"Well, really, Gus," she began, speaking in the low-pitched tones of the drawing-room, "I can't imagine what happens to those eggs. I have over forty hens, and surely they lay more than seven eggs a day. There's one nest, away in there, but – "
"Well, I ain't took none," grumbled Gus, turning sulkily to his pots and kettles; "that's all I got to say."
"Pardon me," broke in Bowles, swinging lightly down from his horse and standing hat in hand, "perhaps I could creep in and – " He smiled as he had smiled at the ladies who attended the Wordsworth Society, and Mrs. Lee glanced at him approvingly.
"Oh, don't trouble yourself," she said politely. "If it were humanly possible to reach them, I am sure they would be gone by now. I didn't mean to blame you at all, Mr. Mosby," – this to the cook – "but, really, I was trying to save enough eggs to make the boys a cake."
A wave of indignation swept over Bowles. He remembered those graceless "boys" roasting eggs by the fire at night, and he thought how little they deserved her kindness; but all he did was to murmur his appreciation. At this the lady looked at him again, like one who knows her own kind, and her voice was very pleasant as she said:
"Oh, you are the young man that rode Wa-ha-lote this morning, aren't you? Ah, he is such a beautiful horse!" She came over and stroked his neck thoughtfully while Bowles stood by his head and smiled. "Don't you know," she said, "I have always claimed that a horse could be conquered by kindness. And I'm so glad!" she murmured, with a confidential touch of the hand. "Won't you come up to the house, and I'll give you that lump of sugar."
CHAPTER VII
THE QUEEN AT HOME
The Bat Wing ranch, with its big white house on the hill, its whirling windmill, its tank that spread out like a lake and gleamed like liquid silver, its pole corrals, its adobe houses half shaded by wind-tossed cottonwoods, was one of the most sightly in Arizona. The yellow-white sheen of the bunch grass made the distance seem fair and inviting; at sunset the saw-toothed summits of the Tortugas changed to blues and purples and mysterious, cañon-deep black; the heavy bunches of sacaton out in the horse pasture gleamed white in the evening glow. Many riders passed by that way, rigged out in the finery of their kind, and most of them took it all in – and yet, at times, the place looked kind of bare and tame.
Bowles was a stranger to those parts and he admired the landscape mightily; but to him too it seemed a little bare. It needed a dash of color, a vigorous girlish figure in the foreground, to give it the last vivid touch. But the queen, of course, must be humored – let the picture wait! So Bowles waited, along with the rest of the bunch, and in the evening while they were at their supper the Queen of the Bat Wing came. At the Wordsworth Society she had been stunningly gowned in a creation which Bowles would not soon forget; on the train she had worn a tailored traveling dress, very severe and becoming, the only note of defiance being in the hat, which was her Western sombrero with a veil to take off the curse. But now the trimming was gone, and a silver-buckled, horsehair band took its place. Dixie May was back on her own range and she wore what clothes she pleased!
First there was the hat, a trim, fifteen-dollar Stetson held on by a strap that lapped behind; then a white shirt-waist to supply the touch of color; a divided skirt of golden-brown corduroy; and high-heeled cowboy boots, very tiny, and supplied with silver-mounted spurs, ornate with Mexican conchos. She wore a quirt on her wrist, and her hair in Indian braids, and a fine coat of newly acquired tan on her cheeks.
A silence fell on the squatting punchers as she ran lightly down from the house; one or two of them ducked out of sight as she passed through the gate, but the rest sat motionless, stoically feeding themselves with their knives, and waiting for the queen to pass. Only Bowles, the man from the East, rose up and took off his hat; but Dixie Lee remembered her promise, and never so much as looked at him.
"Hello, Brig," she said, singling out the blushing Brigham for a teasing grin. "'Evening, Mr. Mosby. Say, Maw sent me down to look for some eggs – she wants to make a cake for these worthless punchers before she invites 'em up to hear the phonograph."
"Well, well, Miss Dix," responded the cook, shuffling and ill at ease. "I'm afraid yore maw is goin' to be disapp'inted. If you can find any eggs around here, you're welcome to 'em. I ain't got none hid out – that's all I'll say."
