Part 7 (1/2)
”Oh, that's that big fat Brigham Clark!” spoke up Hardy Atkins. ”You don't want to judge the whole outfit by _him_!”
At this bare-faced libel Bowles cleared his throat to speak. He had noticed particularly on the evening before that the eggs were brought in by Happy Jack and Hardy Atkins himself; but before he could enter a protest a general rumble of laughter set him back to a thinking part.
”Yes, sir!” observed Buck Buchanan, speaking to the world at large.
”That feller sucks aigs worse'n a setter pup.”
”An' he don't deny it none, neither,” commented Happy Jack, as poor Brigham blushed deeper and hung his head.
”Jest born that way, I reckon,” remarked Poker-face in a tone of pity; and then the whole outfit broke into a whoop of laughter. It was a new form of jesting to Bowles, and he retired to the shelter of the wood-pile. A sudden gloom had come over his soul, and it even affected his appet.i.te, whetted keen by the cold, thin air. Of course, Dixie Lee had told him she would do so, but it seemed rather heartless not to look at him. He sat down with his back against the jagged juniper stubs and listened sullenly, while the punchers chuckled in front of him and continued to eat with their knives.
”Aw, Brig's jest bashful, that's all,” explained some simple-minded joker, after every one else had had his say; and as his hollow laughter rose up, Bowles wondered dimly why Brigham did not retort. The evening before, when he was telling stories around the fire, he had returned a Roland for an Oliver until even Hardy Atkins had been content to quit; but now he confined himself to self-conscious mutterings and exhortations to shut up. Perhaps the simple-minded joker was right--poor Brigham was bashful.
But Dixie Lee had come down to get some eggs and she did not allow camp persiflage to divert her from her purpose.
”Well, say,” she said, getting up from the cook's private seat, ”I came down to hunt for eggs--who wants to help me?”
”That's where I s.h.i.+ne!” cried Hardy Atkins, throwing his tin plate into the washtub with a great clatter. ”They's a nest around hyer in the wood-pile!”
He capered around the end of the wood-pile, and soon Bowles could hear him panting as he forced his way in between the crooked sticks.
”Hyer they are!” he shouted at last. ”I got a whole hatful--somebody pull me out by the laig!”
There was a ripple of high-pitched laughter from Dixie Lee, an interval in which Bowles cursed his fate most heartily, and then a frantic outcry from Hardy:
”Hey, there, don't pull so fast! You Dix, you'll break my aigs! Well, laugh, then, doggone it! Now see what you went and done!”
A general shout of laughter followed, and Hardy Atkins, his lips pouted out to play the fool, and his eyes rolling to catch their laughter, came ambling around the wood-pile with a hat that looked like an amateur conjurer's after the celebrated egg trick. But there were enough whole ones left to make a cake, and Happy Jack came galloping in with a hatful from his own private cache; so everybody laughed, though Brigham looked on sourly enough. A rapid fire of barbed jests followed; then, with her two admirers behind her and the others gazing dumbly on, Dixie Lee ran lightly back to the house, and Bowles had had his first lookin on ranch society. It did not look so good to him, either, and yet--well, just as Dixie May turned away she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.
To be sure, it was one of Hardy Atkins' raw jokes at which she was laughing, but somehow a golden glow crept into the sunset, and ranch society did not seem so bad.
Five minutes later Dixie Lee was down at the corral bridling a white-faced roan, and soon, with Happy Jack for an escort, she was galloping away to the east where, like glowworms in the dusk, the scattered lights of settlers' houses showed the first beginnings of a neighborhood. The phonograph was going to play in the big house that evening, and all the ”nesters” were invited.
No one had been more outraged than Henry Lee when the first nesters came in on his range; but latterly he had come to regard them tolerantly as poor, misguided creatures, slightly touched in the head on the subject of high-and-dry farming. Having seen a few hundred of them starve out and move on, he had accepted them as a necessary evil, and deemed it no more than right, if the women-folks wanted to invite them, to ask the few nearest ones to the house and help them forget their misery. So the whole-souled Dixie May was off to call in the company while the cowboys were sc.r.a.ping their beards off and dolling up for the dance.
It was Sat.u.r.day night, as a matter of fact, and though all days are alike to a puncher his evenings are his own around the ranch. One by one the socially backward and inept caught the fever and began to search their war-bags for silk handkerchiefs and clean s.h.i.+rts. Only Brigham remained recalcitrant, and no argument could induce him to shave.
”I was on the wrangle last night,” he complained, as the forehanded ones came back to argue the matter, ”and I'm short on my sleep. Say, lemme be, can't ye--what difference does it make to you fellers, anyway? They won't be girls enough to go around, nohow!”
”Well, come up and hear the music,” urged the Bar Seven stray man, who wanted him for company.
”Mrs. Lee invited you, Brig,” reminded Gloomy Gus, who believed that every man should do his duty.
”Aw, it's too late to do anything now,” grumbled Brigham, beginning at last to weaken. ”And my beard is a fright, too!”
”Soak it in hot water, then!” cried Bar Seven enthusiastically. ”Come on, fellers; let's make 'im do it! It ain't right--a nice lady like Mrs.
Lee! She'll think you're 'shamed because you done stole them aigs!”
”I did not!” denied Brigham hotly.