Part 54 (1/2)
The last time that lady had extended a supine hand it had been to offer him one of the most serious affronts that can befall a self-respecting landlord; now the hand contained only cordiality, and in that spirit Mr.
Cone took it.
”You enjoyed your summer?” As Mr. Cone pa.s.sed the pen for her to register.
”Delightful! Altogether unique! Do you know, Mr. Cone, I never before have fully appreciated my husband--his splendid courage?”
”Is that so?” Mr. Cone replied with polite interest.
”Yes, when put to the test he was magnificent. You see, we had a cook, oh, a most offensive--a rully violent and dangerous person. In fact, it was because of him that I left the party prematurely.
”It was plain that both Wallie and Pinkey were afraid of him, and dared not discharge him, so, one day when he had been more objectionable than usual, my husband took things into his own hands--he simply _had_ to!
”Hicks--his name was Hicks--was disrespectful when Mr. Stott reprimanded him for something, and then he attempted to strike my husband with a pair of bra.s.s knuckles. Bra.s.s knuckles, it seems, are not a gentleman's weapon, and the cowardly attack so infuriated Mr. Stott that he knocked the bully down and took them away from him. He still has them. Before he let him up he pummelled him well, I a.s.sure you. Mr. Stott doesn't know how strong he is when angry. Such muscles!
”He punished the cook until he begged for mercy and promised to do better. But as soon as he was on his feet he tried to _stab_ my husband with a bread-knife. Fancy! Mr. Stott took this away from him, also, and ran him down the road with it. He ran him for seven miles--_seven miles_, mind you! The cook was nearly dead when Mr. Stott let up on him.
I had to _drag_ this story from my husband, little by little. But wasn't it exciting?”
Mr. Cone, who never had thought of Mr. Stott as such a warrior, tried to visualize the episode, and though he failed to do so he was greatly impressed by it.
He stood for some time after Mrs. Stott had left him, reflecting enviously that his life was dull and uneventful, and that he must seem a poor stick to the heroes and heroines of such adventures. He wished that he could think of some incident in his past to match these tales of valour, but as he looked back the only thing that occurred to him was the occasion upon which the laundress had stolen the cooking sherry and gone to sleep in her chemise on the front veranda. She had fought like a tiger when the patrol wagon came for her, and he had been the one to hold her feet as she was carried to it. At the time he had been congratulated upon the able and fearless manner in which he had met the emergency, but a bout with an intoxicated laundress, though it had its dangers, seemed a piffling affair as compared to a hand-to-hand combat with a grizzly.
Gazing absently through the doorway and comforting himself by thinking that perhaps he, too, had latent courage which would rise to heights of heroism in propitious circ.u.mstances, he did not see Miss Eyester, who had come in the side entrance, until she stood before him.
He had not expected Miss Eyester, because she was usually employed during the winter, and it was only when a well-to-do relative sent her a check that she could afford a few weeks in Florida. But Miss Eyester was one of his favourites, and he immediately expressed the hope that she was to stay the entire season, while he noticed that she was wearing a mounted bear-claw for a hat-pin.
”No,” she replied, blus.h.i.+ng.
Not until then had Mr. Cone observed the Montana diamond flas.h.i.+ng on her finger.
”Ah-h?” He raised his eyebrows inquiringly.
Miss Eyester nodded.
”In January.”
”A Western millionaire, I venture?” he suggested playfully.
”A stockman.”
”Indeed?” A new respect was in Mr. Cone's manner. ”Cattle?”
”Sheep,” replied Miss Eyester, proudly. ”Mr. Fripp is herding at present.”
In a week Mr. Cone was as familiar with the glorious summer which The Happy Family had spent in the West as if he had been there. Although he knew the story by heart he still thrilled when Mr. Penrose backed the bear up against a tree and separated its jaws until it ”moaned like a human.”
He continued to listen with flattering attention to the recital of the intrepid spinster who would have given battle to a hungry coyote if it had attacked her, as he did to the account of Mr. Stott's reckless courage in putting to flight a notorious outlaw who had hired out as a cook for some sinister purpose.
But, gradually, Mr. Cone began to detect discrepancies, and he noticed also that the descriptions not only varied but grew more hair-raising with repet.i.tion. Also, he guessed shrewdly that the reason the members of The Happy Family never contradicted one another was that they dared not.