"Oh, I know where they go to, Mr. Mosby," replied Dixie Lee, showing her white teeth in a knowing smile. "If a man will suck eggs, he'll steal – you know that saying yourself – and I can tell by the shells around the fire here what's going on o' nights."
"Oh, that's that big fat Brigham Clark!" spoke up Hardy Atkins. "You don't want to judge the whole outfit by him!"
At this bare-faced libel Bowles cleared his throat to speak. He had noticed particularly on the evening before that the eggs were brought in by Happy Jack and Hardy Atkins himself; but before he could enter a protest a general rumble of laughter set him back to a thinking part.
"Yes, sir!" observed Buck Buchanan, speaking to the world at large. "That feller sucks aigs worse'n a setter pup."
"An' he don't deny it none, neither," commented Happy Jack, as poor Brigham blushed deeper and hung his head.
"Jest born that way, I reckon," remarked Poker-face in a tone of pity; and then the whole outfit broke into a whoop of laughter. It was a new form of jesting to Bowles, and he retired to the shelter of the wood-pile. A sudden gloom had come over his soul, and it even affected his appetite, whetted keen by the cold, thin air. Of course, Dixie Lee had told him she would do so, but it seemed rather heartless not to look at him. He sat down with his back against the jagged juniper stubs and listened sullenly, while the punchers chuckled in front of him and continued to eat with their knives.
"Aw, Brig's jest bashful, that's all," explained some simple-minded joker, after every one else had had his say; and as his hollow laughter rose up, Bowles wondered dimly why Brigham did not retort. The evening before, when he was telling stories around the fire, he had returned a Roland for an Oliver until even Hardy Atkins had been content to quit; but now he confined himself to self-conscious mutterings and exhortations to shut up. Perhaps the simple-minded joker was right – poor Brigham was bashful.
But Dixie Lee had come down to get some eggs and she did not allow camp persiflage to divert her from her purpose.
"Well, say," she said, getting up from the cook's private seat, "I came down to hunt for eggs – who wants to help me?"
"That's where I shine!" cried Hardy Atkins, throwing his tin plate into the washtub with a great clatter. "They's a nest around hyer in the wood-pile!"
He capered around the end of the wood-pile, and soon Bowles could hear him panting as he forced his way in between the crooked sticks.
"Hyer they are!" he shouted at last. "I got a whole hatful – somebody pull me out by the laig!"
There was a ripple of high-pitched laughter from Dixie Lee, an interval in which Bowles cursed his fate most heartily, and then a frantic outcry from Hardy:
"Hey, there, don't pull so fast! You Dix, you'll break my aigs! Well, laugh, then, doggone it! Now see what you went and done!"
A general shout of laughter followed, and Hardy Atkins, his lips pouted out to play the fool, and his eyes rolling to catch their laughter, came ambling around the wood-pile with a hat that looked like an amateur conjurer's after the celebrated egg trick. But there were enough whole ones left to make a cake, and Happy Jack came galloping in with a hatful from his own private cache; so everybody laughed, though Brigham looked on sourly enough. A rapid fire of barbed jests followed; then, with her two admirers behind her and the others gazing dumbly on, Dixie Lee ran lightly back to the house, and Bowles had had his first lookin on ranch society. It did not look so good to him, either, and yet – well, just as Dixie May turned away she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. To be sure, it was one of Hardy Atkins' raw jokes at which she was laughing, but somehow a golden glow crept into the sunset, and ranch society did not seem so bad.
Five minutes later Dixie Lee was down at the corral bridling a white-faced roan, and soon, with Happy Jack for an escort, she was galloping away to the east where, like glowworms in the dusk, the scattered lights of settlers' houses showed the first beginnings of a neighborhood. The phonograph was going to play in the big house that evening, and all the "nesters" were invited.
No one had been more outraged than Henry Lee when the first nesters came in on his range; but latterly he had come to regard them tolerantly as poor, misguided creatures, slightly touched in the head on the subject of high-and-dry farming. Having seen a few hundred of them starve out and move on, he had accepted them as a necessary evil, and deemed it no more than right, if the women-folks wanted to invite them, to ask the few nearest ones to the house and help them forget their misery. So the whole-souled Dixie May was off to call in the company while the cowboys were scraping their beards off and dolling up for the dance.
