Part 31 (2/2)

”You sh.o.r.e give me the blues a croakin'. Why don't you look on the bright side of things like you useta? Do you know, I've been thinkin' we ought to make out a scale of prices for lettin' 'em work around the place. They'd enjoy it if they had to pay for it--dudes is like that, I've noticed. They're all pretty well fixed, ain't they?”

”Oh, yes, they all have a good deal of money, unless, perhaps Miss Eyester, and I don't know much about her in that way. But Mr. Penrose, Mr. Appel, and Mr. Budlong are easily millionaires.”

Pinkey's eyes sparkled.

”I s'pose a dollar ain't any more to them than a nickel to us?”

Wallie endeavoured to think of an instance which would indicate that Pinkey's supposition was correct, but, recalling none, declared enthusiastically:

”They are the most agreeable, altogether delightful people you ever knew, and, if I do say it, they think the world of me.”

”That's good; maybe they won't deal us so much grief.”

”How--grief?”

”Misery,” Pinkey explained.

”I can't imagine them doing anything ill-natured or ill-bred,” Wallie replied, resentfully. ”You must have been unfortunate in the kind of dudes you've met.”

Pinkey changed the subject as he did when he was unconvinced but he was in no mood for argument. He climbed to the top pole of the corral fence and looked proudly at the row of ten-by-twelve tents which the guests were to occupy, at the long tar-paper room built on to the original cabin for a dining room, at the new bunk-house for himself and Wallie and the help, at the shed with a dozen new saddles hanging on their nails, while the ponies to wear them milled behind him in the corral.

His eyes sparkled as he declared:

”We sh.o.r.e got a good dudin' outfit! But it's nothin' to what we _will_ have--watch our smoke! The day'll come when we'll see this country, as you might say, lousy with dudes! So fur as the eye kin reach--dudes!

Nothin' but dudes!” He ill.u.s.trated with a gesture so wide and vigorous that if it had not been for his high heels hooked over a pole he would have lost his balance.

”Yes,” Wallie agreed, complacently, ”at least we've got a start. And it seems like a good sign, the luck we've had in picking things up cheap.”

Instinctively they both looked at the old-fas.h.i.+oned, four-horse stage-coach that they had found sc.r.a.pped behind the blacksmith shop in Prouty and bought for so little that they had quaked in their boots lest the blacksmith change his mind before they could get it home. But their fears were groundless, since the blacksmith was uneasy from the same cause.

They had had it repaired and painted red, with yellow wheels that flashed in the sun. And now, there it stood--the last word in the picturesque discomfort for which dudes were presumed to yearn! They regarded it as their most valuable possession since, at $10.00 a trip, it would quickly pay for itself and thereafter yield a large return upon a small investment.

Neither of them could look at it without pride, and Pinkey chortled for the hundredth time:

”It sh.o.r.e was a great streak of luck when we got that coach!”

Wallie agreed that it was, and added:

”Everything's been going so well that I'm half scared. Look at that hotel-range we got second hand--as good as new; and the way we stumbled on to a first-cla.s.s cook; and my friends coming out--it seems almost too good to be true.”

He drew a sigh which came from such contentment as he had not known since he came to the State, for it seemed as if he were over the hard part of the road and on the way to see a few of his hopes realized.

With the money he had collected from Canby he had formed a partners.h.i.+p with Pinkey whereby the latter was to furnish the experience and his services as against his, Wallie's, capital.

Once more the future looked roseate; but perhaps the real source of his happiness lay in the fact that he had seen Helene Spenceley in Prouty a good bit of late and she had treated him with a consideration which had been conspicuously lacking heretofore.

<script>