Part 1 (1/2)
Alec Lloyd, Cowpuncher.
by Eleanor Gates.
CHAPTER ONE
ROSE ANDREWS'S HAND AND DOCTOR BUGS'S GASOLINE BRONC
”Sweet is the vale where the Mohawk gently glides On its fair, windin' way to the sea; And dearer by f-a-a-ar----”
”Now, look a-here, Alec Lloyd,” broke in Hairoil Johnson, throwin'
up one hand like as if to defend hisself, and givin' me a kinda scairt look, ”you shut you' bazoo right this minute--and git! Whenever you begin singin' that song, I know you're a-figgerin' on how to marry somebody off to somebody else. And I just won't have you _around!_”
We was a-settin' t'gether on the track side of the deepot platform at Briggs City, him a-holdin' down one end of a truck, and me the other.
The mesquite lay in front of us, and it was all a sorta greenish brown account of the pretty fair rain we'd been havin'. They's miles of it, y' savvy, runnin' so far out towards the west line of Oklahomaw that it plumb slices the sky. Through it, north and south, the telegraph poles go straddlin'--in the _di_rection of Kansas City on the right hand, and off past Rogers's b.u.t.te to Albuquerque on the left. Behind us was little ole Briggs, with its one street of square-front buildin's facin' the railroad, and a scatterin' of shacks and dugouts and corrals and tin-can piles in behind.
Little ole Briggs! Sometimes, you bet you' life, I been pretty down on my luck in Briggs, and sometimes I been turrible happy; also, I been just so-so. But, no matter how things pan out, darned if I cain't allus say truthful that she just about suits me--that ornery, little, jerkwater town!
The par_ti_cular day I'm a-speakin' of was a jo-dandy--just cool enough to make you want t' keep you' back aimed right up at the sun, and without no more breeze than 'd help along a b.u.t.terfly. Then, the air was all nice and perfumey, like them advertisin' picture cards you git at a drugstore. So, bein' as I was enjoyin' myself, and a-studyin'
out somethin' as I hummed that was _mighty_ important, why, I didn't want t' mosey, no, ma'am.
But Hairoil was mad. I knowed it fer the reason that he'd called me Alec 'stead of Cupid. Y' see, all the boys call me Cupid. And I ain't ashamed of it, neither. _Some_body's got t' help out when it's a case of two lovin' souls that's bein' kept apart.
”Now, pardner,” I answers him, as coaxin' as I could, ”don't you go holler 'fore you're hit. It happens that I ain't a-figgerin' on no hitch-up plans fer _you._”
Hairoil, he stood up--quick, so that I come nigh fallin' offen my end of the truck. ”But you are fer some _other_ pore cuss,” he says. ”You as good as owned up.”
”Yas,” I answers, ”I are. But the gent in question wouldn't want you should worry about _him_. All that's a-keepin' _him_ anxious is that mebbe he won't git his gal.”
”Alec,” Hairoil goes on,--turrible solemn, he was--”I have _de_cided that this town has had just about it's fill of this Cupid business of yourn--and I'm a-goin' t' stop it.”
I snickered. ”Y' are?” I ast. ”Wal, how?”
”By marryin' you off. When you're hitched up you'self, you won't be so all-fired anxious t' git other pore fellers into the traces.”
”That good news,” I says. ”Who's the for-tu_nate_ gal you've picked fer me?”
”Never you mind,” answers Hairoil. ”She's a new gal, and she'll be along next week.”
”Is she pretty?”
”Is she pretty! Say! Pretty ain't no name fer it! She's got big grey eyes, with long, black, sa.s.sy winkers, and brown hair that's all kinda curly over the ears. Then her cheeks is pink, and she's got the cutest mouth a man 'most ever seen.”
Wal, a-course, I thought he was foolin'. (And mebbe he was--_then_.) A gal like that fer me!--a fine, pretty gal fer such a knock-kneed, slab-sided son-of-a-gun as me? I just couldn't swaller _that_.
But, aw! if I only had 'a' knowed how that idear of hisn was a-goin'
t' grow!--that idear of him turnin' Cupid fer _me,_ y' savvy. And if only I'd 'a' knowed what a turrible bust-up he'd fin'lly be _re_sponsible fer 'twixt me and the same grey-eyed, sa.s.sy-winkered gal! If I had, it's a cinch I'd 'a' sit on him _hard_--right then and there.
I didn't, though. I switched back on to what was a-puzzlin' and a-worryin' me. ”Billy Trowbridge,” I begun, ”has waited too long a'ready fer Rose Andrews. And if things don't come to a haid right soon, he'll lose her.”
Hairoil give a kinda jump. ”The Widda Andrews,” he says, ”--Zach Sewell's gal? So you're a-plannin' t' interfere in the doin's of ole man Sewell's fambly.”
”Yas.”