As they came abreast the constable held out his hand and the pair automatically laid six-shooters in it and went on without stopping in their song:

—if I ain't, may I be blessed. I'm a snorter of the boundless, lone prairee.

Other citizens than the barber recognized the voices, and frowned or smiled as happened, among whom was Mr. Tucker repairing a sofa in the rear of his "Second-Hand Store."

Returning, the constable laid the six-shooters on the shelf among the shaving mugs and removed his badge.

"Who's that?" inquired the patron, since the barber offered no explanation.

"Oh, them toughs—'Gentle Annie' Macpherson and 'Pinkey' Fripp," was the answer in a wearied tone. "I hate to see 'em come to town."

The pair continued to warble on their way to the livery barn on a side street:

I'm the double-jawed hyena from the East. I'm the blazing, bloody blizzard of the States. I'm the celebrated slugger——

The song stopped as Pinkey asked:

"Shall we work together or separate?"

To this mysterious question Wallie replied:

"Let's try it together first."

After attending personally to the matter of feeding their horses oats, the two set forth with the air of having a definite purpose.

Their subsequent actions confirmed it, for they approached divers persons of their acquaintance as if they had business of a confidential nature. The invariable result of these mysterious negotiations, however, was a negative shake of the head.

After another obvious failure Pinkey said gloomily:

"If I put in half the time and thought trying to be a Senator that I do figgerin' how to git a bottle, I'd be elected."

Wallie replied hopefully:

"Something may turn up yet."

"I'd lift a cache from a preacher! I'd steal booze off my blind aunt! I'd——"

"We'll try some more 'prospects' before we give up. It's many months since I've gone out of town sober and I don't like to establish a precedent. I'm superstitious about things like that," said Wallie.

At this unquestionably psychological moment Mr. Tucker beckoned them from his doorway. They responded with such alacrity that their gait approached a trot, although they had no particular reason to believe that it was his intention to offer them a drink. It was merely a hope born of their thirst.

Their reputation was such, however, that any one who wished to demonstrate his friendship invariably evidenced it in this way, taking care, in violation of the ethics of bygone days, to do the pouring himself.

Mr. Tucker winked elaborately when he invited them in, and Wallie and Pinkey exchanged eloquent looks as they followed him to his Land Office in the rear of the store.

Inside, he locked the door and lowered the shade of the single window which looked out on an areaway. No explanation was necessary as he took a hatchet and pried up a plank. This accomplished, he reached under the floor and produced a tin cup and a two-gallon jug.

He filled it with a fluid of an unfamiliar shade and passed it to Pinkey, who smelled it and declared that he could drink anything that was wet. Wallie watched him eagerly as it gurgled down his throat.

"Well?" Mr. Tucker waited expectantly for the verdict.

Pinkey wiped his mouth.

"Another like that and I could watch my mother go down for the third time and laugh!"

"Where did you get it?" Wallie in turn emptied the cup and passed it back.

"S-ss-sh!" Mr. Tucker looked warningly at the door. "I made it myself—brown sugar and raisins. You like it then?"

"If I had about 'four fingers' in a wash-tub every half hour—— What would you hold a quart of that at?" Pinkey leaned over the opening in the floor and sniffed.

Mr. Tucker hastily replaced the plank and declared:

"Oh, I wouldn't dast! I jest keep a little on hand for my particular friends that I can trust. By the way, Mr. Macpherson, what are you goin' to do with that homestead you took up?"

"Hold it. Why?"

"I thought I might run across a buyer sometime and I wondered what you asked."

A hardness came into Wallie's face and Tucker added:

"I wasn't goin' to charge you any commission—you've had bad luck and——"

"You're the seventh philanthropist that's wanted to sell that place in my behalf for about $400, because he was sorry for me," Wallie interrupted, drily. "You tell Canby that when he makes me a decent offer I'll consider it."

"No offence—no offence, I hope?" Tucker protested.

"Oh, no." Wallie shrugged his shoulder. "Only don't keep getting me mixed with the chap that took up that homestead. I've had my eyeteeth cut."

Extending an invitation to call and quench their thirsts with his raisinade when next they came to town, Tucker unlocked the door.

After the two had wormed their way through the bureaus and stoves and were once more in the street, they turned and gave each other a long, inquiring look.

"Pink," demanded Wallie, solemnly, "did you smell anything when he raised that plank?"

"Did I smell anything! Didn't you see me sniff? That joker has got a cache of the real stuff and he gave us raisinade! I couldn't git an answer from a barrel of that. He couldn't have insulted us worse if he'd slapped our faces."

"A man ought to be punished that would do a wicked thing like that."

"You've said somethin', Gentle Annie."

The two looked at each other in an understanding that was beautiful and complete.

The behaviour of the visitors was nearly too good to be true—it was so exemplary, in fact, as to be suspicious, and acting upon this theory, the barber closed his shop early, pinned on his badge of office, and followed them about. But when at ten o'clock they had broken nothing, quarrelled with nobody, and drunk only an incredible quantity of soda pop, he commenced to think he had been wrong.

At eleven, when they were still in a pool-hall playing "solo" for a cent a chip, he decided to go home. There he confided to his wife that no more striking example of the benefits of prohibition had come under his observation than the conduct of this notorious pair who, when sober, were well mannered and docile as lambs.

It was twelve or thereabouts when two figures crept stealthily up the alley behind Mr. Tucker's Second-Hand Store and raised the window looking out on the areaway. As noiselessly as trained burglars they pried up the plank and investigated by the light of a match.

"Well, what do you think of that!"

"I feel like somebody had died and left me a million dollars!" said Pinkey in an awed tone, reaching for a tin cup. "I didn't think they was anybody in the world as mean as Tucker."

"You mustn't get too much," Wallie admonished, noting the size of the drink Pinkey was pouring for himself.

"I've never had too much. I may have had enough, but never too much," Pinkey grinned. "I don't take no int'rest in startin' less'n a quart."

"I hope he'll have the decency to be ashamed of himself when he finds out we know what he did to us. I shouldn't think he'd want to look us in the face," Wallie declared, virtuously.

"He won't git a chanst to look in my face for some time to come if we kin lift this cache."

Together they filled the grain sack they had brought and carefully replaced the plank, then, staggering under the weight of the load, made their way to a gulch, buried the sack, and marked the hiding-place with a stone. With a righteous sense of having acted as instruments of Providence in punishing selfishness, they returned to town to follow such whims as seized them under the stimulus of a bottle of Mr. Tucker's excellent Bourbon.

The constable had been asleep for hours when a yell—a series of yells—made him sit up. He listened a moment, then with a sigh of resignation got up, dressed, and took the key of the calaboose from its nail by the kitchen sink.

"I'll lock 'em up and be right back," he said to his sleepy wife, who seemed to know whom he meant too well to ask.

Under the arc light in front of the Prouty House he found them doing the Indian "stomp" dance to the delight of the guests who were leaning from their windows to applaud.

"Ain't you two ashamed of yerselves?" the constable demanded, scandalized—referring to the fact that Pinkey and Wallie had divested themselves of their trousers and boots and were dancing in their stocking feet.

"Ashamed?" Wallie asked, impudently. "Where have I heard that word?"

"Who sold liquor to you two?"

"I ate a raisin and it fermented," Wallie replied, pertly.

"Where's your clothes?" To Pinkey.

"How'sh I know?"

"You two ought to be ordered to keep out of town. You're pests. Come along!"

"Jus' waitin' fer you t'put us t'bed," said Pinkey, cheerfully.

The two lurched beside the constable to the calaboose, where they dropped down on the hard pads and temporarily passed out.

The sun was shining in Wallie's face when he awoke and realized where he was. He and Pinkey had been there too many times before not to know. As he lay reading the pencilled messages and criticisms of the accommodation left on the walls by other occupants he subconsciously marvelled at himself that he should have no particular feeling of shame at finding himself in a cell.

He was aware that it was accepted as a fact that he had gone to the bad. He had been penurious as a miser until he had saved enough from his wages as a common cowhand to buy his homestead outright from the State. After that he had never saved a cent, on the contrary, he was usually overdrawn. He gambled, and lost no opportunity to get drunk, since he calculated that he got more entertainment for his money out of that than anything else, even at the "bootlegging" price of $20 per quart which prevailed.

So he had drifted, learning in the meantime under Pinkey's tutelage to ride and shoot and handle a rope with the best of them. Pinkey had left the Spenceley ranch and they were both employed now by the same cattleman.

He rarely saw Helene, in consequence, but upon the few occasions they had met in Prouty she had made him realize that she knew his reputation and disapproved of it. In the East she had mocked him for his inoffensiveness, now she criticized him for the opposite. It was plain, he thought disconsolately, that he could not please her, yet it seemed to make no difference in his own feelings for her.

