Part 6 (1/2)
'long to'ards noon, I'll jest slip down to the Long Horn an' stampede the bunch over here.”
CHAPTER IV
CINNABAR JOE
In the dining car of the side-tracked train Alice Marc.u.m's glance strayed from the face of her table companion to the window. Another cavalcade of riders had swept into town and with a chorus of wild yells the crowd in the Long Horn surged out to greet them. A moment later the dismounted ones rushed to their horses, leaped into the saddles and, joined by the newcomers, dashed at top speed for perhaps thirty yards and dismounted to crowd into another saloon across whose front the word HEADQUARTERS was emblazoned in letters of flaming red.
”They're just like a lot of boys,” exclaimed the girl with a smile, ”The idea of anybody mounting a horse to ride _that_ distance!”
”They're a rough lot, I guess.” Winthrop Adams Endicott studied his menu card.
”Rough! Of course they're rough! Why shouldn't they be rough? Think of the work they do--rain or s.h.i.+ne, riding out there on the plains.
When they get to town they've earned the right to play as they want to play! I'd be rough, too, if I lived the life they live. And if I were a man I'd be right over there with them this minute.”
”Why be a man?” smiled Endicott. ”You have the Mayor's own word for the breadth of Wolf River's ideas. As for myself, I don't drink and wouldn't enjoy that sort of thing. Besides, if I were over there I would have to forgo----”
”No pretty little speeches, _please_. At least you can spare me that.”
”But, Alice, I mean it, really. And----”
”Save 'em for the Cincinnati girls. They'll believe 'em. Who do you think will win this afternoon. Let's bet! I'll bet you a--an umbrella against a pair of gloves, that my cavalier of the yellow fur trousers will win the bucking contest, and----”
”Our train may pull out before the thing is over, and we would never know who won.”
”Oh, yes we will, because we're going to stay for the finish. Why, I wouldn't miss this afternoon's fun if forty trains pulled out!”
”I ought to be in Chicago day after tomorrow,” objected the man.
”I ought to be, too. But I'm not going to be. For Heaven's sake, Winthrop, for once in your life, do something you oughtn't to do!”
”All right,” laughed the man with a gesture of surrender. ”And for the rope throwing contest I'll pick the other.”
”What other?” The girl's eyes strayed past the little wooden buildings of the town to the clean-cut rim of the bench.
”Why the other who rode after your handkerchief. The fellow who la.s.soed the honourable Mayor and was guilty of springing the pun.”
The girl nodded with her eyes still on the skyline. ”Oh, yes. He seemed--somehow--different. As if people amused him. As if everything were a joke and he were the only one who knew it was a joke. I could _hate_ a man like that. The other, Mr. Purdy, hates him.”
The man regarded her with an amused smile: ”You keep a sort of mental card index. I should like to have just a peep at my card.”
”Cards sometimes have to be rewritten--and sometimes it really isn't worth while to fill them out again. Come on, let's go. People are beginning to gather for the fun and I want a good seat. There's a lumber pile over there that'll be just the place, if we hurry.”
In the Headquarters saloon Tex Benton leaned against the end of the bar and listened to a Bear Paw Pool man relate how they took in a bunch of pilgrims with a badger game down in Glasgow. Little knots of cowpunchers stood about drinking at the bar or discussing the coming celebration.
”They've got a bunch of bad ones down in the corral,” someone said.
”That ol' roman nose, an' the wall-eyed pinto, besides a lot of snorty lookin' young broncs. I tell yeh if Tex draws either one of them ol'
outlaws it hain't no cinch he'll grab off this ride. The _hombre_ that throws his kak on one of them is a-goin' to do a little sky-ballin'
'fore he hits the dirt, you bet. But jest the same I'm here to bet ten to eight on him before the drawin'.”