"Oh, that"s that big fat Brigham Clark!" spoke up Hardy Atkins. "You don"t want to judge the whole outfit by _him_!"
At this bare-faced libel Bowles cleared his throat to speak. He had noticed particularly on the evening before that the eggs were brought in by Happy Jack and Hardy Atkins himself; but before he could enter a protest a general rumble of laughter set him back to a thinking part.
"Yes, sir!" observed Buck Buchanan, speaking to the world at large.
"That feller sucks aigs worse"n a setter pup."
"An" he don"t deny it none, neither," commented Happy Jack, as poor Brigham blushed deeper and hung his head.
"Jest born that way, I reckon," remarked Poker-face in a tone of pity; and then the whole outfit broke into a whoop of laughter. It was a new form of jesting to Bowles, and he retired to the shelter of the wood-pile. A sudden gloom had come over his soul, and it even affected his appet.i.te, whetted keen by the cold, thin air. Of course, Dixie Lee had told him she would do so, but it seemed rather heartless not to look at him. He sat down with his back against the jagged juniper stubs and listened sullenly, while the punchers chuckled in front of him and continued to eat with their knives.
"Aw, Brig"s jest bashful, that"s all," explained some simple-minded joker, after every one else had had his say; and as his hollow laughter rose up, Bowles wondered dimly why Brigham did not retort. The evening before, when he was telling stories around the fire, he had returned a Roland for an Oliver until even Hardy Atkins had been content to quit; but now he confined himself to self-conscious mutterings and exhortations to shut up. Perhaps the simple-minded joker was right--poor Brigham was bashful.
But Dixie Lee had come down to get some eggs and she did not allow camp persiflage to divert her from her purpose.
"Well, say," she said, getting up from the cook"s private seat, "I came down to hunt for eggs--who wants to help me?"
"That"s where I shine!" cried Hardy Atkins, throwing his tin plate into the washtub with a great clatter. "They"s a nest around hyer in the wood-pile!"
He capered around the end of the wood-pile, and soon Bowles could hear him panting as he forced his way in between the crooked sticks.
"Hyer they are!" he shouted at last. "I got a whole hatful--somebody pull me out by the laig!"
There was a ripple of high-pitched laughter from Dixie Lee, an interval in which Bowles cursed his fate most heartily, and then a frantic outcry from Hardy:
"Hey, there, don"t pull so fast! You Dix, you"ll break my aigs! Well, laugh, then, doggone it! Now see what you went and done!"
A general shout of laughter followed, and Hardy Atkins, his lips pouted out to play the fool, and his eyes rolling to catch their laughter, came ambling around the wood-pile with a hat that looked like an amateur conjurer"s after the celebrated egg trick. But there were enough whole ones left to make a cake, and Happy Jack came galloping in with a hatful from his own private cache; so everybody laughed, though Brigham looked on sourly enough. A rapid fire of barbed jests followed; then, with her two admirers behind her and the others gazing dumbly on, Dixie Lee ran lightly back to the house, and Bowles had had his first lookin on ranch society. It did not look so good to him, either, and yet--well, just as Dixie May turned away she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.
To be sure, it was one of Hardy Atkins" raw jokes at which she was laughing, but somehow a golden glow crept into the sunset, and ranch society did not seem so bad.
Five minutes later Dixie Lee was down at the corral bridling a white-faced roan, and soon, with Happy Jack for an escort, she was galloping away to the east where, like glowworms in the dusk, the scattered lights of settlers" houses showed the first beginnings of a neighborhood. The phonograph was going to play in the big house that evening, and all the "nesters" were invited.
No one had been more outraged than Henry Lee when the first nesters came in on his range; but latterly he had come to regard them tolerantly as poor, misguided creatures, slightly touched in the head on the subject of high-and-dry farming. Having seen a few hundred of them starve out and move on, he had accepted them as a necessary evil, and deemed it no more than right, if the women-folks wanted to invite them, to ask the few nearest ones to the house and help them forget their misery. So the whole-souled Dixie May was off to call in the company while the cowboys were sc.r.a.ping their beards off and dolling up for the dance.
It was Sat.u.r.day night, as a matter of fact, and though all days are alike to a puncher his evenings are his own around the ranch. One by one the socially backward and inept caught the fever and began to search their war-bags for silk handkerchiefs and clean shirts. Only Brigham remained recalcitrant, and no argument could induce him to shave.
"I was on the wrangle last night," he complained, as the forehanded ones came back to argue the matter, "and I"m short on my sleep. Say, lemme be, can"t ye--what difference does it make to you fellers, anyway? They won"t be girls enough to go around, nohow!"
"Well, come up and hear the music," urged the Bar Seven stray man, who wanted him for company.
"Mrs. Lee invited you, Brig," reminded Gloomy Gus, who believed that every man should do his duty.
"Aw, it"s too late to do anything now," grumbled Brigham, beginning at last to weaken. "And my beard is a fright, too!"
"Soak it in hot water, then!" cried Bar Seven enthusiastically. "Come on, fellers; let"s make "im do it! It ain"t right--a nice lady like Mrs.
Lee! She"ll think you"re "shamed because you done stole them aigs!"
"I did not!" denied Brigham hotly.
"Well, come along, then!" countered Bar Seven triumphantly, "or the boys will be tellin" everybody!"
