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CHAPTER IV. – IN THE SMOKER

So Frank took the company back to Denver. He was able to do so without depositing the check till Denver was reached, as Horace Hobson furnished the funds, holding the check as security.

Hobson went along at the same time.

While on the train Frank made arrangements with several members of his company in the revised version of “For Old Eli,” when the play went on the road again.

He said nothing to Lloyd Fowler nor Charlie Harper. Although he did not make arrangements with Granville Garland, he asked Garland if he cared to go out with the company again, informing him that he might have an opening for him.

Fowler saw Merry talking with some of the members, and he surmised what it meant. He began to feel anxious as time passed, and Frank did not come to him. He went to Harper to talk it over.

Harper was in the smoker, pulling at a brierwood pipe and looking sour enough. He did not respond when Fowler spoke to him.

“What’s the matter?” asked Fowler. “Sick?”

“Yes,” growled Harper.

“What ails you?”

“Disgusted.”

“At what?”

“Somebody.”

“Who?”

“Myself for one.”

“Somebody else?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“You’re it.”

Fowler fell back and stared at Harper. He had taken a seat opposite his fellow actor. Harper returned his stare with something like still greater sourness.

“What’s the matter with me?” asked Fowler, wondering.

“You’re a confounded idiot!” answered Harper, bluntly.

“Well, I must say I like your plain language!” exclaimed Fowler, coloring and looking decidedly touched. “You were in a bad temper when we started for Denver, but you seem to be worse now. What’s the matter?”

“Oh, I see now that I’ve put a foot in the soup. I am broke, and I need money. All I am liable to get is the two weeks salary I shall receive from Merriwell. If I’d kept my mouth shut I might have a new engagement with him, like the others.”

“Then some of the others have a new engagement?”

“All of them, I reckon, except you and I. We are the fools of the company.”

“Well, what shall we do?”

“Can’t do anything but keep still and swallow our medicine.”

“Perhaps you think that, but I’m going to hit Merriwell up.”

“Well, you’ll be a bigger fool if you do, after the calling down you received from him to-day.”

At that moment Frank entered the smoker, looking for Hodge, who had been unable to procure a good seat in one of the other cars. Bart was sitting near Harper and Fowler.

As Frank came down the aisle, Fowler arose.

“I want to speak to you, Mr. Merriwell,” he said.

“All right,” nodded Frank. “Go ahead.”

“I have heard that you are making new engagements with the members of the company.”

“Well?”

“You haven’t said anything to me.”

“No.”

“I suppose it is because I made some foolish talk to you this morning. Well, I apologized, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I presume you will give me a chance when you take the play out again?”

“No, sir.”

Frank said it quietly, looking Fowler full in the face.

“So you are going to turn me down because I made that talk? Well, I have heard considerable about your generosity, but this does not seem very generous.”

“Ever since joining the company and starting to rehearse, Mr. Fowler, you have been a source of discord. Once or twice you came near flatly refusing to do some piece of business the way I suggested. Once you insolently informed me that I was not the stage manager. You completely forgot that I was the author of the piece. I have heard that you told others not to do things as I suggested, but to do them in their own way. Several times before we started out I was on the verge of releasing you, which I should have done had there been time to fill your place properly. Last night you were intoxicated when the hour arrived for the curtain to go up. You went onto the stage in an intoxicated condition. You did not do certain pieces of business as you had been instructed to do them, but as you thought they should be done, therefore ruining a number of scenes. You were insolent, and would have been fined a good round sum for it had we gone on. In a number of ways you have shown that you are a man I do not want in my company, so I shall let you go, after paying you two weeks salary. I believe I have given the best of reasons for pursuing such a course.”

Then Frank stepped past Fowler and sat down with Hodge.

The actor took his seat beside Harper, who said:

“I hope you are satisfied now!”

“Satisfied!” muttered Fowler. “I’d like to punch his head off!”

“Very likely,” nodded Harper; “but you can’t do it, you know. He is a holy terror, and you are not in his class.”

Behind them was a man who seemed to be reading a newspaper. He was holding the paper very high, so that his face could not be seen, and he was not reading at all. He was listening with the keenest interest to everything.

As Frank sat down beside Hodge he observed a look of great satisfaction on Bart’s face.

“Well, Merriwell,” said the dark-faced youth, with something like the shadow of a smile, “you have done yourself proud.”