His face reddened as he recalled the boasts he had made upon several occasions and how far he had fallen short of fulfilling them. He was going to "show" them, and now all he had to offer in evidence was 160 acres gone to weeds and grasshoppers, his saddle, and the clothes he stood in.

It was not often that Wallie stopped to take stock, for it was an uncomfortable process, but his failure seemed to thrust itself upon him this morning. He was glad when Pinkey's heavy breathing ceased in the cell adjoining and he began to grumble.

"Looks like a town the size of Prouty would have a decent jail in it," he said, crossly. "They go and throw every Tom, Dick, and Harry in this here cell, and some buckaroo has half tore up the mattress."

"You can't have your private cell, you know," Wallie suggested.

"I've paid enough in fines to build a cooler the size of this one, and looks like I got a little somethin' comin' to me."

"I suppose they don't take that view of it," said Wallie, "but you might speak to the Judge this morning."

After a time Pinkey asked, yawning:

"What did we do last night? Was we fightin'?"

"I don't know—I haven't thought about it."

"I guess the constable will mention it," Pinkey observed, drily. "He does, generally."

"Let's make a circle and go and have a look at my place," Wallie suggested. "It's not far out of the way and we might pick up a few strays in that country."

Pinkey agreed amiably and added:

"You'll prob'ly have the blues for a week after."

The key turning in the lock interrupted the conversation.

"You two birds get up. Court is goin' to set in about twenty minutes." The constable eyed them coldly through the grating.

"Where's my clothes?" Pinkey demanded, looking at the Law accusingly.

"How should I know?"

"I ain't no more pants than a rabbit!" Pinkey declared, astonished.

"Nor I!" said Wallie.

"You got all the clothes you had on when I put you here."

"How kin we go to court?"

"'Tain't fur."

"Everybody'll look at us," Pinkey protested.

The constable retorted callously:

"Won't many more see you than saw you last night doin' the stomp dance in Main Street."

"Did we do that?" Pinkey asked, startled.

"Sure—right in front of the Prouty House, and Helene Spenceley and a lot of folks was lookin' out of the windows."

Wallie sat down on the edge of his cot weakly. That settled it! He doubted if she would ever speak to him.

"I've got customers waitin'," urged the constable, impatiently. "Wrap a soogan around you and step lively."

There was nothing to do but obey, in the circumstances, so the shame-faced pair walked the short block to a hardware store in the rear of which the Justice of the Peace was at his desk to receive them.

"Ten dollars apiece," he said, without looking up from his writing. "And half an hour to get out of town."

Pinkey and Wallie looked at each other.

"The fact is, Your Honour," said the latter, ingratiatingly, "we have mislaid our trousers and left our money in the pockets. If you would be so kind as to loan us each a ten-spot until we have wages coming we shall feel greatly indebted to you."

The Court vouchsafed a glance at them. Showing no surprise at their unusual costume, he said as he fumbled in the pocket of his waistcoat:

"Such gall as yours should not go unrewarded. You pay your debts, and that's all the good I know of either of you. Now clear out—and if you show up for a month the officer here is to arrest you."

He transferred two banknotes to the desk-drawer and went on with his scratching.

"Gosh!" Pinkey lamented, as they stood outside clutching their quilts, "I wisht I knowed whur to locate them mackinaws. I got 'em in Lethbridge before I went to the army, and I think the world of 'em. I don't like 'poor-boys-serge,' but I guess I'll have to come to it, since I'm busted."

"What's that?" Wallie asked, curiously.

"Denim," Pinkey explained, "overalls. That makes me think of a song a feller wrote up:

"A Texas boy in a Northern clime, With a pair of brown hands and a thin little dime. The southeast side of his overalls out— Yip-yip, I'm freezin' to death!"

"That's a swell song," Pinkey went on enthusiastically. "I wish I could think of the rest of it."

"Don't overtax your brain—I've heard plenty. Let's cut down the alley and in the back way of the Emporium. Oh!" He gripped his quilt in sudden panic and looked for a hiding-place. Nothing better than a telegraph pole offered. He stepped behind it as Helene Spenceley passed in Canby's roadster.

"Did she see me?"

"Shore she saw you. You'd oughta seen the way she looked at you."

Wallie, who was too mortified and miserable for words over the incident, declared he meant never again to come to town and make a fool of himself.

"I know how you feel, but you'll git over it," said Pinkey, sympathetically. "It's nothin' to worry about, for I doubt if you ever had any show anyhow."

Canby laughed disagreeably after they had passed the two on the sidewalk.

"That Montgomery-Ward cowpuncher has been drunk again, evidently," he commented.

"I wouldn't call him that. I'm told he can rope and ride with any of them."

He looked at her quickly.

"You seem to keep track of him."

She replied bluntly:

"He interests me."

"Why?" curtly. Canby looked malicious as he added: "He's a fizzle."

"He'll get his second wind some day and surprise you."

"He will?" Canby replied, curtly. "What makes you think it?"

"His aunt is a rich woman, and he could go limping back if he wanted to; besides, he has what I call the 'makings'."

"He should feel flattered by your confidence in him," he answered, uncomfortably.

"He doesn't know it."

Canby said no more, but it passed through his mind that Wallie would not, either, if there was a way for him to prevent it.



CHAPTER XV

COLLECTING A BAD DEBT

Wallie and Pinkey picked up a few stray cattle on their way to the homestead on Skull Creek. It was late in the afternoon when they reached it, so they decided to spend the night there. The corral was down in places, but with a little work it was repaired sufficiently to hold the cattle they put in it.

As Pinkey had prophesied, it gave Wallie the "blues" to look at the place where he had worked so hard and from which he had hoped so much. He felt heartsick as he saw the broken fence-posts and tangled wire, the weeds growing in his wheat-field, the broken window-panes, and the wreckage inside his cabin.

The door had been left open and the range stock had gone in for shelter, while the rats and mice and chipmunks had taken possession. Such of his cooking utensils as remained had been used and left unwashed, and the stove was partially demolished.

The only thing which remained as he had left it was the stream of salt water that had cut a deeper channel for itself but had not diminished in volume.

"I'll go over to Canby's and hit the cook for some grub and be back pronto," said Pinkey.

Wallie nodded. He was in no mood for conversation, for the realization of his failure was strong upon him, and he could not rid himself of the mortification he felt at having made a spectacle of himself before Helene Spenceley.

The future looked utterly hopeless. Without capital there seemed nothing to do but go on indefinitely working for wages. His aunt had sent word in a roundabout way that if he wished to come back she would receive him, but this he did not even consider.

Sitting on what was left of his doorstep, he awaited Pinkey's return, in an attitude of such dejection that that person commented upon it jocosely. He rode up finally with a banana in each hip pocket that he had pilfered from the cook, together with four doughnuts in the crown of his hat and a cake in his shirt front.

"I tried to get away with a pie, but it was too soft to carry, so I put a handful of salt under the crust and set it back," he said, as he disgorged his plunder. "He charged me for the bread and meat, and wouldn't let me have no butter! It's fellers like the Canby outfit that spoil a country."

When they had eaten, they spread their saddle-blankets in the dooryard and with their saddles for pillows covered themselves with the slickers they carried and so slept soundly until morning.

After breakfast, as they were leading their horses up the weed-grown path to the cabin to saddle them, Pinkey's eye rested on the flowing salt water stream.

"Can you beat it!" he commented. "Good for nuthin' but a bathin' pool fer dudes——"

Wallie stopped in the path and looked at the friend of his bosom.

"Pink," he said, solemnly, "why wouldn't this make a dude ranch?"

Pinkey stared back at him.

"Gentle Annie," he replied, finally, "I told you long ago you was good fer somethin' if we could jest hit on it. You're a born duder!"

"Thanks! I feel as complimented as the fellow in the Passion Play who is cast for Judas Iscariot."

"I don't know what you're talkin' about—I've only seen a few draymas—but you got the looks and the figger and a way about you that I've noticed takes with women. You'd make a great dude wrangler. Bleeve me, you've thought of somethin'!"

"I wasn't thinking of myself, but of the place here—the scenery—the climate—fishing in the mountains—hunting in season——"

"And"—Pinkey interrupted—"the strongest stream of salt water in the state fer mineral baths, with the Yellowstone Park in your front dooryard!"

In his enthusiasm he pounded Wallie on the back.

"It would be an asset, having the Park so close," the latter agreed, his eyes shining.

Pinkey went on:

"You kin run dudes whur you can't run sheep or cattle. What you need is room—and we're there with the room. Fresh air, grasshoppers, views any way you look—why, man, you got everything!"

"Except money," said Wallie, suddenly.

Pinkey's face lengthened.

"I hadn't thought of that."

For an instant they felt crushed. It was such a precipitous descent to earth after their flight.

They walked to the cabin, and saddled in a silence which was broken finally by Pinkey, who said vindictively:

"I'd rob a train to git money enough to turn fifty head of dudes loose on Canby. He'd be mad enough to bite himself. If he could help it he wouldn't have a neighbour within a hundred miles."

