The B. M. Bower Megapack

by B. M. Bower

  Out beyond the curtain the Kind Friends were waxing impatient and the juvenile contingent was showing violent symptoms of descending prematurely upon the glittering little fir tree which stood in a corner next the stage. Back near the door, feet were scuffling audibly upon the bare floor and a suppressed whistle occasionally cut into the hum of subdued voices. Miss Satterly was growing nervous at the delay, and she repeated her question impatiently to Annie, who was staring at nothing very intently, as she had a fashion of doing.

  “Yes, ma’am,” she answered absently. Then, as an afterthought, “He’s outside, talking to Happy Jack.”

  Annie was mistaken; Happy Jack was talking to Johnny. The schoolma’am tried to look through a frosted window.

  “I do wish they’d hurry in; it’s getting late, and everybody’s here and waiting.” She looked at her watch. The suppressed whistle back near the door was gaining volume and insistence.

  “Can’t we turn her loose, Girlie?” Weary came up and laid a hand caressingly upon her shoulder.

  “Johnny isn’t here, yet, and he’s to give the address of welcome. Why must people whistle and make a fuss like that, Will?”

  “They’re just mad because they aren’t in the show,” said Weary. “Say, can’t we cut out the welcome and sail in anyway? I’m getting kinda shaky, dreading it.”

  The schoolma’am shook her head. It would not do to leave out Johnny—and besides, country entertainments demanded the usual Address of Welcome. It is never pleasant to trifle with an unwritten law like that. She looked again at her watch and waited; the audience, being perfectly helpless, waited also.

  Weary, listening to the whistling and the shuffling of feet, felt a queer, qualmy feeling in the region of his diaphragm, and he yielded to a hunger for consolation and company in his misery. He edged over to where Chip and Cal were amusing themselves by peeping at the audience from behind the tree.

  “Say, how do yuh stack up, Cal?” he whispered, forlornly.

  “Pretty lucky,” Cal told him inattentively, and the cheerfulness of his whole aspect grieved Weary sorely. But then, he explained to himself, Cal always did have the nerve of a mule.

  Weary sighed and wondered what in thunder ailed him, anyway; he was uncertain whether he was sick, or just plain scared. “Feel all right, Chip?” he pursued; anxiously.

  “Sure,” said Chip, with characteristic brevity. “I wonder who those silver-mounted spurs are for, there on the tree? They’ve been put on since this afternoon—can’t yuh stretch your neck enough to read the name, Cal? They’re the real thing, all right.”

  Weary’s dejection became more pronounced. “Oh, mamma! am I the only knock-kneed son-of-a-gun in this crowd?” he murmured, and turned disconsolately away. His spine was creepy cold with stage fright; he listened to the sounds beyond the shielding curtain and shivered.

  Just then Johnny and Happy Jack appeared looking rather red and guilty, and Johnny was thrust unceremoniously forward to welcome his kind friends and still the rising clamor.

  Things went smoothly after that. It is true that Weary, as the Japanese Dwarf, halted the Wax-works and glared glassily at the faces staring back at him while the alarm clock buzzed unheeded against his spine. Mrs. Jarley, however, was equal to the emergency. She proceeded calmly to wind him up the second time, gave Weary an admonitory kick and whispered, “Come alive, yuh chump,” and turned to the audience.

  “This here Japanese Dwarf I got second-handed at a bargain sale for three-forty-nine, marked down for one week only,” she explained blandly. “I got cheated like h—like I always do at them bargain sales, for it’s about wore out. I guess I can make the thing work well enough to show yuh what it’s meant to represent, though.” She gave Weary another kick, commanded him again to “Come out of it and get busy,” and the Dwarf obediently ate its allotted portion of poison. And every one applauded Weary more enthusiastically than they had the others, for they thought it was all his part. So much for justice.

  “Our last selection will be a tableau entitled, ‘Under the Mistletoe,’” announced the schoolma’am’s clear tones. Then she took up her guitar and went down from the stage to where the Little Doctor waited with her mandolin. While the tableau was being arranged they meant to play together in lieu of a regular orchestra. The schoolma’am’s brow was smooth, for the entertainment had been a success so far; and the tableau would be all right, she was sure—for Weary had charge of that. She hoped that Happy Jack would not hate it so very much, and that it would help to break the ice between him and Annie Pilgreen. So she plucked the guitar strings tentatively and began to play.