It was Saturday night, as a matter of fact, and though all days are alike to a puncher his evenings are his own around the ranch. One by one the socially backward and inept caught the fever and began to search their war-bags for silk handkerchiefs and clean shirts. Only Brigham remained recalcitrant, and no argument could induce him to shave.
"I was on the wrangle last night," he complained, as the forehanded ones came back to argue the matter, "and I'm short on my sleep. Say, lemme be, can't ye – what difference does it make to you fellers, anyway? They won't be girls enough to go around, nohow!"
"Well, come up and hear the music," urged the Bar Seven stray man, who wanted him for company.
"Mrs. Lee invited you, Brig," reminded Gloomy Gus, who believed that every man should do his duty.
"Aw, it's too late to do anything now," grumbled Brigham, beginning at last to weaken. "And my beard is a fright, too!"
"Soak it in hot water, then!" cried Bar Seven enthusiastically. "Come on, fellers; let's make 'im do it! It ain't right – a nice lady like Mrs. Lee! She'll think you're 'shamed because you done stole them aigs!"
"I did not!" denied Brigham hotly.
"Well, come along, then!" countered Bar Seven triumphantly, "or the boys will be tellin' everybody!"
So the last unwilling victim was cajoled into going, and at a cheery summons from Dixie May they marched up the hill in a body. It was too early yet for the nester girls to appear, and while they were waiting for the dance to begin the twenty or more punchers wedged into the big front room and settled down to hear the phonograph. A cattle ranch without a phonograph nowadays is as rare as a cow outfit without a mouth-organ; but the Lees had a fine one, that would play for dances on a scratch, and a rack piled high with classic records. Mrs. Lee sat beside it, and after welcoming the self-conscious cowboys she asked them what they would have.
"The barnyard one!" somebody called; and as the cow mooed, the pig squealed, and the hired girl called the chickens, the cowboys laughed and forgot their feet. Then Caruso sang a high one, caught his breath and expired, and the company shifted in their seats. That was not exactly their style.
"What's the matter with the dog fight?" cried a voice from the corner; and Mrs. Lee, who had dreams of elevating their taste, sat undecided, with the sextet from Lucia in her hand.
"Perhaps you would like the Anvil Chorus," she suggested by way of a concession.
"No, the dog fight!" clamored Hardy Atkins from the same corner. Then, quoting from the well-known favorite, he inquired in up-stage Irish: "'Will some sport kindly let Mr. Ho-ogan, the time-keeper, hold his watch?'"
"'Faith,'" broke in Happy Jack, continuing the selection, "'an' who will hold Ho-ogan, then – har, har, har, har, har!'"
So contagious was the spell of this laughter that there was nothing for it but to put on the record, which gave a dog fight in Harlem from the time the bets were made till the spotted dog licked and the place was raided by the police. Not very elevating, to be sure, but awfully popular, and calling for more of the same. Mrs. Lee sighed wearily and laid the sextet aside; then, with quick decision, she resigned her place to Dixie May and retired to a seat by the door – and, as luck would have it, she sat down next to Bowles.
"Won't you take my chair?" he said, rising with all the gallantry of his kind. "I enjoyed that Donna e Mobile of Caruso's so much!"
"Oh," said Mrs. Lee, beaming with pleasure, "you know it, then! And do you care for it, too?"
"Very much!" replied Bowles, falling back into the familiar formula of polite conversation; and by the time the phonograph had started up on "Casey Jones" they were deep in a discussion of classic music. As often happens in good society, they discovered a wonderful similarity in their likes and dislikes; and by the time the nester girls began to arrive and the dance started up on the gallery, Bowles was very popular in the big house – that is, as far as the hostess was concerned.
But the climax of the evening came at the close of the dance, just as Mr. Bowles was taking his leave.
"Well, good-night, Mrs. Lee," he murmured as he stood in the half light of the porch. "It was so kind of you to invite us up."
He paused then with the rest of his politenesses unsaid, for Dixie Lee was coming down the hall.
