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CHAPTER XIV
THE ENGLISH LORD

A remarkable series of accidents happened to Bat Wing Bowles immediately after his discourtesy to the lady – accidents which seemed to indicate that he had lost his horseshoe as well as the good-will of his associates. For while Bowles had been a raw hand from the start it had early been remarked that horses would not pitch with him – but now, on the very morning after his contretemps, his mount took a fit of bucking which all but landed him in the dirt. A term of years in a military academy, as well as a considerable experience in riding to hounds, had left Bowles a little vain of his horsemanship; but in this emergency he had been compelled to reach down and frankly grab the horn. Otherwise he would have been "piled" before he could recover from the surprise. As it was, he was badly jarred, not only by the shock of the buck-jumps but also by the caustic comments of the cowboys.

"Oh, mamma!" shouted one. "See 'im choke that horn!"

"Let go of the noodle, Sam!" advised another; and then, in a kind of chant, they recited those classic lines that are supposed to drive Englishmen mad:

"Hit's not the 'unting that 'urts the 'orse's 'oofs; hit's the 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard 'ighway!"

Time and again Bowles had explained that he was not English, that all gentlemen rose to the trot in the East, and that his people had never dropped an "h" in their lives. Like an old and groundless scandal that lives on denial alone, the tradition still clung to him; and now, as some vagrant fancy turned their will against him, they voiced their disapproval in this ancient gibe.

"It's Hinglish, you know!" they shouted; and once more Bowles was branded as an alien. And all for refusing a letter and speaking saucily to a lady.

As for the lady, she stayed at a ranch over night and went out early in the morning, taking a short-cut through the nesters' lanes for Chula Vista. A telegram must be sent to the receiving company that the cattle would be delivered on the twentieth, the cattle-cars must be ordered from the railroad, and the cattle inspector notified of the change; for the grass was eaten down to the rocks at Chula Vista, and a wait at the pens would be fatal. All these details Henry Lee trusted to his daughter, and, forgetting the frivolous nothings of yesterday, she rode past the Bat Wing outfit without stopping or waving her hand. Then somebody put something on Bowles' horse and they started the day with a circus.

A second day, full of excitement and rough riding, followed, and then the gang took pity on the poor tenderfoot and left him to think it over. But Bowles was not broken in spirit; far from it, for he had been secretly longing for a horse that would buck. He was rapidly becoming so wise that deception was no longer practicable. When a man has an old staid cow-pony rise up under him and try to paw the white out of the moon, he is liable to look over his rigging rather carefully to see what it was all about; and if he should find a yellow spot on the flap of his saddle-blanket, a tender place on his horse's rump, and a suspicious odor of carbon bisulphide in the air, he is likely to shy away from unfriendly horsemen, even if he never heard of "high-lifing" a bronk. Those were eventful days for Samuel Bowles, and he found himself learning fast, when Henry Lee suddenly called him aside and told him to go with Brigham.

Brigham was taking a bunch of dogies back to the home ranch and he needed a man to help him – also the boss was getting a little tired of these sudden accidents to Bowles. He was not conducting a circus or a Wild West Show but a serious and precarious business, and a touch of "high-life" at the wrong time might stampede his whole herd of cattle. So he told the tenderfoot to go on the drive with Brigham.

There is a good deal left unsaid in a cow camp – so much, in fact, that a stranger never knows what is going on; and Brigham had been as silent as the rest while Bowles was taking his medicine. Even on the drive he was strangely quiet, chewing away soberly at his tobacco and looking out from under his hat with squinting and cynical eyes. They were friends now, as far as a tenderfoot can expect to have a friend, but Brigham said nothing about stringing the cattle, and asked no questions about gay New York – he had something on his mind. And when the time came he spoke it out.

"Say, stranger," he said, still calling him by that cold name which marked him as a man apart, "did you see Dixie Lee back in New York last winter?"

It was a bolt out of the blue sky; but Bowles was trained to evasions – he had lived in polite society and tried to keep friends with Truth.

"Miss Lee?" he repeated in tones of wonderment.

"W'y, sure," answered Brigham; "she was back there all winter."

"So I hear," observed Bowles; "but there were about four million other people there too, Brig; so I can't say for sure. Why? What made you ask?"

"Oh – nothin'," mumbled Brig, playing with the rowel on his spur as he watched the cattle graze; "only it seemed like, the way she spoke to you the other day, you'd mebbe met before. Some of the boys said they reckoned you knowed her back there – she talked so kinder friendly-like."

A thrill went over Bowles at those kind words, but he hastened to cover up his tracks. Once let the boys know that he had followed her from the East, and there would be a dramatic end to all his hopes and dreams.