“Let’s go forward,” suggested Merry. “The smoke is pretty thick here, and some of it from those pipes is rank. I want to talk with you.”

So they got up and left the car.

As they went out, Fowler glared at Merriwell’s back, hissing:

“Oh, I’d like to get even with you!”

Instantly the man behind lowered his paper, leaned forward, and said:

“I see you do not like Mr. Merriwell much. If you want to get even with him, I may be able to show you how to do it.”

With startled exclamations, both Harper and Fowler turned round. The man behind was looking at them over the edge of his paper.

“Who are you?” demanded Fowler.

“I think you know me,” said the man, lowering his paper.

Lawrence sat there!

In Denver Frank was accompanied to the bank by Mr. Hobson. It happened that Kent Carson, a well-known rancher whom Frank had met, was making a deposit at the bank.

“Hello, young man!” cried the rancher, in surprise. “I thought you were on the road with your show?”

“I was,” smiled Frank, “but met disaster at the very start, and did not get further than Puelbo.”

“Well, that’s tough!” said Carson, sympathetically. “What was the matter?”

“A number of things,” confessed Frank. “The play was not strong enough without sensational features. I have found it necessary to introduce a mechanical effect, besides rewriting a part of the play. I shall start out again with it as soon as I can get it into shape.”

“Then your backer is all right? He’s standing by you?”

“On the contrary,” smiled Merry, “he skipped out from Puelbo yesterday morning, leaving me and the company in the lurch.”

“Well, that was ornery!” said Carson. “What are you going to do without a backer?”

“Back myself. I have the money now to do so. I am here to make a deposit.”

Then it came about that he told Mr. Carson of his good fortune, and the rancher congratulated him most heartily.

Frank presented his check for deposit, asking for a check book. The eyes of the receiving teller bulged when he saw the amount of the check. He looked Frank over critically.

Mr. Hobson had introduced Frank, and the teller asked him if he could vouch for the identity of the young man.

“I can,” was the answer.

“So can I,” spoke up Kent Carson. “I reckon my word is good here. I’ll stand behind this young man.”

“Are you willing to put your name on the back of this check, Mr. Carson?” asked the teller.

“Hand it over,” directed the rancher.

He took the check and endorsed it with his name.

“There,” he said, “I reckon you know it’s good now.”

“Yes,” said the teller. “There will be no delay now. Mr. Merriwell can draw on us at once.”

Frank thanked Mr. Carson heartily.

“That’s all right,” said the cattleman, in an offhand way. “I allow that a chap who will defend a ragged boy as you did is pretty apt to be all right. How long will it take to get your play in shape again?”

“Well, I may be three or four days rewriting it. I don’t know how long the other work will be.”

“Three or four days. Well, say, why can’t you come out to my ranch and do the work?”

“Really, I don’t see how I can do that,” declared Frank. “I must be here to see that the mechanical arrangement is put up right.”

“Now you must come,” declared Carson. “I won’t take no for your answer. You can give instructions for that business. I suppose you have a plan of it?”

“Not yet, but I shall have before night.”

“Can you get your business here done to-day?”

“I may be able to, but I am not sure.”

“Then you’re going with me to-morrow.”

“I can’t leave my friends who are – ”

“Bring them right along. It doesn’t make a bit of difference if there are twenty of them. I’ll find places for them, and they shall have the best the Twin Star affords. Now, if you refuse that offer, you and I are enemies.”

The man said this laughingly, but he placed Frank in an awkward position. He had just done a great favor for Merriwell, and Frank felt that he could not refuse.

“Very well, Mr. Carson,” he said, “if you put it in that light, I’ll have to accept your hospitality.”

“That’s the talk! Won’t my boy at Yale be surprised when I write him you’ve been visiting me? Ha! ha! ha!”

Mr. Carson was stopping at the Metropole, while Frank had chosen the American. The rancher urged Merry to move right over to the Metropole, and the young actor-playwright finally consented.

But Frank had business for that day. First he telegraphed to the lithographers in Chicago a long description of the scene which he wanted made on his new paper. He ordered it rushed, and directed them to draw on his bankers for any reasonable sum.

Then he started out to find the proper men to construct the mechanical effect he wished. He went straight to the theater first, and he found that the stage manager of the Broadway was a genius who could make anything. Frank talked with the man twenty minutes, and decided that he had struck the person for whom he was looking.

