The Popular Magazine/The Dude Wrangler/Part 2

CHAPTER XVI.

Counting Their Chickens.

The “Happy Family” of the Colonial had decided to make up a congenial party and spend the remainder of the summer at the Lolabama Ranch, in Wyoming. They were expected on the morrow, everything was in readiness for their coming, and, after supper, down by the corrals, Wallie and Pinkey sat on their heels estimating their probable profits.

Pinkey's forehead was furrowed like a corrugated roof with the mental effort as he figured in the dust with a pointed stick, while Wallie's face wore a look of absorption as he watched the progress, although he was already as familiar with it as with his multiplication tables.

“Ten head of dudes at one hundred dollars a month is a thousand dollars,” said Pinkey. “And twelve months in the year times a thousand dollars is twelve thousand dollars. And, say——”

“But I've told you a dozen times they all go south in the winter. The most we can count on is two months now and perhaps more next summer.”

“You can't figger out ahead what a dude is goin' to do any more than a calf or a sheep. If we treat 'em right and they get stuck on the country, they're liable to winter here instead of Floridy. Now, if we could winter—say—ten head of dudes at one hundred and fifty dollars a month for seven months, that would be four thousand seven hundred dollars. The trip through the Yellowstone Park and Jackson Hole country is goin' to be a big item. Ten head of dudes—say—at five dollars a day for—say—fifteen days is——”

“But you never deduct expenses, Pinkey. It isn't all profit. There's the interest on the investment, interest on the money we borrowed, groceries, the cook's wages, and we'll need helpers through the Yellowstone.”

“You're gettin' an awful habit of lookin' on the black side of things,” said Pinkey crossly.

“If we can pay expenses and have a thousand dollars clear the first year, I'll be satisfied.”

“A thousand dollars!” Pinkey exclaimed indignantly. “I thought you had more ambition. Look at the different ways we got to git their money. Two-bits apiece for salt-water baths and eight baths a day—some of 'em might not go in reg'lar—but—say—eight, anyway—eight times two-bits is two dollars. Then ten dollars apiece every time they go to town in the stagecoach is—say—one hundred dollars a trip—and they go twict a week—say—that's two hundred dollars.”

“But they might not go twice a week,” Wallie protested, “nor all of them when they did go.”

“Why don't you look on the bright side of things like you usta? Do you know, I've been thinkin' we ought to make out a scale of prices for lettin' 'em work around the place. They'd enjoy it, if they had to pay for it—dudes is like that, I've noticed. They're all pretty well fixed, ain't they?”

“Oh, yes, they all have a good deal of money, unless, perhaps Miss Eyester, and I don't know much about her in that way. But Mr. Penrose, Mr. Appel, and Mr. Budlong are easily millionaires.”

“I s'pose a dollar ain't any more to them than a nickel to us?”

Wallie endeavored to think of an instance which would indicate that Pinkey's supposition was correct, but, recalling none, declared enthusiastically:

“They are the most agreeable, altogether delightful people you ever knew, and, if I do say it, they think the world of me.”

“That's good; maybe they won't deal us so much grief.”

“How—grief?”

“Misery,” Pinkey explained.

“I can't imagine them doing anything ill-natured or ill-bred,” Wallie replied resentfully. “You must have been unfortunate in the kind of dudes you've met.”

Pinkey changed the subject as he did when he was unconvinced but was in no mood for argument. He climbed to the top pole of the corral fence and looked proudly at the row of ten by twelve tents which the guests were to occupy, at the long tar-paper room built on to the original cabin for a dining room, at the new bunk house for himself and Wallie and the help, at the shed with a dozen new saddles hanging on their nails, while the ponies to wear them milled behind him in the corral. His eyes sparkled as he declared:

“We shore got a good dudin' outfit! But it's nothin' to what we will have—watch our smoke! The day'll come when we'll see this country, as you might say, lousy with dudes! So fur as the eye kin reach—dudes! Nothin' but dudes!”

“Yes,” Wallie agreed complacently, “at least we've got a start. And it seems like a good sign, the luck we've had in picking things up cheap.”

Instinctively they both looked at the old-fashioned, four-horse stagecoach that they had found scrapped behind the blacksmith shop in Prouty and bought for so little that they had quaked in their boots lest the blacksmith change his mind before they could get it home. But their fears were groundless, since the blacksmith was uneasy from the same cause.

They had had it repaired and painted red, with yellow wheels that flashed in the sun. And, now, there it stood—the last word in the picturesque discomfort for which dudes were presumed to yearn! They regarded it as their most valuable possession since at ten dollars a trip, it would quickly pay for itself and thereafter yield a large return upon a small investment.

Neither of them could look at it without pride and Pinkey chortled for the hundredth time:

“It shore was a great streak of luck when we got that coach!”

Wallie agreed that it was, and added:

“Everything's been going so well that I'm half scared. Look at that hotel range we got secondhand—as good as new; and the way we stumbled on to a first-class cook; and my friends coming out—it seems almost too good to be true.”

With the money he had collected from Canby he had formed a partnership with Pinkey whereby the latter was to furnish the experience and his services as against his, Wallie's capital.

Once more the future looked roseate; but, perhaps, the real source of his happiness lay in the fact that he had seen Helene Spenceley in Prouty a good bit of late and she had treated him with a consideration which had been conspicuously lacking heretofore.

His train of thought led him to inquire:

“Don't you ever think about getting married, Pink?”

“Now, wouldn't I look comical tied to one of them quails I see runnin' around Prouty!”

“But,” Wallie persisted, “some nice girl would——”

“I had a pal that tried it onct,” interrupted Pinkey, “and when I seen him, I says: 'How is it, Jess?' He says, 'Well, the first year is the worst, and after that it's worse and worse.' No, sir! Little Pinkey knows when he's well off.”

It was obvious that his partner's mood did not fit in with his own. The new moon rose and the crickets chirped as the two sat in silence on the fence and smoked.

“It's a wonderful night!” Wallie said finally, in a hushed voice.

“It's plumb peaceful,” Pinkey agreed. “I feel like I do when I'm gittin' drunk, and I've got to the stage whur my lip gits stiff. I've always wisht I could die when I was like that.”

Wallie suggested curtly:

“Let's go to bed.” He had regretted his partner's lack of sentiment more than once.

“Time to git into the feathers if we make an early start.” Pinkey unhooked his heels. “Might have a little trouble hitchin' up. The two broncs I aim to put on the wheel has never been drove.”

CHAPTER XVII.

The Millionaires.

Pinkey was not one to keep his left hand from knowing what his right hand was 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 out en masse to see a “bunch.”

“Among those present” on the station platform waiting for the train to come in was Mr. Tucker. Although Mr. Tucker had not been in a position to make any open accusation 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 harbor 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.”

Pinkey's premises seemed to be correct, for the four stood with hanging heads and sleepy-eyed while every one 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 absence 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 matinée 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 traveled 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 insertings of which one could see the cinders that had settled in the fat creases 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 traveling.

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 beside 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 stagecoach 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. Scott.

“It will follow.” Wallie opened the stagecoach door as a further hint.

“I want to get some snapshots 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.

Every one 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 horsey' 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 as blue.”

“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.”

“It 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 stepmother behind 'em anywhere.”

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.

just then 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.

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?”

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 accordion, so that it was of a much different shape when she dropped back to the seat.

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 stovepipe, when he came down. He said such a bad word that “Aunt Lizzie” Philbrick exclaimed: “Oh, how dread-ful!”

Mrs. J. Harry Stott and Mr. Budlong, who had bumped heads so hard that the thud was heard, were eying each other in an unfriendly fashion as they felt of their foreheads waiting for the lump.

Mr. Stott, who was still patting his lip with his handkerchief, declared:

“Such roads as these retard the development of a county.”

“Undoubtedly,” agreed Mr. Appel, getting up out of the aisle.

“We are going away from the mountains—I don't understand——”

Mr. Stott smiled reassuringly at Mrs. Budlong and told her that Wallie and Pinkey, of course, knew the road.

“I don't care,” she insisted stoutly. “I believe something's wrong. We are going awfully fast, and if I thought it was as rough as this all the way, I should prefer to walk.”

“You must remember that you are now in the West, Mrs. Budlong,” Mr. Stott replied in a kind but reproving tone, “and we cannot expect——”

Mrs. Budlong, who had just bitten her tongue, retorted sharply:

“We certainly could expect a more comfortable conveyance than this.”

“When we stop at the post office,” said Mr. Budlong in a tone of decision as he clung to the window frame, “I shall hire a machine and go out. The rest of you can do as you like.”

If there was dissatisfaction inside the coach it was nothing at all compared to the excitement on the box as the horses galloped down the railroad track. The leaders' mouths might have been bound in cast iron, for all the attention they paid to the pull on their bits, although Pinkey and Wallie were using their combined strength in their efforts to stop the runaways.

“Them dudes must be gittin' an awful churnin',” said Pinkey through his clenched teeth.

“We'll be lucky if we are not ditched,” Wallie panted as he braced his feet.

“Wouldn't that be some rank! Even if we 'rim a tire' we got to swing off this track, for there's a culvert somewheres along here and——”

“Pink!”

Pinkey had no time to look, but he knew what the sharp exclamation meant.

“Pull my gun out—lay it on the seat—I can stop 'em if I must.”

Pinkey's face was white under its sunburn and his jaw was set.

“How far we got?”

“About a hundred yards,” Wallie answered, breathing heavily.

“We'll give 'em one more try. My hands are playin' out. You pop the rawhide to the roan when I say. Cut him wide open! If I can't turn him, I'll drop him. They'll pile up and stop. It's the only way.”

Pinkey dug his heels into the foot brace in front and took a tighter wrap of the lines around his hands. He could see the culvert ahead. His voice was hoarse as he gave the word.

Wallie stood up and swung the long rawhide-braided whip. At the same time Pinkey put all his failing strength on one line. As the roan felt the tremendous pull on his mouth and the whip thongs stung his head and neck, he turned at a sharp angle, dragging his mate. The wheel horses followed, and some of the stout oak spokes splintered in the wheels as they jerked the coach over the rail.

The pallid pair exchanged a quick glance of unutterable relief. The horses were still running but their speed was slackening as Pinkey swung them in a circle toward the town. Dragging the heavy coach over sagebrush hummocks and through sand had winded them so that they were almost ready to quit when they turned down the main street.

“If we'd 'a' hit that culvert we mighta killed off half our dudes. That woulda been what I call notorious hard luck,” Pinkey had just observed, when Wallie commenced to whip the horses to a run once more.

“What you doin' that for?” he turned in astonishment.

“Let 'em go—I know what I'm about!”

“I think you're crazy, but I'll do what you say till I'm sure,” Pinkey answered as Wallie continued to lay on the lash.

Imperative commands were coming from inside the coach as it tore through the main street.

“Let me out of this death trap!” Old Mr. Penrose's bellow of rage was heard above the chorus of voices demanding that Pinkey stop.

But it was not until they were well on the road to the ranch, and Prouty was a speck, that the horses were permitted to slow down; then Pinkey turned and looked at Wallie admiringly:

“You shore got a head on you, old pard! We wouldn't 'a' had a dude left if we'd let 'em out while they was mad.”

“It just occurred to me in time,” said Wallie.

“You don't s'pose any of 'em'll slip out and run back?”

“No, I think we're all right, if nothing more happens between here and the ranch.”

After a time Pinkey remarked:

“That lady with the bad heart—she musta been scairt. I'll bet her lips were purple as a plum, don't you?”

CHAPTER XVIII.

A Shock for Mr. Canby.

The morning following their arrival at the Lolabama, the Happy Family, looking several shades less happy, began coming from their tents shortly after daylight. By five o'clock they were all up and dressed, since, being accustomed to darkened rooms, they found themselves unable to sleep owing to the glare coming through the white canvas.

Out of consideration for his guests, whom he remembered as late risers, Wallie had set the breakfast hour at eight-thirty. This seemed an eternity to the Happy Family who, already famished, consulted their watches with increasing frequency while they watched the door of the bunk house, like cats at a mousehole, for the cook to make his appearance.

After wandering around to look listlessly at the ponies, and at the salt-water plunge that was to rejuvenate them, they sat down on the edge of the platforms in front of their tents to endure somehow the three hours which must pass before breakfast.

The dawn was sweet-scented, the song of the meadow lark celestial, and the colors of the coming day reflected on the snow-covered peaks a sight to be remembered, but the guests had no eyes or ears or noses for any of the charms of the early morning.

Conversation was reduced to monosyllables as, miserable and apathetic, they sat thinking of the food they had sent back to Mr. Cones' kitchen with caustic comments, of the various dishes for which the chef of the Colonial was celebrated.

The cook came out, finally, at seven-thirty, and, after a surprised glance at the row on the platforms, strode into the kitchen, where he rattled the range as if it were his purpose to wreck it.

When the smoke rose from the chimney Mr. Stott went to the door with the intention of asking the cook to speed up breakfast.

A large sign greeted him:

The cook was a gaunt, long-legged person with a saturnine countenance. He wore a seersucker coat with a nickel badge pinned on the lapel of it. As an opening wedge Mr. Stott smiled engagingly and pointed to it.

“For exceptional gallantry, I presume—a war medal?”

The hero stopped long enough to offer it for Mr. Stott's closer inspection. It read:

Taken somewhat aback, Mr. Stott said feebly: “Very nice, indeed—er——”

“Mr. Hicks, at your service!” the cook supplemented, bowing formally.

“Hicks,” Mr. Stott added.

“Just take a second longer and say 'Mister.'”

The cook eyed him in such a fashion as he administered the reprimand for his familiarity that Mr. Stott backed off without mentioning his starving condition.

At eight-thirty precisely Mr. Hicks came out and hammered on a triangle as vigorously as if it were necessary. In spite of their effort to appear unconcerned when it jangled, the haste of the guests was nothing less than indecent as they hurried to the dining room and scrambled for seats at the table. The promise of food raised their spirits a trifle, and Mr. Appel was able to say humorously as, with his table knife, he scalped his agate-ware plate loose from the oilcloth:

“I suppose we shall soon learn the customs of the country. In a month we should all be fairly well acclimated.”

Miss Eyester observed timidly:

“In the night I thought I heard something sniffing, and it frightened me.”

Not to be outdone in sensational experiences, Mrs. Stott averred positively:

“There was some wild animal running over our tent. I could hear its sharp claws sticking into the canvas. A coyote, I fancy.”

“A ground squirrel, more likely,” remarked Mr. Appel.

Mr. Stott smiled at him:

“Squee-rrel, if you will allow me to correct you.”

“I guess I can't help myself,” replied Mr. Appel dryly.

Mr. Stott shrugged a shoulder and his tolerant look said plainly that, after all, one should not expect too much of a man who had begun life as a “breaker boy.”

“The squee-rrel or coyote or whatever it was,” Mrs. Stott continued, “went pitter-patter, pitter-patter—so!” She illustrated with her finger tips on the oilcloth.

“Prob'ly a chipmunk,” said Pinkey prosaically.

“Are they dangerous, Mr. Fripp?” inquired Miss Gaskett.

“Not unless cornered or wounded,” he replied gravely.

This was a joke, obviously, so everybody laughed which stimulated Pinkey to further effort. When Mr. Hicks poured his cup so full that the coffee ran over he remarked facetiously:

“It won't stack, cookie.”

Coffeepot in hand, Mr. Hicks drew himself up majestically and his eyes withered Pinkey:

“I beg to be excused from such familiarity, and if you wish our pleasant relations to continue you will not repeat it.”

“I bet I won't josh him again,” Pinkey said ruefully when Mr. Hicks returned to the kitchen like offended royalty.

“Cooks are sometimes very peculiar,” observed Mr. Stott, buttering his pancakes lavishly. “I remember that my mother—my mother, by the way, Mr. Penrose, was a Sproat——”

“Shoat?” Old Mr. Penrose, who complained of a pounding in his ears, was not hearing so well in the high altitude.

Mr. Appel and Pinkey tittered, which nettled Mr. Stott, and he shouted:

“Sproat! An old Philadelphia family.”

“Oh, yes,” Mr. Penrose recollected. “I recall Amanda Sproat. She married a stevedore. Your sister?”

Mr. Stott chose to ignore the inquiry, and said coldly:

“My father was in public life.” He might have added that his father was a policeman and, therefore, his statement was no exaggeration.

Everybody felt that it served Mr. Penrose right for telling about the stevedore when he was seized with a violent fit of coughing immediately afterward. Wiping his streaming eyes, he looked from Wallie to Pinkey and declared resentfully:

“This is the result of your reckless driving. The cork came out of my cough sirup in the suit case.” The culprits mumbled that they “were sorry,” to which Mr. Penrose replied that that did not keep him from “coughing his head off!”

Looking sympathetically at Pinkey, Miss Eyester, for the purpose of diverting the irascible old gentleman's attention from the subject, asked when she might take her first riding lesson.

Pinkey said promptly:

“This mornin'. They's nothin' to hinder.”

“That's awfully good of you, Mr. Fripp,” she said gratefully.

Pinkey, who always jumped when any one called him “Mister,” replied bluntly:

“'Tain't—I want ta.”

“We'll all go!” Mrs. Stott cried excitedly.

“Shore.” There was less enthusiasm in the answer.

“We were so fortunate as to be able to purchase our equipment for riding bronchos before coming out here,” explained Mr. Budlong. “There is an excellent store on the boardwalk and we found another in Omaha.”

“We have divided skirts and everything! Just wait till you see us!” cried Mrs. Budlong. “And you'll take our pictures, won't you, Mr. Penrose?”

“I don't mind wasting a couple of films,” he consented.

They were as eager as children as they opened their trunks for their costumes, and even Aunt Lizzie Philbrick, who had once ridden a burro before the bandits marked her for rapine and murder, declared her intention of trying it. While the “dudes” dressed, Pinkey and Wallie went down to the corral to saddle for them.

“We better let her ride the pinto,” said Pinkey casually.

“Her?” Wallie looked at his partner fixedly. “Which 'her?'”