  Behind the curtain, Annie Pilgreen stood simpering in her place and Happy Jack went reluctantly forward, resigned and deplorably inefficient. Weary, himself again now that his torment was over, posed him cheerfully. But Happy Jack did not get the idea. He stood, as Weary told him disgustedly, looking like a hitching-post. Weary labored with him desperately, his ear strained to keep in touch with the music which would, at the proper time, die to a murmur which would be a signal for the red fire and the tableau. Already the lamps were being turned low, out there beyond the curtain.

  Though it was primarily a scheme of torture for Happy Jack, Weary was anxious that it should be technically perfect. He became impatient. “Say, don’t stand there like a kink-necked horse, Happy!” he implored under his breath. “Ain’t there any joints in your arms?”

  “I ain’t never practised it,” Happy Jack protested in a hoarse whisper. “I never even seen a tableau in my life, even. If somebody’d show me once, so’s I could get the hang of it—”

  “Oh, mamma! you’re a peach, all right. Here, give me that sage brush! Now, watch. We haven’t got all night to make medicine over it. See? Yuh want to hold it over her head and kinda bend down, like yuh were daring yourself to kiss—”

  Happy Jack backed off to get the effect; incidentally, he took the curtain back with him; also incidentally—, Johnny dropped a match into the red fire, which glowed beautifully. Weary caught his breath, but he was game and never moved any eyelash.

  The red glow faded and left an abominable smell behind it, and some merciful hand drew the curtain—but it was not the hand of Happy Jack. He had gone out through the window and was crouching beneath it drinking in greedily the hand-clapping and the stamping of feet and the whistling, with occasional shouts of mirth which he recognized as coming from the rest of the Happy Family. It all sounded very sweet to the great, red ears of Happy Jack.

  When the clatter showed signs of abatement he stole away to where his horse was tied, his sorrel coat gleaming with frost sparkles in the moonlight. “It’s you and me to hit the trail, Spider,” he croaked to the horse, and with his bare hand scraped the frost from the saddle.

  A tall figure crept up from behind and grappled with him. Spider danced away as far as the rope would permit and snorted, and two struggling forms squirmed away from his untrustworthy heels.

  “Aw, leggo!” cried Happy Jack when he could breathe again.

  “I won’t. You’ve got to come back and square yourself with Annie. How do yuh reckon she’s feeling at the trick yuh played on her, yuh lop-eared—”

  Happy Jack jerked loose and stood grinning in the moonlight. “Aw, gwan. Annie knowed I was goin’ to do it,” he retorted, loftily. “Annie and me’s engaged.” He got into the saddle and rode off, shouting back taunts.

  Weary stood bareheaded in the cold and stared after him blankly.

  THE LAMB

  When came the famine in stock-cars on the Montana Central, and the Flying U herd had grazed for two days within five miles of Dry Lake, waiting for the promised train of empties, Chip Bennett, lately promoted foreman, felt that he had trouble a-plenty. When, short-handed as he was, two of his cowboys went a-spreeing and a-leisuring in town, with their faces turned from honest toil and their hands manipulating pairs and flushes and face-cards, rather than good “grass” ropes, he was positive that his cup was dripping trouble all round the rim
.

  The delinquents were not “top hands,” it is true. They—the Happy Family, of which Jim Whitmore was inordinately proud—would sooner forswear their country than the Flying U. But even two transients of very ordinary ability are missed when they suddenly vanish in shipping time, and Chip, feeling keenly his responsibilities, rode disgustedly into town to reclaim the recreants or pay them off and hire others in their places.

  With his temper somewhat roughened by the agent’s report that no cars were yet on the way, he clanked into Rusty Brown’s place after his deserters. One was laid blissfully out in the little back room, breathing loudly, dead to the world and the exigencies of life; him Chip passed up with a snort of disgust. The other was sitting in a corner, with his hat balanced precariously over his left ear, gazing superciliously upon his fellows and, incidentally, winning everything in sight. He leered up at Chip and fingered ostentatiously his three stacks of blues.