It did not take them long to come to terms. The man had several assistants who could aid him on the work, and he promised to rush things. Frank felt well satisfied.

Returning to his hotel, Merry drew a plan of what he desired. As he was skillful at drawing, and very rapid, it did not take him more than two hours to draw the plan and write out an explicit explanation of it.

With that he returned to the stage manager. They spent another hour talking it over, and Frank left, feeling satisfied that the man perfectly understood his wants and would produce an arrangement as satisfactory as it could be if it were overseen during its construction by Frank himself.

Frank was well satisfied with what he had accomplished. He went back to the American and drew up checks for every member of the old company, paying them all two weeks salary. Lloyd Fowler took the check without a word of thanks. The others expressed their gratitude.

Then Frank moved over to the Metropole, where he found Kent Carson waiting for him.

Hodge and Gallup came along with Frank.

“These are the friends I spoke of, Mr. Carson,” explained Frank.

“Where’s the rest of them?” asked the rancher, looking about.

“These are all.”

“All?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why, by the way you talked, I reckoned you were going to bring your whole company along.”

He remembered Hodge, whom he had seen with Frank once before, and he shook hands with both Bart and Ephraim.

“You are lucky to be counted as friends of a young man like Mr. Merriwell,” said the cattleman. “That is, you’re lucky if he’s anything like what my boy wrote that he was. My boy is a great admirer of him.”

“It’s strange I don’t remember your son,” said Frank.

“Why, he’s a freshman.”

“Yes, but I know a large number of freshmen.”

“So my boy said. Said you knew them because some of them had been trying to do you a bad turn; but he was glad to see you get the best of them, for you were all right. He said the freshmen as a class thought so, too.”

“Your son was very complimentary. If I return to Yale, I shall look him up.”

“Then you contemplate returning to college?”

“I do.”

“When?”

“Next fall, if I do not lose my money backing my play.”

“Oh, you won’t lose forty-three thousand dollars.”

“That is not all mine to lose. Only one-fifth of that belongs to me, and I can lose that sum.”

“Then why don’t you let the show business alone and go back to college on that?”

“Because I have determined to make a success with this play, and I will not give up. Never yet in my life have I been defeated in an undertaking, and I will not be defeated now.”

The rancher looked at Frank with still greater admiration.

“You make me think of some verses I read once,” he said. “I’ve always remembered them, and I think they’ve had something to do with my success in life. They were written by Holmes.”

The rancher paused, endeavoring to recall the lines. It was plain to Frank that he was not a highly educated man, but he was highly intelligent – a man who had won his way in the world by his own efforts and determination. For that reason, he admired determination in others.

“I have it!” exclaimed the rancher. “Here it is:

 
“‘Be firm! One constant element in luck
     Is genuine, solid, old Teutonic pluck.
     See yon tall shaft; it felt the earthquake’s thrill,
     Clung to its base and greets the sunrise still.
     Stick to your aim; the mongrel’s hold will slip,
     But only crowbars loose the bulldog’s grip;
     Small as he looks, the jaw that never yields
     Drags down the bellowing monarch of the fields.’”
 

CHAPTER V. – NATURE’S NOBLEMAN

Frank found the Twin Star Ranch a pleasant place. The house was large and well furnished, everything being in far better taste than he had expected.

Merry knew something of ranches and ranch life which, however, he said nothing about. He was supposed to be a very tender tenderfoot. Nobody dreamed he had ever handled a lariat, ridden a bucking broncho, or taken part in a round-up.

Gallup roamed about the ranch, inspecting everything, and he was a source of constant amusement to the “punchers,” as the cowboys were called.

After one of these tours of inspection, he came back to the room where Frank and Bart were sitting, filled with amazement.

“Vermont farms are different from this one,” smiled Merry.

“Waal, naow yeou’re talkin’! I’d like ter know haow they ever do the milkin’ here. I don’t b’lieve all ther men they’ve got kin milk so menny caows. Why, I saw a hull drove of more’n five hundred cattle about here on the farm, an’ they told me them warn’t a pinch of what Mr. Carson owns. Gosh all hemlock! but he must be rich!”

“Mr. Carson seems to be pretty well fixed,” said Merry.

“That’s so. He’s got a fine place here, only it’s too gol-dinged mernoternous.”