Wallie's thoughts were bitter as he remembered the many injuries he had suffered at Canby's hands. It was a subject upon which he dared not trust himself to talk—it stirred him too much, although he had long ago decided that since he was powerless to retaliate there was nothing to do but take his medicine. As he made no response, Pinkey continued while he tightened the cinch:

"If you could make a dude ranch out o' this and worry him enough, he'd give you about any price you asked, to quit."

"I'd ask plenty," Wallie replied, grimly, "but it's no use to talk."

"It wouldn't trouble my conscience none if I hazed a bunch of his horses over the line, but horses are so cheap now that it wouldn't pay to take the chance."

"There's the Prouty Bank," Wallie suggested, ironically.

"Them bullet-proof screens have made cashiers too hard to git at." Pinkey spoke in an authoritative tone.

"Why don't you marry some rich widow and get us a stake?"

"Aw-w!" Resentment and disgust were in Pinkey's voice. "I'd steal washings off of clothes lines first." He added: "I don't like them jokes."

"I didn't know you were touchy, Pink."

"Everybody's touchy," Pinkey replied, sagely, "if you hit 'em on the right spot. But, do you know, this dude ranch sticks in my mind, and I can't git it out."

"We might as well let it drop. We haven't the money, so we're wasting our breath. We'll lose the jobs we've got if we don't get about our business. Let's leave the cattle in the corral and scout a little through the hills—it'll save us another trip. I don't want to come here again soon—it hurts too much."

Pinkey agreed, and they rode gloomily along the creek bank looking for a ford. A few hot days had taken off the heavy snows in the mountains so quickly that the stream was running swift and deep.

"That's treach'rous water," Pinkey observed. "They's boulders in there as big as a house where it looks all smooth on top. I know a place about a mile or so where I think it'll be safe."

They had ridden nearly that distance when, simultaneously, they pulled their horses up.

"Look at that crazy fool!" Pinkey ejaculated, aghast.

"It's—Canby!" Wallie exclaimed.

"Nobody else! Watch him," incredulously, "tryin' to quirt his horse across the crick!"

"Isn't it the ford?"

"I should say not! It looks like the place but it ain't—he's mixed—he'll be in a jack-pot quick if he don't back out. Onct his horse stumbles it'll never git its feet in there."

They rode close enough to hear Canby cursing as he whipped.

"Look at him punish the poor brute! See him use that quirt and cut him with his spurs! Say, that makes me sick to see a good horse abused!" Pinkey cried, indignantly.

Wallie said nothing but watched with hard, narrowed eyes.

"I s'pose I'd oughta yell and warn him," finally Pinkey said, reluctantly.

"You let out a yip and I'll slat you across the face!"

Pinkey stared at the words—at Wallie's voice—at an expression he never had seen before.

"I know how you feel, but it's pure murder to let him git into that crick."

"Will you shut up?" Wallie looked at him with steely eyes, and there was a glint in them that silenced Pink.

He waited, wonderingly, to see what it all meant. The battle between man and horse continued while they watched from the high bank. In terrified protest the animal snorted, reared, whirled, while the rider plied the quirt mercilessly and spurred. Finally the sting of leather, the pain of sharp steel, and the stronger will won out, and the trembling horse commenced to take the water.

Pinkey muttered, as, fascinated, he looked on:

"I've no idea that he knows enough to quit his horse on the down-stream side. He'll wash under, tangle up, and be drowned before we get a chanst to snake him out. He's a gone goslin' right now."

Cautiously, a few inches to a step, the horse advanced.

"There! He's in the boulders! Watch him flounder! Look at him slip—he's hit the current! Good-night—he's down—no, he's goin' to ketch himself! Watch him fight! Good ol' horse—good ol' horse!" Pinkey was beside himself with excitement now. "He's lost his feet—he's swimmin'—strikin' out for the shore—too swift, and the fool don't know enough to give him his head!"

They followed along the bank as the current swept horse and rider down.

"He swims too high—he's playin' out—there's so much mud he'll choke up quick. It'll soon be over now." Pinkey's face wore a queer, half-frightened grin. "Fifty yards more and——"

Wallie commenced to uncoil his saddle rope.

"You goin' to drag him out?"

Wallie made no answer but touched his horse and galloped until he was ahead of Canby and the drowning horse. Making a megaphone of his hands he yelled.

Canby lifted his wild eyes to the bank.

"Throw me a rope!" he shrieked.

A slow, tantalizing smile came to Wallie's face. Very distinctly he called back:

"How much damages will you give me for driving your cattle into my wheat?"

"Not a damn cent!"

The rope Wallie had been swinging about his head to test the loop promptly dropped.

The horse was swimming lower at every stroke.

"Five hundred!" Fear and rage were in Canby's choking voice.

"Put another cipher on that to cover my mental anguish!" Wallie mocked.

The horse was exhausting itself rapidly with its efforts merely to keep its nose out, making no further attempt to swim toward the bank. Canby slapped water in its face in the hope of turning it, but it was too late. Its breathing could be heard plainly and its distended nostrils were blood-red.

Many things passed swiftly through Canby's calculating mind in the few seconds that remained for him to decide.

His boots had filled and he was soaked to the waist; he knew that if he left the horse and swam for it he had small chance of success. He was not a strong swimmer at best, and even if he managed to get to the bank its sides were too high and steep for him to climb out without assistance. He looked at Wallie's implacable face, but he saw no weakening there, it was a matter of a moment more when the horse would go under and come up feet first.

"Throw me the rope!" His voice vibrating with chagrin and rage admitted his defeat.

Wallie measured the distance with his eye, adjusted the loop, and as it cut the air above his head Canby held up his hands to catch it when it dropped.

"Good work!" Pinkey cried as it shot out and hit its mark. "You never made a better throw than that, old kid!"

Canby slipped the loop under his arm and, as he took his feet from the stirrups, shouted for them to tighten up.

The horse, relieved of his weight, took heart and struck out for the opposite bank, where a little dirt slide enabled it to scramble out. Shaking and dripping, at last it stood still at the top, while Canby, a dead weight, was dragged over the edge to dry land.

There was as much fury as relief in his face when he stood up and started to loosen the rope around his chest.

Wallie stopped him with a gesture.

"No, you don't! I take no chances when I play with crooks. You make out that check."

"Isn't my word good?" Canby demanded.

"Not so far as I can throw my horse."

"I haven't a check-book," he lied.

"Get it, Pink."

The check-book and indelible pencil which every sheep and cattleman carries were in the inside pocket of his coat.

"Fill it out." Wallie passed the pencil to him. "And don't leave off a cipher by mistake."

"I refuse to be coerced!" Canby declared, defiantly. "I'll keep my word, but I didn't say when."

"I'm setting the date," Wallie replied, coolly, "and that's just four minutes and a half from now," taking out his watch. "If I haven't got the check by then you'll pay for those locoed horses, too, or I'll throw you back."

"You don't dare!"

"When you haven't anything to lose you'll do considerable to get 'hunks' and that's my fix. Besides, I need the money. Two minutes left—think fast."

"You'll sweat blood for this before I'm through with you!"

"Time's up—yes or no?"

Canby gritted his teeth.

Silently Wallie passed the end of the rope to Pinkey, who understood and took a turn around his saddle-horn.

Before he could resist Wallie gave Canby a shove and pushed him over the bank. He struck the water with a splash and went out of sight. Immediately the well-trained cow-horse felt the strain it backed up and held the rope taut.

Canby came to the surface, then dangled as the horse continued to hold off. As he strangled with the water he had taken in his lungs and struggled frantically in the air, it seemed beyond human belief that it was he, Canby—Canby the all-powerful—in such a plight!

"Pay out a little rope, Pinkey. Give the fish more line."

Once again Canby dropped back and came up gasping, coughing, fighting for his breath.

A little anxiously Pinkey asked:

"Don't you bleeve he's had enough?"

"Too much scrap left in him yet," Wallie replied, unmoved.

Canby shrieked at last: "I'll pay! Let me up!"

"You mean that?"

"Good God—YES!"

Pinkey led the horse back and in no gentle fashion Canby was pulled over the edge for the second time, where he lay limp. When his breath and strength returned he struggled to his feet.

"If you go in again you won't come up." Wallie's voice was metallic and, searching his face, Canby saw that he meant exactly what he said.

His hand was shaking as he filled out the check, using the saddle for a desk.

Wallie looked at it and handed it back.

"You forgot the horses—six hundred is what they cost."

Canby started to protest, then, with a crafty look which, fleeting as it was, Wallie caught, he made out a new check for fifty-six hundred.

Turning to Pinkey, Canby said: "I'll give you a hundred and fifty for your horse."

Pinkey hesitated. It was a hundred more than it was worth.