  “What’n thunder do I want to go t’ camp for?” he demanded, in answer to Chip’s suggestion. “Forty dollars a month following your trail don’t look good t’ me no more. I’m four hundred dollars t’ the good sence last night, and takin’ all comers. Good money’s just fallin’ my way. I don’t guess I hanker after any more night guardin’, thank ye.”

  “Suit yourself,” said Chip coldly, and turned away.

  Argument was useless and never to his liking. The problem now was to find two men who could take their places, and that was not so easily solved. A golden-haired, pink-cheeked, blue-eyed young fellow in dainty silk negligee, gray trousers, and russet leather belt, with a panama hat and absurdly small tan shoes, followed him outside.

  “If you’re looking for men,” he announced musically, “I’m open for engagements.”

  Chip looked down at him tolerantly. “Much obliged, but I’m not getting up a garden-party,” he informed him politely, and took a step. He was not in the mood to find amusement in the situation.

  The immaculate one showed some dimples that would have been distracting in the face of a woman. “And I ain’t looking for a job leading cows to water,” he retorted. “Yuh shouldn’t judge a man by his clothes, old-timer.”

  “I don’t—a man!” said Chip pointedly. “Run away and play. I’ll tell you what, sonny, I’m not running a kindergarten. Every man I hire has got man’s work to do. Wait till you’re grown up; as it is, you’d last quick on round-up, and that’s a fact.”

  “Oh! it is, eh? Say, did yuh ever hear uh old Eagle Creek Smith, of the Cross L, or Rowdy Vaughan, or a fellow up on Milk River they call Pink?”

  “I’d tell a man!” Chip turned toward him again. “At least I’ve heard of Eagle Creek Smith, and of Pink—bronco-fighter, they say, and a little devil. Why?”

  The immaculate one lifted his panama, ran his fingers through his curls, and smiled demurely. “Nothing in particular—only, I’m Pink!”

  Chip stared frankly, and measured the slender figure from accurately dented hat-crown to tiny shoe-tips. “Well, yuh sure don’t look it,” he said bluntly, at length. “Why that elaborate disguise of respectability?”

  Pink sat him down on an empty beer case in the shade of the saloon and daintily rolled a cigarette.

  “Yuh see, it’s like this,” he began, in his soft voice. “When the Cross L moved their stock across the line Rowdy Vaughan had charge uh the outfit; and, seeing we’re pretty good friends, uh course I went along. I hadn’t been over there a month till I had occasion t’ thump the daylights out uh one uh them bone-headed grangers that vitiates the atmosphere up there; and I put him all to the bad. So a bunch uh them gaudy buck-policemen rose up and fogged me back across the line; a man has sure got t’ turn the other cheek up there, or languish in ga-ol.”

  Pink brought the last word out as if it did not taste good.

  “I hit for the home range, which is Upper Milk River. But it was cussed lonesome with all the old bunch gone; so I sold my outfit and quit cow-punching for good. I wonder if the puncher lives that didn’t sell his saddle and bed, and reform at least once in his checkered career!

  “I had a fair-sized roll so I took the home trail back to Minnesota, and chewed on the fatted calf all last winter and this summer. It wasn’t bad, only the girls run in bunches and are dead anxious to tie up to some male human. I dubbed around and dodged the loop long as I could stand it, and then I drifted.

  “I kinda got hungry for the feel of a good horse between m’ legs once more. It made me mad to see houses on every decent bed-ground, and fences so thick yuh couldn’t get out and fan the breeze if yuh tried. I tell yuh straight, old-timer, last month I was home I plumb wore out mother’s clothes-line roping the gate-post. For the Lord’s sake, stake me to a string! and I don’t give a damn how rough a one it is!”

  Chip sat down on a neighboring case and regarded the dapper little figure curiously. Such words, coming from those girlishly rosy lips, with the dimples dodging in and out of his pink cheeks, had an odd effect of unreality. But Pink plainly was in earnest. His eyes behind the dancing light of harmless deviltry, were pleading and wistful as a child.

  “You’re it!” said Chip relievedly. “You can go right to work. Seems you’re the man I’ve been looking for, only I will say I didn’t recognize yuh on sight. We’ve got a heap of work ahead, and only five decent men in the outfit. It’s the Flying U; and these five have worked for the outfit for years.”

