The Dude Wrangler (6 page)

Together they filled the grain sack they had brought and carefully replaced the plank, then, staggering under the weight of the load, made their way to a gulch, buried the sack, and marked the hiding-place with a stone. With a righteous sense of having acted as instruments of Providence in punishing selfishness, they returned to town to follow such whims as seized them under the stimulus of a bottle of Mr. Tucker's excellent Bourbon.

The constable had been asleep for hours when a yell-a series of yells-made him sit up. He listened a moment, then with a sigh of resignation got up, dressed, and took the key of the calaboose from its nail by the kitchen sink.

"I'll lock 'em up and be right back," he said to his sleepy wife, who seemed to know whom he meant too well to ask.

Under the arc light in front of the Prouty House he found them doing the Indian "stomp" dance to the delight of the guests who were leaning from their windows to applaud.

"Ain't you two ashamed of yerselves?" the constable demanded, scandalized-referring to the fact that Pinkey and Wallie had divested themselves of their trousers and boots and were dancing in their stocking feet.

"Ashamed?" Wallie asked, impudently. "Where have I heard that word?"

"Who sold liquor to you two?"

"I ate a raisin and it fermented," Wallie replied, pertly.

"Where's your clothes?" To Pinkey.

"How'sh I know?"

"You two ought to be ordered to keep out of town. You're pests. Come along!"

"Jus' waitin' fer you t'put us t'bed," said Pinkey, cheerfully.

The two lurched beside the constable to the calaboose, where they dropped down on the hard pads and temporarily passed out.

The sun was shining in Wallie's face when he awoke and realized where he was. He and Pinkey had been there too many times before not to know. As he lay reading the pencilled messages and criticisms of the accommodation left on the walls by other occupants he subconsciously marvelled at himself that he should have no particular feeling of shame at finding himself in a cell.

He was aware that it was accepted as a fact that he had gone to the bad. He had been penurious as a miser until he had saved enough from his wages as a common cowhand to buy his homestead outright from the State. After that he had never saved a cent, on the contrary, he was usually overdrawn. He gambled, and lost no opportunity to get drunk, since he calculated that he got more entertainment for his money out of that than anything else, even at the "bootlegging" price of $20 per quart which prevailed.

So he had drifted, learning in the meantime under Pinkey's tutelage to ride and shoot and handle a rope with the best of them. Pinkey had left the Spenceley ranch and they were both employed now by the same cattleman.

He rarely saw Helene, in consequence, but upon the few occasions they had met in Prouty she had made him realize that she knew his reputation and disapproved of it. In the East she had mocked him for his inoffensiveness, now she criticized him for the opposite. It was plain, he thought disconsolately, that he could not please her, yet it seemed to make no difference in his own feelings for her.

His face reddened as he recalled the boasts he had made upon several occasions and how far he had fallen short of fulfilling them. He was going to "show" them, and now all he had to offer in evidence was 160 acres gone to weeds and grasshoppers, his saddle, and the clothes he stood in.

It was not often that Wallie stopped to take stock, for it was an uncomfortable process, but his failure seemed to thrust itself upon him this morning. He was glad when Pinkey's heavy breathing ceased in the cell adjoining and he began to grumble.

"Looks like a town the size of Prouty would have a decent jail in it," he said, crossly. "They go and throw every Tom, Dick, and Harry in this here cell, and some buckaroo has half tore up the mattress."

"You can't have your private cell, you know," Wallie suggested.

"I've paid enough in fines to build a cooler the size of this one, and looks like I got a little somethin' comin' to me."

"I suppose they don't take that view of it," said Wallie, "but you might speak to the Judge this morning."

After a time Pinkey asked, yawning:

"What did we do last night? Was we fightin'?"

"I don't know-I haven't thought about it."

"I guess the constable will mention it," Pinkey observed, drily. "He does, generally."

"Let's make a circle and go and have a look at my place," Wallie suggested. "It's not far out of the way and we might pick up a few strays in that country."

Pinkey agreed amiably and added:

"You'll prob'ly have the blues for a week after."

The key turning in the lock interrupted the conversation.

"You two birds get up. Court is goin' to set in about twenty minutes." The constable eyed them coldly through the grating.

"Where's my clothes?" Pinkey demanded, looking at the Law accusingly.

"How should I know?"

"I ain't no more pants than a rabbit!" Pinkey declared, astonished.