"I guess not." Wallie's voice was curt. "I'm clairvoyant, Canby, and I've read your thought. You can't stop payment by telephone, because Pink is going to close-herd you right here until I ride to Prouty and get this cashed."

Pinkey's jaw dropped.

"By the long-horn toads of Texas! I wouldn't 'a' thought of that in a month!"

As Wallie put his foot into the stirrup for the first time his face relaxed. He looked over his shoulder and grinned:

"If you listen, maybe you'll hear something making a noise like a dude ranch, Pink."



CHAPTER XVI

THE EXODUS

Never had Mr. Cone put in such a summer! The lines in his forehead looked as if they had been made with a harrow and there were times when his eyes had the expression of a hunted animal. Pacifying disgruntled guests was now as much a part of the daily routine as making out the menus. In the halcyon days when a guest had a complaint, he made it aside, delicately, as a suggestion. Now he made a point of dressing Mr. Cone down publicly. In truth, baiting the landlord seemed to be in the nature of a recreation with the guests of The Colonial. Threats to leave were of common occurrence, and Mr. Cone longed to be once more in a position to tell them calmly to use their own pleasure in the matter. But what with high taxes, excessive wages, extensive improvements still to be paid for, prudence kept him silent.

The only way in which he could explain the metamorphosis was that the guests were imbued with the spirit of discontent that prevailed throughout the world in the years following the war. The theory did not make his position easier, however, nor alter the fact that he all but fell to trembling when a patron approached to leave his key or get a drink of ice water at the cooler.

As he lay awake wondering what next they would find to complain of, he framed splendid answers, dignified yet stinging, but when the time came to use them he remembered his expenses and his courage always failed him.

In his heart, he felt that this could not go on forever—some day someone would speak just the right word and he would surprise them. He had come to listen with comparative equanimity to the statement that his hotel was badly managed, the service poor, and the food the worst served on the beach-front, but there was the very strong possibility that someone would inadvertently touch a sensitive nerve and he would "fly off the handle." When that happened, Mr. Cone dreaded the outcome.

Such were conditions at The Colonial when the folders arrived announcing the opening of the Lolabama Ranch to tourists—the name meaning Happy Wigwam. Messrs. Macpherson and Fripp, it stated, were booking guests for the remainder of the season and urged those who had a taste for the Great Outdoors to consider what they had to offer. The folders created a sensation. They came in the morning after a night of excessive heat and humidity. The guests found them in their mail when, fishy-eyed and irritable, they went in to breakfast.

A new elevator boy who had jarred them by the violence of his stops had not improved their tempers, therefore few of them failed to comment to Mr. Cone upon the increasing wretchedness of the service.

While they fanned themselves and prophesied a day that was going to be a "scorcher" they read of a country where the nights were so cool that blankets were necessary, where the air was so invigorating that langour was unheard of, with such a variety of scenery that the eye never wearied. There were salt baths that made the old young again, big game in the mountains for the adventurous, fishing, with bait in untold quantities, saddle-horses for equestrians, innumerable walks for pedestrians, an excellent table provided with the best the market offered, and, finally, a tour of the Yellowstone Park under the personal guidance of the hosts of The Lolabama in a stage-coach drawn by four horses, by motor, or on horseback as suited their pleasure.

Small wonder that life on The Colonial veranda suddenly looked tame after reading the folder and studying the pictures! Their discontent took the form of an increasing desire to nag Mr. Cone. Vaguely they held him responsible for the heat, the humidity, the monotony of the ocean, and their loss of appetite due to lack of exercise.

On an impulse, Mr. Henry Appel, after consulting with his wife, got up abruptly and went inside for the purpose of having a plain talk with Mr. Cone.

Mr. Cone, who was making out the weekly bills, pretended not to see him until he cleared his throat and said very distinctly:

"May I have your attention, Mr. Cone?"

Quaking, Mr. Cone stepped forward briskly and apologized.

Ignoring the apology, Mr. Appel began impressively:

"You cannot have failed to see, Mr. Cone, that my wife and I have been thoroughly dissatisfied this summer, as we have been at no great pains to conceal it. We have been coming here for twenty-two seasons, but we feel that we cannot put up with things any longer and are hereby giving you notice that next Thursday our room will be at your disposal."

"Is it anything in particular—anything which I can remedy? Perhaps you will reconsider." Mr. Cone pleaded, looking from one to the other.

"Last night—at dinner"—Mrs. Appel eyed him accusingly—"I found—an eyewinker—in the hard sauce."

Mr. Cone stammered:

"I'm v-very sorry—it was not my eyewinker—such things will happen—I will speak to the pastry cook and ask him to be careful——"

Mr. Budlong, who had come in to lay his grievance before Mr. Cone, interrupted:

"For two mornings Mrs. Budlong and myself have been awakened by the man with the vacuum cleaner who has wanted to work in our room before we were out of it. I should judge," he said, acidly, "that you recruit your servants from the Home for the Feeble-minded, and, personally, I am sick of it!"

"It is almost impossible to get competent help," Mr. Cone protested. "The man shall be discharged and I promise you no further annoyance."

Mr. Budlong, nudged by his wife, was not to be placated.

"Our week is up Monday, and we are leaving."

Miss Mattie Gaskett, encouraged by the conversation to which she had listened, declared with asperity:

"There has been fuzz under my bed for exactly one week, Mr. Cone, and I have not called the maid's attention to it because I wished to see how long it would remain there. I have no reason to believe that it will be removed this summer. I am sure it is not necessary to tell you that such filth is unsanitary. I have decided that you can make out my bill at your earliest convenience."

"But, Miss Gaskett——"

She ignored the protesting hand which Mr. Cone, panic-stricken, extended, and made way for a widow from Baltimore, who informed him that her faucet dripped and her rocking-chair squeaked, and since no attention had been paid to her complaints she was making other arrangements.

It was useless for Mr. Cone to explain that with the plumbers striking for living wages and the furniture repairers behind with their work, it had been impossible to attend immediately to these matters.

Ruin confronted Mr. Cone as he argued and begged them not to act hastily. But something of the mob spirit had taken possession of the guests in front of the desk who stood and glowered at him, and his conciliatory attitude, his obsequiousness, only added to it.

If nothing else had happened to strain Mr. Cone's self-control further, he and his guests might have separated with at least a semblance of good feeling, but the fatal word which he had feared in his forebodings came from Mrs. J. Harry Stott, who majestically descended the broad staircase carrying before her a small reddish-brown insect impaled on a darning-needle. She walked to the desk and presented it for Mr. Cone's consideration. It was a most indelicate action, but the knowledge that it was such did not lessen the horror with which the guests regarded it.

Aghast, speechless, Mr. Cone, one of whose proudest boasts had been of the hotel's cleanliness, could not have been more shocked if he had learned that he was a leper.

There were shudders, ejaculations, and a general determination to leave even sooner than anticipated.

"Where did you find it?" Mr. Cone finally managed to ask hoarsely.

"Walking on my pillow!" replied Mrs. Stott, dramatically. "And I think there are others! If you will see that my trunks get off on the 4:17 I shall be obliged to you."

Mr. Cone knew it was coming. He felt the symptoms which warned him that he was going to "fly off the handle." He leaned over the counter. Mrs. Stott's eyes were so close together that, like Cyclops, she seemed to have but one, and they had the appearance of growing even closer as Mr. Cone looked into them.

"Do not give yourself any concern on that score, madam. Your trunks will be at the station as soon as they are ready and it will please me if you will follow them.

"For twelve years I have been pretending not to know that you used the hotel soap to do your washing in the bath-tub, and it is a relief to mention it to you.

"And, Miss Gaskett," the deadly coldness of his voice made her shiver, "I doubt if the fuzz under your bed has troubled you as much as the fact that for three summers your cat has had kittens in the linen closet has annoyed me."

The Baltimore widow had his attention:

"It is possible that the drip from your faucet and the squeak in your rocking-chair gets on your nerves, my dear lady, but not more than your daily caterwauling on the hotel piano gets on mine.

"I shall miss your check, certainly, Mr. Appel, but not nearly so much as I shall enjoy the relief from listening to the story of the way you got your start as a 'breaker-boy' in the coal region."

He bowed with the irony of Mephistopheles to Mrs. Budlong:

"Instead of discharging the man with the vacuum cleaner, I shall give him for his large family the cake and fruit you would have carried away from the table in your capacious pocket if you had been here."

His eyes swept them all.

He would have given Mr. Budlong his attention, but that person's vanishing back was all he could see of him, so he turned to the others and shouted:

"Go! The sooner the better. Get out of my sight—the lot of you! I'M GOING TO A REST CURE!"

His hand travelled toward the potato he used as a pen-wiper and there was something so significant in the action when taken in connection with his menacing expression that, without a word, they obeyed him.