"I'll tell you, Brig," he said, speaking confidentially; "I did meet Miss Lee down at Chula Vista the morning she came home, and that probably gave them the idea. But, say, now – about that letter. She didn't even know my name – now, why should she do a thing like that? My name isn't Houghton, and she knew I couldn't take the letter. It's against the law! What was she trying to do – play a joke on me?"

He made his voice as boyish and pleading as possible; but it takes a good actor to deceive the simple-hearted, and Brigham only looked at him curiously.

"What did you say yore name was?" he inquired at last; and when Bowles told him he chewed upon it ruminatively. "Some of the boys thought mebbe you was an English lord, or somethin'," he observed, glancing up quickly to see how Mr. Bowles would take it. "Course I knowed you wasn't," he admitted as Bowles wound up his protest; "but you certainly ain't no puncher."

Bowles could read the jealousy and distrust in his voice, and he saw it was time to speak up.

"Say, Brig," he said, trying as far as possible to speak in the new vernacular, "I've always been friendly to you, haven't I? I know I've tried to be, and I want to keep your friendship. Now, I don't care what Hardy Atkins and his gang think, because they're nothing to me anyway, but I want you to know that I am on the square. Of course, I'm under an assumed name, and I guess you've noticed I don't get any letters; but that's no crime, is it?"

There was a genuine ring to his appeal now, and Brigham was quick to answer it.

"Aw, that's all right, pardner," he said. "I don't care what you did. Kinder hidin' out myself."

"Well, but I want to tell you, anyway," protested Bowles. "A man's got to have a friend somewhere, and I know you won't give me away. I didn't commit any crime – it isn't the sheriff I'm afraid of – but there must have been somebody down in Chula Vista that was following me, because I came away from New York on a ticket that was signed Sam Houghton. That isn't my name, you understand – but I signed it for a blind. Then I left the train at Albuquerque and came quietly off down here. But it looks as if somebody is searching for me."

"Umm!" murmured Brigham, nodding his head and squinting wisely. "I got into a little racket down on the river one time, and the sheriff was lookin' fer me. Made no difference – the feller got well anyhow – but you bet I was ridin' light fer a while.

"I'll tell you what we'll do!" he cried, carried away by some sudden enthusiasm. "I'm gittin' tired of this Teehanno outfit – let's call fer our time and hit the trail! Was you ever up in the White Mountains? Well, pardner, we'll head fer them – that's the prettiest country in God's world! Deer and bear and wild turkeys everywhere – and fish! Say, them cricks is so full of trout they ain't hardly room fer the water. The Apaches never eat 'em – nor turkeys neither, fer that matter – and all you have to have is a little flour and bacon, and a man can live like a king. They's some big cow outfits up there, too – Double Circles, an' Wine Glass an' Cherrycow. Come on! What d'ye say? Let's quit! This ain't the only outfit in America!"

For the moment Bowles was almost carried away by this sudden rush of enthusiasm, and even after a second thought it still appealed to him strongly.

"Are there many bears up there?" he inquired, as if wavering upon a decision.

"Believe me!" observed Brigham, swaggering at the thought. "And mountain lions, too! A man has to watch his horses in that country, or he'll find himself afoot."

"And the Indians?"

"Well," admitted Brigham, "of course them Apaches are bad – but they keep 'em around the Fort most of the time, and don't let 'em carry guns when they go out – nothin' but bows and arrows. Come on – they won't make us no trouble!"

"Well, by Jove, Brig," sighed Bowles, drawing a long breath, "I'm awfully tempted to do it!"

"Sure," nodded Brigham, "finest trip in the world – an' I know that country like a book!"

"But let's finish the round-up first," suggested Bowles. "And, besides, I want to find out who it is that's searching for me. I guess I didn't tell you what I'm hiding for?"

"No," shrugged Brigham; "that's all right. Then if anybody should ask me, I'll tell 'em I don't know nothin'."

"Well, I'm going to tell you, anyhow!" cried Bowles impulsively. "I've got an aunt back East, and she's an awfully nice woman – does everything for me – but I have to do what she says. She doesn't make me do it, you know – she just expects me to do it! Maybe you never had any one like that? Well, I've always tried to do what she liked – she's my father's sister, you know – but this spring I just had to run away."

"Too much fer you, eh?" commented Brigham, grinning.

"No, it wasn't that so much, but she – she told me I ought to get married!"

"Well, what's the matter?" inquired Brigham, his grin wreathing back to his ears. "What's the matter with that?"

Bowles blushed and blinked with embarrassment.

"Well, the fact is, Brigham," he said, "she picked out the girl herself!"

