"Why--really----" Mr. Bowles hesitated a moment. "Perhaps it"s only in the name, but I"d rather not accept such a menial position. Of course, it"s very kind of you to offer me the alternative, but----"
"Now, here!" cried the cattleman fiercely. "I"ll make you a.s.sistant horse wrangler, at thirty dollars a month, and if you don"t accept I"ll tell Hardy to catch up the old man-killer and put you in the hospital! I was a fool to talk to you the way I did; but don"t you crowd me too far, young man, or you"ll find Henry Lee a man of his word! Now, will you wrangle horses, or will we have to ship you East?"
Bowles stared at him for a moment, and then he drew himself up proudly.
"If the choice lies between a menial position----" he began; and old Henry brought his teeth together with a click.
"You poor, dam", ignorant tenderfoot!" he raved. "You don"t know when you"re being treated white! You ain"t worth a cent to me, sir--no, not a cent! And now I"m going to learn you something! I"ll ask my twister to put the saddle on old Dunbar in the morning, and you"ll have to ride him, sir, or own yourself a coward!"
"Very well, sir," answered Bowles, with military stiffness. "Very well!
I will see you in the morning, then."
He bowed and strode off down the path, his new shaps flapping ponderously as he walked; and the old cattleman brushed his eyes to drive the mad thought away.
CHAPTER IV
BRIGHAM
If his strategic victory over Henry Lee had given Bowles, the pseudo cowboy, any swelled-up ideas about taking the Bat Wing outfit by storm, he was promptly undeceived when he went up against Gloomy Gus, the cook.
Gus had set the sour dough for men old enough to be Mr. Bowles"
grandfather; men who were, so he averred, the superiors of any punchers now living and conspicuously prompt at their meals. In striking contrast to these great souls, Bowles had lingered entirely too long up at the big house; and when, after tying up his horse and feeding him some of Mr. Lee"s long-treasured hay, he came dragging up to the chuck-wagon, the hour of grace had pa.s.sed. Gloomy Gus was reclining beside his fire in converse with a red-headed cowboy, and neither of them looked up.
"Ah, pardon me," began Mr. Bowles, with perhaps a trace of condescension in his voice; "can you tell me where I will find the cook?"
The red-headed cowboy sat like a graven image, with his eyes fixed on the fire, and finally the cook replied.
"You"ll find him right here, Mister," he said, "from four o"clock in the mornin" till sundown--and then, by grab, he quits!"
The injured emphasis with which this last was enunciated left no doubt as to the ident.i.ty of the speaker, and Bowles murmured polite regrets; but, coming as he did from a land where cooks are not kings, he continued with the matter in hand.
"So sorry," he purled, "if I am a little late; but Mr. Lee told me to come down here and ask you to give me some dinner."
"Huh!" grunted the cook. "Did you hear that, Brigham?"
The cowboy nodded gravely and squinched his humorous eyes at the fire.
He was a burly young man, dressed for business in overalls and jumper, but sporting a big black hat and a fine pair of alligator-topped boots; and from the way his fat cheeks wrinkled up it was evident he was expecting some fun.
The cook regarded Bowles for a minute with evident disapproval; then he raised himself on one elbow and delivered his ultimatum.
"Well, Mr. Man," he rasped, making his manner as offensive as possible, "you go back and tell Mr. Lee that I won"t give you no dinner. Savvy? Ef you"d come round when you first rode in I might"ve throwed you out somethin", but now you can rustle yore own grub."
At these revolutionary remarks, Mr. Bowles started, and for a moment he almost forgot his breeding; then he withdrew into himself, and let the gaucherie pa.s.s with the contempt which it deserved. But it is hard to be dignified when you are hungry, and after several minutes of silence he addressed himself to the cowboy.
"Excuse me," he said, "but is there any other place nearby where I could buy a little food?"
"W"y, no, stranger," returned the cowboy amiably; "I don"t reckon there is. Why don"t you pick up a little around here? They"s some coffee in that pot."
He nodded toward a large black coffee-pot that stood simmering by the fire, and Bowles cast a questioning glance at the cook.