“That lady that's so thin she could hide behind a match and have room left to peek around the corner. She seems sickly, and the pinto is easy-gaited,” Pinkey explained elaborately.

“All right,” Wallie nodded, “and we'll put Aunt Lizzie on the white one and give Mrs. Budlong——”

“Kindly assign me a spirited mount,” interrupted Mr. Stott, who, as to costume, was a compromise between an English groom and a fox hunter.

Wallie looked dubious.

“Oh, I understand horses,” declared Mr. Stott, “I used to ride like an Indian.”

“The buckskin?” Wallie asked doubtfully of Pinkey.

Pinkey hesitated.

“You need not be afraid that he will injure me. I can handle him.”

Wallie, who never had heard of Mr. Stott's horsemanship, consented reluctantly.

“I prefer to saddle and bridle him myself, also,” said Mr. Stott, when the buckskin was pointed out to him.

Wallie's misgivings returned to him, and Pinkey rolled his eyes eloquently when they saw “the man who understood horses” trying to bridle with the chin strap and noted that he had saddled without a blanket. Mr. Stott laughed inconsequently when the mistake was pointed out to him and declared that it was an oversight merely.

“Now, if you will get me something to stand on, I am ready to mount.”

Once more Pinkey and Wallie exchanged significant glances as the man “who used to ride like an Indian” climbed into the saddle like some one getting into an upper berth on a Pullman. Mr. Stott was sitting with the fine, easy grace of a clothespin when the rest of the party came down the path ready for their riding lesson.

Neither Pinkey nor Wallie was easily startled, but when they saw their guests the least their astonishment permitted was an inarticulate gurgle. Dismay also was among their emotions as they thought of conducting the party through Prouty and the Yellowstone. Wallie had his share of moral courage, but when they first met his vision he doubted if he was strong enough for the ordeal.

Mrs. Budlong, whose phlegmatic exterior concealed a highly romantic nature and an active imagination, was dressed to resemble a cowgirl of the movies, as nearly as her height and width permitted. Her Stetson, knotted kerchief, fringed gauntlets, quirt, spurs to delight a Mexican, and swagger—which had the effect of a barge rocking at anchor—so fascinated Pinkey that he could not keep his eyes from her.

Old Mr. Penrose in a buckskin shirt ornate with dyed porcupine quills, and a forty-five Colt slung in a holster, looked like the next to the last of the Great Scouts, while Mr. Budlong, in a beaded vest that would have turned bullets, was happy though uncomfortable. He wore moccasins in spite of Pinkey's warning that he would find it misery to ride in them unless he was accustomed to wearing them.

Simultaneous with Miss Gaskett's appearance in plaid bloomers, a saddle horse laid back and broke his bridle reins, for which Pinkey had not the heart to punish him in the circumstances.

Aunt Lizzie wore long, voluminous divided skirts and a little, white hat like a pâté tin, while by contrast Mrs. Harry Stott looked very smart and ultra in a tailored coat and riding breeches.

This was the party that started up Skull Creek under Pinkey's guidance, and the amazing aggregation that greeted the choleric eye of Mr. Canby on one of the solitary rides which were his greatest diversion. He had just returned from the East and had not yet learned of the use to which Wallie had put his check. But now he recalled Wallie's parting speech to Pinkey when he had started to get the paper cashed, and this fantastic assemblage was the result!

As Canby drew in his horse, he stared in stony-eyed unfriendliness while they waved at him gayly and Mr. Stott called out that they were going to be neighborly and visit him soon.

The feeling of helpless wrath in which he now looked after the party was a sensation that he had experienced only a few times in his life. Pinkey had warned him that at the first openly hostile act he would “blab” the story of the Skull Creek episode far and wide. By all the rules of the game as he had played it often, and always with success, Wallie should long since have “faded”—scared, starved out. Yet, somehow, in some unique and extraordinary way that only a “dude” would think of, he had managed to come out on top.

But the real basis for Canby's grievance, and one which he would not admit even to himself, was that, however Wallie was criticized, Helene Spenceley never failed to find something to say in his defense.

There was not much that Canby could do in the present circumstances to put difficulties in Wallie's way, but the next day he found it convenient to turn a trainload of longhorn Texas cattle loose on the adjacent range, and posted warnings to the effect that they were dangerous to pedestrians, and persons going among them on foot did so at their own risk.

CHAPTER XIX.

Wallie Qualifies As Hero.

Pinkey took a triangular piece of glass from between the logs in the bunk house and regarded himself steadfastly in the bit of broken mirror. He murmured finally: “I ain't no prize baby, but if I jest had a classy set of teeth I wouldn't be bad lookin'.”

He replaced the mirror in the crack and sauntered down to the cook shack where he seated himself on the door sill. The chef was singing, as if he meant it, “Ah, I have Sighed to Rest Me Deep in the Silent Grave.”

Pinkey interrupted:

“How do you git to work to git teeth, Mr. Hicks, if they ain't no dentist handy?”

Like Mr. Stott, no question could be put to Mr. Hicks for which he could not find an answer. He now replied promptly:

“Well, there's two ways: you can send to Mungummery-Ward and have a crate sent out on approval, and keep tryin' till you find a set that fits, or you can take the cast off your gooms yourself, send it on, and have 'em hammer you out some to order.”

“Is that so? What kind of stuff do you use to make the cast of your gooms of?”

“Some uses putty, some uses clay, but I believe they generally recommend plaster of Paris. It's hard, and it's cheap, and it stays where it's put.”

A thoughtful silence followed; then Pinkey got up and joined Wallie, who was sitting on the top pole of the corral, smoking moodily.

The dudes were at target practice with .22's and six-shooters, having been persuaded finally not to use Mr. Canby's range as a background. They now all walked with a swagger and seldom went to their meals without their weapons.

Pinkey blurted out suddenly:

“I wisht I'd died when I was little!”

“What's the matter?”

“Oh, nothin'.”

It was plain that he wished to be interrogated further, but Wallie, who was thinking of Helene Spenceley and her indifference to him, was in no mood to listen to other people's troubles.

After another period of reflection, Pinkey asked abruptly:

“Do you believe in signs?”

To which Wallie replied absently:

“Can't say I do. Why?”

“If there's anything in signs I ought to be turrible jealous—the way my eyebrows grow together.”

“Aren't you?” indifferently.

“Me—jealous? Nobody could make me jealous, especially a worman.”

“You're lucky!” Wallie spoke with unnecessary emphasis. “It's an uncomfortable sensation.”

Pinkey shifted uneasily and picked a bit of bark off the corral pole.

“Don't it look kinda funny that Miss Eyester would take any in'trist in old man Penrose? A girl like her wouldn't care nothin' about his money, would she?”

Wallie looked dour as he answered:

“You never can tell. Maybe.” He had been asking himself the same question about Miss Spenceley, whom he had seen rather frequently of late with Canby.

“Guess I'll quirl me a brownie and git into the feathers,” said Pinkey glumly. “I thought I'd go into town in the mornin'. I want to do me some buyin'.” He added, as he unhooked his heels: “You want to ride herd pretty clost on Aunt Lizzie. She's bound and determined to go outside the fence, huntin' moss agates. The cattle are liable to hook her. Canby throwed them longhorns in there on purpose.”

As Wallie watched his partner go up the path to the bunk house he wondered vaguely what purchase he had to make that was so important as to induce him to make a special trip to Prouty. But since Pinkey had not chosen to tell him and Wallie had a talent for minding his own business, he dismissed it; besides, he had more vital things to think about at that moment.

It had hurt him that Helene Spenceley had not been over. Obviously he had taken too much for granted, for he had thought that when she saw he was in earnest once more and in a fair way to make a success of his second venture, things would be different between them. She was the most difficult woman to impress that he ever had known; but, curiously, the less she was impressed the more eager he was to impress her.

But somehow he did not seem to make much progress, and now he asked himself grumpily why the dickens he couldn't have fallen in love with Mattie Gaskett, who followed him like his shadow and had her own income, with wonderful prospects.

He scuffed at the bark and thought sourly of the rot he had read about love begetting love. He had not noticed it. It more often begot laughter, and his case was an instance of it. Helene Spenceley laughed at him—he was sure of it—and, fool that he was, it did not seem to make any difference. There was just one girl for him and always would be.

In time, very likely, he would be a hermit, or a “sour ball” like Canby; he would sit at dances looking like a bull elk that's been whipped out of the herd, and the girls would giggle at him.

The next morning Pinkey was gone when they gathered at the breakfast table. Miss Eyester looked downcast because he had failed to tell her of his intention, while Mrs. Stott declared that it was very inconsiderate for him to go without mentioning it, since he had promised to match embroidery cotton for her and she could not go on with her dresser scarf until she had some apple-green to put the leaves in with!

The morning passed without incident, except that Mr. Budlong was astonished when Wallie told him that his new high-power rifle was scattering bullets among Mr. Canby's herd of cattle more than a mile distant and that it was great good fortune he had not killed any of them. Otherwise Wallie was engaged as usual in answering questions and lengthening and shortening stirrups for ladies the length of whose legs seemed to change from day to day.

Miss Gaskett “heeled” Wallie with flattering faithfulness and incidentally imparted the information that a friend from Zanesville, Ohio, was to join their party in Prouty when the date was definitely set for their tour of the Yellowstone.

“She's a dear, sweet girl whom I knew at boarding school, and”—archly—“you must tell me that you will not fall in love with her?”

Wallie, who now thought of even “dear, sweet girls” in terms of dollars and cents, felt that he could safely promise.

It was a relief when the triangle jangled for dinner, and Wallie looked forward to the ride afterward, although it had its attendant irritations—chiefest of which was the propensity of J. Harry Stott to gallop ahead and then gallop back to see if the party was coming—rare sport for Mr. Stott, but less so for the buckskin. As soon as that sterling young fellow had discovered that he could ride at a gallop without falling off he lost no opportunity to do so, and his horse was already showing the result of it.

Boosting Aunt Lizzie Philbrick on and off her horse to enable her to pick flowers and examine rocks was a part of the routine, as was recovering Mrs. Budlong's hairpins when her hair came down and she lost her hat. Mr. Budlong, too, never failed to lag behind and become separated from the rest of the party, so that he had to be hunted. He persisted in riding in moccasins and said that his insteps “'ached him” so that he could not keep up.

Reasoning that every occupation has drawbacks of some kind, Wallie bore these small annoyances with patience, though there were times when he confessed that the Happy Family of the Colonial were not so altogether charming and amiable as he had thought.

He never would have suspected, for instance, that J. Harry Stott, who, in his own environment, was a person of some little consequence, in another could appear a complete and unmitigated ass. Or that Mrs. Budlong had such a wolfish appetite, or that ten cents looked larger to Mr. Appel than a dollar did to Pink.

To-day there was the usual commotion over getting off, and then when Wallie was ready to boost Aunt Lizzie on her horse she was nowhere to be found. She was not in her tent, nor had she fallen over the embankment, and the fact that she set great store by her afternoon rides deepened the mystery.

Old Mr. Penrose, who had unslung his field glasses, declared he saw something that might be the top of Aunt Lizzie's head moving above a small “draw” over on Canby's lease. Mr. Penrose, who had sought ranch life chiefly because he said he was sick of cities and mobs of people, when not riding now spent most of his time with his high-power glasses watching the road in the hope of seeing some one passing, and he had come to be as excited when he saw a load of hay as if he had discovered a planet.

He passed the glasses to Wallie, who adjusted them and immediately nodded:

“That's somebody in the draw; it must be Aunt Lizzie.”

There was no doubt about it when she came out and started walking slowly along the top, searching as she went, for moss agates. Wallie gave a sharp exclamation, for, in the moment that they watched her, a small herd of the Texas cattle came around a hill and also saw her. They stopped short, and looked at the strange figure. Then, like a bank of curious antelope, they edged a little closer. It might be that they would not attack her, but, if they did, it was certain they would gore her to death unless some one was there to prevent it.

Leading his own horse and dragging Aunt Lizzie's stubborn white pony behind him, Wallie threw down the wire gate opening into the Canby lease and sprang into the saddle.

He kept his eyes fixed on the cattle as he rode toward Aunt Lizzie, making the best time he could, with her cayuse pulling back obstinately on the bridle, but, in any case, he could not have seen Helene Spenceley and Canby riding from the opposite direction, for they were still on the other side of a small ridge which hid them.

Helene had stopped at the Canby ranch for luncheon on her way to pay her long-deferred visit to her whilom acquaintances of the Colonial. Though Canby had not relished the thought that she was going there, he had asked to accompany her across the leases. Pleased that she had stopped without an invitation, he was more likable than ever she had seen him, and he made no pretense of concealing the fact that she could be mistress of the most pretentious house in the country if she chose to.

Helene could not well have been otherwise than impressed by its magnificence. She was aware that with Canby's money and her personal popularity she could make an enviable position for herself very easily, and she was nothing if not ambitious. The traits in Canby which so frequently antagonized her, his arrogance, his selfish egotism and disregard of others' rights and feelings, to-day were not in evidence. He was spontaneous, genial, boyish almost, and she never had felt so kindly disposed toward him.

She looked at him speculatively now as he rode beside her and wondered if association would beget an affection that would do as well as love, if supplemented by the many things he had to offer? Her friendlier mood was not lost on Canby who was quick to take advantage of it. He leaned over and laid his hand on hers as it rested on the saddle horn.

“Your thoughts of me are kinder than usual, aren't they, Helene?”

She smiled at him as she admitted, “Perhaps so.”

“I wish you could think so of me always, because I should be very happy if—you——” His narrow, selfish face had a softness she never had seen in it as he paused while he groped for the exact words he wished in which to express himself. The color rose in Helene's cheeks as she averted her eyes from his steady gaze and looked on past him.

Their horses had been climbing slowly and had now reached the top of the ridge which gave an uninterrupted view across the flat stretch which lay between them and the ranch that was such an eyesore to Canby.

As she took in the sweep of country her gaze concentrated upon the moving objects she saw in it. Puzzled at first, her look of perplexity was succeeded by one of consternation, then horror. With swift comprehension she grasped fully the meaning of a scene that was being enacted before her. Her expression attracted Canby's attention even before she pointed and cried sharply:

“Look!”

Aunt Lizzie was still busy with her pebbles, a tiny, tragic figure she looked, in view of what was happening, as she walked along in leisurely fashion, stopping every step or two to pick up and examine a stone that attracted her attention. The herd of longhorns had come closer, but one had drawn out from the others and was shaking its head as it trotted down upon her.

Wallie had long since abandoned the pony he was leading, and, with all the speed his own was capable of, was doing his best to intercept the animal before it reached her. But he was still a long way off, and even as Helene cried out the steer broke into a gallop.

Canby, too, instantly grasped the situation.

“If I only had a rifle!”

“Perhaps we can turn it! We'll have to make an awful run for it, but we can try!”

They had already gathered the reins and were spurring their horses down the declivity. Canby's thoroughbred leaped into the air as the steel pricked it and Helene was soon left behind. She saw that she could figure only as a spectator, so she slowed down and watched what followed in fascinated horror.

Canby was considerably farther off than Wallie, in the beginning, but the racing blood in the former's horse's veins responded gallantly to the urge of its rider. It stretched cut and laid down to its work like a hare with the hounds behind it, quickly equalizing the distance.

Aunt Lizzie was poking at a rock with her toe when she looked up suddenly and saw her danger. The steer with a spread of horns like antlers and tapering to needle points was rushing down upon her, infuriated. For a moment she stood, weak with terror, unable to move, until her will asserted itself and then, shrieking, she ran as fast as her stiff, old legs could carry her.

Wallie and Canby reached the steer almost together. A goodly distance still intervened between it and Aunt Lizzie, but the gap was shortening with sickening rapidity, and Helene grew cold as she saw that, try as they might, they could not head it.

Helene wrung her hands in a frenzy as she watched their futile efforts. Wallie always carried a rope on his saddle, why didn't he use it? Was he afraid? Couldn't he? She felt a swift return of her old contempt for him. Was he only a “yellow back” cowpuncher after all, underneath his Western regalia? Notwithstanding his brave appearance he was as useless in a crisis like this as Canby. Pinkey was more of a man than either of them. He would stop that steer somehow if he had only his pocketknife to do it.

She cried out sharply as Aunt Lizzie stumbled and pitched headlong. Between exhaustion and terror that paralyzed her she was unable to get up, though she tried. The steer, flaming-eyed, was now less than seventy yards from her.

Helene felt herself grow nauseated. She meant to close her eyes when it happened. She had seen a horse gored to death by a bull, and it was a sight she did not wish to see repeated.

Canby in advance of Wallie was a little ahead of the steer, slapping at it with his bridle reins, Wallie behind had been crowding its shoulder. But nothing could divert it from its purpose. Helene was about to turn her head away when she saw Wallie lay the reins on his horse's neck and lean from the saddle. His purpose flashed through Helene's mind instantly. Then she cried aloud—incredulously:

“He's going to try that!” And added in a frightened whisper: “He can't do it! He can never do it!”

Wallie's horse, which had been running at the steer's shoulder, missed his hand on the reins and lagged a little, so that the distance between them was such as to make what he meant to attempt seemingly impossible. For a second he rode with his arm outstretched as if gauging the distance, then Helene grew rigid as she saw him leave the saddle.

He made it—barely. The gap was so big that it seemed as if it were not humanly possible more than to touch the short mane on the animal's neck with his finger tips. But he clung somehow, his feet and body dragging, while the steer's speed increased rather than slackened. First with one hand and then the other he worked his way to a grip on the horns, which was what he wanted.

The steer stopped to fight him. Its feet plowed up the dirt as it braced them to resist him. Then they struggled. The steer was a big one, raw-boned, leggy, a typical old-time longhorn of the Texas ranges, and now in fear and rage it put forth all the strength of which it was capable.

With his teeth grinding, Wallie fought it in desperation, trying to give the twist that drops the animal. Its breath in his face, the froth from its mouth blinded him, but still he clung while it threw him this and that way. He himself never knew where his strength came from. Suddenly the steer fell heavily and the two lay panting together.