"No! Never asked you, nor nothin'? What did the girl say?"

"Oh, Christabel? Why, she never knew, of course. I came out West immediately."

A puzzled look came over Brigham's honest face.

"Say, lemme git the straight of this," he said. "I'm a kind of Mormon myself, you know, and these fellers are always throwin' it into me about the way Mormons marry off their gals – did yore aunt make some trade with her folks?"

"Who – Christabel?" gasped Bowles, now breaking into a sweat. "Why, bless your soul, no! You don't understand how things are done in New York, Brig. Nothing was even said, you know, it was just understood! My aunt didn't even tell me whom she had in mind – she just told me I ought to be married, and threw me into Christabel's society. But I knew it – I knew it from the first day – and rather than hurt Christabel's feelings I just picked up and ran away!"

"Well, I'll be durned!" observed Brigham, gazing upon him with wonder. "And we thought you was tryin' to git Dix!"

CHAPTER XV
BURYING THE HATCHET

To the hard-riding cowboy of the plains, the subtleties of emotion and romance are a closed book – just as the hand that whirls the rope is too crabbed to play the violin. Some of us in this world must do the heavy work. Some hands must be knotted, some backs bent with labor, some brows furrowed with wind and weather and the hard realities of life; but in return the laborers gain the strength of the wind-tossed oak and the patience of the ages. There are others whose lot it is to write the poetry and paint the pictures and reach out into the great unknown for a thousand haunting chords and harmonies; but they are a people apart. Their very sensitiveness makes them unequal to the stress of life; their slender hands cannot perform hard labor, and their hearts cannot endure the monotony and anguish of unremitting toil – yet they have their place in the world.

The time may come when the tasks and rewards will be divided again and each of us be given a more equal share, but until that day men will fall into classes – and neither will understand the other. Samuel Bowles had lived the protected life, but Brigham had buffeted his way. At the story of the Lady Christabel he stood agape, marveling at the man who could perceive such subtle advances, wondering at the nature that would flee for such a cause; but in the end he gazed upon him pityingly, and accepted him for his friend.

"I'll tell you, pardner," he said, as they drifted their cattle along; "I'm up ag'inst it, too. They's a gal over on the river – don't make no difference about her name – but I used to think a lot of her. Wasn't skeered of her none, the way I am with Dix. She was an awful good girl, too – no fly ways or nothin' – an' I was kinder fixin' to marry her when I had this racket with the bishop. My folks are all Mormons, of course, and so are hers, and I like 'em well enough in certain ways, but I can't stand them dang priests. As long as I'm free I can pull out and go where I please, but the minute I marry and settle down I'm up ag'inst it proper."

"Why, what's the matter?" inquired Bowles, thinking of all the awful things he had heard about the Saints, but discreetly holding his peace. "Will they punish you for running away?"

"No," answered Brigham, shaking his head dolefully, "it ain't that – it's the things they make you do. I'm a renegade now – I don't pay tithes or nothin' – but if I settled down on the river I'd have to come in ag'in. Mebbe jist about the time I'm married they summon me fer a mission. Two years to some foreign country to bring in converts to the church – an' who's goin' to take care of my wife?"

"Oh!" breathed Bowles sympathetically. "That is bad! Why don't you get married and live somewhere else, then?"

"That's jest it," frowned Brigham. "Gal's a Mormon too, and she won't come. So there I am!"

"Ah!" said Bowles; and they rode a long time in silence.

"That letter was from her," volunteered Brigham, jerking his head back toward the place where they had been camped, and after that he said no more. The old cynical look came into his squinted eyes, and he strung out the cattle methodically until they came to the home ranch. It was four o'clock in the afternoon then, and they lay over until the next day.

The Bat Wing bunk-house was hardly a cheery lounging place. Outside of the illustrated magazine literature with which the walls were papered, the library consisted of three books – a boot, spur and saddle catalogue, "Lin McLean," and that classic of the cow camps, "Three Weeks." When the entire outfit was at "the home," Happy Jack was in the habit of reading choice passages of "Three Weeks" to his friends, he being the scholar of the bunch, and closing each selection with the remark: "Well, I reckon that's plain enough for you, ain't it?" And the boys would generally agree that it was.