"I can't say how much I have enjoyed talking with you, Mr. Bowles," returned the lady, offering him her hand. "It takes me back to my girlhood days, when music was the breath of my life. Perhaps – Oh, Dixie, have you met Mr. Bowles?"
There was silence for a moment as their eyes met across the abyss, hers stern and forbidding, his smiling and conciliatory; and then Dixie bowed very stiffly.
"Why, not that I remember," she replied, with a militant toss of the head.
"How do you do, Miss Lee," observed Mr. Bowles, bowing formally as he received his congé. "So glad to make your acquaintance!" And, murmuring other maddening phrases, he bowed himself out the door, leaving Dixie Lee to explain the feud in any way she chose.
CHAPTER VIII
A COWBOY'S LIFE
As the name of the Deity, to a cowboy, means little more than a word to swear by, so the holy Sabbath is forgotten as a day of rest. Not that the hard-riding puncher would not rest if he got the chance, but the traditions of the cow business make no allowances for godliness and ease. For forty dollars and found, the round-up hand is expected to work every day in the month, and take all his Sundays in a bunch when the boss writes out his time. From daylight to dark are his hours of labor, with horse wrangling and night-guard to boot; and yet there are men of elegance and leisure who try to crush in on the job.
Mr. Bowles rolled into bed a perfect gentleman, and something of a knight-errant as well; but when Gloomy Gus gave vent to his shrill morning call he turned in his blankets and muttered. As the dishpan yammered and clashed discordantly he shuddered like a craven; and when Gus finally kicked open the door he could have cursed like any cow-puncher. It was a dreary life he had elected to follow, a life of drudgery, hardship, and discomfort, and with no compensating element but the danger of getting killed. And all for the sake of a girl who never had met him before!
Bowles crawled out very slowly and stood shivering by the fire, marveling at the iron endurance of Gloomy Gus, and understanding his gloom. Never again, he resolved, as he drank a pint of hot coffee, never again would he address Mr. Mosby in aught but terms of respect. A man who could stand his life and still wear the mantle of self-restraint was worthy of a place among the stoics. And to get up alone – alone and of his own volition – at three-thirty and four of the morning! It was a task to give a Spartan pause and win an enduring fame among the gods. A large humility came over Bowles as he contemplated the rough men about him and observed how uncomplainingly they accepted their lot. And they had been at the work for months and years – it was the second day for him!
The cook beat on his pan, and at the thought of the long ride before him Bowles did his best to eat – to eat heartily, ravenously, to gorge himself full of meat against the hours of hunger to come; and, passing up the three-tined steel fork, he went to it with his knife and spoon.
"You make the finest biscuits I have ever eaten, Mr. Mosby," he observed by way of apology as he slipped one into his pocket; and the sleep-weary eyes of the cook lighted up for a moment before he summoned his cynical smile.
"That's what they all say – when they're hungry," he remarked. "Then when they've et a plenty they throw 'em in the dirt."
He waved his hand at a circle of white spots that lay just outside the firelight, and turned to begin his dishwashing. Then, seeing that Mr. Bowles was still interested, he dilated on his troubles.
"Yes, sir," he said; "a cowboy is jest naturally wasteful – if he wasn't, he wouldn't be a cowboy. He'll take a whole biscuit and eat half of it and throw the other half away. There you see 'em out there, jest like I been seein' 'em fer forty years and more. It's in the blood. A cowboy wastes his grub, he wastes his terbakker, he wastes his money. He wastes cows, and hawses – an' he wastes his life. I got my opinion of a man that will work like a dog fer forty dollars a month. These hyer boys know what I think of 'em."
The cowboys grinned sheepishly and backed up nearer the fire. It was still too dark to rope, and they were waiting for Henry Lee; and the cold starlight made them solemn. When the sun came up and they got a horse between their knees they would laugh old Gus to scorn; now they listened to him soberly in lieu of sprightlier conversation.
"And me," continued Gloomy Gus, as he sensed the heavy silence, "I work harder than any of 'em. The mornin' star don't catch me in bed – no, sir! Not after half-past three. I got to git up then and mix my bread. And come night time, after my long day's work, I got to set my dough. But I git paid fer it – eighty dollars a month – and you can have the job to-morrer."
