Part 24 (1/2)

”Winthrop!” she cried, for the first time recognizing him. ”Where in the world did you get those clothes, and what is the matter with your face?”

Endicott grinned: ”I shaved myself for the first time.”

”What did you do it with, some barbed wire?”

”Looks like somethin' that was left out in the rain an' had started to peel,” ventured the irrepressible Tex.

Alice ignored him completely. ”But the clothes? Where did you get them?”

Endicott nodded toward the Texan. ”He loaned them to me!”

”But--surely they would never fit him.”

”Didn't know it was necessary they should,” drawled Tex, and having succeeded in building the fire, moved off to help Bat who was busying himself with the horses.

”Where has he been?” asked the girl as the voice of the Texan came from beyond the trees:

”It happened in Jacksboro in the spring of seventy-three, A man by the name of Crego come steppin' up to me, Sayin', 'How do you do, young fellow, an' how would you like to go An' spend one summer pleasantly, on the range of the buffalo-o-o?'”

”I'm sure I don't know. He came back an hour or so ago and woke me up and gave me this outfit and told me my whiskers looked like the infernal regions and that I had better shave--even offered to shave me, himself.”

”But he has been drinking. Where did he get the liquor?”

”The same place he got the clothes, I guess. He said he met a friend and borrowed them,” smiled Endicott.

”Well, it's nothing to laugh at. I should think you'd be ashamed to stand there and laugh about it.”

The man stared at her in surprise. ”I guess he won't drink enough to hurt him any. And--why, it was only a day or two ago that you sat in the dining car and defended their drinking. You even said, I believe, that had you been a man you would have been over in the saloon with them.”

”Yes, I did say that! But that was different. Oh, I think men are _disgusting_! They're either _bad_, or just plain _dumb_!”

”We left old Crego's bones to bleach on the range of the buffalo-- Went home to our wives an' sweethearts, told others not to go, For G.o.d's forsaken the buffalo range, and the d.a.m.ned old buffalo-o-o!”

”At least our friend Tex does not seem to be stricken with dumbness,”

Endicott smiled as the words of the buffalo skinner's song broke forth anew. ”Do you know I have taken a decided fancy to him. He's----”

”I'd run along and play with him then if I were you,” was the girl's sarcastic comment. ”Maybe if you learn how to swear and sing some of his beautiful songs he'll give you part of his whiskey.” She turned away abruptly and became absorbed in the preparation of supper, and Endicott, puzzled as he was piqued, at the girl's att.i.tude, joined the two who were busy with the pack. ”He's just perfectly stunning in that outfit,” thought Alice as she watched him disappear in the timbers.

”Oh, I don't know--sometimes I wish--” but the wish became confused somehow with the sizzling of bacon. And with tight-pressed lips, she got out the tin dishes.

”What's the matter, Win--steal a sheep?” asked the Texan as he paused, blanket in hand, to regard Endicott.

”What?”

”What did _you_ catch h.e.l.l for? You didn't imbibe no embalmin' fluid.”

Endicott grinned and the cowboy finished rolling his blanket.

”Seems like we're in bad, some way. She didn't say nothin' much, but I managed to gather from the way she looked right through the place where I was standin' that I could be got along without for a spell. Her interruptin' me right in the middle of a song to impart that I'd be'n drinkin' kind of throw'd me under the impression that the pastime was frowned on, but the minute I seen you comin' through the brush like you was sneaking off at recess, I know'd you was included in the boycott an' that lets the booze out. Seein's our conscience is clear, it must be somethin' _she_ done that she's took umbrage at, as the feller says, an' the best thing we can do is to overlook it. I don't know as I'd advise tellin' her so, but we might just kind of blend into the scenery on.o.btrusive 'til the thaw comes. In view of which I'll just take a little drink an' sing you a song I heard down on the Rio Grande.”

Thrusting his arm into the end of his blanket roll, the Texan drew forth his bottle and, taking a drink, carefully replaced it. ”This here song is _The Old Chisholm Trail_, an' it goes like this: