now at the foot of the steps with the horses he assured her that there was not the least cause for anxiety.
"Why, that's a Western horse!" Miss Spenceley exclaimed. "Isn't that a brand on the shoulder?"
"It looks like it," Pinkey answered, ruffing the hair then smoothing it. "Shore it's a brand." He stepped off a pace to look at it.
"Pardon me, but I think you're mistaken," Wallie said, politely but positively. "The Academy buys only thoroughbreds."
"If that ain't a bronc, I'll eat it," Pinkey declared, bluntly.
"Can you make out the brand?" asked Miss Spenceley.
Pinkey ruffed the hair again and stepped back and squinted. Then his cracked lips stretched in a grin that threatened to start them bleeding: "'88' is the way I read it."
She nodded: "The brand of Cain."
Then they both laughed immoderately.
Wallie could see no occasion for merriment and it nettled him.
"Nevertheless, I maintain that you are in error," he declared, obstinately.
"I doubt if I could set one of them hen-skin saddles," observed Pinkey, changing the subject.
Wallie replied airily:
"Oh, it's very easy if you've been taught properly."
"Taught? You mean," wonderingly, "that somebodylearntyou to ride horseback?"
Wallie smiled patronizingly:
"How else would I know?"
"I was jest throwed on a horse and told to stay there."
"Which accounts for the fact that you Western riders have no 'form,' if you'll excuse my frankness."
"Don't mention it," replied Pinkey, not to beoutdone in politeness. "Maybe, before I go, you'll give me some p'inters?"
"I shall be most happy," Wallie responded, putting his foot in the stirrup.
He mounted creditably and settled himself in the saddle.
"Thumb him," said Miss Spenceley, "and we'll soon settle the argument."
"How—thumb him? The term is not familiar."
"Show him, Pinkey." Her eyes were sparkling, for Wallie's tone implied that the expression was slang and also rather vulgar.
"He'll unload his pack as shore as shootin'." Pinkey hesitated.
"No time like the present to learn a lesson," she replied, ambiguously.
"Certainly—if there's anything you can teach me," Wallie's smile said as plain as words that he doubted it. "Mr. Fripp—er—'thumb' him."
"You're the doctor," said Pinkey, grimly, and "thumbed" him.
The effect was instantaneous. The old horse ducked his head, arched his back, and went at it.
It was over in less time than it requires to tell and Wallie was convinced beyond the question of a doubt that the horse had not been bred in Kentucky. As he described an aërial circle Wallie had a whimsical notion that his teeth had bitten into his brain and his spine was projected through the crown of his derby hat. Darkness and oblivion came upon him for a moment, and then he found himself being liftedtenderly from a bed of petunias and dusted off by the groom from the Riding Academy.
The ladies were screaming, but a swift glance showed Wallie not only Mr. Appel but Mr. Cone and Mr. Budlong with their hands over their mouths and their teeth gleaming between their spreading fingers.
"Coward!" he cried to Pinkey. "Youdon't dare get on him!"
"Can you ride him 'slick,' Pinkey?" asked Miss Spenceley.
"I'll do it er bust somethin'." Pinkey's mouth had a funny quirk at the corners. "Maybe it'll take the kinks out of me from travellin'."
He looked at Mr. Cone doubtfully: "I'm liable to rip up the sod in your front yard a little."
"Go to it!" cried Mr. Cone, whose sporting blood was up. "There's nothin' here that won't grow again. Ride him!"
Everybody was trembling, and when Miss Eyester looked at her lips they were white as alabaster, but she meant to see the riding, if she had one of her sinking spells immediately it was over.
When Pinkey swung into the saddle, the horse turned its head around slowly and looked at the leg that gripped him. Pinkey leaned down, unbuckled the throat-latch, and slipped off the bridle. Then, as he touched the horse in the flank with his heels, he took off his cap and slapped him over the head with it.
The horse recognized the familiar challenge andaccepted it. What he had done to Wallie was only the gambolling of a frisky colt as compared with his efforts to rid his back of Pinkey.
Even Helene Spenceley sobered as she watched the battle that followed.
The horse sprang into the air, twisted, and came down stiff-legged—squealing. Now with his head between his forelegs he shot up his hind hoofs and at an angle to require all the grip in his rider's knees to stay in the saddle. Then he brought down his heels again, violently, to bite at Pinkey—who kicked him.
He "weaved," he "sunfished"—with every trick known to an old outlaw he tried to throw his rider, rearing finally to fall backward and mash to a pulp a bed of Mr. Cone's choicest tulips. But when the horse rose Pinkey was with him, while the spectators, choking with excitement, forgetting themselves and each other, yelled like Apaches.
With nostrils blood-red and distended, his eyes the eyes of a wild animal, now writhing, now crouching, now lying back on his haunches and springing forward with a violence to snap any ordinary vertebra, the horse pitched as if there was no limit to its ingenuity and endurance.
Pinkey's breath was coming in gasps and his colour had faded with the terrible jar of it all. Even the uninitiated could see that Pinkey was weakening, and the result was doubtful, when, suddenly, the horse gave up and stampeded. He crashed through the trellis over which Mr. Cone had carefully trained hiscrimson ramblers, tore through a neat border of mignonette and sweet alyssum that edged the driveway, jumped through "snowballs," lilacs, syringas, and rhododendrons to come to a halt finally conquered and chastened.
The "88" brand has produced a strain famous throughout Wyoming for its buckers, and this venerable outlaw lived up to every tradition of his youth and breeding.
There never was worse bucking nor better riding in a Wild West Show or out of it, and Mr. Appel declared that he had not been so stirred since the occasion when walking in the woods at Harvey's Lake in the early '90's he had acted upon the unsound presumption that all are kittens that look like kittens and disputed the path with a black-and-white animal which proved not to be.
Mrs. C. D. Budlong was shedding tears like a crocodile, without moving a feature. Mr. Budlong put the lighted end of a cigar in his mouth and burned his tongue to a blister, while Miss Eyester dropped into a chair and had her sinking spell and recovered without any one remarking it. In an abandonment that was like the delirium of madness Mr. Cone went in and lifted Miss Gaskett's cat "Cutie" out of the plush rocker, where she was leaving hairs on the cushion, and surreptitiously kicked her.
Altogether it was an unforgettable occasion, and only Pinkey seemed unthrilled by it—he dismounted in a businesslike, matter-of-fact manner that had in it neither malice toward the horse nor elation at havingridden him. He felt admiration, if anything, for he said as he rubbed the horse's forehead:
"You shore made me ride, Old Timer! You got all the old curves and some new ones. If I had a hat I'd take it off to you. I ain't had such a churnin' sence I set 'Steamboat' fer fifteen seconds. Oh, hullo——" as Wallie advanced with his hand out.
"I congratulate you," said Wallie, feeling himself magnanimous in view of the way his neck was hurting.
"You needn't," replied Pinkey, good-naturedly. "He durned near 'got' me."
"It was a very creditable ride indeed," insisted Wallie, in his most patronizing and priggish manner. He found it very hard to be generous, with Helene Spenceley listening.
"It seemed so, afteryourperformance, 'Gentle Annie'!" snapped Miss Spenceley.
Actually the woman seemed to spit like a cat at him! She had the tongue of a serpent and a vicious temper. He hated her! Wallie removed his hat with exaggerated politeness and decided never to have anything more to say to Miss Spenceley.