“Monotonous? How?”

“The graound’s too flat. Ain’t any hills to rest a feller’s eyes ag’inst. I tell yeou it does a man good to go aout where he kin see somethin’ besides a lot of flatness an’ sky. There ain’t northin’ in the world purtier than the Varmount hills. In summer they’re all green an’ covered with grass an’ trees, an’ daown in the valleys is the streams an’ rivers runnin’ along, sometimes swift an’ foamin’, sometimes slow an’ smooth, like glars. An’ ther cattle are feedin’ on ther hills, an’ ther folks are to work on their farms, an’ ther farm haouses, all painted white, are somethin’ purty ter see. They jest do a man’s heart an’ soul good. An’ then when it is good summer weather in Varmount, I be dad-bimmed if there’s any better weather nowhere! Ther sun jest shines right daown as if it was glad to git a look at sech a purty country, an’ ther sky’s as blue as Elsie Bellwood’s eyes. Ther birds are singin’ in ther trees, an’ ther bees go hummin’ in ther clover fields, an’ there’s sich a gol-durn good feelin’ gits inter a feller that he jest wants ter larf an’ shaout all ther time. Aout here there ain’t no trees fer ther birds ter sing in, an’ there don’t seem ter be northin’ but flat graound an’ cattle an’ sky.”

Frank had been listening with interest to the words of the country boy. A lover of nature himself, Merry realized that Gallup’s soul had been deeply impressed by the fair features of nature around his country home.

“Yes, Ephraim,” he said, “Vermont is very picturesque and beautiful. The Vermont hills are something once seen never to be forgotten.”

Gallup was warmed up over his subject.

“But when it comes to daownright purtiness,” he went on, “there ain’t northing like Varmount in the fall fer that. Then ev’ry day yeou kin see ther purtiest sights human eyes ever saw. Then is the time them hills is wuth seein’. First the leaves on ther maples, an’ beeches, an’ oaks they begin ter turn yaller an’ red a little bit. Then ther frost comes more, an’ them leaves turn red an’ gold till it seems that ther hull sides of them hills is jest like a purty painted picter. The green of the cedars an’ furs jest orfsets the yaller an’ gold. Where there is rocks on the hills, they seem to turn purple an’ blue in the fall, an’ they look purty, too – purtier’n they do at any other time. I uster jest go aout an’ set right daown an’ look at them air hills by the hour, an’ I uster say to myself I didn’t see haow heaven could be any purtier than the Varmount hills in ther fall.

“But there was folks,” he went on, whut lived right there where all them purty sights was an’ never saw um. They warn’t blind, neither. I know some folks I spoke to abaout how purty the hills looked told me they hedn’t noticed um! Naow, what du yeou think of that? I’ve even hed folks tell me they couldn’t see northin’ purty abaout um! Naow whut do yeou think of that? I ruther guess them folks missed half ther fun of livin’. They was born with somethin’ ther matter with um.

“It uster do me good ter take my old muzzle-loadin’ gun an’ go aout in the woods trampin’ in the fall. I uster like ter walk where the leaves hed fell jest to hear um rustle. I’d give a dollar this minute ter walk through the fallen leaves in the Varmount woods! I didn’t go out ter shoot things so much as I did to see things. There was plenty of squirrels, but I never shot but one red squirrel in my life. He come aout on the end of a limb clost to me an’ chittered at me in a real jolly way, same’s to say, ‘Hello, young feller! Ain’t this a fine day? Ain’t yeou glad yeou’re livin’?’ An’ then I up an’ shot him, like a gol-durn pirut!”

Ephraim stopped and choked a little. Bart was looking at him now with a strange expression on his face. Frank did not speak, but he was fully in sympathy with the tender-hearted country youth.

Bart rose to his feet, heaving a deep sigh.

“I’m afraid I missed some things when I was a boy,” he said. “There were plenty of woods for me, but I never found any pleasure in them. I used to think it fun to shoot squirrels; but now I believe it would have been greater pleasure for me if I had not shot them. I never listened to the music of the woods, for I didn’t know there was any music in them. Gallup, you have shown me that I was a fool.”

Then, with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, he walked out of the room.

Because Ephraim was very verdant the cowboys on the Twin Star fancied that Mr. Carson’s other visitors must be equally as accustomed to Western ways.

