Part 15 (1/2)
Wallie felt chagrined when he reflected that although he was a graduate of Haverford College and was bringing all his intelligence to bear upon it he was still unable to do what any hired man with an inch of forehead could accomplish with no apparent effort.
Perhaps there was some trick about it--perhaps it _did_ make a difference which side a cow was milked on. Wallie walked around and turned the spot-light on the other side of his Jersey.
The outlook, he fancied, seemed more promising.
He sat down on his heel and started in energetically.
It did make a difference which side one milked on--there was no doubt about it. The instant he touched her she lifted her foot and with an aim which was not only deadly and unerring but remarkable, considering that she could not see her target, planted it in the pit of Wallie's stomach with such force that the m.u.f.fled thud of it sounded like someone beating a carpet. The kick knocked the breath out of him, and as he lay on his back on a clump of cactus he was sure that he was bleeding internally and probably dying.
Wallie finally got to his feet painfully and with both hands on his stomach looked at the cow, who was again chewing tranquilly. There was murder in Wallie's eyes as he yelled at her:
”Curse you! I could cut your heart out!”
Then he crept up the path to his tent and dropped down on his pneumatic mattress, doubting if he ever would rise from it. As he lay there, supperless, with his clothes on, every muscle in his body aching, to say nothing of the sensation in his stomach, it seemed incredible that he could be the same person who had started off so blithely in the morning.
The series of misfortunes which had befallen him overwhelmed him. He had purchased a cow which not only gave no milk but had a vicious disposition. He had paid two prices for a pair of locoed horses that did their pulling backward. He had made himself a laughing stock to the entire country and seemed destined to play the clown somehow whenever Helene Spenceley was in the vicinity. His ears grew red to the rims as he thought of it.
But she _had_ resented Canby's dishonesty for him--_that_ was something; and Wallie was in a mood to be grateful for anything.
The cow grunted as she lay down to her slumbers--Wallie ground his teeth as he heard her. A coyote yapped on a ridge forlornly and the horse on picket coughed and snorted while Wallie, staring at the stars through the entrance, ma.s.saged his injury and ruminated.
Suddenly he sat up on his patent air mattress and shook his fist at the universe:
”Canby nor n.o.body else shall down me! I'm going to make good somehow, or fertilize Wyoming as old Appel told me. I'll show 'em!”
After that he felt better; so much better that he fell asleep immediately, and even the activities of two field-mice, who pulled and snipped at his hair with their sharp teeth in the interests of a nest they were building, only disturbed without awakening him.
CHAPTER XI
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Wallie s.h.i.+vered in his sleep and pulled the soogans higher. The act exposed his feet instead of his shoulders, so it did not add to his comfort. He felt sleepily for the flour sack which he wore on his head as protection against the dust that blew in through the crack in the logs and his fingers sank into a small snow bank that had acc.u.mulated on his pillow.
The chill of it completely awakened him. He found that there was frost on the end of his nose and he was in a miniature blizzard as far as his shoulders. The wind was howling around the corners and driving the first snow of the season through the many large cracks in his log residence.
The day was Christmas, and there was no reason to believe that it would be a merry one.
Wallie lay for a time considering the prospect and comparing it with other Christmases. He had a kettle of boiled beans, cold soda biscuit, coffee, and two prairie-dogs which he intended cooking as an experiment, for his Christmas dinner.
Growing more and more frugal as his bank account shrank with alarming rapidity, Wallie reasoned that if he could eat prairie-dog it would serve a double purpose: While ridding his land of the pests it would save him much in such high-priced commodities as ham and bacon.
Prairie-dog might not be a delicacy sought after by epicures, yet he never had heard anything directly against them, beyond their propensity for burrowing, which made them undesirable tenants. He reasoned that since they subsisted upon roots mainly, they were of cleanly habits and quite as apt to be nouris.h.i.+ng and appetizing, if properly cooked, as rabbit.
Having the courage of his convictions, Wallie skinned and dressed the prairie-dogs he had caught out of their holes one suns.h.i.+ny morning, and meant to eat them for his Christmas dinner if it was humanly possible.
The subject of food occupied a large part of Wallie's time and attention since he was not yet sufficiently practised to make cooking easy. He had purchased an expensive cook book, but as his larder seldom contained any of the ingredients it called for, he considered the price of it wasted.
He had found that the recipes imparted by Tex McGonnigle, who had built his ten-by-twelve log cabin for him, were far more practical. Under his tuition Wallie had learned to make ”sweat-pads,” ”dough-G.o.ds,”