With the memory of Happy Jack still in mind, Bowles took shame to himself and read Owen Wister's "Lin McLean" instead, finding there a tenderfoot on another range who was worse even than himself. As things were coming now, Bowles hardly considered himself a tenderfoot any more. To be sure, he could not rope in the corral; but there were several local punchers in the same fix; and when it came to riding, he still had Wa-ha-lote in his string as a tribute to his skill as a fence jumper. He had also sat out a bucking fit or two when the boys put high-life on his horse; and, taken all in all he was not the worst rider in the outfit, by any means. As a branding hand, also, he was able to do his share; he had learned some of the rudiments of handling cattle; and his face had peeled off and tanned again, leaving him with a complexion in no wise different from that of his bronzed companions. And then, to top it all, he had won the friendship of Brigham, who was so good that he passed for a cowman.

Poor old Brigham! He never said what was in that letter from his girl, but Bowles knew he was wrestling with his problem. His carefree laugh was silenced for the time and, after cooking up a little food in the kitchen that stood next to the bunk-house, he had caught up a fresh mount and ridden off alone. The windmill man and the fence mender were out on their rounds, and Bowles was reading "The Winning of the Biscuit-shooter" and wondering if it was true, when a horse trotted into the yard. Presently he heard a saddle hit the ground, and the pasture gate swing to, and then there was a clank of spurs on the stoop. The door swung open, and as he glanced up from where he lay he saw Dixie Lee looking in at him.

The instincts of a lifetime prompted Bowles to rise to his feet and bow, but other instincts were crowding in on him now, and he only nodded his head. The memory, perhaps, of a fake letter to Samuel Houghton gave color to his indifference, and for the first time in his life he gazed at her with a shadow of disapproval. She was glorious indeed to look upon; but it is the heart that counts, and Dixie had seemed a little unkind. So he lay there with the book before him, and waited for her to speak. It was the first time they had been alone together since he had left her at Chula Vista, and it was not his part to make advances after what she had told him then.

As for Dixie, she seemed suddenly embarrassed and ill at ease, though she carried it off with her usual frontier recklessness.

"Hello there, cowboy!" she said, dropping down on the steps. "Where'd you come from?"

"I came from the upper water with Brig," answered Bowles, speaking for his part with decorous politeness. "We brought down a bunch of twos."

A smile swept over Dixie Lee's face at this lapse into the vernacular, but she brushed it away as he frowned.

"Bunch of twos, eh?" she repeated. "Say, you're getting to be a regular cowboy now, ain't you?

"Where's Brig?" she inquired, when she saw that her remark displeased him; and once more he answered and fell silent.

"He's a great fellow, old Brig," she went on, settling herself comfortably against the door-sill and indicating that the conversation was on; "you seem to be pretty thick with him!"

"Yes," agreed Bowles, sitting up and laying his book aside; "I like Brigham very much."

"He's a great fellow to tell stories," continued Dixie; "always talking and laughing, too – I never did see such a good-natured man."

"Yes," assented Bowles a little doubtfully; "I guess he's awfully good-natured – but even fat folks have their troubles, you know."

"Why, what's the matter with Brig? Has he run out of chewing tobacco?"

"Well, no," said Bowles; "it's not that. I guess it's that letter you gave him."

"Letter!" repeated Dixie incredulously. "What, from his girl? Oh, he'll be all right in a day or so – who ever heard of a cowboy going into a decline? And say, talking about letters, why didn't you take that one I wrote you the other day? I had something mighty special to communicate to you in that, but you'll never get it now! I hope the boys did something to you!"

"Yes," answered Bowles serenely; "they hazed me for a day or two. You seem to have a great many admirers out here, Miss Lee."

Dixie May's eyes flashed at the evident implication, and she had a retort on her lips, but something in his manner restrained her.

"How can I help it if the boys get foolish?" she demanded severely. "And you don't want to let your Eastern ideas deceive you – it's the custom of the country out here."

"Yes, indeed," purled Bowles; "and a very pretty custom, too. Have you just come back from Chula Vista?"

"Yes, I have!" snapped Dixie. "But you don't need to get so superior about it! I guess I can do what I please, can't I?"

"Why, certainly," assented Bowles.

"Well, then, what do you want to get so supercilious for?" raged Dixie. "I don't know, there's something about the way you talk that fairly maddens me! I've a good mind to tell the boys who you are, and have them run you out of the country! Why didn't you take that letter I wrote you?"

She was angry now, and her voice was pitched high for a scolding, but Bowles showed no signs of fear.

"The letter you wrote was addressed to Samuel Houghton," he said; "and that is not my name."

"Well, what is your name, then?" demanded Dixie. "Bowles?"

For a moment Bowles gazed at her, and there was a pained look in his eyes – what if his beloved should turn out to be a scold?

"Why do you ask?" he inquired; and so gently did he say it that she faltered, as if ashamed.