Frank was hard at work on his play, and that caused him to stick pretty close to the house. However, he was a person who believed in exercise when he could find it, and so, on the afternoon of the second day, he went out and asked one of the punchers if he could have a pony.

The man looked him over without being able to wholly conceal his contempt.

“Kin you ride?” he asked.

“Yes,” answered Frank, quietly.

“Hawse or kaow?” asked the cowboy.

“If you have a good saddle horse, I’d like to have him,” said Merry. “And be good enough to restrain your sarcasm. I don’t like it.”

The puncher gasped. He was angry. The idea of a tenderfoot speaking to him in such a way!

“All right,” he muttered. “I’ll git ye a critter, but our Western hawses ain’t like your Eastern ladies’ hawses.”

He departed.

Hodge had overheard all this, and he came up.

“You want to look out, Merry,” he said. “That chap didn’t like the way you called him down, and he’ll bring you a vicious animal.”

“I know it,” nodded Merry, pulling on a pair of heavy gloves. “It is what I expect.”

Bart said no more. He had seen Merry ride, and he knew Frank was a natural horse breaker.

The puncher returned in a short time, leading a little, wiry, evil-eyed broncho. He was followed by several other cowboys, and Merry heard one of them say:

“Better not let him try it, Hough. He’ll be killed, and Carson will fire you.”

“I’ll warn him,” returned the one called Hough, “an’ then I won’t be ter blame. He wants ter ride; let him ride – if he kin.”

Frank looked the broncho over.

“Is this the best saddle horse you have?” he asked.

“Waal, he’s the only one handy now,” was the sullen answer. “He’s a bit onreliable at times, an’ you’d better look out fer him. I wouldn’t recommend him for a lady ter ride.”

“By that I presume you mean he is a bucker?”

“Waal, he may buck some!” admitted the puncher, surprised that Frank should ask such a question.

“You haven’t anything but a hackamore on him,” said Merry. “Why didn’t you put a bit in his mouth? Do people usually ride with hackamores out here?”

“He kinder objects to a bit,” confessed the cowboy, his surprise increasing. “People out here ride with any old thing. Mebbe you hadn’t better try him.”

“Has he ever been ridden?”

“Certainly.”

“You give your word to that?”

“Yep.”

“All right. Then I’ll ride him.”

Frank went into the saddle before the puncher was aware that he contemplated such a thing. He yanked the halter out of the man’s hand, who leaped aside, with a cry of surprise and fear, barely escaping being hit by the broncho’s heels, for the creature wheeled and kicked, with a shrill scream.

Frank was entirely undisturbed. He had put on a pair of spurred riding boots which he found in the house, and now the broncho felt the prick of the spurs.

Then the broncho began to buck. Down went his head, and up into the air went his heels; down came his heels, and up went his head. Then he came down on all fours, and his entire body shot into the air. He came down stiff-legged, his back humped. Again and again he did this, with his nose between his knees, but still the tenderfoot remained in the saddle.

“Good Lord!” cried the wondering cowboys.

Bart Hodge stood at one side, his hands in his pockets, a look of quiet confidence on his face.

From an upper window of the ranch a pretty, sad-faced girl looked out, seeing everything. Frank had noticed her just before mounting the broncho. He wondered not a little, for up to that moment he had known nothing of such a girl being there. He had not seen her before since coming to the ranch.

All at once the broncho began to “pitch a-plunging,” jumping forward as he bucked. He stopped short and whirled end-for-end, bringing his nose where his tail was a moment before. He did that as he leaped into the air. Then he began to go up and down fore and aft with a decidedly nasty motion. He screamed his rage. He pitched first on one side and then on the other, letting his shoulders alternately jerk up and droop down almost to the ground.

“Good Lord!” cried the cowboys again, for through all this Frank Merriwell sat firmly in the saddle.

“Is this yere your tenderfoot what yer told us ye was goin’ ter learn a lesson, Hough?” they asked.

“Waal, I’ll be blowed!” was all the reply Hough made.

The broncho pitched “fence-cornered,” but even that had no effect on the rider.

Hough told the truth when he said the animal had been ridden before. Realizing at last the fruitlessness of its efforts, it suddenly ceased all attempts to unseat Frank. Two minutes later Merriwell was riding away on the creature’s back, and Hough, the discomfited cowboy, was the laughing-stock of the Twin Star Ranch.