"Pete Mullendore, he--"
A gust of wind blew the shoulder cape back and he saw her bare arm with the sleeve of her dress hanging by a shred.
"--he did this?"
"Yes. He--insulted--me--I--can"t--tell--you--what--he--said."
"And then?"
"I scratched him and bit him. I fought him all over the place. He was chokin" me. I got to a quirt and struck him on the head--with the handle. It was loaded. He dropped like he was dead. I ran to my room and clum out the window--"
"Your mother--"
"She--laughed."
"G.o.d!" He stooped and picked up the little bundle she had dropped at her feet. "Come along, Partner. You are going into the sheep business with "Mormon Joe.""
CHAPTER II
AN HISTORIC OCCASION
The experienced ear of Major Stephen Douglas Prouty told him that he was getting a hot axle. The hard dry squeak from the rear wheel of the "democrat" had but one meaning--he had forgotten to grease it. This would seem an inexcusable oversight in a man who expected to make forty miles before sunset, but in this instance there was an extenuating circ.u.mstance. Immediately after breakfast there had been a certain look in his hostess"s eye which had warned him that if he lingered he would be asked to a.s.sist with the churning. Upon observing it he had started for the barn to harness with a celerity that approached a trot.
Long years of riding the grub-line had developed in the Major a gift for recognizing the exact psychological moment when he had worn out his welcome as company and was about to be treated as one of the family and sicced on the woodpile, that was like a sixth sense. It seldom failed him, but in the rare instances when it had, he had bought his freedom with a couple of boxes of White Badger Salve--unfailing for cuts, burns, scalds and all irritations of the skin--good also, as it proved, for dry axles, since he had neglected to replenish his box of axle grease from that of his host at the last stopping place.
He leaned from under the edge of the large cotton umbrella which shaded him amply, and squinted at the sun. He judged that it was noon exactly.
His intention seemed to be communicated to his horses by telepathy, for they both stopped with a suddenness which made him lurch forward.
"It"s time to eat, anyhow," he said aloud as he recovered his balance with the aid of the dashboard, disentangled his feet from the long skirts of his linen duster and sprang over the wheel with the alacrity of a man who took a keen interest in food.
Unhooking the traces, he led the team to one side of the road, slipped off the bridles and replaced them with nose bags containing each horse"s allotment of oats--extracted from the bin of his most recent host. Then he searched in the bottom of the wagon until he found a monkey-wrench which he applied to the nut and twirled dextrously. Canting the wheel, he moistened his finger tip and touched the exposed axle.
"Red hot!"
He left it to cool and reached under the seat for a pasteboard shoe-box and bore it to the side of the road, where he saw a convenient rock.
Both the eagerness of hunger and curiosity was depicted on his face as he untied the twine which secured it. He was wondering if she had put in any cheese. The Major especially liked cheese and had not failed to mention the fact when his hostess had let drop the information that a whole one had come in with the last freight wagon from town. He removed the cover and his smile of antic.i.p.ation gave place to a look of astonishment and incredulity. It was difficult to believe his eyes! Not only was there no cheese, but that chicken wing and back which had been left on the platter last night, and which he had been as sure of as though he had put them in himself, were not in the box. He felt under the paper as though hoping against hope that the box contained a false bottom where the chicken might be concealed. There was no deception. He saw all there was.
"Sinkers!" His voice expressed infinite disappointment and disgust. He prodded one of the cold soda biscuits with his finger, took it out and set the box on the ground beside him. He was hungry, therefore, insulted as he felt, he had to eat, but he looked over his shoulder in the direction from which he had come, and said aloud, "Them Scissor-bills"ll know it when I stop there again!" The declaration was in the nature of a threat. While he munched the dry biscuit, which contained but a trace of b.u.t.ter between the two halves, he gazed off at the vista of nothing in particular that stretched out before him.
On his left the sand and sagebrush, cacti and spa.r.s.e bunch-gra.s.s was bounded by the horizon; behind him, in front of him, it was the same; only on the right was the monotony broken by foothills and beyond, a range of purple snow-covered peaks. From the slight elevation or "bench"
upon which he sat he looked down upon a greasewood flat where patches of alkali gleamed dazzling white under the noon-day sun. The flat was quarter-circled by a waterless creek upon whose banks grew a few misshapen and splintered cottonwoods.
The countless millions of nearly invisible gnats that breed in alkali bogs sighted the Major and promptly rose in swarms to settle upon his ears and in the edges of his hair. He fanned them away automatically and without audible comment. Perhaps they served as a counter-irritant; at any rate, the sting of the indignity put upon him by what he termed a "hobo lunch" was finally forgotten in more agreeable thoughts.