CHAPTER XVII

COUNTING THEIR CHICKENS

The "Happy Family" of The Colonial had decided to make up a congenial party and spend the remainder of the summer at the Lolabama Ranch in Wyoming. They were expected on the morrow, everything was in readiness for their coming, and, after supper, down by the corrals Wallie and Pinkey sat on their heels estimating their probable profits.

Pinkey's forehead was furrowed like a corrugated roof with the mental effort as he figured in the dust with a pointed stick while Wallie's face wore a look of absorption as he watched the progress, although he was already as familiar with it as with his multiplication tables.

"Ten head of dudes at $100 a month is a $1,000," said Pinkey. "And twelve months in the year times a $1,000 is $12,000. And, say——"

Wallie interrupted:

"But I've told you a dozen times they all go South in the winter. The most we can count on is two months now and perhaps more next summer."

Pinkey replied confidently:

"You can't figger out ahead what a dude is goin' to do any more than a calf or a sheep. If we treat 'em right and they get stuck on the country they're liable to winter here instead of Floridy. Now, if we could winter—say—ten head of dudes at $150 a month for seven months, that would be $10,500. The trip through the Yellowstone Park and Jackson Hole Country is goin' to be a big item. Ten head of dudes—say—at $5.00 a day for—say—fifteen days is——"

"But you never deduct expenses, Pinkey. It isn't all profit. There's the interest on the investment, interest on the money we borrowed, groceries, the cook's wages, and we'll need helpers through the Yellowstone."

"You're gettin' an awful habit of lookin' on the black side of things," said Pinkey, crossly.

"If we can pay expenses and have a $1,000 clear the first year, I'll be satisfied."

"A thousand dollars!" Pinkey exclaimed, indignantly. "You're easy pleased—I thought you had more ambition. Look at the different ways we got to git their money. Two bits apiece for salt water baths and eight baths a day—some of 'em might not go in reg'lar—every day, but, say eight of 'em do, anyway, eight times two bits is $2.00. Then $10.00 apiece every time they go to town in the stage-coach is, say, $100 a trip—and they go twict a week, say, that's $200."

"But they might not go twice a week," Wallie protested, "nor all of them at a time."

"You shore give me the blues a croakin'. Why don't you look on the bright side of things like you useta? Do you know, I've been thinkin' we ought to make out a scale of prices for lettin' 'em work around the place. They'd enjoy it if they had to pay for it—dudes is like that, I've noticed. They're all pretty well fixed, ain't they?"

"Oh, yes, they all have a good deal of money, unless, perhaps Miss Eyester, and I don't know much about her in that way. But Mr. Penrose, Mr. Appel, and Mr. Budlong are easily millionaires."

Pinkey's eyes sparkled.

"I s'pose a dollar ain't any more to them than a nickel to us?"

Wallie endeavoured to think of an instance which would indicate that Pinkey's supposition was correct, but, recalling none, declared enthusiastically:

"They are the most agreeable, altogether delightful people you ever knew, and, if I do say it, they think the world of me."

"That's good; maybe they won't deal us so much grief."

"How—grief?"

"Misery," Pinkey explained.

"I can't imagine them doing anything ill-natured or ill-bred," Wallie replied, resentfully. "You must have been unfortunate in the kind of dudes you've met."

Pinkey changed the subject as he did when he was unconvinced but he was in no mood for argument. He climbed to the top pole of the corral fence and looked proudly at the row of ten-by-twelve tents which the guests were to occupy, at the long tar-paper room built on to the original cabin for a dining room, at the new bunk-house for himself and Wallie and the help, at the shed with a dozen new saddles hanging on their nails, while the ponies to wear them milled behind him in the corral. His eyes sparkled as he declared:

"We shore got a good dudin' outfit! But it's nothin' to what we will have—watch our smoke! The day'll come when we'll see this country, as you might say, lousy with dudes! So fur as the eye kin reach—dudes! Nothin' but dudes!" He illustrated with a gesture so wide and vigorous that if it had not been for his high heels hooked over a pole he would have lost his balance.

"Yes," Wallie agreed, complacently, "at least we've got a start. And it seems like a good sign, the luck we've had in picking things up cheap."

Instinctively they both looked at the old-fashioned, four-horse stage-coach that they had found scrapped behind the blacksmith shop in Prouty and bought for so little that they had quaked in their boots lest the blacksmith change his mind before they could get it home. But their fears were groundless, since the blacksmith was uneasy from the same cause.

They had had it repaired and painted red, with yellow wheels that flashed in the sun. And now, there it stood—the last word in the picturesque discomfort for which dudes were presumed to yearn! They regarded it as their most valuable possession since, at $10.00 a trip, it would quickly pay for itself and thereafter yield a large return upon a small investment.

Neither of them could look at it without pride, and Pinkey chortled for the hundredth time:

"It shore was a great streak of luck when we got that coach!"

Wallie agreed that it was, and added:

"Everything's been going so well that I'm half scared. Look at that hotel-range we got second hand—as good as new; and the way we stumbled on to a first-class cook; and my friends coming out—it seems almost too good to be true."

He drew a sigh which came from such contentment as he had not known since he came to the State, for it seemed as if he were over the hard part of the road and on the way to see a few of his hopes realized.

With the money he had collected from Canby he had formed a partnership with Pinkey whereby the latter was to furnish the experience and his services as against his, Wallie's, capital.

Once more the future looked roseate; but perhaps the real source of his happiness lay in the fact that he had seen Helene Spenceley in Prouty a good bit of late and she had treated him with a consideration which had been conspicuously lacking heretofore.

If he made a success she must take him seriously and—anyway, his train of thought led him to inquire:

"Don't you ever think about getting married, Pink?"

His partner regarded him in astonishment.

"Now wouldn't I look comical tied to one of them quails I see runnin' around Prouty!"

"But," Wallie persisted, "some nice girl——"

"Aw-w—— I'd ruther have a good saddle-horse. I had a pal that tried it onct, and when I seen him, I says: 'How is it, Jess?' He says, 'Well, the first year is the worst, and after that it's worse and worse.' No, sir! Little Pinkey knows when he's well off."

It was obvious that his partner's mood did not fit in with his own. The new moon rose and the crickets chirped as the two sat in silence on the fence and smoked.

"It's a wonderful night!" Wallie said, finally, in a hushed voice.

"It's plumb peaceful," Pinkey agreed. "I feel like I do when I'm gittin' drunk and I've got to the stage whur my lip gits stiff. I've always wisht I could die when I was like that."

Wallie suggested curtly:

"Let's go to bed." He had regretted his partner's lack of sentiment more than once.

"Time to git into the feathers if we make an early start." Pinkey unhooked his heels. "Might have a little trouble hitchin' up. The two broncs I aim to put on the wheel has never been drove."



CHAPTER XVIII

THE MILLIONAIRES

Pinkey was not one to keep his left hand from knowing what his right hand is doing, so the report had been widely circulated that "a bunch of millionaires" were to be the first guests at the new Lolabama Dude Ranch. In consequence of which, aside from the fact that the horses ran across a sidewalk and knocked over a widow's picket-fence, the advent of Pinkey and Wallie in Prouty caused no little excitement, since it was deduced that the party would arrive on the afternoon train.

If to look at one millionaire is a pleasure and a privilege for folk who are kept scratching to make ends meet, the citizens of Prouty might well be excused for leaving their occupations and turning out en masse to see a "bunch." The desire to know how a person might look who could write his check in six or more figures, and get it cashed, explained the appearance of the male contingent on the station platform waiting for the train to come in, while the expectation of a view of the latest styles accounted for their wives.

"Among those present," as the phrase goes, was Mr. Tucker. Although Mr. Tucker had not been in a position to make any open accusations relative to the disappearance of his cache, the cordial relations between Wallie and Pinkey and himself had been seriously disturbed. So much so, in fact, that they might have tripped over him in the street without bringing the faintest look of recognition to his eyes.

Mr. Tucker, however, was too much of a diplomat to harbour a grudge against persons on a familiar footing with nearly a dozen millionaires. Therefore, when the combined efforts of Wallie and Pinkey on the box stopped the coach reasonably close to the station platform, Mr. Tucker stepped out briskly and volunteered to stand at the leaders' heads.

"Do you suppose we'll have much trouble when the train pulls in?" Wallie asked in an undertone.

"I don't look fer it," said Pinkey. "They might snort a little, and jump, when the engine comes, but they'll git used to it. That twenty-mile drive this mornin' took off the wire-aidge some."

Pinkey's premises seemed to be correct, for the four stood with hanging heads and sleepy-eyed while everyone watched the horizon for the smoke which would herald the coming of the train.

"Your y-ears is full of sand and it looks like you woulda shaved or had your whiskers drove in and clinched." Pinkey eyed Wallie critically as they waited together on the seat.

"Looks as if you would have had your teeth fixed," Wallie retorted. "It's been nearly a year since that horse kicked them out."

"What would I go wastin' money like that for?" Pinkey demanded. "They're front ones—I don't need 'em to eat."