Helene drew the back of her hand across her eyes and brushed away the tears that blurred her vision, while a lump rose in her throat too big to swallow. “Gentle Annie” of the Colonial veranda, erstwhile authority on Battenberg and sweaters, had accomplished the most reckless of the dare-devil feats of the cow country—he had “bull-dogged” a steer from horseback!

CHAPTER XX.

“Worman! Worman!”

Business which had to do with the cache they had lifted from Tucker detained Pinkey in town longer than expected. He returned in the night and did not get up when the triangle jangled for breakfast. In fact, it was well into the forenoon when he appeared, only to learn that Miss Eyester had gone off with old Mr. Penrose to look at an eagle's nest.

“What did he do that for?” Pinkey demanded of Wallie.

“I presume he wanted her company,” Wallie replied composedly, entertained by the ferocity of Pinkey's expression.

“Is he a dude or is he a duder that he has to go guidin' people to see sights they prob'ly don't want to look at?”

“She seemed willing enough to go,” Wallie answered.

Pinkey sneered:

“Mebbe I'd better git me a blue suit with brass buttons and stand around and open gates and unsaddle fer 'em.”

Wallie regarded his partner calmly.

“Pinkey, you're jealous!”

“Jealous! Me jealous of an old Methuselah that don't know enough to make a mark in the road?” Unconsciously Pinkey's hand sought his eyebrows, as he laughed hollowly. “Why, I could show her a barrel of eagles' nests! I know whur there's a coyote den with pups in it! I know whur there's a petrified tree and oceans of Injun arrer heads, if she'd jest waited. But if anybody thinks I'm goin' to melt my boot heels down taggin' a worman, they're mistaken!” Pinkey stamped off to the bunk house and slammed the door behind him.

“Where's Pinkey?” The question was general when it was observed that his chair was vacant at dinner.

“Still reposing, I imagine,” Wallie answered jocosely.

Mis. Budlong commented:

“A night ride like that must be very fatiguing.”

“You are sure he's not ill?” inquired Miss Eyester. She had not enjoyed her revenge upon Pinkey for going away without telling her as much as she had anticipated; besides, the eagle's nest turned out to be a crow's nest with no birds in it, and that was disappointing.

Mr. Hicks, who frequently joined in the conversation when anything interested him, snorted from the kitchen doorway:

“Ill? You couldn't make him 'ill' with a club with nails in it—that feller.”

“Perhaps one of us had better awaken him,” Miss Eyester suggested. “He should eat something.”

“Hor! Hor! Hor!” Mr. Hicks laughed raucously. “Maybe he don't feel like eating. Let him alone and he'll come out of it.”

Miss Eyester resented the aspersion, the meaning of which was now plain to everybody, and said with dignity, rising:

“If no one else will call him, I shall.”

“Rum has been the curse of the nation,” observed Mr. Budlong to whom even a thimbleful gave a headache.

“I wish I had a barrel of it,” growled old Mr. Penrose. “When I get home I'm going to get me a worm and make moonshine.”

“Oh, how dread-ful!”

“'Tain't!” Mr. Penrose contradicted Aunt Lizzie.

“'Tis!” retorted Aunt Lissie.

They glared at each other balefully, and while everybody waited to hear if she could think of anything else to say to him, Miss Eyester returned panting:

“The door's locked and there's a towel pinned over the window.”

“No!” They exclaimed in chorus, and looked at Wallie. “Do you suppose anything's happened?”

“He locked the door because he does not want to be disturbed, and the towel is to keep the light out,” Mr. Stott deduced.

“Of course!” They all laughed heartily and admired Mr. Stott's shrewdness.

“All the same,” declared the cook, scouring a frying pan in the doorway, “it's not like him to go to all that trouble just to sleep. I'll go up and see if I can raise him.”

Even in the dining room they could hear Mr. Hicks banging on the door with the frying pan, and calling. He returned in a few minutes.

“There's something queer about it. It's still as a graveyard. He ain't snoring.”

“Could he have made way with himself?” Mr. Appel's tone was sepulchral.

“Oh-h-h!” Miss Eyester gasped faintly.

“Perhaps he has merely locked the door and he is outside,” Mr. Stott suggested.

“I'll go down and see if I can notice his legs stickin' out of the crick anywhere,” said Mr. Hicks briskly.

“It is very curious—very strange, indeed,” they declared solemnly, though they all continued eating spareribs—a favorite dish with the Happy Family.

The cook, returning, said in a tone that had a note of disappointment, “He ain't drowned.”

“Is his horse in the corral?” asked Wallie.

Mr. Hicks took observations from the doorway and reported that it was, which deepened the mystery.

Since no human being, unless he was drugged or dead, could sleep through the cook's battering with the frying pan, Wallie himself grew anxious. He recalled Pinkey's gloom of the evening before he had gone to Prouty. “I wisht I'd died when I was little,” he remembered his saying.

Also Pinkey's moroseness of the morning and the ferocity of his expression took on special significance in the light of his strange absence. Instinctively Wallie looked at Miss Eyester. That young lady was watching him closely and saw his gravity. Unexpectedly she burst into tears so explosively that Mrs. Budlong moved back the bread plate even as she tried to comfort her.

“I know something has happened—I feel it! When Aunt Sallie choked on a fishbone at Asbury Park I knew it before we got the wire. I'm sort of clairvoyant! Please excuse me!” Miss Eyester left the table sobbing. It seemed heartless to go on eating when Pinkey, the sunshine of the ranch, as they suddenly realized, might be lying cold in death in the bunk house, so they followed solemnly—all except Mrs. Henry Appel, who lingered to pick herself out another sparerib which she took with her in her fingers.

They proceeded in a body to the bunk house, where Wallie applied his eye to the keyhole and found it had been stuffed with something. This confirmed his worst suspicions. Nobody could doubt now but that something sinister had happened.

Mr. Penrose, who had been straining his eyes at the window, peering through a tiny space between the towel and the window frame, declared he saw somebody moving. This, of course, was preposterous, for, if alive, Pinkey would have made a sound in response to their clamor, so nobody paid any attention to his assertion.

“We'll have to burst the door in,” said Mr. Stott in his masterful manner, but Wallie already had run for the ax for that purpose.

Mrs. Appel, alternately gnawing her bone and crying softly, begged them not to let her see him if he did not look natural, while Miss Eyester leaned against the door jamb in a fainting condition.

“Maybe I can bust it with my shoulder,” said Mr. Hicks, throwing his weight against the door.

Immediately, as the lock showed signs of giving, a commotion, a shuffling, was heard, a sound as if a shoulder braced on the inside was resisting.

There was a second's astonished silence and then a chorus of voices demanded:

“Let us in! Pinkey! What is the matter?”

The answer was an inarticulate, gurgling sound that was bloodcurdling.

“He's cut his windpipe and all he can do is gaggle!” cried Mr. Hicks excitedly, and made a frenzied attack on the door that strained the lock to the utmost.

If the noise he made was any criterion it was judged that Pinkey's head must be nearly severed from his body—which made the resistance he displayed all the more remarkable. He was a madman, of course—that was taken for granted—and the ladies were warned to places of safety lest he come out slashing right and left with a razor.

They ran and locked themselves in the kitchen, where they could look through the window—all except Miss Eyester, who declared dramatically that she had no further interest in life, anyhow, and wished to die by his hand anyway, knowing herself responsible for what had happened.

Wallie, breathless from running, arrived with the ax, which he handed to Mr. Hicks, who called warningly as he swung it:

“Stand back, Pinkey—I'm comin'!”

The door crashed and splintered, and, when it opened, Mr. Hicks fell in with it.

He fell out again almost as quickly, for there was Pinkey with the glaring eyes of a wild man, his jaws open, and from his mouth there issued a strange white substance.

“He's frothin'!” Mr. Hicks yelled shrilly. “He's got hydrophoby! Look out for him, everybody!”

“G-gg-ggg-ough!” gurgled Pinkey.

“Who bit you, feller?” the cook asked soothingly.

“G-ggg-gg-ough!” was the agonized answer.

“We'll have to throw and hog-tie him.” Mr. Hicks looked around to see if there was a rope handy.

“Don't let him snap at you,” called Mr. Stott from a safe distance. “If it gets in your blood, you're goners.”

The cook who, as Pinkey advanced shaking his head and making vehement gestures, had retreated, was suddenly enlightened:

“That ain't froth—it's plaster o' Paris—I bet you! Wait till I get a stick and poke it!”

Pinkey nodded.

“That's it!”? Mr. Hicks cried delightedly: “He's takin' a cast of his gooms—I told him about it.”

The look he received from Pinkey was murderous.

“How are we going to get it out?” Wallie asked in perplexity.

“It's way bigger than his mouth,” said Mr. Appel, and old Mr. Penrose suggested humorously, “You might push it down and make him swallow it.”

“Maybe you could knock a little off at a time or chisel it,” ventured Mr. Budlong, feeling of it. “It's hard as a rock.”

“It's like taking a hook out of a catfish,” said the cook facetiously. “Say, can you open your mouth any wider?”

Pinkey made vehement signs that his mouth was stretched to the limit.

“It's from ear to ear now, you might say,” observed Mr. Budlong. “If you go to monkeying, you'll have the top of his head off.”

“If I could just get my fist up in the roof somehow and then pry down on it.” The size of Mr. Hick's fist, however, made the suggestion impractical.

“I believe I can pick it off little by little with a hairpin or a pair of scissors or something.” Miss Eyester spoke both confidently and sympathetically.

Pinkey nodded, his eyes full of gratitude and suffering.

“Don't laugh at him,” she pleaded, as they now were howling uproariously. “Just leave us alone and I'll manage it somehow.”

It proved that Miss Eyester was not oversanguine for, finally, with the aid of divers tools and implements, Pinkey was able to spit out the last particle of the plaster of Paris.

“I s'pose the story'll go all over the country and make me ridic'lous,” he said gloomily. Feeling the corners of his mouth tenderly: “I thought at first I'd choke to death before I'd let anybody see me. What I'll do to that cook,” his eyes gleaming, “won't stand repeatin'. And if anybody dast say 'teeth' to me——”

“Whatever made you do it?”

Too angry to finesse, Pinkey replied bluntly:

“I done it fer you. I thought you'd like me better, if I had teeth, and now I s'pose you can't ever look at me without laughin'.”

Miss Eyester flipped a bit of plaster from his shirt sleeve with her thumb and finger.

“I wouldn't do anything to hurt your feelings, ever.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“Then don't you go ridin' again with that old gummer.”

“Do you care—really?” Shyly.

“I'll tell the world I do!”

Miss Eyester fibbed without a pang of conscience:

“I never dreamed it.”

“I thought you wouldn't look at anybody unless they had money—you bein' rich n'ever'thing.”

“In the winter I earn my living cataloguing books in a public library. I hate it.”

Pinkey laid an arm about both her thin shoulders.

“Say, what's the chanct of gittin' along with you f'rever an' ever?”

“Pretty good,” replied Miss Eyester candidly.

CHAPTER XXI.

“Knocking 'Em for a Curve.”

It had been put to a vote as to whether the party should make the trip through the Yellowstone Park by motor, stopping at the hotels, or on horseback with a camping outfit.

Mr. Stott, after the persuasive manner in which he addressed a jury, argued:

“We can ride in automobiles at home. Than horseback riding, there is no more healthful exercise. We are all agreed that we have had enough of hotels, while camping will be a new and delightful experience. In the brief period that we shall lie next to nature's heart we will draw strength from her bosom.”

Everybody agreed with him strongly except old Mr. Penrose, who declared that sleeping on the ground would give him rheumatism, and the fear that bugs would crawl in his ears made him restless. Mr. Stott, however, overcame his objections by assuring him that the ground was too dry to give any one rheumatism and he could provide himself with cotton against the other contingency.

The outlook for a successful trip from every viewpoint was most promising, yet there were moments when Wallie had his doubts and misgivings. He supposed that it was his experience in dry farming which had made him pessimistic concerning all untried ventures. Certainly it had destroyed his beautiful, childlike faith in the teaching that the hairs of his head were numbered and no harm could come to him. He had noticed that every one who ever had dry-farmed carried the scars afterward. It was an unforgetable experience, like a narrow escape from lynching.

Pinkey, on the contrary, had no somber thoughts to disturb him. He was filled with boundless enthusiasm; though this condition was chronic since he had become engaged to Miss Eyester. Pinkey, in love, was worse than useless. Escorting Miss Eyester was now his regular business, with dude wrangling reduced to a side issue. Therefore, it had devolved upon Wallie to buy teepees, extra bedding, food, and the thousand and one things necessary to comfort when camping.

It all had been accomplished finally, and the day came when the caravan was drawn up beside the Prouty House ready to start toward the Yellowstone.

A delighted populace blocked the sidewalk while they awaited the appearance of Miss Mercy Lane, who had arrived on a night train according to arrangement. The cavalcade if not imposing was at least arresting. No one could pass it yawning. There was no one who had come to see the party start who did not feel repaid for the effort.

First, there was Mr. Hicks, driving four horses and the “grub wagon” and leading the procession. He handled the lines with the noble bearing of the late Ben Hur tooling his chariot. Mr. Hicks dignified the “grub wagon” to such an extent that it was a treat to look at him.

Second in place was Pinkey, driving the tent and bed wagon, with Miss Eyester on the high spring seat beside him. Behind Pinkey came “Red” McGonnigle, driving a surrey provided for those who should become fatigued with riding horseback. The vehicle, like the stagecoach, was a bargain, sold cheaply by the original owner because of the weakness of the springs, which permitted the body to hit the axle when any amount of weight was put in it. This was a discovery they made after purchase. Aunt Lizzie Philbrick was the only passenger, though it was anticipated that Miss Mercy Lane would prefer to drive also, since she had had no previous riding to harden her.

Behind the surrey was the riding party, even more startling than when they had first burst upon Wallie in their beadwork and curio-store trappings. Mr. Stott was wearing a pair of “chaps” spotted like a pinto while Mr. Budlong, in flame-colored angora, at a little distance looked as if his legs were afire.

Their ponies peered out shamefacedly through brilliant, penitentiary-made, horsehair bridles, and old Mr. Penrose was the envy of everybody in a greasy, limp-brimmed Stetson he had bought from a freighter. Also he had acquired a pair of twenty-two-inch, “eagles-bill” tapideros. He looked like a mounted pirate, and, in his evil moments, after sleeping badly, he acted like one.

Every one was in high spirits and eager to get started. Mr. Stott surreptitiously spurred his horse to make him cavort more spiritedly before the spectators, and he responded in such a manner that the rising young attorney was obliged to cling with both hands to the saddle horn.

When he came back, slightly paler, Wallie said curtly: “You don't need spurs on that horse.”

“I'm the best judge of that,” Stott retorted.

Wallie said nothing further, for at the moment the crowd parted to permit the passing of the newcomer from Zanesville, Ohio.

As he saw her, he felt willing to renew his promise to Miss Gaskett not to fall in love with her. Wallie was a charitable soul, and chivalrous, but he could not but think that Miss Mercy must have changed greatly since she and Miss Gaskett were schoolgirls.

She wore a masculine hat with a quill in it and a woolen skirt that bagged at the knees like trousers. Her hair was thin at the temples, and she wore gold glasses astride her long, “foxy” nose. Although no average cake would have held the candles to which Miss Mercy's birthdays entitled her, she was given to “middy” blouses and pink sweaters.

“'Merce' has such a unique personality that I am sure you are going to enjoy her,” beamed Miss Gaskett in presenting Wallie.

Wallie murmured that he had no doubt of it, and boosted Miss Mercy into the surrey.

With nothing further to detain them, Mr. Hicks swung his lash and the four went off at a gallop, with the cooking utensils in the rear rattling so that it sounded like a runaway milk wagon.

He had been instructed to drive ahead end select a suitable place for the noon-day luncheon in order that everything should be in readiness upon their arrival, but to the others Wallie had suggested that they ride and drive more slowly to save the horses.

In spite of Wallie's request, however, Mr. Stott, seeing the cook getting ahead, started off at a gallop to overtake him. In no uncertain voice Wallie called to him.

“You will oblige me if you will ride more slowly,” Wallie said, speaking very distinctly when Mr. Stott came back to ask what was wanted.

“Why, what's the matter?”

His feigned innocence added to Wallie's anger.

“I don't want that horse ruined.”

“I am paying for him,” Stott returned insolently.

“I still own him, and it's my privilege to say how he shall be ridden.”

Stott dropped back sullenly, but Wallie foresaw trouble with him before the trip was finished, though he meant to hold his temper as long as possible.

In the surrey Red McGonnigle was putting forth his best efforts to entertain Aunt Lizzie and Miss Mercy, which he considered as much a part of his duties as driving.

A portion of the road was through a cañon, cut from the solid rock in places, with narrow turnouts, and a precipitous descent of hundreds of feet to a sinister-looking green river roaring in the bottom.

“Now, here,” said Mr. McGonnigle, as they entered it, lolling back in the seat and crossing his legs in leisurely fashion, “is where there's been all kinds of accee-dents.” He pointed with the stub of a buggy whip. “About there is where four horses on a coal wagon run away and went over. Two was killed and one was crippled so they had to shoot it.”

“Oh, how dreadful!” Aunt Lizzie exclaimed nervously.

Miss Mercy's contralto voice boomed at him:

“What happened to the driver?”

“His bones was broke in a couple of dozen places, but they picked him up, and sence, he has growed together.”

Miss Mercy snickered appreciatively.

“You see that p'int ahead of us? Onct a feller ridin' a bronc backed off there. They rolled two hundred feet together. Wonder it didn't kill 'em.”

Aunt Lizzie was twisting her fingers and whispering:

“Oh, how dread-ful!”