He paused again, as if to emphasize the lack of bidders, and then went deftly about his task.
"No, sir," he said; "you don't see no one strikin' fer the job of cook. That's hard work, that is. These boys all want to sit on a hawse and see the world go by."
Once more the heavy silence fell upon them, and Brigham picked up a towel and began to wipe the dishes.
"Goin' out to-day?" he inquired, as the boys began to straggle toward the corral.
"That's the word!" returned the cook. "Dinner at the north well, and back ag'in fer supper. Pack up and unpack, and pack ag'in at the well. Then cook a dinner and hook up the hawses, and cook some more at the home. Ef Henry Lee don't git me a flunky pretty soon I'm shore goin' to up and quit."
He glanced significantly at Bowles as he finished this last remark, but Brigham shook his head.
"I seen that Pringle kid come in yisterday," he said. "Mebbe you could git to have him."
That closed the conversation, and Bowles moved away. He was sorry for Mr. Mosby, very sorry; but not sorry enough to take a job as official dishwasher. Somehow all the world seemed to be in a conspiracy to make him flunky to the cook.
He hurried over to the corral, where the roping was going on, and as he neared the gate he met the boss coming out. On the previous day Mr. Lee had seemed a little under the dominance of his feelings, but this morning he was strictly business.
"Mr. Bowles," he said, "I'll keep my word with you and take you on for a puncher. Do your work and keep off Dunbar, and I'll try to get along with you – otherwise you get your time. Now come on back and I'll cut you out a mount."
He tied his own horse to a post, and swung up on the corral fence.
"You get two gentle horses and five bronks," he continued; "and I'll call Wa-ha-lote a bronk."
"Oh, thank you!" began Bowles; but the boss checked him right there.
"You've got nothing to thank me for, young man," he said. "I'd rather lose a top hand any time than take on a tenderfoot, so don't think for a minute that I'm stuck on you. Passed my word, that's all – and Wa-ha-lote forgot to buck. Now you see that gray over there – the one with the saddle-marks on his back – that's one of 'em – he's gentle. See this little sorrel, right close – that's Scrambled Eggs – he's a bronk. Then you can have that red roan over there for a night horse, and I'll cut you out some more bronks bymeby. You ride old Gray and the roan for a while – understand? And I employ a twister to break my wild stock, so keep off of them bronks – if – you – please."
He added this last as if he really meant it, and left Bowles to wonder at his emphasis – but not for long. The times called for action. He was a puncher now, and it was necessary for him to lasso his mount. So, shaking out his new rope, which snarled and crawled in a most disconcerting fashion, the new cowboy dropped down into the corral, while everybody who could conveniently do so stepped up and looked over the fence. But Bowles had had a few days' training at the hands of Jim Scrimsher, the livery-stable keeper and all-round horse trader and confidence man at Chula Vista, and he shook out a fairly good loop. Then, swinging it above his head, he advanced upon the gray, who promptly put the whole herd between them, and raced along next the fence. The roan came along just then and Bowles made a cast at him and caught two others, who instantly made away with his rope.
A yell went up from along the top of the fence; and with many shouts of encouragement and veiled derision, they threw him a new rope. This was a worn one and capable of dexterous handling, and, with a set smile on his face, Bowles shook out a big loop and advanced cautiously upon the roan. By this time he, too, had read the hypnotic message of the eye, and had crowded well in behind the main herd, which was dashing around the corral with ever-increasing speed. The slashing rope-work of the old hands had already left the horse herd nervous and flighty, and something about the way Bowles whirled his wide-flung loop seemed to drive them into a frenzy. A shout of warning went up, and then another, and then, as Wa-ha-lote made another balk at the gate, Hardy Atkins rushed out through the cloud of dirt and signaled him to stop.
"What do you want to do?" he yelled. "Break down the fence?"
He edged in on the leaders as he spoke and soon brought them to a halt; then, with his eyes on another horse, he stepped in close, dragging his loop, until suddenly he whipped it over the old gray's head and jerked him out of the herd.