"You'd look better," Wallie argued.

"What do I care how I look! I aim to do what's right by these dudes: I'll saddle fer 'em, and I'll answer questions, and show 'em the sights, but I don't need teeth to do that."

Pinkey was obstinate on some points, so Wallie knew it was useless to persist; nevertheless, the absence of so many of his friend's teeth troubled him more than a little, for the effect was startling when he smiled, and Pinkey was no matinee idol at his best.

"There she comes!"

As one, the spectators on the platform stretched their necks to catch the first glimpse of the train bearing its precious cargo of millionaires.

Wallie felt suddenly nervous and wished he had taken more pains to dress, as he visualized the prosperous-looking, well-groomed folk of The Colonial Hotel.

As the mixed train backed up to the station from the Y, it was seen that the party was on the back platform of the one passenger coach, ready to get off. The engine stopped so suddenly that the cars bumped and the party on the rear platform were thrown violently into each other's arms.

The expression on old Mr. Penrose's face was so fiendish as Mrs. C. D. Budlong toppled backward and stood on his bunion that Wallie forgot the graceful speech of welcome he had framed. Mr. Penrose had travelled all the way in one felt slipper and now, as the lady inadvertently ground her heel into the tender spot, Mr. Penrose looked as he felt—murderous.

"Get off my foot!" he shouted.

Mrs. Budlong obeyed by stepping on his other foot.

Mr. Appel, who had lurched over the railing, observed sarcastically:

"They ought to put that engineer on a stock train."

The party did not immediately recognize Wallie in his Western clothes, but when they did they waved grimy hands at him and cried delightedly:

"Here we are, Wallie!"

Wallie made no reply to this self-evident fact and, indeed, he could not, for he was too aghast at the shabby appearance of his wealthy friends to think of any that was appropriate. They looked as if they had ransacked their attics for clothes in which to make the trip.

The best Wallie could immediately manage was a limp handshake and a sickly grin as the coal baron and street-railway magnate, Mr. Henry Appel, stepped off in a suit of which he had undoubtedly been defrauding his janitor for some years.

Mrs. J. Harry Stott was handed down in a pink silk creation, through the lace insertion of which one could see the cinders that had settled in the fat crease of her neck. While Mrs. Stott recognized its inappropriateness, she had decided to give it a final wear and save a fresh gown.

Upon her heels was Mr. Stott, in clothes which bore mute testimony to the fact that he led a sedentary life. Mr. Stott was a "jiner" for business purposes and he was wearing all his lodge pins in the expectation of obtaining special privileges from brother members while travelling.

C. D. Budlong wore a "blazer" and a pair of mountain boots that had involved him in a quarrel with a Pullman conductor, who had called him a vandal for snagging a plush seat with the hob-nails. At his wife's request, Mr. Budlong was bringing a canvas telescope filled with a variety of tinned fruits. It was so heavy that it sagged from the handle as he bore it in front of him with both hands, so no one was deceived by his heroic efforts to carry it jauntily and make it appear that he did not notice the weight.

The only stranger in the party was Mrs. Henry Appel's maiden aunt—Miss Lizzie Philbrick—sixty or thereabouts. "Aunt Lizzie" was a refugee from the City of Mexico, and had left that troublesome country in such a panic that she had brought little besides a bundle of the reports of a Humane Society with which she had been identified, and an onyx apple, to which it was assumed there was much sentiment attached, since she refused to trust it to the baggage car, and was carrying it in her hand.

"Aunt Lizzie" looked as if she had been cast for a period play—early General Grant, perhaps—as she descended wearing a beaded silk mantle and a bonnet with strings.

"Be careful, Aunt Lizzie! Look where you step!"

The chorus of warnings was due to the fact that Aunt Lizzie already had fallen fourteen times in transit, a tack-head seeming sufficient to trip her up, and now, quite as though they had shouted the reverse, Aunt Lizzie stumbled and dropped the onyx apple upon old Mr. Penrose's felt-shod foot.

This was too much. Mr. Penrose shouted furiously:

"I wish you'd lose that damned thing!"

When it came to altered looks, Wallie had no monopoly on surprise. The Happy Family found it difficult to reconcile this rather tough-looking young man with the nice, neat boy who had blown them kisses from the motor bus.

"Now, what sort of a conveyance have you provided?" inquired Mr. Stott, who had taken the initiative in such matters during the trip.

Wallie pointed proudly to the stage-coach with Pinkey on the box and Mr. Tucker standing faithfully at the leaders' heads.

Everybody exclaimed in delight and lost no time in greeting Pinkey, whose response was cordial but brief. To Wallie he said, out of the corner of his mouth:

"Load 'em on. The roan is gittin' a hump in his back."

"We have twenty-five miles to make," Wallie hinted.

"Our luggage? How about that?" inquired Mr. Stott.

"It will follow." Wallie opened the stage-coach door as a further hint.

"I want to get some snap-shots of the town," said Mr. Penrose, who had his camera and a pair of field-glasses slung over his shoulder.

"What an experience this will be to write home!" gushed Miss Gaskett. "Let's stop at the office and mail post-cards."

Pinkey leaned over the side and winked at Wallie, who urged uneasily:

"We must start. Twenty-five miles is a good distance to make before dark."

"Switzerland has nothing to surpass this view!" declared Mr. Stott, who had never been in Switzerland.

Everyone took a leisurely survey of the mountains.

"And the air is very like that of the Scotch moors." No one ever would have suspected from his positive tone that Mr. Stott never had been in Scotland, either.

"I am sorry to insist," said Wallie in response to another significant look from Pinkey, "but we really will have to hurry."

Thus urged, they proceeded to clamber in, except Miss Gertie Eyester, who was patting the roan on the nose.

"Dear 'ittie horsey!"

"'Ittie horse eats human flesh, you'd better not git too close," said Pinkey.

Miss Eyester looked admiringly at Pinkey in his red shirt and declared with an arch glance:

"You're so droll, Mr. Fripp!"

Since Mr. Fripp thought something of the sort himself he did not contradict her, but told himself that she was "not so bad—for a dude."

"I hope the horses are perfectly safe, because my heart isn't good, and when I'm frightened it goes bad and my lips get just as b-l-u-e!"

"They look all right now," said Pinkey, after giving them his careful attention.

Miss Eyester observed wistfully:

"I hope I will get well and strong out here."

"If you'd go out in a cow-camp fer a couple of months it would do you a world of good," Pinkey advised her. "You'd fatten up."

Mr. Budlong, who had gotten in the coach, got out again to inquire of Pinkey if he was sure the horses were perfectly gentle.

"I'd trust my own step-mother behind 'em anywhere."

Mr. Budlong, who had had a step-mother, intimated that that was not convincing proof, and returned to the coach declaring that he had no fears for himself, but his wife was nervous.

To show his contempt of danger, Mr. Stott said: "Poof!"

Wallie, having closed the door, climbed up beside Pinkey, who unlocked the brake.

"I always feel helpless shut inside a vehicle," declared Mr. Budlong.

Mr. Stott again said recklessly: "Poof!"

Just as he said "poof!", the leaders rose on their hind legs. Mr. Tucker, who rose with them, clung valiantly to their bits and dangled there. One of the wheel horses laid down and the other tried to climb over the back of the leader in front of him, while the bystanders scattered.

"There seems to be some kind of a ruckus," Mr. Appel remarked as he stood up and leaned out the window.

Before he had time to report, however, two side wheels went over the edge of the station platform, tipping the coach to an angle which sent all the passengers on the upper side into the laps of those on the lower.

Aunt Lizzie pitched headlong and with such force that when she struck Mr. Stott on the mouth with her onyx apple she cut his lip.

"You'll kill somebody with that yet!" Mr. Stott glared at the keepsake.

Aunt Lizzie scrambled back into her seat and looked composedly at the drop of blood he offered in evidence, on the corner of his handkerchief.

Mr. Appel, who undoubtedly would have gone on through the window when the coach lurched had it not been for his wife's presence of mind in clutching him by the coat, demanded in an angry voice—instead of showing the gratitude she had reason to expect:

"Whatch you doin'? Tearin' the clothes off'n m'back? Wisht you'd leave me be!"

It had been years since Mr. Appel had spoken to his wife like that. Mrs. Appel opened her reticule, took out a handkerchief and held it to her eyes.

In the meantime the side wheels had dropped off the station platform and the coach had righted itself, but in spite of all that Pinkey and Wallie could do the leaders swung sharply to the left and dragged the wheel horses after them down the railroad track.

When the wheels struck the ties, Miss Mattie Gaskett bounded into the air as if she had been sitting upon a steel coil that had suddenly been released. She was wearing a tall-crowned hat of a style that had not been in vogue for some years and as she struck the roof it crackled and went shut like an accordeon, so that it was of an altogether different shape when she dropped back to the seat.