"Well," she said, "I guess it isn't any of my business, is it? I don't know what I'm doing here, anyway. If there's any one thing that makes Mother furious, it's to see me hanging around the bunk-house. She thinks I – "

She rose suddenly, and shook out her skirt, but Bowles did not protest.

"You don't seem to care whether I go or not?" she pouted.

"Quite the contrary, I assure you, Miss Lee," declared Bowles earnestly. "But I'm not on my own ground now, and – well, I don't wish to take advantage of your hospitality."

"No," said Dixie with gentle irony, "nothing like that! You want to be careful how you treat these Arizona girls – they're liable to misunderstand your motives!"

Bowles' eyes lighted up with a merry twinkle, but he preserved his poker face.

"Oh, I hope not!" he said; and then both of them smiled very knowingly.

"The reason I wanted to get your name," observed Dixie, sitting down and smoothing out her skirt again, "was in case you got hurt or killed. Who am I going to write to in case you go out like Dunbar? Houghton? Bowles? Or who-all? You know, I feel kind of responsible for you, considering the way you got out here, and – "

"Oh, don't think of that!" protested Bowles, coming over and sitting near her. "If I get hurt, the boys will take care of me; and if I get killed – well, it won't matter then what you do."

"Well, don't get killed," urged Dixie kindly. "And if you get hurt, Mother and I will nurse you back to health and strength."

"Oh, will you?" cried Bowles. "I'll remember that, you may be sure! But, speaking of names, has there been any one in Chula Vista inquiring for Samuel Houghton?"

"Now, you see!" exclaimed Dixie Lee triumphantly. "If you'd opened that letter I had for you, you'd have found out about it. As it is, you'll just have to keep on guessing – I'm mad!"

"I'm sorry," said Bowles. "The reason I asked was, Brig and I are planning to make a little trip somewhere, and if I thought there was any one searching for me I'd – "

"Oh, you don't need to run away!" explained Dixie hurriedly. "I'll tell you when to skip – but you don't know what you missed by not reading that letter I wrote you!"

"Well, direct the next one to Bowles, then!" he pleaded. "But, no joking, I wish you wouldn't call attention to that other name – it's likely to get me into difficulties."

"What kind of difficulties?" inquired Dixie Lee demurely; but Bowles only shook his head.

"I'm very sorry I can't tell you," he said; "but it means a great deal to me."

"Maybe I can help you," she suggested.

"Yes, indeed, you can!" assured Bowles, drawing nearer and smiling his naive smile. "Just don't tell anybody what you know, and let me have a chance. I've always been shut off from the world, you know – I've never had a chance. Just let me fight my way and see if I'm not a man. I know I'm new, and there are lots of things that come hard for me; but give me a chance to stay and maybe I'll win out. You don't know, Miss Lee, how much I treasure those stories you told me – when we were coming West on the train, you know. Don't you know, I think you have more of the feeling, more of the fine spirit of the West, than any one I have met. These cowboys seem so barren, some way; they seem to take it as a matter of course. And they all stay away from me – except Brigham. I don't get many stories now."

He paused and Dixie May eyed him curiously. He was not the same man who had traveled with her on the train. A month had made a difference with him. But there was still the boyish innocence that she liked.

"You mean stories about outlaws and Indians?" she said. "Hunting and trapping, and all that?"

"Yes!" nodded Bowles, glancing over at her appealingly. "Where does that old trapper, Bill Jump, live? You know – the one you were telling about!"

"Oh, Bill? He lives up here on the Black Mesa – anywhere between here and the New Mexico line – and he sure is one of the grandest liars that ever breathed, too. I remember one time – "

Bowles settled himself inside the doorway and drank in the magical tale. It was as if the Old West rose up before him, blotting out the barbed-wire fences and the lonely homes of the nesters and bringing back the age of romance that he sought. He questioned her eagerly, still watching her with his boyish, admiring eyes, and Dixie plunged into another. The sun, which was getting low, swung lower and a door slammed up at the big house. Then a reproachful voice came floating down, and Dixie jumped up from her seat.

"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed. "There's Maw – seems like I never get any peace! But, anyway, this old bear with the trap on his foot picked up Bill's gun and threw the chamber open, then he looked up into the tree where Bill was hanging and crooked his finger – like that! And Bill Jump said he knowed it jest as if that ol' b'ar spoke – he was signaling him to throw him down a cartridge, so he could put Bill out of his misery! Or that was what Bill said. But, say, I've got to be running – come up to the house to-night and let me tell you the rest of it! Oh, pshaw, we know what your motives are! Come along anyhow! And bring Brig with you! All right – good-by!"

She gave him a dizzy smile over her shoulder as she fled, and Bowles blinked his eyes to find the world so fair.