"Here's yore hawse," he said, handing him over the rope's end. "And, say, if you can't rope without swingin' a Mother Hubbard, jest let me ketch yore hawse!"
"Why, what's the matter?" inquired Bowles.
"Oh, nawthin'," sneered the bronco-twister, "only it skeers 'em to death – that's all. Old Henry generally gives a man his time fer swingin' his loop in the corral."
Bowles followed along after him, flushed and downcast over his mistake; and as the others saddled their prancing bronks and went pitching and plunging around the horse lot he threw his saddle on the old, moss-backed gray and watched them with a wholesome awe. Horse after horse, as his rider hooked the stirrup, flew back or kicked like a flash. Some bucked the saddles off and had to be mastered by brute force. Here it was that the green-eyed Hardy Atkins, that long and lissom twister whom he so heartily despised, stood out like a riding king among the men. If a horse would not stand, he held it by the ears; if it bucked its saddle off, he seized an ear in his teeth, and hung on like a bulldog until the girths were cinched; and then, if the rider but said the word, he topped it off in his place. And all with such a tigerish swing, such a wild and masterful certitude, that even Bowles could not but secretly admire him.
It was nearing the first of April, when the wagon went out on the round-up, and the boys were topping off their mounts in order to gentle them for the spring work. Shrill yells and whoops went up as man after man uncocked his bronk; and then, as the procession filed out the gate, Hardy Atkins swung up on his own and went whipping and plunging after them. This was the big event of the day, and all hands craned their necks to view it; but the real spectators were up by the big white house, where Dixie Lee and her mother stood watching.
"Good boy, Hardy!" cried Dixie May, waving her hat to flag him. "Stay with him, Hardy!" And while the wild brute bucked and grunted beneath the steady jab of the spurs his rider raised a slender hand and waved it in salute. Bowles came dragging after him, sitting up very straight on old Gray; but nobody gave him a gay salute or so much as noticed him pass. Big Snake, the outlaw, was sun-fishing and doing buck-jumps, and every eye was upon the gallant rider who sat him so limber and free – Hardy Atkins, bronco-twister, and top cowboy at the Bat Wing.
"Pitch, then, you bastard," he was shouting. "Buck, you wild, woolly wolf – I'll put a hat on you!"
Bowles did not know what a "hat" was as he rode along out the gate, but when the cattle were thrown together and the wrangler brought up the spare horses, he knew. Walking across the brushy flat came Hardy Atkins, leading the worn and whip-marked Snake at a slow walk; and as he drew near, Bowles saw the "hat," a great, puffed-up swelling, raw and bloody, where the spur had jabbed his side. And there was a look in the outlaw's haggard eye that reminded him of old Dunbar – a wild, homicidal stare, yet tragic with fear and pain. As he reached the horse herd the twister looked back and regarded his mount intently; then very cautiously he worked up to his head and caught him by the cheek-strap.
"Don't you bite me, you devil," he threatened as the Snake showed all his teeth, "or I'll beat yore brains out with this quirt!"
The Big Snake winced and crooked his neck sullenly; then, as the twister snapped up the stirrup and uncinched the saddle with his free hand, he sighed and hung his head. With a deft jerk the puncher stripped off saddle and blanket; he reached up between his ears and laid hold of the headstall, then with a heave he tore off the bridle and landed his boot in the Snake's ribs.
"Git, you owl-headed old skate!" he yelled; and the Snake cow-kicked at him like a flash of light.
"Hah!" laughed the twister, stepping dexterously aside; and, swinging the bridle as he ducked, he brought the heavy reins down across his mount's rump. Again there was a flash of light as the Snake lashed out from behind; and then he limped off to one side, his eyes glowing with impotent rage and hate. Bowles looked at him as he lay wearily down in the sand, and then at the man who had conquered him, and a glow crept into his own eyes – a glow very much like the Big Snake's. He had entered a new world, with a different standard of courage and hardihood, and the first look at it frightened and awed him. But though he knew he could not meet its standards nor measure up to its tests, he scorned the man who could, and hated him for his rude strength – and his sympathy went out to Big Snake, the outlaw.