"Oh, my!" she exclaimed, blinking in a dazed fashion as she felt of her hat.

Old Mr. Penrose, who had elongated his naturally long neck preparatory to looking out the window, also struck the roof and with such force that his neck was bent like the elbow in a stove-pipe when he came down. He said such a bad word that Aunt Lizzie Philbrick exclaimed: "Oh, how dread-ful!" and asked him to remember where he was.

Mr. Penrose replied that he did not care where he was—that if her neck had been driven into her shoulders a foot she would say something, too.

Mrs. J. Harry Stott and Mr. Budlong, who had bumped heads so hard that the thud was heard, were eyeing each other in an unfriendly fashion as they felt of their foreheads, waiting for the lump.

Mr. Stott, who was still patting his lip with his handkerchief, declared:

"Such roads as these retard the development of a county."

"Undoubtedly," agreed Mr. Appel, getting up out of the aisle. "They are a disgrace!"

"We are going away from the mountains—I don't understand——"

Mr. Stott smiled reassuringly at Mrs. Budlong and told her that Wallie and Pinkey, of course, knew the road.

"I don't care," she insisted, stoutly, "I believe something's wrong. We are going awfully fast, and if I thought it was as rough as this all the way I should prefer to walk."

"You must remember that you are now in the West, Mrs. Budlong," Mr. Stott replied in a kind but reproving tone, "and we cannot expect——"

Mrs. Budlong, who had just bitten her tongue, retorted sharply:

"We certainly could expect a more comfortable conveyance than this. If I live to get out I shall never step foot in it again."

"When we stop at the post-office," said Mr. Budlong in a tone of decision as he clung to the window frame, "I shall hire a machine and go out—the rest of you can do as you like."

If there was dissatisfaction inside the coach it was nothing at all compared to the excitement on the box as the horses galloped down the railroad track. The leaders' mouths might have been bound in cast-iron for all the attention they paid to the pull on their bits, although Pinkey and Wallie were using their combined strength in their efforts to stop the runaways.

"Them dudes must be gittin' an awful churnin'," said Pinkey through his clenched teeth.

"We'll be lucky if we are not ditched," Wallie panted as he braced his feet.

"Wouldn't that be some rank! Even if we 'rim a tire' we got to swing off this track, for there's a culvert somewheres along here and——"

"Pink!"

Pinkey had no time to look, but he knew what the sharp exclamation meant.

"Pull my gun out—lay it on the seat—I can stop 'em if I must."

Pinkey's face was white under its sunburn and his jaw was set.

"How far we got?"

"About a hundred yards," Wallie answered, breathing heavily.

"We'll give 'em one more try. My hands are playin' out. You pop it to the roan when I say. Cut him wide open! If I can't turn him, I'll drop him. They'll pile up and stop. It's the only way."

Pinkey dug his heels into the foot-brace in front and took a tighter wrap of the lines around his hands. He could see the culvert ahead. His voice was hoarse as he gave the word.

Wallie stood up and swung the long rawhide braided whip. At the same time Pinkey put all his failing strength on one line. As the roan felt the tremendous pull on his mouth and the whip-thongs stung his head and neck, he turned at a sharp angle, dragging his mate. The wheel horses followed, and some of the stout oak spokes splintered in the wheels as they jerked the coach over the rail.

The pallid pair exchanged a quick glance of unutterable relief. The horses were still running but their speed was slackening as Pinkey swung them in a circle toward the town. Dragging the heavy coach over sagebrush hummocks and through sand had winded them so that they were almost ready to quit when they turned down the main street.

"If we'd 'a' hit that culvert we mighta killed off half our dudes. That woulda been what I call notorious hard luck," Pinkey had just observed, when Wallie commenced to whip the horses to a run once more.

"What you doin' that for?" He turned in astonishment.

"Let 'em go—I know what I'm about!"

"I think you're crazy, but I'll do what you say till I'm sure," Pinkey answered as Wallie continued to lay on the lash.

Imperative commands were coming from inside the coach as it tore through the main street.

"Let me out of this death-trap!" Old Mr. Penrose's bellow of rage was heard above the chorus of voices demanding that Pinkey stop.

But it was not until they were well on the road to the ranch, and Prouty was a speck, that the horses were permitted to slow down; then Pinkey turned and looked at Wallie admiringly.

"You shore got a head on you, old pard! We wouldn't 'a' had a dude left if we'd let 'em out while they was mad."

"It just occurred to me in time," said Wallie, complacently.

"You don't s'pose any of 'em'll slip out and run back?"

"No, I think we're all right if nothing more happens between here and the ranch."

After a time Pinkey remarked:

"That lady with the bad heart—she must 'a' been scairt. I'll bet her lips were purple as a plum, don't you?"

But Wallie, who was far more interested in the probable fact that the coach as a source of revenue could no longer be counted on than in the colour of Miss Eyester's lips, mumbled that he didn't know.



CHAPTER XIX

A SHOCK FOR MR. CANBY

The morning following their arrival at The Lolabama, The Happy Family, looking several shades less happy, began coming from their tents shortly after daylight. By five o'clock they were all up and dressed, since, being accustomed to darkened rooms, they found themselves unable to sleep owing to the glare coming through the white canvas.

Out of consideration for his guests, whom he remembered as late risers, Wallie had set the breakfast hour at eight-thirty. This seemed an eternity to The Happy Family who, already famished, consulted their watches with increasing frequency while they watched the door of the bunk-house like cats at a mouse-hole for the cook to make his appearance.

After a restless night due to strange beds and surroundings, still fatigued with their long journey, their muscles stiff from the "churning" in the stagecoach, they were not better natured for being ferociously hungry.

After wandering around to look listlessly at the ponies, and at the salt-water plunge that was to rejuvenate them, they sat down on the edge of the platforms in front of their tents to endure somehow the three hours which must pass before breakfast.

The dawn was sweet-scented, the song of the meadow-lark celestial, and the colours of the coming day reflected on the snow-covered peaks a sight to be remembered, but the guests had no eyes or ears or nose for any of the charms of the early morning. The rising of the sun was nothing as compared to the rising of the cook who would appease their savage hunger.

Conversation was reduced to monosyllables as, miserable and apathetic, they sat thinking of the food they had sent back to Mr. Cone's kitchen with caustic comments, of the various dishes for which the chef of The Colonial was celebrated.

Mr. Stott thought that his watch must be slow until it was found that every other watch agreed with his exactly. He declared that when the cook did appear he meant to urge him to hurry breakfast.

The cook came out, finally, at seven-thirty, and, after a surprised glance at the row on the platforms, strode into the kitchen where he rattled the range as if it were his purpose to wreck it.

When the smoke rose from the chimney Mr. Stott went to the door to carry out his intention of asking the cook to speed up breakfast.

A large sign greeted him:

DUDES KEEP OUT

The cook was a gaunt, long-legged person with a saturnine countenance. He wore a seersucker coat with a nickel badge pinned on the lapel of it.

As an opening wedge Mr. Stott smiled engagingly and pointed to it:

"For exceptional gallantry, I presume—a war medal?"

The hero stopped long enough to offer it for Mr. Stott's closer inspection.

It read:

UNITED ORDER OF PASTRY COOKS OF THE WORLD

Taken somewhat aback, Mr. Stott said feebly:

"Very nice, indeed—er——"

"Mr. Hicks, at your service!" the cook supplemented, bowing formally.

"Hicks," Mr. Stott added.

"Just take a second longer and say 'Mister.'"

The cook eyed him in such a fashion as he administered the reprimand for his familiarity that Mr. Stott backed off without mentioning his starving condition.

"What did he say?" they asked, eagerly, as he sat down on his platform, somewhat crestfallen.

"He seems a temperamental person," Mr. Stott replied, evasively. "But we shall have breakfast in due season."

It was suspected that Mr. Stott had failed in his mission, and they were sure of it as the hands dragged around to eight-thirty.

At that hour precisely Mr. Hicks came out and hammered on a triangle as vigorously as if it were necessary. In spite of their efforts to appear unconcerned when it jangled, the haste of the guests was nothing less than indecent as they hurried to the dining room and scrambled for seats at the table.

The promise of food raised their spirits a trifle and Mr. Appel was able to say humorously as, with his table knife, he scalped his agate-ware plate loose from the oil-cloth:

"I suppose we shall soon learn the customs of the country. In a month we should all be fairly well ac'climated."

"Acclim'ated," Mr. Stott corrected.

"Ac'climated," Mr. Appel maintained, obstinately. "At least with your kind permission I shall continue to so pronounce it."

"I beg your pardon," Mr. Stott apologized with elaborate sarcasm, "but when I am wrong I like to be told of it." Which was not the strict truth for the reason that no one ever was able to convince him that he ever was mistaken. As a result of the discussion everyone was afraid to use the word for fear of offending one or the other.