“Jest around that bend,” went on the entertainer, expectorating with deliberation before he continued, “a buggy tried to pass a hay wagon. It was a brand-new buggy, cost all of two hundred and fifty dollars, and the first time the owner'd took his family out in it. Smashed it to kindlin' wood. The woman threw the baby overboard, and it never could see good out of one eye afterward. She caught on a tree when she was rollin' and broke four ribs, or some such matter. He'd ought to 'a' knowed better than to pass a hay wagon where it was sidlin'. I was one of his pallbearers, as an accommodation.”

Aunt Lizzie was beyond exclaiming and Miss Mercy's toes were curling and uncurling, though she preserved a composed exterior.

After setting the brake, McGonnigle went on humorously, gesticulating spaciously while the slack of the lines swung on the single tree:

“On this here hill the brake on a dude's auto-mo-bubbly quit on him. When he come to the turn he went on over. Ruined the car, plumb wrecked it, and it must 'a' cost fifteen hundred dollars to two thousand dollars. They shipped his corp' back East somewhere.”

Pale, and shaking like an aspen, Aunt Lizzie clung tightly to Miss Mercy. The scenery was sublime, but they had no eye for it. Their gaze was riveted upon the edge of the precipice some six or eight inches from the outer wheels of the surrey, and life at the moment looked as sweet as it seemed uncertain.

Driving with one hand and pointing with the other, McGonnigle went on with the fluency for which he was celebrated:

“That sharp curve we're comin' to is where they was a head-on collision between a chap on a motor cycle and a traction en-jine they was takin' through the cañon. He was goin' too fast anyhow—the motor cycle—and it jest splattered him, as you might say, all over the front of the en-jine.”

Mr. McGonnigle put the lines between his knees and gripped them while he readjusted his hat with one hand and pointed with the other:

“You see that hangin' rock? There where it sticks over? Well, sir, two cayuses tryin' to unload their packs bounced off there and fell—”

A shriek in his ear interrupted the gifted reconnoiteur at this juncture. He turned, startled, to see Aunt Lizzie with her fingers in her ears screaming that she was going to have hysterics. To prove that she was a woman of her word, she had them, while Mr. McGonnigle regarded her in astonishment.

“She's got a fit,” he said to Wallie, who had hurried forward.

“He's scared her out of her wits,” declared Miss Mercy, glaring at him.

“Me?”

“You! You're a careless driver. I don't believe you understand horses, and I shan't ride any farther with you.”

Red jammed the whip in its socket and wrapped the lines around it. Springing over the wheel he stood by the roadside and declared defiantly:

“I'm quittin'. Hate to leave you in a pinch, Gentle Annie, but I take sass from no female. I'd ruther herd sheep than wrangle dudes, anyhow. I tried to be entertainin,' and this is the thanks I git fer it.”

Wallie succeeded in pacifying Red finally and suggested that he and Pinkey exchange places. Pinkey consented reluctantly, and Red climbed upon the seat of the bed wagon with a dark look at the “female” who had questioned his knowledge of horses, while he mumbled something about “fixin' her.”

By ten-thirty food was the chief topic of conversation, and every one was keeping an eye out for Hicks and the “grub wagon.” At eleven the hilarity had simmered to monosyllables, and old Mr. Penrose, who always became incredibly cross when he was hungry, rode along with his face screwed up like a bad youngster that is being carried out of church for a spanking in the vestibule.

By eleven-thirty they were all complaining bitterly that the cook had been allowed to get so far ahead that they should all perish of hunger before they could overtake him. At twelve, the animals in a zoo just before feeding time had “nothing on” the Happy Family when it came to ferocity, but they brightened immediately as they finally caught a glimpse of Hick's camp fire, and grew almost cheerful when they saw him cutting bread on the lowered tailboard of the wagon, where the lunch was waiting for them. The spot he had selected could not truthfully be called ideal, viewed from any angle. There was no shade, and the sand, sizzling hot, reflected the glare of the midday sun as painfully as a mirror.

The “dudes” dismounted stiffly and stood at a distance, sniffing the bubbling coffee and watching the cook slice ham with a knife that had a blade like the sword of a crusader. Mr. Hicks had an alert, suspicious manner as if he feared that some one would jump forward and snatch something before he had given the signal.

When the operation of bread slicing was completed, Mr. Hicks stuck the point of the knife in the tailboard and, gripping the handle, struck a pose like that of the elder Salvini, while in a sonorous voice he enumerated the delicacies he had to offer. It sounded like a roll call, and his tone was so imperative that almost one expected the pickles and cheese to answer—“present.”

“Come and get it!” he finished abruptly, and retired to sit down under a sagebrush as if he were disgusted with food and people who ate it. There Wallie joined him and from the vantage point watched his guests eat their first meal in the open.

if there was one thing upon which the Happy Family had prided itself more than another it was upon its punctilious observance of the amenities. There were those among the “newcomers” who averred that they carried their elaborate politeness to a point which made them ridiculous. For example, when two or more met at the door of the elevator they had been known to stand for a full minute urging precedence upon the other, and no gentleman, however bald or susceptible to drafts, would converse with a lady with his head covered.

Now, Wallie felt that his eyes must have deceived him when Mr. Budlong prodded Miss Eyester in the ribs with his elbow in his eagerness to get in ahead of her, while old Mr. Penrose reached a long arm over Aunt Lizzie Philbrick's shoulder and took away a piece of apple pie upon which she already had closed her fingers.

Mr. Stott with his usual enterprise and shrewdness had gotten next to the tailboard where he stood munching and reviewing the food. with an eye to his next selection. He was astonished to see Miss Mercy's alpine hat rising, as it were, from the earth at his feet to crowd him from his desirable position. As she stood up she jabbed him in the nostril with the quill and Mr. Stott gave ground before he realized it. Miss Mercy snickered in appreciation of her own cleverness; as well she might, for she had crawled under the wagon and came up exactly where she meant to.

Aunt Lizzie, to whom accidents of an unusual nature seemed always to be happening, wandered off with a wedge of pie and a cup of coffee and sat down on an ant hill.

While she sipped her coffee and drank in the scenery simultaneously, the inhabitants of the hill came out in swarms to investigate the monster who was destroying their home. They attacked her with the ferocity for which red ants are noted, and she dropped her pie and coffee and ran screaming to the wagon.

Fearful that she would be pursued by them, she got into the surrey where she became involved in a quarrel with Miss Mercy, who was eating her lunch there. Miss Mercy caught a butterfly that lighted on a seat cover and pulled off first one wing and then the other in spite of Aunt Lizzie's entreaties. She dropped it on the bottom of the surrey and put her astonishing foot upon it.

“There,” she snickered, “I squashed it.”

Aunt Lizzie, to whom anything alive was as if it were human, wrung her hands in anguish.

“I think you are horrid!”

“What good is it?”

“What good are you, either? I shan't ride with you.” Aunt Lizzie climbed into the third seat of the surrey, where she refused to answer Miss Mercy when she spoke to her.

The rest and food freshened the party considerably, but by four o'clock they were again hungry and drooping in their saddles. Only Mr. Stott, endowed, as it seemed, with the infinite wisdom of the Almighty, retained his spirits and kept up an unending flow of instructive conversation upon topics of which he had the barest smattering of knowledge. Constantly dashing off to investigate gulches and side trails, Wallie's smoldering wrath burned brighter, as the buckskin hourly grew more jaded.

Complaints increased that their horses were hard-gaited, and the voices of the ladies held plaintive notes as they declared their intention of riding in the surrey when they overtook it. Pinkey was stopped finally, and his passengers augmented by the addition of Mrs. Stott, Miss Gaskett, and Mrs. Budlong, who carefully folded their jackets to sit on.

At five o'clock Mr. Stott raced forward and returned to announce that Hicks had camped just around the bend of the river.

“You're wearing that horse out, Stott,” said Wallie coldly.

“He's feeling good—watch him!” cried the lawyer gayly, putting spurs to the horse and disappearing.

It was a beautiful camping spot that Hicks had selected, though Red McGonnigle grumbled that it was not level enough for the teepees.

Old Mr. Penrose, who had fallen off his horse rather than dismounted, declared he was so tired that he could sleep on the teeth of a harrow, like a babe in its cradle.

“We'll be all right when we get seasoned,” said Mr. Appel cheerfully, hunting in his wife's hand bag for the vaseline.

“You couldn't have a better place to start in at,” Red commented grimly.

On the whole, the day might be regarded as a pleasant one, and if the remainder of the trip equaled it, there was no doubt but that the party would return satisfied, which meant that they would advertise it and the next season would be even more successful.

Every one carried wood to build a camp fire after supper, but by the time they had it going they were too sleepy to sit up and enjoy it. They stumbled away to their several teepees with their eyes half closed, and for the first time since they had known each other failed to say “pleasant dreams” when separating for the night.

Mr. Stott lingered to regale Pinkey and Wallie for the fourteenth time with the story of the hoot owl which had frightened him while hunting in Florida, but since it was received without much enthusiasm and he was not encouraged to tell another, he, too, retired to crawl between his blankets and “sleep on Nature's bosom” with most of his clothes on.

“I wouldn't wonder but that we'll have to hit him between the horns before the trip is over,” Pinkey remarked, looking after Stott.

Wallie said nothing, but his face spoke for him.

Pinkey continued in a tone of satisfaction:

“Outside of him, everything's goin' splendid. The Yellowstone Park is the fightin'est place anybody ever heard of. I've seen lifetime friends go in there campin' and come out enemies—each one sittin' on his own grub box and not speakin', But it don't look as if we was goin' to have any serious trouble—they're nice people.”

“And they think the world of me,” Wallie reiterated.

“I've been thinkin' I could lose the horses for two or three days and that would count up considerable. Ten dudes at five dollars a day for three days, say. Oh, we're sittin' pretty! We'll come out of this with a roll as big as a gambler's.”

“it looks encouraging,” Wallie replied more guardedly, though in his heart he was sharing Pinkey's optimism.

They kicked out the camp fire and rolled up in their respective blankets, Pinkey to die temporarily, and Wallie to lie awake listening to the roar of the river and speculating as to whether Helene Spenceley had any special prejudice against the dude business.

Of course, he admitted, had he a choice in the matter, he would have preferred to have been an ambassador, or a lawyer of international reputation, or even a great artist; but for a start, as the foundation of a fortune, dudes were at least as good as herring.

CHAPTER XXII.

Rifts.

Before the birds had taken their heads from under their wings, Miss Mercy Lane was up and crashing through the brambles on a hunt for Red McGonnigle. The dew on the petals of the wild rose, the opaline tints of a sweet-scented dawn meant nothing to that lady as, without a collar, her shirt waist wrongly buttoned, her hair twisted into a hard “Psyche” knot, she searched for her enemy.

Pinkey she found without difficulty; also Mr. Hicks, who, awakened by the feeling that some one was looking at him, sat up and in a scandalized tone told her to go right away from him. Red McGonnigle, however, whether by accident or premeditation, had repaired with his blankets to a bed ground were the Almighty could not have found him with a spyglass. In consequence Wallie was awakened suddenly by the booming voice of Miss Mercy demanding to know Red's whereabouts.

Her lids were puffed as if she had not closed them, and through the slits her eyes gleamed at him. She looked so altogether formidable as she stood over him that his first impulse was to duck his head under the covers. Since it was manifestly impossible for Wallie to get to his feet as politeness demanded, and it seemed ridiculous to sit up in bed and converse with a lady he knew so slightly, it appeared that the best thing to do in the circumstances was to remain as he was.

Aiming her finger at him, Miss Mercy declared that deliberately, willfully, maliciously, Red McGonnigle had set her tent on a hump. More than that, he had cut down an alder, leaving some three or four sharp prongs over which he had spread her blankets. She would have been as comfortable on the teeth of a hayrake and had not even dozed in consequence. With her own ears she had heard Red McGonnigle threaten to “fix” her, and he had done it. If he was not discharged she would return to Prouty at the first opportunity.

Wallie argued vainly that it was an accident, that Red was altogether too chivalrous to take such a low-down revenge upon a lady, and explained that, in any event, it would be impossible to dispense with his services at this juncture. He declared that he regretted the matter deeply and promised to prevent a reoccurrence.

But Miss Mercy was adamant, and intimated that Wallie was in sympathy with his hireling if not in actual “cahoots” with him. She flung at him as she departed:

“I intend to ask a ride back to Prouty from the first passer-by, and I shall knock you and your ranch at every opportunity!”

She returned to her tepee to complete her toilet while Wallie took his boots from under his pillow and drew them on glumly, feeling that much of the joy had been taken from what promised to be a perfect morning.

Mr. Hicks, too, started breakfast in a mood that was clearly melancholy for, as he rattled the pots and pans, Wallie heard him reciting:

“And when my time comes, let me go—not like the galley slave at night scourged to his dungeon—but like one sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust——” He stopped suddenly, and then in a voice that chilled Wallie's blood he shouted:

“Jump-ing Je-hoshophat! Git out o' that grub box!”

He had caught Mrs. Budlong in the act of spreading jam on a cracker.

“How dare you speak so to me?” she demanded indignantly.

For answer, Mr. Hicks replied briefly:

“You ought to know by this time that I don't allow dudes snooping around when I'm cooking.”

“You are insulting—I shall report you.”

Mr. Hicks laughed mockingly:

“You do that and see what it gets you.”

The cook knew his power quite evidently, for when Mrs. Budlong carried out her threat Wallie could only reply that he dared not antagonize Hicks, since to replace him would cause delay, inconvenience, and additional expense to everybody.

Mrs. Budlong rested all her chins upon her cameo breastpin and received the explanation coldly.

“Verra well,” she said incisively, “verra, verra well! I shall buy jam and crackers at the first station, Mr. MacPherson, and carry them with me,” and she went to report the controversy to her husband.

When they had bathed their faces and hands in the river, the evening before, some one had referred to it poetically as “Nature's washbasin.” Wallie, seeing Mrs. Appel with her soap and towel on the way to “Nature's washbasin,” was inspired by some evil spirit to inquire how she had rested.

“Rested!” she hissed at him. “Who could rest, to say nothing of sleeping, within six blocks of Mr, Penrose? A man who snores as he does should not be permitted to have his tent among human beings. If it is ever placed near mine again, Wallie, I shall insist upon having it removed if it is midnight. Knowing the trouble he has had everywhere, I am surprised at your not being more considerate.”

“To-night I will attend to it. I regret very much——” Wallie mumbled.

Mrs. J. Harry Stott beckoned him aside as breakfast was being placed on the table.

Mrs. Stott had a carefully cultivated mispronunciation of great elegance, when she wished to be impressive, and as soon as she began Wallie realized that something portentous was about to be imparted to him.

“You will excuse me if I speak frankly?”

Wallie gulped, wondering fearfully what she knew and how much.

She went on in a voice which seemed to have hoarfrost on it:

“But the fact is, I am not in the habit of eating with the help.”

Wallie felt relief surge over him. His face cleared and he laughed light-heartedly.

“I know that, of course, Mrs. Stott, but out here it is different. Camping is particularly democratic. It has never occurred to Red or Hicks that they are not welcome at the table, and I fear that they would be greatly offended if I should suggest——”

Mrs. Stott drew herself up haughtily.

“That is no concern of mine, Wallie. It is a matter of principle with me to keep servants in their places. You can adjust the matter to suit yourself, but I ab-so-lute-ly refuse to sit cheek by jowl with the cook and McGonnigle!”

Wallie grew solemn, as well he might, for along with the tact of a diplomat to a Balkan state it required the courage of a lion to convey the information to one of Hicks' violent disposition that he was not fit to sit at table with the wife of the rising young attorney.

It weighed on his mind through breakfast, and he was not made more comfortable by the fact that Red, stimulated to effervescence by so large an audience, tossed off his bon-mots in a steady stream, unconscious that his wit was not a treat to all who heard him and that his presence was regarded as anything but highly desirable, while Mr. Hicks brought his tin plate and, by chance purely, elbowed himself a place beside Mrs. Stott with the greatest assurance.

Wallie decided to postpone the delicate task of dropping a hint to Mr. Hicks until later in the day, as he had plenty to engage his attention with Miss Mercy's departure confronting him.

Red denied the crime with which he was charged, with a face of preternatural innocence, declaring that he was shocked that any one should attribute to him such a heinous offense as purposely leaving four sharp alder prongs under a lady's blankets. Nobody—bar none—had a greater respect for the sex than Red McGonnigle!

But Miss Mercy was not to be pacified by apologies, however abject, or explanations, however convincing. Implacable, and maintaining a haughty silence, she packed her suit case and put an outing-flannel nightgown—with a nap so long that it looked like a fur garment—in a fish-net bag. Having made stiff adieus to the party, she went and sat down on a rock by the roadside to await some passer-by who would take her to Prouty.

She quite enjoyed herself for a time, thinking what a strong character she was, and how independent. A weaker woman would have allowed herself to be persuaded to overlook the incident, but she was of different metal. For nearly an hour this thought gave her great satisfaction, but, gradually, the monotony began to pall and she had a growing feeling of resentment that nobody missed her.

The occasional bursts of laughter that reached her were like personal affronts and, finally, she included everybody in her indignation at Red McGonnigle. But, as the time dragged, her mood changed perceptibly. Though she would not admit it in her secret heart, she wished that some one would come and coax her to reconsider, From this stage, while the tents were being dismantled and packed into the bed wagon accompanied by much merriment, she came to a point where she tried to think of some excuse that would enable her to return without seeming to make any concession.

As it happened, the only person who gave Miss Mercy any thought as she waited forlornly by the roadside, was Aunt Lizzie Philbrick. Although she and Miss Mercy had not been speaking since the episode of the butterfly, her tender conscience was troubled that she had not said good-by to her. The more she thought about it the more strongly it urged her to be forgiving and magnanimous to the extent of wishing Miss Mercy a pleasant journey.

With this purpose in view, Aunt Lizzie left the others and started for the roadside. If she had not been otherwise engaged at the moment, Miss Mercy might have seen Aunt Lizzie's white sailor hat bobbing above the intervening bushes, but she was intent on learning the cause of a rustling she had heard in the leaves behind her. It was a snake, undoubtedly, and it flashed through Miss Mercy's mind that here was her opportunity not only to return to camp, but to go back a heroine.