"Hop to it!" exclaimed that dignitary, not a little awed by the stranger"s proud reserve. "They"s some bread in that can up there."
But still Bowles was helpless.
"Er--where do you eat?" he inquired, looking about for some sign of a table, or even of a plate and cup.
"Anywhere!" answered the cook, with a large motion of the hand. Then, as his guest still stood staring, he wearily rose to his feet. Without a word, he reached down into a greasy box and grabbed out a tin plate and cup; from another compartment he fished forth a knife, fork and spoon; with a pot-hook he lifted the cover of an immense Dutch oven, thumped an oil-can half-full of cooked beans, and slopped a little coffee out of the pot. Then he let down the hinged door to his chuck-box, spread a clean white flour sack on it, laid out the dishes with elaborate solicitude, and slumped down again by the fire. Nothing said--and the cowboy sat nerveless in his place--but Mr. Bowles felt rebuked. He was a tenderfoot--an Easterner masquerading as a cowboy--and every movement of the sardonic pot-tender was calculated to rub it in and leave him, as it did, in a welter of rage and shame.
From the oil-can be dipped out some beans; he poured coffee and ate in silence, not daring to ask for b.u.t.ter or sugar lest he should still further reveal his ignorance; and when he had finished his meal he slipped away and went out to look at his horse. A piano was tinkling up at the big house, and the stars were very bright, but neither stars nor music could soothe his wounds, and at last he went back to the fire. The cook was gone now, and the cowboy also; the big noise was in the long, low building from which so many heads had appeared when he rode in from Chula Vista. He paused at the doorway, and listened; then, bracing himself for the hazing which was his due, he knocked.
"Come in!" yelled a raucous voice in an aside to the general uproar.
"Come in here----No, by thunder, you played a seven! Well, where is it, then? Show me, pardner; I"m from Missou". If you played the jack, where is it?"
Bowles pushed open the door, that sc.r.a.ped and sagged as he shoved it, and stepped into a room that was exactly posed for one of those old-fashioned pictures labeled "Evil a.s.sociates; or The First Step Toward Destruction." At a long table, upon which burned a smoky lamp, a group of roughly dressed men were wrangling over a game of cards, while other evil-doers looked over their shoulders and added to the general blasphemy. A growth of beard, ranging anywhere from three days" to a week"s, served to give them all a ferocious, cave-dweller appearance; and so intent were they on their quarrel that not a man looked up. If Bowles had expected to be the center of the stage, it was from an exaggerated sense of his own importance, for so lightly was he held that no one so much as glanced at him--with the single exception of the red-headed cowboy, who was playing a mouth-organ in the corner--until the missing jack was produced.
A wooden bunk, built against the wall, was weighed down with a sprawling ma.s.s of long-limbed men; on the floor the canvas-covered beds of the cowboys were either thrown flat or still doubled up in rolls; and the only other furniture in sight was the two benches by the table and a hot stove that did yeoman service as a cuspidor. The air was thick with the smoke of cigarettes, and those who did not happen to be smoking were chewing plug tobacco, but the thing which struck Bowles as most remarkable was the accuracy with which they expectorated. A half oil-can filled with ashes served as a mark on the farther side; and the big, bull-voiced puncher who had so casually bid him come in was spitting through a distant knot-hole, which was rapidly becoming the center of a "Texas Flag."
Really, it was astounding to Bowles, even after all he had read and seen enacted on the films, to observe the rude abandon of these Western characters, and particularly in their speech. Somehow the Western tales he had read had entirely failed to catch the startling imagery of their vernacular--or perhaps the editors had cut it out. The well-known tendency toward personal violence, however, was ever present, and as Bowles made bold to overlook the game a controversy sprang up which threatened to result in bloodshed.
The bull-voiced man--a burly, hook-nosed Texan, who answered to the name of Buck--was playing partners with a tall, slim, quiet-spoken puncher who centered all his thoughts on the cards; and against them were ranged a good-natured youth called Happy Jack and the presumptuous cowboy who had offered to kiss Dixie Lee. The game was fast, proceeding by signs and grunts and mysterious knocks on the table, and as it neared its close and each man threw down his cards with a greater vehemence, Happy Jack flipped out three final cards and made a grab for the matches. But this did not suit the ideas of the bull moose and his partner, and they rose from their seats with a roar.