So the last unwilling victim was cajoled into going, and at a cheery summons from Dixie May they marched up the hill in a body. It was too early yet for the nester girls to appear, and while they were waiting for the dance to begin the twenty or more punchers wedged into the big front room and settled down to hear the phonograph. A cattle ranch without a phonograph nowadays is as rare as a cow outfit without a mouth-organ; but the Lees had a fine one, that would play for dances on a scratch, and a rack piled high with cla.s.sic records. Mrs. Lee sat beside it, and after welcoming the self-conscious cowboys she asked them what they would have.
"The barnyard one!" somebody called; and as the cow mooed, the pig squealed, and the hired girl called the chickens, the cowboys laughed and forgot their feet. Then Caruso sang a high one, caught his breath and expired, and the company shifted in their seats. That was not exactly their style.
"What"s the matter with the dog fight?" cried a voice from the corner; and Mrs. Lee, who had dreams of elevating their taste, sat undecided, with the s.e.xtet from _Lucia_ in her hand.
"Perhaps you would like the _Anvil Chorus_," she suggested by way of a concession.
"No, the dog fight!" clamored Hardy Atkins from the same corner. Then, quoting from the well-known favorite, he inquired in up-stage Irish: ""Will some sport kindly let Mr. Ho-ogan, the time-keeper, hold his watch?""
""Faith,"" broke in Happy Jack, continuing the selection, ""an" who will hold Ho-ogan, then--har, har, har, har, har!""
So contagious was the spell of this laughter that there was nothing for it but to put on the record, which gave a dog fight in Harlem from the time the bets were made till the spotted dog licked and the place was raided by the police. Not very elevating, to be sure, but awfully popular, and calling for more of the same. Mrs. Lee sighed wearily and laid the s.e.xtet aside; then, with quick decision, she resigned her place to Dixie May and retired to a seat by the door--and, as luck would have it, she sat down next to Bowles.
"Won"t you take my chair?" he said, rising with all the gallantry of his kind. "I enjoyed that _Donna e Mobile_ of Caruso"s so much!"
"Oh," said Mrs. Lee, beaming with pleasure, "you know it, then! And do you care for it, too?"
"Very much!" replied Bowles, falling back into the familiar formula of polite conversation; and by the time the phonograph had started up on "Casey Jones" they were deep in a discussion of cla.s.sic music. As often happens in good society, they discovered a wonderful similarity in their likes and dislikes; and by the time the nester girls began to arrive and the dance started up on the gallery, Bowles was very popular in the big house--that is, as far as the hostess was concerned.
But the climax of the evening came at the close of the dance, just as Mr. Bowles was taking his leave.
"Well, good-night, Mrs. Lee," he murmured as he stood in the half light of the porch. "It was so kind of you to invite us up."
He paused then with the rest of his politenesses unsaid, for Dixie Lee was coming down the hall.
"I can"t say how much I have enjoyed talking with you, Mr. Bowles,"
returned the lady, offering him her hand. "It takes me back to my girlhood days, when music was the breath of my life. Perhaps----Oh, Dixie, have you met Mr. Bowles?"
There was silence for a moment as their eyes met across the abyss, hers stern and forbidding, his smiling and conciliatory; and then Dixie bowed very stiffly.
"Why, not that I remember," she replied, with a militant toss of the head.
"How do you do, Miss Lee," observed Mr. Bowles, bowing formally as he received his conge. "So glad to make your acquaintance!" And, murmuring other maddening phrases, he bowed himself out the door, leaving Dixie Lee to explain the feud in any way she chose.
CHAPTER VIII
A COWBOY"S LIFE
As the name of the Deity, to a cowboy, means little more than a word to swear by, so the holy Sabbath is forgotten as a day of rest. Not that the hard-riding puncher would not rest if he got the chance, but the traditions of the cow business make no allowances for G.o.dliness and ease. For forty dollars and found, the round-up hand is expected to work every day in the month, and take all his Sundays in a bunch when the boss writes out his time. From daylight to dark are his hours of labor, with horse wrangling and night-guard to boot; and yet there are men of elegance and leisure who try to crush in on the job.
Mr. Bowles rolled into bed a perfect gentleman, and something of a knight-errant as well; but when Gloomy Gus gave vent to his shrill morning call he turned in his blankets and muttered. As the dishpan yammered and clashed discordantly he shuddered like a craven; and when Gus finally kicked open the door he could have cursed like any cow-puncher. It was a dreary life he had elected to follow, a life of drudgery, hardship, and discomfort, and with no compensating element but the danger of getting killed. And all for the sake of a girl who never had met him before!
Bowles crawled out very slowly and stood shivering by the fire, marveling at the iron endurance of Gloomy Gus, and understanding his gloom. Never again, he resolved, as he drank a pint of hot coffee, never again would he address Mr. Mosby in aught but terms of respect. A man who could stand his life and still wear the mantle of self-restraint was worthy of a place among the stoics. And to get up alone--alone and of his own volition--at three-thirty and four of the morning! It was a task to give a Spartan pause and win an enduring fame among the G.o.ds. A large humility came over Bowles as he contemplated the rough men about him and observed how uncomplainingly they accepted their lot. And they had been at the work for months and years--it was the second day for him!