In the distance there was an interesting cloud of dust. Was it cattle, loose horses, or some one coming that way? The Major"s eyesight was not all it had been and he could not make out. Since they were coming from the opposite direction he was sure to have his curiosity gratified. His roving eyes came back to the greasewood flat and rested there speculatively. Suddenly his jaw dropped and a crumb rolled out. He looked as though an apparition had risen before his bulging eyes.
Involuntarily he sprang to his feet and cried, "My Gawd--what a great place to start a town!"
The idea came with such startling force that it seemed to the Major as if something broke in his brain. Other ideas followed. They came tumbling over each other in their struggle to get out all at once. A panorama of pictures pa.s.sed so swiftly before his eyes that it made him dizzy. His eyes gleamed, the color rose in his weather-beaten cheeks, the hand with which he pointed to the greasewood flat below trembled as he exclaimed in an excitement that made his breath come short:
"The main street"ll run up the creek and about there I"ll put the Op"ry House. The hotel"ll stand on the corner and we"ll git a Carnegie Libery for the other end of town. The High School can be over yonder and we"ll keep the saloons to one side of the street. There"ll be a park where folks can set, and if I ain"t got pull enough to git a fifty thousand dollar Federal Buildin"--"
Then came the inspiration which made the Major stagger back:
"I"ll git the post office, and name it Prouty!"
He felt so tremulous that he had to sit down.
It seemed incredible that he had not thought of this before, for deep within him was a longing to have his name figure in the pages of the history of the big new state. Tombstones blew over, dust storms obliterated graves, photographs faded, but with a town named after him and safely on the map, n.o.body could forget him if he wanted to.
The Major"s a.s.sertion concerning his "pull" was no idle boast. There were few men in the state with a wider acquaintance, and he was a conspicuous figure around election time. The experience he had acquired in his younger days selling Indian Herb Cough Syrup from the tailboard of a wagon, between two sputtering flambeaux, served him in good stead when, later, he was called upon to make a few patriotic remarks at a Fourth of July Celebration. His rise was rapid from that time, until now his services as an orator were so greatly in demand for cornerstone layings and barbecues that, owing to distance between towns, it kept him almost constantly on the road.
The Major sold an occasional box of salve, and in an emergency pulled teeth, in addition to the compensation which he received for what was designated privately as his "gift of gab." But the Major, nevertheless, had his dark moments, in which he contemplated the day when age should force him to retire to private life. Since the wagon containing his patent leather valise was his home, the Major had no private life to retire to, and his anxiety concerning the future would seem not without cause. Now in a flash all his worries smoothed out. He would capitalize his wide acquaintance and his influence, gain independence and perpetuate his name in the same stroke. At the moment he actually suffered because there was no one present to whom he could communicate his thoughts.
The cloud of dust was closer, but not near enough yet to distinguish the moving objects that caused it, so he set himself energetically to applying White Badger Salve to the axle, replacing the wheel and tightening the nut. When he straightened a horseman who had ridden out of the creek bed was scrambling up the side of the "bench." He was dressed like a top cowpuncher--silver-mounted saddle, split-ear bridle and hand-forged bit. The Major was familiar with the type, though this particular individual was unknown to him.
"Howdy!" The cowboy let the reins slip through his fingers so his horse could feed, and sagged sidewise in the saddle.
"How are you, sir?" There was nothing in the dignified restraint of the Major"s response to indicate that his vocal cords ached for exercise and he was fairly quivering in his eagerness for an ear to talk into. There was a silence in which he removed a nose bag, bridled and shoved a horse against the tongue.
"Back, can"t ye!"
"Nooned here, I reckon?"
The Major thought of his chickenless handout and his face clouded.
"I et a bite."
"Thought maybe you was in trouble when I first see you."
"Had a hot box, but I don"t call that trouble." He added humorously:
"I can chop my wagon to pieces and be on the road again in twenty minutes, if I got plenty of balin" wire."
The cowboy laughed so appreciatively that the Major inquired ingratiatingly:
"I bleeve your face is a stranger to me, ain"t it?"
"I don"t mind meetin" up with you before. I"ve just come to the country, as you might say."
The Major waited for further information, but since it was not forthcoming he ventured:
"What might I call your name, sir?"
The cowboy shifted his weight uneasily and hesitated. He said finally while the red of his shiny sun-blistered face deepened perceptibly: "My name is supposed to be Teeters--Clarence Teeters."