  “I sure savvy that bunch,” Pink declared sweetly. “I’ve heard uh the Happy Family before. Ain’t you one uh them?”

  Chip grinned reminiscently. “I was,” he admitted, a shade of regret in his voice. “Maybe I am yet; only I went up a notch last spring. Got married, and settled down. I’m one of the firm now, so I had to reform and cut out the foolishness. Folks have got to calling the rest the Frivolous Five. They’re a pretty nifty bunch, but you’ll get on, all right, seeing you’re not the pilgrim you look to be. If you were, I’d say: ‘The Lord help you!’ Got an outfit?”

  “Sure. Bought one, brand new, in the Falls. It’s over at the hotel now, with a haughty, buckskin-colored suitcase that fair squeals with style and newness.” Pink pulled his silver belt-buckle straight and patted his pink-and-blue tie approvingly.

  “Well, if you’re ready, I’ll get the horses these two hoboes rode in, and we’ll drift. By the way, how shall I write you on the book?”

  Pink stooped and with his handkerchief carefully, wiped the last speck of Dry Lake dust from his shiny toes. “Yuh won’t crawfish on me, if I tell yuh?” he inquired anxiously, standing up and adjusting his belt again.

  “Of course not.” Chip looked his surprise at the question.

  “Well, it ain’t my fault, but my lawful, legal name is Percival Cadwallader Perkins.”

  “Wha-at?”

  “Percival Cad-wall-ader Perkins. Shall I get yuh something to take with it?”

  Chip, with his pencil poised in air, grinned sympathetically. “It’s sure a heavy load to carry,” he observed solemnly. “How do you spell that second shift?”

  Pink told him, spelling the word slowly, syllable by syllable. “Ain’t it fierce?” he wanted to know. “My mother must have sure been frivolous and light-minded when I was born. I’m the only boy she ever had, and there was two grandfathers that wanted a kid named after ’em; they sure make a hot combination. Yuh know what Cadwallader means, in the dictionary?”

  “Lord, no!” said Chip, putting away his book.

  “Battle arranger,” Pink told him sadly. “Now, wouldn’t that jostle yuh? It’s true, too; it has sure arranged a lot uh battles for me. It caused me to lick about six kids a day, and to get licked by a dozen, when I went to school. So, seeing the name was mine, and I couldn’t chuck it, I went and throwed in with an ex-pugilist and learned the trade thorough. Since then things come easier. Folks don’t open up the subject more’n a dozen times before they take the hint. And this summer I fell in with a ju-jutsu sharp—a college-fed Jap that sure savvied things a white man never dreams except i
n nightmares. I set at his feet all summer learning wisdom. I ain’t afraid now to wear my name on my hatband.”

  “Still, I wouldn’t,” said Chip dryly. “Hike over and get the haughty new war-bag, and we’ll hit the sod. I’ve got to be in camp by dinner-time.”

  A mile out Pink looked down at his festal garments and smiled. “I expect I’ll be pickings for your Happy Family when they see me in these war-togs,” he remarked.

  Chip turned and regarded him meditatively for a minute. “I was just wondering,” he said slowly, “if the Happy Family wouldn’t be pickings for you.”

  Pink dimpled wickedly and said nothing.

  The Happy Family were at dinner when Chip and Pink rode up and dismounted by the bed-tent. Chip and Pink went over to where the others were sitting in various places and attitudes, and the Happy Family received them, not with the nudges and winks one might justly expect, but with decorous silence.

  Chip got plate, knife, fork, and spoon and started for the stove.

  “Help yourself to the tools, and then come over here and fill up,” he invited Pink, over his shoulder. “We don’t stand on ceremony here. May look queer to you at first, but you’ll get used to it.”

  The Happy Family pricked up its ears and looked guardedly at one another. This wasn’t a chance visitor, then; he was going to work!

  Weary, sitting cross-legged in the shade of a wagon-wheel looked up at Pink, fumbling shyly among the knives and forks, and with deceitful innocence he whistled absently:

  Oh, tell me, pretty maiden, Are there any more at home like you?

  Pink glanced at him quickly, then at the solemn faces of the others, and retreated hastily inside the tent, where was Chip; and every man of them knew the stranger had caught Weary’s meaning. They smiled discreetly at their plates and said nothing.