She set her fish-net bag on the stump she vacated and provided herself with a cudgel before starting to investigate. Advancing cautiously, she saw a bunch of tall grass wave in a suspicious manner. She smote the clump with her cudgel, and a large, warty toad jumped out into the open. It was stunned, and stood blinking as if trying to locate the danger.

“Nasty thing!” exclaimed Miss Mercy viciously, and raised her club to finish it.

The blow landed, and Miss Mercy and the toad saw stars simultaneously, for Aunt Lizzie brought down a four-foot stick and crushed in the crown of Miss Mercy's alpine hat.

“You dread-ful woman!” Aunt Lizzie shrieked at her, and it was her purpose to strike again but the stick was rotten, and since only some six inches remained in her hand, she had to content herself with crying:

“You horrible creature! 'Shady' Lane—you belong in an asylum!”

Since Miss Mercy had been told this before, she resented it doubly, and no one can say what else might have happened if Wallie, hearing the disturbance, had not hurried forward to discover what was occurring.

“She was killing a hop-toad!” Aunt Lizzie screamed hysterically. Then her legs collapsed, while Miss Mercy boomed that, if she did, it was none of Aunt Lizzie's business—it was not her hop-toad.

The astounding news passed from mouth to mouth that Aunt Lizzie and Miss Mercy had been fighting in the brush with clubs, like amazons, and every one rushed forward to view the combatants and to learn the details. But the chugging of a motor sent Miss Mercy into the middle of the road to flag it before they could hear her side of the story.

It proved to be no less a person than Rufus Reed, who was transporting provisions on a truck between Prouty and a road camp in the park. Rufus welcomed company and intimated that his only wonder was that they were not all leaving. Miss Mercy clambered up beside Rufus and, without looking back, started on her return journey to Zanesville, Ohio, to soothe the brow of the suffering and minister to the wants of the dying in her professional capacity as a trained nurse.

Pinkey somberly looked after the cloud of dust in which Rufus and the Angel of Mercy vanished::

“That's one chicken we counted before it was hatched,” he observed regretfully to Wallie.

The scenery was sublime that morning and the party were in ecstasies, but mere mountains, waterfalls, and gorges could not divert Wallie's mind from the disquieting fact that he must somehow convey the information to Mr. Hicks that his presence at table with the guests was undesirable.

As he rode, he framed tactful sentences in which to break the news to that formidable person, and he had finally a complete and carefully prepared speech which he meant to deliver in a friendly but firm manner. The result he could only guess at. The only thing that Wallie could not imagine was a calm acquiescence. It would be easier to replace Mr. Hicks, however, than to acquire a new party of dudes at this late season, so Wallie nerved himself to the ordeal.

The passengers who preferred to ride in the surrey had now increased to a number which made it necessary for them to sit in each other's laps, and it devolved upon Wallie to drive their horses. Herding loose horses is sometimes a task to strain the temper, and these were that kind of horses, so that by the time the party reached the noon-day camp Wallie was in a more fitting mood to confront Mr. Hicks than when they had started.

The cook was busy over the camp fire when Wallie determined to speak and have it over.

“Don't let him tree you or run you into the river,” Pinkey, who knew Wallie's purpose, warned him jocosely.

As Wallie drew nearer, through the smoke and steam rising from various cooking utensils, he noted that Mr. Hicks' expression was particularly melancholy and his color indicated that a large amount of bile had accumulated in his system. There was something tragic in the very way he stirred the frying potatoes, and as Wallie hesitated Flicks set his fists on his hips and recited in a voice vibrating with feeling:

It did not seem a propitious moment to “put Mr. Hicks in his place,” as Mrs. Stott had phrased it, but Wallie had no desire to nerve himself twice for the same ordeal. With something of the desperate courage which comes to high-strung persons about to have a tooth extracted, Wallie advanced and inquired cordially:

“Well, Mr. Hicks, how are things coming?”

“I am not complaining,” replied Mr. Hicks in a tone which intimated that, once he started enumerating his grievances, he would not know where to finish.

“Pleasant people, aren't they?” Wallie suggested,

“So is a menagerie—after it's eaten.”

“They do have appetites,” Wallie admitted. “I suppose it's living in the open.”

“I've cooked for section hands on the Burlington, and they were canary birds beside these Poland Chinas. We had ought to brought troughs instead of tinware.”

“You mustn't speak so of our guests,” Wallie reprimanded.

Hicks went on wrathfully:

“That fat sister in the cameo breastpin—she swiped a can of potted chicken on me yesterday. if she was a man I'd work her over for that—she's a regular 'camp robber.'”

Wallie interposed hastily::

“We musin't have any trouble. I want to get through this trip peaceably. In fact, Mr. Hicks, it's along this line that I wished to have a word with you.”

Mr. Hicks looked at him suspiciously.

“Has any of 'em been kickin' on me?”

“Not kicking, I wouldn't say kicking, Mr. Hicks, but—well, I have been thinking that it might be pleasanter for you and Red to have your own table.”

Mr. Hicks stopped turning over the potatoes and looked at him for what seemed to Wallie a full minute.

“In other words,” he said finally, in a voice that was oily and coaxing, as if he wanted the truth from him, “the dudes don't want the cook and the horse wrangler to eat with them?”

Wallie noticed uneasily that while Hicks spoke he was tentatively feeling the edge of the knife he had been using. Instinctively Wallie's eyes sought a route of exit, as he replied conciliatingly:

“No reflection upon you and Red is intended, Mr. Hicks; it is just that Eastern people have different customs, and we have to humor them, although we may not agree with them.”

There was another silence, in which Hicks continued to thumb the knife in a manner that kept Wallie at a tension, then he said with a suavity which somehow was more menacing than an outburst:

“Perhaps it would be better for us rough-necks to eat at the second table. It hadn't occurred to me that our society might not be agreeable to ladies and gentlemen. I'm glad you mentioned it.”

Hicks seemed actually to pur. His tone was caressing—like the velvet touch of a tiger—and his humble acceptance of the situation was so unnatural that Wallie felt himself shiver with apprehension. Was he capable of putting ground glass in the sugar, he wondered, or dropping a spider in something?

Red was plainly disgruntled when he found himself, as it were, segregated, and he sulked openly. Hicks, on the contrary, was so urbane and respectful that every one remarked his changed manner, and Mrs. Stott triumphantly demanded to know if it were not proof of her contention that servants were the better for being occasionally reminded of their position.

“I am not a snob,” she observed, “but common people really spoil my appetite when I am obliged to eat with them.”

Wallie, however, could not share her elation, for there was that in Mr. Hicks' eye whenever he met it which renewed his uneasy forebodings as to ground glass and spiders.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Hicks the Humble.

The remarkable change in Mr. Hicks' manner continued the next morning. It was so radical that no one could fail to observe it and the comments were frequent, while Mrs. Stott crowed openly.

From haughty independence he had become so anxious to please that he was almost servile, and his manner toward the wife of the rising young attorney particularly was that of a humble retainer fawning at the feet of royalty. During breakfast he stood at a respectful distance, speaking only when spoken to, and jumping to serve them.

This attitude quickly dissipated the fear which he had inspired in the Happy Family, and by noon they were not only calling him “Hicks” but “Ellery.” Then, this stage of familiarity having been passed in safety, Mr. Stott humorously dubbed him “Cookie,” and the name was adopted by every one.

Mrs. Budlong ventured to complain that there was too much shortening in the biscuit. This was a real test of the sincerity of his reformation since, if such a thing were possible, he had been even more “touchy” upon the subject of his cooking than his dignity. No one could doubt but that the change was genuine when he not only received the criticism meekly, but actually thanked her for calling his attention to it.

Thus encouraged, Mr. Appel declared that he wished he would not fry the ham to chips and boil the “daylights” out of the coffee. Mr. Hicks bowed servilely and replied that he would try to remember in future. Mrs. Stott took occasion to remark that his vegetables would be better for less seasoning and more cooking, and Miss Gaskett thought his dried fruit would be improved by soaking overnight and additional sweetening.

Mr. Hicks received these criticisms in a humility that was pathetic when compared with his former arrogance. He looked crushed as he stood with bowed head and drooping shoulders as if his proud, untrammeled spirit had been suddenly broken.

Miss Eyester felt sorry for him and asserted that she could not recall when she had enjoyed food so much and eaten so heartily.

Mr. Stott, however, who was in one of his waggish moods, undid all that she might have accomplished in the way of soothing Hicks' injured feelings, by inquiring facetiously if he would mind rolling him out a couple of pie crusts to be tanned and made into bedroom slippers? Mr. Hicks laughed heartily along with the others, and only Wallie, perhaps, caught the murderous glitter through his downcast lashes.

It developed that the Yellowstone Park was a place with which Hicks was thoroughly familiar from having made several trips around the Circle in his professional capacity. He was not only acquainted with points of interest off the beaten track passed unseen by the average tourist, but he suggested many original and diverting sports.

By the time the party had reached the Lake Hotel they were consulting him like a Baedecker and every question, however foolish, he answered with a patience and affability that was most praiseworthy. Their manner toward him was a kind of patronizing cameraderie, while Mrs. Stott treated him with the gracious tolerance of a great lady unbending.

A disbelief in the ability of the leopard to change its spots made Wallie skeptical regarding Hicks' altered disposition, yet he did his best to convince himself that he was wrong when Hicks went out and caught a trout from the Yellowstone Lake expressly for Mrs. Stott's supper. It was a beautiful fish as it lay on the platter, brown, crisp, and ornamented with lemon. Mr. Hicks offered it much as the head of John the Baptist might have been brought to Salome.

“Thank you, Hicks,” said Mrs. Stott kindly.

“I hope you'll like it, ma'am,” he murmured humbly.

The mark of favor seemed to bear out Mrs. Stott's contention that inferiors should not be treated as equals in any circumstances. Now, with her fork in the fish, Mrs. Stott looked around the table and inquired graciously if she might not divide it with some one?

Every one politely declined except Mrs. Budlong who looked at it so wistfully that Mrs. Stott lost no time in transferring it to her own plate. She ate with gusto and declared after tasting it:

“It is delicious, simply delicious! I never remember eating another with quite the same delicate flavor. I presume,” addressing herself to Mr. Hicks who was standing with arms akimbo enjoying her enjoying of it, “It is due to something in the water?”

“I presume so,” he replied respectfully, and added: “The trout in the Yellowstone Lake are said to be very nourishing.”

It was natural that Mrs. Stott should feel a little flattered by this evidence of partiality even from a menial, also she noticed that Mrs. Budlong was following each mouthful with the eyes of a hungry bird dog so she could not refrain from saying further:

“It is such a delightful change from ham and bacon. I am not sure,” she averred laughingly, “that I shall not eat the head and fins, even.”

“I wish I was in such favor,” Mrs. Budlong declared enviously.

“Never mind, Honey Dumplin', I shall go out after supper and catch your breakfast,” said Mr. Budlong.

“You ought to get a boat load,” Hicks added quickly, “if you find the right place.”

“I saw them jumping by the million where I was walking before supper.” Mr. Appel volunteered to conduct Mr. Budlong to the spot as soon as they were finished eating.

Every one who had fishing tackle decided to avail himself of this wonderful opportunity, and they all followed Mr. Appel except Mr. and Mrs. Stott, who preferred to fish by themselves from the bridge over the Yellowstone River. They were the last to leave but returned in not more than twenty minutes, Mr. Stott supporting his wife in what seemed to be a fainting condition.

Wallie hastened forward to lend his assistance if necessary.

“Is she ill?” he inquired solicitously.

“Ill! She is sick at her stomach, and no wonder!” He was plainly angry and appeared to direct his wrath at Wallie.

While Wallie wondered, it did not seem a propitious moment to ask questions, and he would have turned away had Mr. Stott not said peremptorily:

“Wait a minute. I want to speak to you.”

Having laid Mrs. Stott, who was shuddering, on her blankets and administered a few drops of aromatic spirits of ammonia, he dropped the flap of her teepee and beckoned Wallie curtly:

“You come with me.”

Wallie could not do else than follow him, his wonder growing as he led the way to the camp kitchen where Mr. Hicks was engaged at the moment in the task which he referred to as “pearl diving.”

He did not appear surprised to see them in his domain, on the contrary, he seemed rather to be expecting them, for immediately he took his hands out of the dish water, wiped them on the corner of his apron, and, reaching for a convenient stick of stove wood, laid it on the corner of the table with a certain significance in the action.

“Make yourself to home, gents,” he said hospitably, indicating the wagon tongue and a cracker box for seats respectively. “Anything in particular I can do for you?” He looked at Mr. Stott guilelessly.

“You can answer me a few questions.” Mr. Stott fixed a sternly accusing eye upon him. “Hicks, was, or was not, that trout you gave my wife, wormy?”

Mr. Hicks, who seemed to relish the situation, pursed his lips and considered. Finally he asked in a tone which showed that he had pride in his legal knowledge:

“Will I or will I not incriminate myself by answering?”

“You probably will, if I'm correct in my suspicions. I want the truth.”

“Then,” replied Mr. Hicks, while his hand slipped carelessly to the stick of stove wood, “if you force the issue, I will say that I've seen a good many wormy trout come out of the Yellowstone, but that was the worst I ever met up with.”

Mr. Stott advanced belligerently.

“And you dare boast of it!”

“I'm not boasting. I'm just telling you,” replied Mr. Hicks calmly. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, that's my motto, and your wife thought I wasn't good enough to eat at the table with her.”

“You hear?” Stott turned to Wallie furiously. “He did it on purpose. I demand that you discharge this fellow!”

Mr. Hicks' fingers caressed the stove wood while he waited Wallie's answer.

Wallie squirmed between the two of them.

“It was reprehensible, Mr. Stott, I am more distressed than I can tell you. I have no excuse to offer for Hicks' action, but the truth is, as he knows and has taken advantage of it, I cannot replace him, and it is impossible to get along without a cook with so large a party.”

“You will, then, not discharge him?” Stott demanded.

“I am helpless,” Wallie reiterated.

Hicks grinned triumphantly.

“In that case,” Mr. Stott declared in a tone which implied that a tremendous upheaval of some kind would follow his decision, “my wife and I will leave your party and continue through the park by motor.”

Wallie felt that it was useless to argue with any one so determined, so he made no effort to persuade Mr. Stott to remain, though the deflection of two more persons was a serious matter to him and Pinkey.

Without waiting to say good-by to the others, the Stotts paid their bill and departed, walking so erect in their indignation as they started down the road toward the Lake Hotel, that they seemed to lean backward.

It was not yet dark when Mr. Stott, stepping briskly and carrying his Gladstone bag, raincoat, and umbrella in a jaunty manner, came into camp announcing breezily that he had decided, upon reflection, not to “bite off his nose to spite his face.” He declared that he would not let the likes of Ellery Hicks upset his plans for touring the Yellowstone and, while his wife refused to return, he meant to carry out his original intention.

But the real reason for Mr. Stott's decision, as Wallie suspected from the frequency with which he had discovered him sitting upon a log in secluded spots counting his money, was that the hotel rates and motor fare were far higher than he had anticipated.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Natural History.

Mrs. Stott's absence did not leave the gap which she had anticipated. In fact, after the first evening her name was never mentioned and Mr. Stott's marital ties rested so lightly upon him that a stranger would never have known they existed. He gravitated toward Miss Gaskett with a promptitude which gave rise to the suspicion that he had had his eye upon her, and Miss Gaskett responded so enthusiastically that it was a matter for gossip.

It was noted that she took to doing her hair up at night on “wavers” and used her lip stick with greater frequency, and, whereas she had vowed she meant never again to get in the saddle, she now rode with Mr. Stott daily.

The ladies who had known Miss Gaskett for twenty-five years and nothing to her discredit, were not prepared to say that she was a huzzy and a vampire without further evidence, but they admitted to each other privately that they always had felt there was something queer and not quite straightforward about Mattie.

Miss Gaskett, who looked like a returned missionary that had had a hard time of it carrying the light into the dark places, seemed rather elated than depressed at the aspersions cast upon her character, and by the time they reached the “Paint Pots” she was flaunting Mr. Stott shamelessly, calling him “Harry” before everybody, and in the evening sitting with him by the camp fire on the same saddle blanket.

At Mammoth Hot Springs Mrs. Budlong showed her disapproval by refusing to speak to Miss Gaskett and Miss Gaskett replied by putting on a peek-a-boo blouse that was a scandal.

But Mrs. Budlong herself was not in too high favor, since, to the sin of gluttony, she had added that of lying and been caught at it. It was a small matter, but, as Mrs. Appel declared indignantly, it is trifles that betray character, and Mrs. Budlong was treated with marked coldness by the ladies to whom she had prevaricated.

It was known beyond the question of a doubt that Mrs. Budlong had purchased food and kept it in her tepee. Therefore, when asked for something to ward off a faint feeling before dinner and she had denied having anything, they were outspoken in their resentment.

“There she stood and lied to our faces,” Mrs. Appel declared to her husband afterward, “while her mouth was shining. I could smell sardines on her, and a big cracker crumb was lying on her bosom. Indeed, it's a true saying they have in this country that to know people you must camp with them. I never would have thought that of Hannah Budlong!”

It was because of this incident, and the strained relations which resulted from her perfidy, that none of her erstwhile friends responded to her invitation to join her in a bath in a beaver dam of which Mr. Hicks told her when they camped early the next afternoon.

Mrs. Budlong's phlegmatic body contained an adventurous spirit, and the delights of a bath in a beaver dam in the heart of a primeval forest appealed to her strongly. To Mr. Hicks, who sought her out purposely to tell her about it, she confided:

“Hicks, underneath my worldly exterior, I am a child of nature. I love the simple, the primitive, I would live as a wild thing if I could choose my environment.”

Mr. Hicks nodded sympathetically and understandingly, and returned the confidence.

“I am convinced that I was a faun when the world was young. There are times when I feel the stirrings of my wild nature.”

Mrs. Budlong regarded him attentively. She never had thought of him as a faun, but now she noticed that his ears were peculiar.