"What you claim?" demanded Buck, laying a firm hand on the stakes.
"High, low, and the game!" answered Happy Jack wrathfully.
"You ain"t got no game," put in the quiet puncher. "Why don"t you play yore hand out instead of makin" a grab?"
"Here now!" spoke up Dixie Lee"s miscreant friend, leaning half-way across the table. "You-all quit jumpin" on Happy or I"ll bust you on the _cabezon_!"
"Yes, you will!" sneered Buck, shoving his big head closer, as if to dare the blow. "You don"t look bad to me, Hardy Atkins, and never did; and don"t you never think for a moment that you can run it over me and Bill, because you cain"t! Now you better pull in that ornery face of yourn while it"s all together--and we"re goin" to count them cards, by this-and-that, if it"s the last act!"
So they raged and wrangled, apparently on the very verge of a personal conflict; but as the play wore on Bowles became increasingly aware of a contemptuous twinkle that dwelt in the eyes of the man called Hardy Atkins. Then it came over him suddenly that other eyes were upon him; and instantly the typical Western scene was wrecked, and he saw himself made the fool. No burst of ruffianly laughter gave point to the well-planned jest--it pa.s.sed over as subtly as a crisis in high society--but as he turned away from the game Bowles found himself in possession of a man-sized pa.s.sion. Back where he came from an open, personal hatred was considered a little _outre_; but the spirit of the wilds had touched him already, and Hardy Atkins, the green-eyed, familiar friend of Dixie Lee, was the man that he hoped would choke.
As interest in the pitch game languished and a scuffle made the bunk untenable, stray cowboys began to drift outside again, some to seek out their beds beneath the wagon-sheds and others to foregather about the fire. First among these was the red-headed man called Brigham; and when Bowles, after sitting solitary for a while, followed after them, he found Brigham the center of attraction. Perched upon an upturned box, and with one freckled hand held out to keep the firelight from his eyes, he was holding forth with a long story which had everybody listening.
"And I says to this circus feller," he was saying, ""Well, I ain"t never done no bareback work, but if you cain"t git no one else to jump through them hoops I"ll guarantee to take the pretty outer _one_ of "em. But you be mighty p"ticular to pop that whip of yourn, pardner," I says to the ring-master, "or that ol" rockin"-hawse will git away from me.""
He c.o.c.ked one eye up to see if Bowles was listening, and then indulged in a reminiscent chuckle.
"Well, I climbed up on that ol" rockin"-hawse--I was dressed like a clown, of course--and after the regular people had gone round the ring I come rackin" along out of the side-tent, a-bowin" to all the ladies and whistlin" to all the dogs, until you"d think I was goin" to do wonders.
But all the kids was on, and they begin to laugh and throw peanuts, because they knowed the clown was bound to git busted--that"s what the rascal is paid fer. Well, we went canterin" around the ring, me and that old white hawse that had been doin" it for fifteen years, and every time we come to a hoop I"d make my jump--the ring-master would pop his whip--and when I come squanderin" out the other side the old hawse would be right there to ketch me. Trick he had--he"d slow down and kinder wait fer me--but that dogged ring-master put up a job on me--he sh.o.r.e did; but the scoundrel tried to lie out of it afterwards.
"You see, them people that come out to Coney they expect somethin" fer their money, and bein" as I was only the fill-in man and the other feller was comin" back anyway, the management decided to ditch me. So when I made a jump at my last hoop the ring-master forgot to pop his whip--or so he said--and I come down on my head and like to killed me.
Well, sir, the way them people hollered you"d think the king had come, an" when a couple of fool clowns come runnin" out and carried me off on a shutter they laughed till they was pretty nigh sick. That"s the way it is at Coney Island--unless somebody is gittin" killed, them tight-wads won"t spend a cent."
The red-headed raconteur laughed a little to himself, and, seeing his audience still attentive, he launched out into another.