"Nor I!" said Wallie.

"You got all the clothes you had on when I put you here."

"How kin we go to court?"

"'Tain't fur."

"Everybody'll look at us," Pinkey protested.

The constable retorted callously:

"Won't many more see you than saw you last night doin' the stomp dance in Main Street."

"Did we do that?" Pinkey asked, startled.

"Sure-right in front of the Prouty House, and Helene Spenceley and a lot of folks was lookin' out of the windows."

Wallie sat down on the edge of his cot weakly. That settled it! He doubted if she would ever speak to him.

"I've got customers waitin'," urged the constable, impatiently. "Wrap a soogan around you and step lively."

There was nothing to do but obey, in the circumstances, so the shame-faced pair walked the short block to a hardware store in the rear of which the Justice of the Peace was at his desk to receive them.

"Ten dollars apiece," he said, without looking up from his writing. "And half an hour to get out of town."

Pinkey and Wallie looked at each other.

"The fact is, Your Honour," said the latter, ingratiatingly, "we have mislaid our trousers and left our money in the pockets. If you would be so kind as to loan us each a ten-spot until we have wages coming we shall feel greatly indebted to you."

The Court vouchsafed a glance at them. Showing no surprise at their unusual costume, he said as he fumbled in the pocket of his waistcoat:

"Such gall as yours should not go unrewarded. You pay your debts, and that's all the good I know of either of you. Now clear out-and if you show up for a month the officer here is to arrest you."

He transferred two banknotes to the desk-drawer and went on with his scratching.

"Gosh!" Pinkey lamented, as they stood outside clutching their quilts, "I wisht I knowed whur to locate them mackinaws. I got 'em in Lethbridge before I went to the army, and I think the world of 'em. I don't like 'poor-boys-serge,' but I guess I'll have to come to it, since I'm busted."

"What's that?" Wallie asked, curiously.

"Denim," Pinkey explained, "overalls. That makes me think of a song a feller wrote up:

"A Texas boy in a Northern clime,

With a pair of brown hands and a thin little dime.

The southeast side of his overalls out-

Yip-yip, I'm freezin' to death!"

"That's a swell song," Pinkey went on enthusiastically. "I wish I could think of the rest of it."

"Don't overtax your brain-I've heard plenty. Let's cut down the alley and in the back way of the Emporium. Oh!" He gripped his quilt in sudden panic and looked for a hiding-place. Nothing better than a telegraph pole offered. He stepped behind it as Helene Spenceley passed in Canby's roadster.

"Did she see me?"

"Shore she saw you. You'd oughta seen the way she looked at you."

Wallie, who was too mortified and miserable for words over the incident, declared he meant never again to come to town and make a fool of himself.

"I know how you feel, but you'll git over it," said Pinkey, sympathetically. "It's nothin' to worry about, for I doubt if you ever had any show anyhow."

Canby laughed disagreeably after they had passed the two on the sidewalk.

"That Montgomery-Ward cowpuncher has been drunk again, evidently," he commented.

"I wouldn't call him that. I'm told he can rope and ride with any of them."

He looked at her quickly.

"You seem to keep track of him."

She replied bluntly:

"He interests me."

"Why?" curtly. Canby looked malicious as he added: "He's a fizzle."

"He'll get his second wind some day and surprise you."

"He will?" Canby replied, curtly. "What makes you think it?"

"His aunt is a rich woman, and he could go limping back if he wanted to; besides, he has what I call the 'makings'."

"He should feel flattered by your confidence in him," he answered, uncomfortably.

"He doesn't know it."

Canby said no more, but it passed through his mind that Wallie would not, either, if there was a way for him to prevent it.

* * *

Pinkey was not one to keep his left hand from knowing what his right hand is 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 outen masse to see a "bunch." The desire to know how a person might look who could write his check in six or more figures, and get it cashed, explained the appearance of the male contingent on the station platform waiting for the train to come in, while the expectation of a view of the latest styles accounted for their wives.

"Among those present," as the phrase goes, was Mr. Tucker. Although Mr. Tucker had not been in a position to make any open accusations 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 harbour 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. That twenty-mile drive this mornin' took off the wire-aidge some."

Pinkey's premises seemed to be correct, for the four stood with hanging heads and sleepy-eyed while everyone 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 matinee 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 travelled 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.