The silence that followed while breakfast was being placed upon the table was broken by Miss Eyester, who said timidly:

"In the night I thought I heard something sniffing, and it frightened me."

Not to be outdone in sensational experiences, Mrs. Stott averred positively:

"There was some wild animal running over our tent. I could hear its sharp claws sticking into the canvas. A coyote, I fancy."

"A ground-squirrel, more likely," remarked Mr. Appel.

Mr. Stott smiled at him:

"Squee-rrel, if you will allow me to again correct you."

"I guess I can't help myself," replied Mr. Appel, drily.

Mr. Stott shrugged a shoulder and his tolerant look said plainly that, after all, one should not expect too much of a man who had begun life as a "breaker-boy."

"The squee-rrel or coyote or whatever it was," Mrs. Stott continued, "went pitter-patter, pitter-patter—so!" She illustrated with her finger-tips on the oil-cloth.

"Prob'ly a chipmunk," said Pinkey, prosaically.

"Are they dangerous, Mr. Fripp?" inquired Miss Gaskett.

"Not unless cornered or wounded," he replied, gravely.

This was a joke, obviously, so everybody laughed, which stimulated Pinkey to further effort. When Mr. Hicks poured his cup so full that the coffee ran over he remarked facetiously:

"It won't stack, cookie."

Coffee-pot in hand, Mr. Hicks drew himself up majestically and his eyes withered Pinkey.

"I beg to be excused from such familiarity, and if you wish our pleasant relations to continue you will not repeat it."

"I bet I won't josh him again," Pinkey said, ruefully, when Mr. Hicks returned to the kitchen in the manner of offended royalty.

"Cooks are sometimes very peculiar," observed Mr. Stott, buttering his pancakes lavishly. "I remember that my mother—my mother, by the way, Mr. Penrose, was a Sproat——"

"Shoat?" Old Mr. Penrose, who complained of a pounding in his ears, was not hearing so well in the high altitude.

Mr. Appel and Pinkey tittered, which nettled Mr. Stott and he shouted:

"Sproat! An old Philadelphia family."

"Oh, yes," Mr. Penrose recollected. "I recall Amanda Sproat—she married a stevedore. Your sister?"

Mr. Stott chose to ignore the inquiry, and said coldly:

"My father was in public life." He might have added that his father was a policeman, and therefore his statement was no exaggeration.

Everybody felt that it served Mr. Penrose right for telling about the stevedore when he was seized with a violent fit of coughing immediately afterward. Wiping his streaming eyes, he looked from Wallie to Pinkey and declared resentfully:

"This is the result of your reckless driving. The cork came out of my cough syrup in the suitcase. The only way I can get relief from the irritation is to apply my tongue to the puddle. I shall have to lick my valise until I can have the prescription refilled in Prouty."

The culprits mumbled that they "were sorry," to which Mr. Penrose replied disagreeably that that did not keep him from "coughing his head off!"

Looking sympathetically at Pinkey, Miss Eyester, for the purpose of diverting the irascible old gentleman's attention from the subject, asked when she might take her first riding lesson.

Pinkey said promptly: "This mornin'—they's nothin' to hinder."

"That's awfully good of you, Mr. Fripp," she said, gratefully.

Pinkey, who always jumped when any one called him "Mister," replied bluntly:

"Tain't—I wantta."

"We'll all go!" Mrs. Stott cried, excitedly.

"Shore." There was less enthusiasm in the answer.

"We were so fortunate as to be able to purchase our equipment for riding broncos before coming out here," explained Mr. Budlong. "There is an excellent store on the Boardwalk and we found another in Omaha."

"We have divided skirts and everything! Just wait till you see us!" cried Mrs. Budlong. "And you'll take our pictures, won't you, Mr. Penrose?"

"I don't mind wasting a couple of films," he consented.

Between the pancakes and the prospective riding lesson the atmosphere cleared and everyone's spirits rose so that the slightly strained relations were again normal by the time they got up from the table.

They were as eager as children as they opened their trunks for their costumes, and even Aunt Lizzie Philbrick, who had once ridden a burro in Old Mexico, declared her intention of trying it.

While the "dudes" dressed, Pinkey and Wallie went down to the corral to saddle for them.

"We better let her ride the pinto," said Pinkey, casually.

"'Her?'" Wallie looked at his partner fixedly. "Which 'her'?"

"That lady that's so thin she could hide behind a match and have room left to peek around the corner. She seems sickly, and the pinto is easy-gaited," Pinkey explained, elaborately.

"All right," Wallie nodded, "and we'll put Aunt Lizzie on the white one and give Mrs. Budlong——"

"Kindly assign me a spirited mount," interrupted Mr. Stott, who, as to costume, was a compromise between an English groom and a fox-hunter.

Wallie looked dubious.

"Oh, I understand horses," declared Mr. Stott, "I used to ride like an Indian."

"The buckskin?" Wallie asked doubtfully of Pinkey.

Pinkey hesitated.

"You need not be afraid that he will injure me. I can handle him."

Wallie, who never had heard of Mr. Stott's horsemanship, consented reluctantly.

"I prefer to saddle and bridle myself, also," said Mr. Stott, when the buckskin was pointed out to him.

Wallie's misgivings returned to him and Pinkey rolled his eyes eloquently when they saw "the man who understood horses" trying to bridle with the chin-strap and noted that he had saddled without a blanket.

Mr. Stott laughed inconsequently when the mistake was pointed out to him and declared that it was an oversight merely.

"Now, if you will get me something to stand on I am ready to mount."

Once more Pinkey and Wallie exchanged significant glances as the man "who used to ride like an Indian" climbed into the saddle like someone getting into an upper berth in a Pullman.

Mr. Stott was sitting with the fine, easy grace of a clothespin when the rest of the party came down the path ready for their riding lesson.

Neither Pinkey nor Wallie was easily startled, but when they saw their guests the most their astonishment permitted was an inarticulate gurgle. Dismay also was among their emotions as they thought of conducting the party through Prouty and the Yellowstone. Wallie had his share of moral courage, but when they first met his vision he doubted if he was strong enough for the ordeal.

Mrs. Budlong, whose phlegmatic exterior concealed a highly romantic nature and an active imagination, was dressed to resemble a cow-girl of the movies as nearly as her height and width permitted. Her Stetson, knotted kerchief, fringed gauntlets, quirt, spurs to delight a Mexican, and swagger—which had the effect of a barge rocking at anchor—so fascinated Pinkey that he could not keep his eyes from her.

Old Mr. Penrose in a buckskin shirt ornate with dyed porcupine quills, and a forty-five Colt slung in a holster, looked like the next to the last of the Great Scouts, while Mr. Budlong, in a beaded vest that would have turned bullets, was happy though uncomfortable.

Mr. Budlong was dressed like a stage bandit, except that he wore moccasins in spite of Pinkey's warning that he would find it misery to ride in them unless he was accustomed to wearing them.

Simultaneous with Miss Gaskett's appearance in plaid bloomers a saddle-horse lay back and broke his bridle-reins, for which Pinkey had not the heart to punish him in the circumstances.

Aunt Lizzie wore long, voluminous, divided skirts and a little white hat like a pate-tin, while by contrast Mrs. Harry Stott looked very smart and ultra in a tailored coat and riding breeches.

This was the party that started up Skull Creek under Pinkey's guidance, and the amazing aggregation that greeted the choleric eye of Mr. Canby on one of the solitary rides which were his greatest diversion. He had just returned from the East and had not yet learned of the use to which Wallie had put his check. But now he recalled Wallie's parting speech to Pinkey when he had started to get the paper cashed, and this fantastic company was the result!

As Canby drew in his horse, he stared in stony-eyed unfriendliness while they waved at him gaily and Mr. Stott called out that they were going to be neighbourly and visit him soon.

The feeling of helpless wrath in which he now looked after the party was a sensation that he had experienced only a few times in his life. Pinkey had warned him that at the first openly hostile act he would "blab" the story of the Skull Creek episode far and wide. He had hit Canby in his most vulnerable spot, for ridicule was something which he found it impossible to endure, and he could well appreciate the glee with which his many enemies would listen to the tale, taking good care that it never died.

By all the rules of the game as he had played it often, and always with success, Wallie should long since have "faded"—scared, starved out. Yet, somehow, in some unique and extraordinary way that only a "dude" would think of, he had managed to come out on top.

But the real basis for Canby's grievance, and one which he would not admit even to himself, was that however Wallie was criticized, Helene Spenceley never failed to find something to say in his defence.

There was not much that Canby could do in the present circumstances to put difficulties in Wallie's way, but the next day he found it convenient to turn a trainload of long-horn Texas cattle loose on the adjacent range, and posted warnings to the effect that they were dangerous to pedestrians, and persons going among them on foot did so at their own risk.



CHAPTER XX

WALLIE 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 to the 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 instance of 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 and shortening 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 in riding 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 the road 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 her whilom 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, though she 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.