Nobody could have been more obliging and interesting than Mr. Hicks as he guided her to the beaver dam and explained its construction. It had long since been abandoned by the industrious animals that had built it, but their work had been so well done that it was in as good condition as when they had left it.

There was nothing to fear from beavers, anyway, he assured her; he never had known a beaver to attack anybody. In this isolated spot she was as safe from intrusion as if she were in her own bathroom, and, after tramping down a spot in the brush for her to stand on, he went away declaring that he was sure she would have an experience she always would remember.

Left alone, Mrs. Budlong felt of the water. It was, as Hicks had said, even warmer than tepid from standing—an ideal temperature. The brush grew high around the pond formed by the back water and made a perfect shelter. No fear of prying eyes need disturb her.

Then a daring thought came to her which made her black eyes sparkle. Suppose she did not wear any bathing suit! What an adventure to relate to her intimate friends when she returned to Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania! It laid hold of her imaginative mind, and the result was that Mrs. Budlong hung her suit on a bush and went in as au naturelle as a potato!

She waded in cautiously, for the bottom was soft and oozy and there were little patches of green floating on the surface that she did not so much like the looks of. Otherwise conditions were perfect, and Mrs. Budlong submerged like a submarine when she reached the middle of it. She came up and stood looking at the sky above her, enjoying the feeling of the sunshine on her skin, and the soft, warm breeze that caressed her. She smiled at an interested blue jay, then submerged again, deeper, and the tide rose so that the water lapped bushes and pebbles that had not been wet all summer.

Her smile grew wider as she thought what the others were missing and was considering how much she dared embellish the adventure without being detected, when, suddenly, a look of horror came to her face and stayed there, while screams that sounded more like the screeches of a lynx or mountain lion than those of a human being scared the blue jay and brought those in camp up standing. Piercing, hair-raising, unnatural as they were, Mr. Budlong recognized them.

“My wife! Help! Murder! Hicks, where is she? Find a weapon and come with us!”

“I gotta get supper,” Hicks replied heartlessly.

Mr. Appel, Mr. Stott, and old Mr. Penrose dashed into their tents and dashed out carrying firearms that had been sealed by the park officials, as is customary, while Mr. Budlong in his frenzy snatched a pair of scissors from Miss Eyester and headed the posse which expected to pursue the murderer. He was not a murderer yet, however, for Mrs. Budlong's screams had not diminished in volume, although it was feared that worse than death might already have befallen her. Her shrieks guided them like a lighthouse siren, so they lost no time in taking wrong directions but, at that, it was a considerable distance, and Mr. Budlong, in spite of the agonized thoughts which goaded him forward, was so handicapped by his asthma that he gradually fell to the rear of the rescue party.

Mr. Stott was then in the lead, with Mr. Appel a close second until the latter, who was wearing bedroom slippers, stumped his toes against a rock with such force that he believed them broken. He dropped down immediately with the pain of it and sat weaving to and fro, clasping his foot agonizedly while the others passed him.

Mr. Stott called that help was arriving as he crashed through the brush in the vicinity of the beaver dam. To his astonishment Mrs. Budlong shrieked:

“Don't come!” and went on screaming. When he reached the pond he stopped short and stood there, where old Mr. Penrose joined him an instant later. Mr. Appel, alternately limping and hopping yet covering ground with surprising rapidity, reached them ahead of Mr. Budlong, who, staggering with exhaustion, huge drops on his pallid face, and wheezing like an old accordion, all but fainted when he saw the wife of his bosom.

Mrs. Budlong stood in the middle of the pool, with her well-upholstered back, wet and glistening, flecked with brown particles that resembled decayed vegetation.

“What's the matter, Honey Dumplin'?” cried Mr. Budlong, shocked and bewildered.

For answer, Mrs. Budlong screamed the harder.

“I know!” piped up Mr. Appel. “She's covered with leeches—bloodsuckers—and can't get 'em off. I got 'em once swimmin' in stagnant water.”

When he spoke he called attention to the fact of his presence and that of Mr. Stott and old Mr. Penrose. Instead of being grateful for the information, and for the assistance the others had expected to render, Mr. Budlong turned upon them all furiously:

“Get out of here, you 'PeepingToms' and spying libertines! Haven't you any shame about you?”

He raised the scissors so threateningly that, as soon as they recovered from their astonishment, they retreated, but, at that, their haste was not sufficient to appease an outraged husband. Mr. Budlong picked up a pebble and threw it with such a sure aim that it bounced between Mr. Stott's shoulder blades.

When he had picked off the bloodsuckers that were torturing Mrs. Budlong, the two returned to camp and lost no time in serving notice on Wallie that they were leaving by the first passing conveyance if they had to buy it.

Whether or not Mr. Hicks had known of the leeches was a matter for much discussion, and opinion was about equally divided as to his innocence. He disclaimed all knowledge of them, however, and went about with the air of one cruelly maligned.

His martyrlike pose was not convincing to Wallie, who could not rid himself of the suspicion that the incident had been planned, though Pinkey contended that he did not believe Hicks was “deep” enough to think of anything like that.

“Anyhow he's cost us three dudes,” said Wallie, which remark was sufficient to set Pinkey figuring with a stick.

“Three head of dudes at five dollars a day for—say—eleven days, is—say——”

“They're gone, and that's all there is to it. The thing for us to do is to see that no more leave,” Wallie interrupted practically.

“I'm not worryin' about them,” Pinkey replied confidently, “if we can jest hold that cook. We've got to humor him till we git through this trip, then after he's paid off I aim to work him over and leave him for somebody to drag out.”

But as if to make amends for the loss he had caused his employers, Hicks' manner grew even more saccharine and he redoubled his efforts to provide entertainment for their guests. By the time they arrived at the Canon Hotel Wallie was questioning his suspicions of Hicks and felt inclined to believe that he had been hasty in his judgment.

He was undoubtedly an asset, for the entire party hung on his words and relied upon him to see that they missed nothing of interest. Mr. Stott was indebted to him for an experience which relegated the Florida hoot owl to the background, though the thrill of the adventure was so intermingled with anguish that it was impossible to tell where one left off and the other began.

Sliding down the snow-covered side of a mountain in a frying pan was fraught with all the sensations Hicks had described when he recommended the sport, and some he had omitted. When they had reached the particular spot which he had suggested for the sport, in lieu of a frying pan, Hicks gave Mr. Stott a well-worn gold pan that he had found somewhere.

Starting at the top with all the party as spectators, Mr. Stott shot down the side like the proverbial bullet, but midway his whoops of ecstasy changed to cries of acute distress owing to the fact that the friction wore the pan through to the size of a dollar and Mr. Stott, unable to stop his unique toboggan or endure the torture longer, turned over and finished the trip on his stomach.

Mr. Stott's eyes often rested upon Hicks afterward with a questioning look in them, but the cook's solicitude had been so genuine that, cynical as his legal training had made him, he was obliged to think that it was purely an accident which might not happen one time in a million.

No point in the park had been anticipated more than the camp at the cañon where Mr. Hicks averred that the bears came in swarms to regale themselves upon the hotel garbage. Their tour thus far had been a disappointment in that the wild animals, with which they had been informed the park teemed, were nowhere in evidence. A deer had crossed the road ahead of them, and they had gazed at a band of elk through Mr. Penrose's field glasses, but otherwise they had seen nothing that they could not have seen in Pennsylvania.

Mr. Hicks' tales of the bears had aroused their interest to such a point that, as soon as the camp site was selected, they loaded their cameras and kodaks and set off immediately to get pictures while the light was favorable.

It chanced to be one of the days, however, when the bears had no taste for garbage and, although they waited until nearly supper time, not a bear put in its appearance. Mr. Penrose in particular was disappointed and vexed about it and, while it was unreasonable to hold Hicks in any. way accountable for their absence, he could not refrain from saying disagreeably:

“I think you have exaggerated this bear business, Hicks. I have no doubt that a bear or two may come down occasionally. I have the word of others for it. But as for droves of bears—swarms—I think you have overstated.”

“Perhaps I did enlarge a little, Mr. Penrose. Possibly I was overanxious to be interesting. I apologize sincerely if I have misled and disappointed you. I hope, however, that you will yet have the opportunity of seeing at least one before we leave here.”

“No such luck,” Mr. Penrose growled at him. “I haven't any idea that I'll see even the tracks. It's a good idea to cut in two everything you're told in this country, and then divide it.”

Mr. Penrose was so hard on Hicks that Mr. Appel interposed quickly:

“Do they ever come around at night, cookie?”

“So I have been informed,” Mr. Hicks replied conservatively.

Pinkey was about to say that bears traveled more by night than in daytime when Mr. Appel declared that he intended to sleep in the sleeping bag he had brought with him but which Mrs. Appel had not permitted him to use because she felt nervous alone, in her tepee. Mrs. Appel protested against Mr. Appel thus recklessly exposing himself to danger, but Mr. Appel was mulish in the matter.

“If, by chance, one should come into camp, I would have a good look at him. I may never have another such opportunity.”

So, after supper, Mr. Appel unrolled his sleeping bag and spread it on a level spot not far from the supply wagon. Then he kissed Mrs. Appel, who turned her cheek to him, and buttoned himself into the bag.

The talk of bears had made Aunt Lizzie Philbrick so nervous that, as an extra precaution, she pinned the flap of her tent down securely with a row of safety pins; and Mr. Stott not only slept in more of his clothes than usual, but put a pair of brass knuckles under his pillow.

These brass knuckles had been presented to Mr. Stott by a grateful client for whom he had obtained damages from a street railway company for injuries received through being ejected from a saloon six months prior to the date upon which he had fallen off the car step.

The night was a dark one, so dark, in fact, that old Mr. Penrose felt some little hesitation, when it came bedtime, over going off to sleep by himself in the brush where, owing to his unfortunate habit of snoring beyond anything human, they now placed his tepee.

There was not a glimmer of moonlight or starlight to guide him as he went stumbling and crashing through the brush to his rag residence. His thoughts were not so much of four-footed visitors as of footpads and the ease with which they could attack him and get away with his grandfather's watch he was wearing.

Out in the open, Mr. Appel was enjoying the novelty tremendously though he was a little too warm for comfort in his fleece-lined bag. Also, he found the silhouettes on the canvas tepees diverting. But after the last candle had been extinguished he called to his wife cheerily:

“Are you all right, dearie?”

Mrs. Appel was not to be so easily propitiated and did not answer, so he called again::

“This is great—simply great! I wish you were with me.”

Only Mr. Appel and his Maker knew that he screwed up his cheek and winked at the fabrication.

Sleep came quickly to the tired “sagebrushers,” and soon there was no sound save the distant tinkle of the bell on one of the horses and the faint rumble of Mr. Penrose's slumbers.

It was eleven o'clock or thereabouts and the clouds had rifted, letting through the starlight, when dark forms began to lumber from the surrounding woods and pad around the camp sniffing at various objects and breathing heavily.

There were bears of all sizes and ages, ranging from yearlings to grandfathers whose birthdays were lost in antiquity. Mr. Appel, who was a light sleeper and the first to discover them, would have sworn on a monument of Bibles that there were at least fifty of them—the size of mastodons. Palpitating in his sleeping bag in the midst of them, he may be excused for exaggeration, although, exactly, there were only eight of them.

The cold sweat broke out on Mr. Appel, and he thought that surely the thumping of his heart must attract their attention. He speculated as to whether the bear that first discovered him would disembowel him with one stroke of his mighty paw, and leave him, or would scrunch his head between his paws and sit down and eat on him?

But once the bears had located the supply wagon, they went about their business like trained burglars. Standing on their hind legs, they crowded about it, tearing open sacks, scattering food, tossing things hither and thither.

Their grunting and quarreling finally awakened Hicks and McGonnigle who started up in their blankets, yelling. Their whoops aroused everybody except old Mr. Penrose who was sleeping with his deaf ear uppermost and would not have heard a “Big Bertha.”

Mr. Stott slipped on his brass knuckles and stood with his head out of the tent opening, adding his shouts to those of Hicks and McGonnigle, who, by now, were hurling such missiles as they could lay their hands on. Instead of having hysterics as might have been expected, Aunt Lizzie Philbrick astonished herself and others by standing out in the open with her petticoat over her nightgown, prepared to give battle with the heel of her slipper to the first bear that attacked her.

It was not until Mr. Hicks got hold of two washbasins and used them as cymbals that the bears paid any attention. But this sound, added to the pandemonium of screaming women, finally frightened them. Scattering in all directions, they started back to the shadows.

Suddenly Mr. Appel let out such a cry as it seemed must not only split his throat, but rend the very heavens. Small wonder! A cinnamon bear, weighing in the neighborhood of eight hundred pounds, planted its left hind foot in the pit of his stomach as it went galloping away to the timber.

In the brush where Mr. Penrose had been sleeping tranquilly other things were happening. In the midst of his slumbers, a dream in which he thought he was being dragged to the fire like a calf for branding, came to him. The dream grew so real that it awakened him. He received a swift and unpleasant impression that he was moving, then he was startled to find that he was not only moving, but moving so rapidly that the canvas bottom of his tent was scraping on the rocks and brush over which it traveled.

Mr. Penrose was enraged instantly. At best he had little patience with practical jokers and none at all with one who had the impudence to awaken him. He called out angrily. The tent stopped moving and there was quiet.

Mr. Penrose, who had raised himself on his elbow, laid down and was about to begin where he had left off when his domicile resumed its journey. Now, thoroughly aroused, he sprang up and tore at the flap fastenings.

“This is going to stop right here!” he cried furiously. “I do not appreciate this odious Western humor. You have chosen the wrong person to play your jokes on!”

He reached for the jointed fish pole which was lying in its case in the bottom of the tent and stepped through the opening. A burly figure in a big overcoat stood in the deep shadow confronting him. Mr. Penrose was barefooted and his soles were tender, but he advanced far enough to bring the pole down with a thwack upon the head of the intruder.

“Woof! Woof!”

The answer raised his hair and galvanized his whiskers.

“Woof! Woof!”

A great paw fanned the air—he could feel the wind from it plainly as it reached out to cuff him—and the claws on the end of it tore the front of the flannel shirt in which he slept, to ribbons.

“Woof! Woof!” And then a roar that reverberated through the timber.

Mr. Penrose swore afterward that the hot breath of the brute was in his face, but the statement is open to question since at the first “woof!” he had started to fall into his tent backward.

No one dreamed of the adventure Mr. Penrose was having until he appeared among them with his shirt bosom in shreds and trembling like an aspen. In one hand he carried a sizable chunk of bacon.

“This,” he cried, brandishing it, “is what I found tied to my tepee!”

The explanation was obvious; some one had baited his tent for bear, and, since there was no way of obtaining evidence against the culprit, Mr. Penrose in his unreasoning rage accused everybody.

“Ever since I came, you have all had a pick on me!” He glared at them. “You needn't think you're so smart I haven't seen it.”

Every one was so surprised at the accusation that they could only stare speechless at him. With his white beard, his rags, and barefooted, Mr. Penrose looked like the Count of Monte Cristo telling the world what he was going to do to it as he added, waving the bacon:

“I'm going home to-morrow—to Delaware—back to my peach orchard! If any one of you ever say you know me—much less speak to me—I shall deny it. I'm done with the whole caboodle of you!”

The next morning he packed his bag and started down the road without saying good-by to any one.

CHAPTER XXV.

Special Messages.

The departure of the irate Penrose reduced the party to half its original number, and that was bad enough; but when, by lunch time, Mr. Appel had developed a soreness which led him to believe he was injured internally and should consult a physician, the situation became infinitely worse to Wallie and Pinkey.

As a matter of course they expected his wife to accompany him, but what they had not known was that Miss Gaskett had been put in Mrs. Appel's charge by her parents, and in the light of her indiscreet conduct with Mr. Stott it was deemed best that she should return with them.

It was a terrible disappointment to Miss Gaskett who cried bitterly and in an unguarded moment told her age, approximately, sobbing that it was preposterous that one of her years should not be permitted to finish a trip which she was so enjoying. But Mrs. Appel was obdurate, declaring that she did not care to take the responsibility of leaving her without a proper chaperon since Aunt Lizzie was too unworldly to be a safe guardian and Miss Eyester was herself unmarried.

Miss Gaskett was compelled to succumb to the argument, and the three were driven to the nearest hotel after luncheon, leaving Wallie and Pinkey with the sickening knowledge that now it was not possible to “break even” to say nothing of a profit. Every day they were out would put them in debt a little deeper, but they both were agreed they would finish the trip whatever happened.

The evening was a gloomy one as compared to others and, although they built a camp fire as usual, there was none of the customary gayety around it. Mr. Stott sat alone on his saddle blanket lost in meditation of a somber nature, and Pinkey and Miss Eyester whispered apart.

Wallie was in no mood for conversation, while Mr. Hicks with the delicacy which now marked his every action, smoked alone in the shadow, making no effort to intrude himself upon his betters. Even Red McGonnigle, reclining on his elbow staring into the embers, seemed pensive and disinclined to take advantage of the opportunity to hear his own voice which the silence gave him. So only Aunt Lizzie Philbrick remained to give life to the party, and Aunt Lizzie, while a woman of high principle and fine character, was admittedly not stimulating.

Aunt Lizzie had snow-white hair drawn lightly from her forehead and a corpselike pallor to match it. She could not possibly look any different in her coffin, because so far as appearances went she might have been dead for a decade. Her manner was helpless, her voice gentle and hesitating, while in repose she ordinarily gave the impression of being in a state of suspended animation.

But to-night she was strangely restless, her thin, white hands fluttered nervously, and she moved her camp chair so often that every one wondered silently what was the matter with her. Finally, during one of her frequent movings, she inadvertently set the leg of her camp chair in a hole and went over backward. Mr. Hicks, who bounded from the shadow, was the first to reach her, and every one was astonished to hear her outcry when he would have assisted her—quite as if he were a leper.

“Don't touch me!”

Every one felt rather sorry for Hicks when he returned to his seat crestfallen, while Aunt Lizzie went off at a stiff-legged rot to her tepee without saying good night to anybody.

