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.
* * *
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 outen 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 absen
ce 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 asb-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.
The Dude Wrangler Page 5