When some extraordinary accident was no befalling Aunt Lizzie, who seemed the essence of mediocrity, she was always doing the unexpected. So little was thought of it after the first surprise at her rudeness, and the others shortly said good night and retired also.

Wallie stood alone by the dying camp fire pondering what the morrow might hold for him—wondering if any bad luck could come that had not already happened. If so, he could not imagine it, for it seemed he had run the gamut of misfortune. In this he was mistaken for when they stopped at noon, the next day, he received a blow from the last quarter he had expected—Aunt Lizzie.

The day had not begun too auspiciously, for, when something like two miles on their journey, Mr. Stott remembered that he had left his soap on a rock and, since it was expensive soap, felt he must return for it. He had galloped the distance and back again, joining the party with his horse sweating, and Wallie had warned him curtly that the day promised to be a hot one and he must ride slowly.

“Please do not get ahead of the grub wagon,” Wallie had said with emphasis.

Mr. Stott had done as he requested just so long as it suited him, and then, passing Wallie with a little laugh of defiance, had raced to lead the procession. In consequence, when Hicks pulled to the roadside for lunch somewhat earlier than usual, Mr. Stott did not know it and continued riding.

The heat was terrific and animals and humans suffered alike while the gypsum dust which rose in clouds added to the discomfort. Gnats and mosquitoes, deer flies and “no-see-'ems” attacked in clouds and as viciously as if they had double rows of teeth and rapiers. It was the most unpleasant day they had encountered; every one's nerves were on edge, and there has been more gayety in a mourner's carriage than in the surrey where Red tried vainly to interest Aunt Lizzie.

Wallie was too angry with Mr. Stott to care for luncheon, so after a bite he betook himself to the shade of a tree, and sat down to smoke, with his back against it.

He was thinking of the buckskin and how jaded it had looked that morning and wondering if its already stiffened shoulders would get over it if he pulled off its shoes and turned it into a soft pasture. His speculations were interrupted by Aunt Lizzie who stood before him twisting her fingers in embarrassment.

A peerless beauty could not have passed unscathed through such a morning, but the havoc it had wrought in Aunt Lizzie's looks was nothing short of startling.

Her lids were inflamed and swollen from the bites of the “no-see-'ems,” her nose was red and her eyes watered from the gypsum dust which affected her like hay fever; her sailor hat had slipped to the back of her head and her “scolding locks” were hanging like a fringe over a soiled linen collar.

“I have something—very awkward—to say to you, Wallie.”

The harried expression which was becoming chronic leaped into his eyes at the introduction, and the furrow that was deep enough to have been plowed there, appeared between his brows as he asked himself what now might be portending.

“It's rather indelicate to discuss with a gentleman,” she continued, braiding her fingers.

Wallie was alarmed but, anxious to set her at her ease, he said encouragingly:

“You can talk as freely to me as if I were your—father.”

“I fear that I shall have to leave you, Wallie, as soon as possible.”

Wallie's wonder grew, but he said nothing.

“I think—I fear—I believe,” she stammered, “that Mr. Hicks is of a very ardent temperament.”

Wallie could not have spoken now had he wanted to.

“Since yesterday I have found him looking at me frequently in a peculiar manner. Last night he stared at me with his burning eyes until I could feel his hypnotic influence. I hope—I trust you will believe I have not given him any encouragement?”

Wallie's jaw, which had dropped to the point of dislocation, prevented him from reassuring her that he believed her blameless.

“So far, the tongue of scandal has never laid hands on me,” she declared, “but I feel that it is a risk I should not take to travel about the country with a passel of men and only an unmarried woman in the party.”

Wallie managed to mumble: “You are as safe here as if you were in a nunnery, Aunt Lizzie.”

It would have seemed from her expression that she preferred not to think so.

“You understand how I feel, don't you?” she pleaded.

“Perfectly! perfectly!” Wallie replied, too dazed to make any other answer. He would have been only a little less astounded if the old lady had announced her intention of opening a dance hall upon her return to Prouty.

Aunt Lizzie's desertion, and for such a reason, was the last thing he had anticipated. It seemed like the final straw laid upon a back already breaking. He watched her toddle away, and sat down again gloomily.

At the supply wagon, Mr. Hicks was putting the food away, commenting profanely upon the flies, the heat, the tardiness of Mr. Stott, the injustice of things in general, and in particular the sordid necessity which obliged him to occupy this humble position when he was so eminently fitted to fill a higher one.

He threw a stick at a “camp robber” that had flown down and taken a pick at a plate on a stump which contained the lunch he had saved for Mr. Stott, and his expression was so diabolic that it was the first time for many days that he had looked natural.

Red McGonnigle, with his hat over his face, dozed in the shade of the bed wagon. Aunt Lizzie busied herself with preparations for departure. Miss Eyester perused the testimonials for a patent medicine contained in a pamphlet left by previous campers. Insects droned, heat waves shimmered, the horses stood sleeping in their nose bags. It was a peaceful, noon-day scene, but MacPherson and Co., now sitting on their heels discussing their prospects, or lack of them, had no eye fer it.

One thought was uppermost, their bubble was punctured, they were worse than ruined, for their horses and outfit were mortgaged almost up to their value, and in addition, they had borrowed at the bank, counting on paying off all their indebtedness when the park trip was finished.

“I s'pose I can git a job herdin' sheep—they's good money in it—but I'll be an old man before I can afford to git married, to say nothin' of the disgrace of it.” Pinkey's voice sounded hopeless.

The plaint gave Wallie such a pang that he could not answer, but with a twig played a game of tit-tat-toe in the dust while he thought bitterly that no one could blame Helene Spenceley for preferring Canby to a person who seemed destined to failure in whatever he attempted.

He was another of the four-flushers, he told himself, and the country was full of them, who just fell short of doing something and being somebody. Probably, in time, he would have no ambition beyond working for a “grubstake” in summer, so he could “shack up” in winter.

He would let his hair grow and go sockless and buy new clothes rather than wash his old ones, and eat from soiled dishes and read mail-order catalogues for entertainment and sit in the corner at dances looking like a bull elk that's been whipped out of the herd, and dog-gone it! why couldn't he bring himself to think of marrying some respectable girl like the blacksmith's daughter there in Prouty, who had no chin and a fine complexion and cooked like an angel and never said a cross word to anybody?

Since Wallie was too uncommunicative to be interesting, Pinkey got up and left him to his reflections, remarking philosophically as he departed to join Miss Eyester:

“Well, I never heard of anybody bein' hanged for owin' money, so I guess there's no use in us goin' around with the double-breasted blues over it. We might as well whistle and say we like it.”

Wallie looked after his partner almost angrily.

The lugubrious voice of Mr. Hicks declaiming, reached him:

That was the worst of it, Wallie thought despairingly. The Bird of Time had but a little way to flutter. He was so old—twenty-seven! The realization that he was still a failure at this advanced age increased his misery. He was a fool to go on hoping that he meant anything to Helene Spenceley or ever would; but, just the same—Wallie stood up and squared his shoulders—if he couldn't have the woman he wanted there wouldn't be any other!

A heartache was worse than a headache by a whole lot! Somehow he was so lonely—so inexpressibly lonely. He had not felt like this even that first winter on his homestead. A lump rose in his throat to choke him, and he was about to turn away lest some one see the mist in his eyes that blinded him, and that he felt horribly ashamed of, when the sound of hoofs attracted his attention and caused him to grow alert in an instant.

He was sure that it was Stott returning, and then he caught a glimpse of him through the trees—galloping.

“Oh, here you are!” exclaimed that person irritably as he turned off the road and came through the brush toward Wallie.

There was a bright shine in Wallie's eyes as he walked toward him.

“Why didn't you tell me you were going to camp in the middle of the morning?” he demanded in his rasping voice as he dismounted.

Wallie returned evenly:

“You know as well as I do that chosing a camp is left to Hicks' judgment. I told you not to get ahead of the supply wagon.”

“If you think I'm going to poke along behind like a snail, you're mistaken!” Stott retorted.

Wallie's face went white under its tan, though his voice was quiet enough as he answered:

“You'll 'poke' this afternoon, I'm thinking.”

Stott turned sharply:

“What do you mean by that?”

“Just what I said. Look at that horse!”

The buckskin's head was hanging, its legs were trembling, there was not a dry hair on it and the sweat was running in rivulets. Its sides were swollen at the stirrup where the spurs had pricked it, and the corners of its mouth were raw and bleeding.

Wallie continued and his voice now was savage:

“You're one of the people, and there's plenty like you, that ought to be prevented by law from owning either a horse or a gun. This afternoon you'll ride in the surrey or walk, as suits you.”

Stott laughed insolently.

“Oh, I guess not!”

Wallie calmly loosened the latigo. Stott took a step toward him with his heavy jaw thrust out and his hand sought his hip pocket.

“Don't you take the saddle off that horse!” Stott's tone was menacing.

A machine that had been purring in the distance, passed, slowed up, and stopped a little way beyond the camp. Wallie heard it but did not look to see whom it might be bringing, as in answer to Stott's threat, he dropped the cinch and laid his hand upon the horn.

“If you think Im' bluffing——”

For answer, Wallie pulled off the saddle.

Stott hesitated for the fraction of a second, then his arm shot out and Wallie dropped heavily with a blow beneath the ear that was dealt him. There was a sharp cry behind him, but Wallie did not look around as, still dazed, he got to his feet slowly, with his eyes upon his antagonist.

“I warned you!” Stott chortled, and he put his hand behind him to conceal the brass knuckle he was wearing.

Before Stott could use his cowardly weapon again Wallie sprang for him, and with the force and rapidity of a trained fighter landed blow after blow on the heavy jaw which made a fine target.

“You—horse killer! You—braggart and cheap skate! You—shyster and ambulance chaser!” With every epithet Wallie landed a punch that made the lawyer stagger.

It was not “nice” language; it was not a “nice” thing to do, possibly, and perhaps the “soft answer” would have been better, but the time had passed when Wallie set any store by being merely “nice,” and he had forgotten Helene Spenceley's presence, though in any event it would have made no difference.

There was only one thought in his mind as he sat astride Stott's chest when Stott went down finally, and that was to make him say “Enough!” if he had to hammer him past recognition.

This did not require so long as one would have thought, considering that person's boasts as to his courage. But, at that, Stott might well be excused for wishing to end the punishment he was receiving. In the face above him, almost brutal in the fury that stamped it, there was no trace to remind Stott of the youth who had painted cabbage roses and knit sweaters.

“Let me up!” he cried finally, struggling under the merciless blows that rained upon him.

“Say it!” Wallie's voice was implacable.

“'Nough!” Stott whined it.

Wallie stopped immediately, and the attorney got to his feet, sullen and humiliated. He stood for a moment rubbing his neck and eying Wallie; then with a return of defiance flung at him:

“You'll pay for this, young fellow!”

Wallie's short laugh was mocking.

“Why don't you sue me for damages? I'd be flattered to death at the implication that I had any money. It might help my credit.”

With a shrug he turned and walked toward Helene Spenceley. Her eyes were shining and there was a singular smile on her face as he went up to her, but whether she smiled or frowned did not seem to matter much to Wallie.

He was not a pretty sight at the moment, and he knew it. A lump had risen on his jaw and one eye was closing, his hair was powdered with gypsum dust and the sleeve of his shirt was torn out at the shoulder, but he had no apologies to make for anything and there was that in his manner which said so.

Helene laughed as she put out her hand to him.

“Was that a part of the regular program or an impromptu feature of the day's entertainment?”

“It's been brewing,” Wallie replied briefly.

“Aren't you surprised to see me?”

“Not particularly.”

“Or glad?”

“I'm always that.”

“This came yesterday, while I was in Prouty, and I volunteered to deliver it. I thought it might be important.” She handed him a telegram.

“That was good of you.” His face softened a little, and still more as he read the message:

He passed it to Helene, saying softly:

“It must have been hard for her to write that.”

“Will you go?” Helene asked quickly.

Wallie did not answer. He stood motionless, staring at the road where the heat waves shimmered, his absent gaze following a miniature cyclone that picked up and whirled a little cloud of powdered gypsum, while Helene waited. Her eyes were upon his face with an expression that would have arrested his attention if he had seen it, but he seemed to have forgotten her and her question.

When he spoke, finally, it was to himself, rather, as if in denunciation of the momentary temptation which the telegram had been to him.

“No!” emphatically, “I'm not going liming back like a prodigal who can't stand the gaff any longer! I won't slink into a soft berth because it's offered, and admit that I'm not man enough to stand up and take what comes to me! I'm licked again—proper. But I sure won't stay licked!”

“I'm said to be a good 'picker,' and I've always believed in you, Wallace MacPherson,” Helene said slowly.

“You've concealed it well.”

“Flattery is bad for growing boys,” she smiled mischievously.

“I'm sure you've never spoiled any one by it. You've treated me like a hound, mostly.”

Her eyes sparkled as she answered:

“I like hounds, if they have mettle.”

“Even when they run themselves down following a cold trail?” he asked in self-derision.

Her reply was interrupted by voices raised in altercation in the vicinity of the supply wagon. A clump of bushes concealed the disputants, but they easily recognized the rasping nasal tones of Mr. Stott and the menacing bellow peculiar to the cook in moments of excitement. The wrangle ended abruptly, and while Helene and Wallie stood wondering as to what the silence meant, Pinkey, with a wry smile upon his face, came toward them.

“Well, I guess we're out of the dude business,” he said laconically.

“What's the matter now?” Wallie demanded,so savagely that the two burst out laughing.

“Nothin' much, except that Hicks is runnin' Stott with the butcher knife and aims to kill him. I don't know as I blame him. He said his grub was full of ants and looked like scraps for Fido.”

Wallie looked alarmed, but Pinkey reassured him.

“Don't worry! He won't catch him, unless he's got wings—the gait Stott was travelin'. He'll be at the hotel in about twenty minutes—it's only five miles. What do you make of this, pardner?” Pinkey handed him a worn and grimy envelope as he added in explanation: “I found it stuck in the cupboard of the wagon.”

Wallie took the envelope, wondering grimly as he turned it over if there was anything left that could surprise him. There was. On the back was written:.

Below, in pencil, was a list of the party with every name crossed out save Mr. Stott's, and at the bottom ornamented with many curlicues, and beautifully shaded, was the significant sentence, with the date as yet blank:

CHAPTER XXVI.

“And Just Then——”

Mr. Cone stood at his desk, looking all of ten years younger for his rest at the sanatorium. Indeed, it was difficult to reconcile this smiling, affable host of the Magnolia House with the glaring maniac of homicidal tendencies who had hung over the counter of the Colonial Hotel, fingering the ink stand and hurling bitter personalities at his patrons.

The Florida hostelry had just opened and the influx of guests promised a successful season, yet there was regret and a wistfulness in Mr. Cone's brown eyes as they scanned the register, for in the long list there was the name of but one member of the Happy Family,

As all the world knows, sentiment has no place in business, yet for sentimental reasons solely Mr. Cone had, up to date, refused to rent to strangers the rooms occupied for so many winters by the same persons. Ordinarily it was so well understood between them that they would return and occupy their usual quarters that he reserved their rooms as a matter of course, and they notified him only when something occurred to change their plans or detain them. But this winter, owing to the circumstances in which they had parted, his common sense told him that, if they intended to return to the Magnolia House, they would have so informed him.

Nevertheless, so strong were the ties of friendship that Mr. Cone determined to give them forty-eight hours longer, and, if by then he had no word from them, of course there was nothing to think but that the one-time pleasant relations were ended forever.

There were strangers aplenty. The “newcomers” had arrived, and Miss Mary MacPherson, but he wanted to see Henry Appel sitting on his veranda, and Mrs. Budlong and “C. D.,” and Miss Mattie Gaskett. In fact, he missed one not more than another.

The Happy Family had been friends as well as patrons, and without friends what did life amount to? The hotel was full of new people, but in spite of his professional affability Mr. Cone was not one to “cotton” to everybody, and it would be a long time, he told himself sadly, before these old friends could be replaced in his affections.

Mr. Cone's generous ears seemed suddenly to quiver, almost they went forward like those of a startled burro. A voice—obstinate, cantankerous—a voice that could belong to no one on earth but old Mr. Penrose, was engaged outside in a wrangle with a taxicab driver!

Before Mr. Cone could get around the desk and at the door to greet him, Mr. Penrose was striding across the office with the porter behind him, round-shouldered under the weight of two portmanteaus and a bag of golf clubs.

Mr. Penrose was the same, yet different in an elusive way that Mr. Cone could not define exactly. There was an air about him which on the spur of the moment he might have called “brigandish”—something about the way he wore his hat, his slight swagger—something lawless that surely he never had acquired in his peach orchard in Delaware. When Mr. Penrose extended his hand across the counter Mr. Cone noticed that he was wearing a leather bracelet.

As they greeted each other like reunited brothers there was nothing in the manner of either to indicate that they had parted on any but the happiest terms though Mr. Penrose's gaze wavered for an instant when he asked:

“Is my room ready?”

“Since the day before yesterday,” replied Mr. Cone, turning to the key rack. Then, generously——

“What kind of a summer did you have? I trust a pleasant one.”

Mr: Penrose's faded eyes grew luminous. His voice quavered with eager enthusiasm as he ignored the efforts of the bell boy to draw his attention to the fact that he was waiting to open his room for him.

“Superb! Magnificent! A wonderful experience! The land of adventure! Cone,” Mr. Penrose peered at him solemnly from under his bushy eyebrows, “I know what it is to look into the jaws of death, literally!” Mr. Penrose could look into Mr. Cone's jaws also, for he was so impressive that the lower one had dropped automatically.

“You don't mean it!”

“Yes. Alone, unarmed, I defended myself against an attack from one of the savage grizzlies of the Rocky Mountains.”

Mr. Cone's eyes were as round as a child's awaiting a fairy tale. If Mr. Penrose had needed encouragement they would have furnished it. He continued:

“We were camped near the Cañon Hotel where the bears swarm—swarm like flies—over the garbage. A remarkable sight. It was a very dark night—so dark, in fact, that I hesitated to go to my tepee, which was placed apart so that I might not be disturbed by the others.

“I had been asleep only a few minutes when I was awakened by the feeling that something was happening. It was. My tent was moving—actually bounding over rocks and hummocks.

“Believing myself the victim of a practical joke, I sprang out and brought my fish pole down on what I supposed to be the head of a fellow disguised in a big overcoat. There was a roar that was plainly heard for miles, and a monster grizzly struck at me.

“If it had not been for my presence of mind, that would have been the end of me. Now it was all that saved me. As the bear, on his hind legs, came toward me with his arms outstretched, to grapple, I ducked and came up between them, and so close to his body that he was unable to sink his terrible claws into me.

“He let out another roar—simply appalling—it will ring in my ears forever—almost deafened me. Again my remarkable presence of mind came to my rescue. I reached up and held his jaws open. It was my purpose to dislocate the lower one, if possible.

“For fifteen minutes—twenty—perhaps—we fought desperately. Writhing, struggling, I could feel the brute's hot breath on my face and his lolling tongue dripped saliva. Finally, his heavy breathing told me he was getting winded, and I knew that if my strength did not fail me I should be the victor. Fortunately, I was in splendid physical condition. Not once did I lose my presence of mind in this terrible crisis. I was as calm as I am this minute, while the bear was letting out roars of rage and pain that curdled the blood of those who heard them.

“At last I made a superhuman effort and backed the brute up against a tree. Gripping his nose and jaw, I had doubled up my leg and thrust my knee into his stomach, which was, of course, cruel punishment—when, just then——”

A slight cough made Mr. Penrose turn quickly. Miss Mattie Gaskett, whose eyes were nearly as large as Mr. Cone's at this version of the encounter, was standing behind him, with Cutie in a wicker basket.

Mr. Penrose looked disconcerted for a moment, and then that presence of mind of which he boasted came to his assistance and he said ingratiatingly:

“This young lady will vouch for the fact that my clothes were in shreds—ribbons in fact——”

“Why—er—yes, you had lost your shirt bosom,” Miss Gaskett agreed doubtfully.

Remarking that he would finish the story when Mr. Cone had more leisure, Mr. Penrose “skedaddled” after the bell boy with unmistakable alacrity.

“And how is kitty?” inquired Mr. Cone, beaming upon Miss Gaskett. “Did you take her with you this summer?”

As he lifted the cover and looked in the basket, Cutie's pupils enlarged and she shrank from him. Cutie had a good memory.

“Luckily for her I did not,” Miss Gaskett answered. “If I had, I should have lost her.”

“Lost her?”

“Coyotes.”

“They would have eaten her?”

Miss Gaskett nodded.

“Undoubtedly. They were thick as anything. They howled hideously every morning before sunrise, and it was not safe to leave one's tent at night without a weapon.”

Mr. Cone's astonishment inspired Miss Gaskett to continue:

“Yes, indeed! And once when I was out walking, ever so far from everybody, I met one face to face. My first impulse was to run, but I thought if I did so it might attack me, so, trying not to show that I was frightened, I picked up a stick, and just then the——”

Seeing that Mr. Cone's gaze wandered, Miss Gaskett paused to learn the cause of it. She flushed as she found that Mrs. Budlong with a smile wreathing her face, was listening to the recital.

“I'll tell you the rest when you are not so busy,” Miss Mattie said, taking her key from Mr. Cone hastily.

Mrs. Budlong declared that her pleasure equaled his own when Mr. Cone expressed his delight at seeing her, and there was no thought on the minds of either as to the hotel rules she had violated or the food she had carried away from the table in the front of her blouse and her reticule.

“You are looking in splendid health, Mrs. Budlong,” he asserted, quite as if that lady ever had looked otherwise.

“Yes, the change benefited me greatly.” A stranger might have gathered from the plaintive note in her voice that prior to her trip she had been an invalid.

“You, too, found the western country interesting?”

“Oh, very! At heart, Mr. Cone, I am a child of nature, and the primitive always appeals to me strongly.” Mrs. Budlong hesitated and seemed debating. Having made her decision, she asked in an undertone:

“I can trust you?”

“Absolutely,” replied Mr. Cone, with emphasis which intimated that the torture chamber could not wring from him any secret she chose to deposit.

“I had a very peculiar experience in the Yellowstone. I should never mention it, if you were not more like a brother to me than a stranger. It is altogether shocking.”

Mr. Cone's eyes sparkled.

“Purely in a spirit of adventure, I took a bath in a beaver dam. It was in a secluded spot, and so well protected that I went in—er—I did not wear my bathing suit. The birds twittered. The arched trees made a green canopy above me. The sunshine sparkled on the placid bosom of the water. A gentle breeze, warm, sweet-scented, caressed me as I stood on the shore for a moment drinking in the beauty of the scene. How you would have enjoyed it, Mr. Cone!”

Mr. Cone agreed heartily.

“Then I plunged in—the temperature was warmer than tepid—delightful. I felt like a nymph, a water sprite, or something, as I swam out to the middle and found a footing. The bottom was rather oozy, and there were green patches floating on the surface, otherwise it was ideal.

“Noticing a brown spot on my arm, I touched it. It was squashy and pulpy. Then it moved! A leech—and it sunk a million feet into me as soon as I attempted to remove it. I was black with them, if you will believe me, literally covered. And on the end of every one of their legs was a foot sucking my blood like a vacuum cleaner! Repulsive, disgusting—bloodsuckers, Mr. Cone. Imagine my horror.”

Mr. Cone tried to.

“Another woman would have screamed or fainted,” Mrs. Budlong continued, “but I come of different stock, and ancestry will tell at such moments. I am a Daughter of the Revolution and my father fought all through the Civil War as a sutler. Not a sound passed my lips as I got back to shore, somehow, and, weak from loss of blood, sank down to consider how to get rid of the leeches.

“In emergencies I am a resourceful woman. Recalling that I had a match—only one little match—in my sweater pocket, it occurred to me that I might build a smudge and smoke them off. I scraped some leaves together, struck my match, and, just then there——”

Mr. Budlong, who had stopped to look after the trunks, scuffled in the doorway. Mrs. Budlong dropped her voice still lower and concluded quickly:

“My husband came along and cut off their legs with his pocketknife and the feet worked out themselves, afterward.”

Even as the proprietor stood at his desk wondering if the later train had brought any more prodigals, a commotion on the veranda was followed by the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Appel.

Mr. Appel was using a stick and walking with such difficulty that Mr. Cone hurried forward and asked with real solicitude:

“My dear friend, whatever is the matter? Has your old enemy, rheumatism, again got his clutches on you?”

“Rheumatism!” Mr. Appel snorted. “You lie on your back with two thousand pounds on top of you and see how you like it!”

Mr. Cone was puzzled, and said so.

Mr. Appel explained tersely:

“A bear walked on me—that's all that happened. A silver tip stood on the pit of my stomach and ground his heel into me.”

“Tsch! tsch! tsch!” Mr. Cone's eyes were popping.

“If it were not for the fact that I'm quick in the head my wife would be a widow. I was in my sleeping bag and saw the bear coming. I knew what was going to happen, and that I had one chance in a thousand. It flashed through my mind that a horned toad, when threatened with danger, will inflate itself to such an extent that a wagon may pass over it, leaving the toad uninjured. I drew a deep breath, expanded my diaphragm to its greatest capacity, and laid rigid. it was all that saved me.”

Again Mr. Cone's tongue against his teeth clicked his astonishment at this extraordinary experience, and while he congratulated Mr. Appel upon his miraculous escape he noted that he was wearing souvenirs of his trio in the way of an elk-tooth scarfpin and a hatband of braided horsehair.

The same train had brought Mrs. J. Harry Stott apparently, for the elevator was barely closed upon the victim of the picturesque accident to which Mr. Cone had just listened, when the office was illumined by her gracious presence.

The last time that lady had extended a supine hand it had been to offer him one of the most serious affronts that can befall a self-respecting landlord; now the hand contained only cordiality, and in that spirit Mr. Cone took it.

“You enjoyed your summer?” Mr. Cone passed the pen for her to register.

“Delightful! Altogether unique! Do you know, Mr. Cone, I never before have fully appreciated my husband—his splendid courage?”

“Is that so?” Mr. Cone replied with polite interest.

“Yes, when put to the test he was magnificent. You see, we had a cook, oh, a most offensive—a rully violent and dangerous person. In fact, it was because of him that I left the party prematurely.

“It was plain that both Wallie and Pinkey were afraid of him, and dared not discharge him, so, one day when he had been more objectionable than usual my husband took things into his own hands—he simply had to!

“Hicks—his name was, Hicks—was disrespectful when Mr. Stott reprimanded him for something, and then he attempted to strike my husband with a pair of brass knuckles. Brass knuckles, it seems, are not a gentleman's weapon, and the cowardly attack so infuriated Mr. Stott that he knocked the bully down and took them away from him. He still has them. Before he let him up he pummeled him well, I assure you. Mr. Stott doesn't know how strong he is when angry. Such muscles!

“He punished the cook until he begged for mercy and promised to do better. But as soon as he was on his feet he tried to stab my husband with a bread knife. Fancy! Mr. Stott took this away from him, also, and ran him down the road with it. He ran him for seven miles—seven miles, mind you! The cook was nearly dead when Mr. Stott let up on him. I had to drag this story from my husband, little by little. But wasn't it exciting?”

Mr. Cone, who never had thought of Mr. Stott as such a warrior, tried to visualize the episode, and, though he failed to do so, he was greatly impressed by it.

He stood for some time after Mrs. Stott had left him, reflecting enviously that his life was dull and uneventful, and that he must seem a poor stick to the heroes and heroines of such adventures. He wished that he could think of some incident in his past to match these tales of valor, but as he looked back, the only thing that occurred to him was the occasion upon which the laundress had stolen the cooking sherry and gone to sleep on the front veranda.

She had fought like a tiger when the patrol wagon came for her, and he had been the one to hold her feet as she was carried to it. At the time he had been congratulated upon the able and fearless manner in which he had met the emergency, but a bout with an intoxicated laundress, though it had its dangers, seemed a piffling affair as compared to a hand-to-hand combat with a grizzly.

Gazing absently through the doorway and comforting himself by thinking that, perhaps, he, too, had latent courage which would rise to heights of heroism in propitious circumstances, he did not see Miss Eyester, who had come in the side entrance, until she stood before him.

He had not expected Miss Eyester, because she was usually employed during the winter and it was only when a well-to-do relative opened his heart and let out a draft that she could afford a few weeks in Florida. But Miss Eyester was one of his favorites and he immediately expressed the hope that she was to stay the entire season, while he noted that she was wearing a mounted bear claw for a hatpin.

“No,” she replied, blushing.

Not until then had Mr. Cone observed the Montana diamond flashing on her finger.

“Ah-h——” He raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

Miss Eyester nodded.

“In January.”

“A Western millionaire, I venture?” he suggested playfully.

“A stockman.”

“Indeed?” A new respect was in Mr. Cone's manner. “Cattle?”

“Sheep,” replied Miss Eyester proudly. “Mr. Fripp is herding at present.”

CHAPTER XXVII.

Two More Guests.

in a week Mr. Cone was as familiar with the glorious summer which the Happy Family had spent in the West as if he had been there. Although he knew the story by heart, he still thrilled when Mr. Penrose backed the bear up against a tree and separated its jaws until it “moaned like a human.”

He continued to listen with flattering attention to the recital of the intrepid spinster who would have given battle to a hungry coyote if it had attacked her, as he did to the account of Mr. Stott's reckless courage in putting to flight a notorious outlaw who had hired out as a cook for some sinister purpose.

But, gradually, Mr. Cone began to detect discrepancies, and he noted also that the descriptions not only varied but grew more hair-raising with repetition. Also, he guessed shrewdly that the reason the Happy Family never contradicted each other was because they dared not.

The day came, finally, when Mr. Cone found it not only expedient but necessary to arrange a signal with the operator at the switchboard for certain contingencies. A close observer might have noticed that a preliminary “That reminds me” was invariably followed by an imperative announcement from the operator that Mr. Cone was wanted on the telephone.

A haste which resembled flight frequently marked the departure of other guests when a reminiscence seemed threatening, until, forsooth, the time arrived when they had only themselves for audience and their “That reminds me” became “Do you remember?” The only wonder, to those less traveled, was that the Happy Family ever had brought themselves to leave that earthly paradise in Wyoming, even for the winter.

The only person whom their enthusiasm did not weary was Miss Mary MacPherson, because directly and indirectly it all redounded to the credit of her nephew, whom she now carefully called Wallace, as more befitting the dignity of a successful “Dude Wrangler” than the diminutive. Wallie's refusal to accept her offer had brought tears of disappointment to the eyes of the lonely woman, yet secretly she respected his pride and slyly boasted to strangers of his independence.

“My nephew, Wallace MacPherson—you may have heard of him? He has large interests in Wyoming. Went West without a penny, practically; too proud to accept help from any one—that's the MacPherson of it—and now, they tell me, he is one of the important men of the country.”

She was sometimes tempted to mention the extent of his holdings, and put the acreage well up into the thousands. But, since Miss MacPherson was a truthful woman with a sensitive conscience, she contented herself with merely declaring:

“My nephew, Wallace MacPherson, has a large ranch, oh, a very large place—several days' ride around it.”

He was all she had, and blood is far thicker than water. She was hungry for a sight of him, and every day increased her yearning. While letters from him now arrived regularly, he said nothing in any of them of coming to Florida. His extensive interests, she presumed, detained him, and he was too good a business man to neglect affairs that needed him.

She had promised to go to him next summer, but next summer was a long way Off and there were times when she was strongly tempted to make the journey in winter in spite of the northern blizzards, of which, while fanning themselves, they read with gusto.

A blizzard was raging at present, according to the paper from which Mr. Appel was reading the headlines aloud to the group on the veranda. All trains were stalled west of the Mississippi, and there was three feet of snow on the level in Denver.

“That reminds me——”

Only too well Mr. Cone knew what Mr. Budlong's remark portended. The hotel proprietor was having an interesting conversation with Mrs. Appel upon the relative merits of moth-preventatives, but he arose abruptly.

Mr. Budlong squared away again.

“That reminds me that I was wondering this morning how deep the snow would be at that point where Mr. Stott slid down the glacier in the gold pan. By the way, Mr. Cone, have you heard that story? It's a good one.”

Edging toward the doorway, Mr. Cone fairly chattered in his vehemence:

“Oh, yes—yes—yes!”

Mr. Penrose interrupted eagerly:

“The drifts must be about forty feet high on that stretch south of the Lolabama. There's a gap in the mountain where the wind comes through a-whoopin'. I mean the place where the steer chased Aunt Lizzie—did any one ever tell you that yarn, Cone?”

Mr. Cone, with one foot over the doorsill and clinging to the jamb, as if he half expected they would wrench him loose and make him go back and listen, answered with unmistakable irony:

“I think I recall having heard some one mention it.”

It required more than irony to discourage Mr. Penrose, however, and he insisted petulantly:

“Come on back here, Cone! I'll explain just how Wallie jumped that steer and went to the ground with him. It's worth listening to twice.”

Twice! Mr. Cone had heard it more times than he had fingers and toes and ears and noses.

“The telephone's ringing,” he pleaded.

“Go answer it, then; looks like you'd want to learn something!”

Miss MacPherson had heard the story in even greater number of times than Mr. Cone, but now she urged Mr. Penrose to repeat it, and he did with such spirit and so vividly that she shuddered almost continuously through the telling. He concluded by asserting emphatically that, if it had not been for his foresight in providing himself with field glasses, the steer would have been running over the flat with Aunt Lizzie empaled on its horns like a naturalist's butterfly, before any one could have prevented it.

Mr. Appel opined, when Mr. Penrose had finished, that “Canby made a poor showing.”

“I could have done as well myself if I had been able to get there.” He added speculatively: “I suppose Canby and Miss Spenceley are engaged by now—or married. Wallie hasn't mentioned it in his letters, has her?”

Miss MacPherson replied in the negative.

“He might not, anyway,” remarked Mrs. Appel. “Helene was a nice girl, and attractive, but I could see that she did not interest him.”

Mrs. Budlong, who had one eye closed trying to thread a needle without her glasses, observed succinctly:

“Men are funny.”

She intended to qualify her statement by saying that some are funnier than others, only, before she had time to do so, an exclamation from Miss MacPherson attracted her attention. Following Miss MacPherson's unbelieving stare she saw Helene and Wallie getting out of the motor bus with a certain air which her experienced eye recognized as “married.”

Mrs. Budlong specialized in detecting newly wedded people and she was seldom mistaken. Her cleverness along this line sometimes amounted to clairvoyancy, but, in this instance, no one needed to be supernaturally gifted to recognize the earmarks, for no man could look so radiantly happy as Wallie unless he had inherited a million dollars—or married the girl he wanted.

Miss Mary MacPherson threw her arms about his neck and kissed him with an impetuosity seemingly incompatible with a lady who wore a high, starched collar in summer. And the others welcomed him with a sincerity and warmth which made his eyes grow misty.

It was hard to believe, as he looked at them beaming upon him in genuine fondness, that only a few short months before they had been barely speaking to him, or that he had wished the Happy Family had, as the saying is, a single neck that he might wring it.

Above the volley of questions and chatter he heard old Mr. Penrose's querulous voice reproaching him:

“I hope you have the grace to be ashamed of yourself for not telling us, Wallace!”

“If I look sheepish,” Wallie replied, smiling, “it may be due to the nature of my new occupation. You see,” in reply to their looks of inquiry, “Canby bought me out, to get rid of me, and for a far more munificent sum than I ever expected. I reinvested, and, am now,” with mock dignity, “a wool grower—with one, Mr. Fripp, engaged as foreman.”

Wallie's eyes twinkled as he added:

“I trust that the percentage of loss will not be so great as in the dude business.”