Part 13 (1/2)
But, altogether, the party arrived home in very good spirits. The wonders of the wild country-so much different from anything the Easterners had seen before-deeply impressed Ruth and her friends. The routine work of the ranch, however, interested them more. Not only Tom and Bob, but their sisters and the other girls, found the free, out-of-door life of the range and corral a never-failing source of delight.
Ruth herself was becoming a remarkably good horsewoman. Freckles carried her many miles over the range and Jane Ann Hicks was scarcely more bold on pony-back than was the girl from the Red Mill.
As for the cowboys of the Silver outfit, they admitted that the visitors were ”some human,” even from a Western standpoint.
”Them friends o' yourn, Miss Jinny,” Jimsey said, to Old Bill's niece, ”ain't so turrible 'Bawston' as some tenderfoots I've seen.” (”Boston,”
according to Jimsey, spelled the ultra-East and all its ”finicky” ways!) ”I'm plum taken with that Fielding gal-I sure am. And I believe old Ike, here, is losin' his heart to her. Old Lem d.i.c.kson's Sally better bat her eyes sharp or Ike'll go up in the air an' she'll lose him.”
It was true that the foreman was less bashful with Ruth than with any of the other girls. Ruth knew how to put him at his ease. Every spare hour Bashful Ike had he put in teaching Ruth to improve her riding, and as she was an early riser they spent a good many morning hours cantering over the range before the rest of the young people were astir at Silver Ranch.
It was on one of these rides that Bashful Ike ”opened up” to Ruth upon the subject of the red-haired school-teacher at the Crossing.
”I've jest plumb doted on that gal since she was knee-high to a Kansas hopper-gra.s.s,” the big puncher drawled. ”An' she knows it well enough.”
”Maybe she knows it too well?” suggested Ruth, wisely.
”Gos.h.!.+” groaned Ike. ”I _gotter_ keep her reminded I'm on the job-say, ain't I? Now, them candies you bought for me an' give to her-what do you s'pose she did with 'em?”
”She ate them if she had right good sense,” replied Ruth, with a smile.
”They were nice candies.”
”I rid over to Lem's the next night,” said Ike, solemnly, ”an' that leetle pink-haired skeezicks opened up that box o' sweetmeats on the counter an' had all them lop-eared jack-rabbits that sits around her pa's store o' nights he'pin' themselves out o' _my_ gift-box. Talk erbout castin' pearls before swine!” continued Bashful Ike, in deep disgust, ”_that_ was suah flingin' jewels to the hawgs, all right. Them 'ombres from the Two-Ten outfit, an' from over Redeye way, was stuffin'
down them bonbons like they was ten-cent gumdrops. An' Sally never ate a-one.”
”She did that just to tease you,” said Ruth, sagely.
”Huh!” grunted Ike. ”I never laid out to hurt her feelin's none. Dunno why she should give me the quirt. Why, I've been hangin' about her an'
tryin' to show her how much I think of her for years! She must know I wanter marry her. An' I got a good bank account an' five hundred head o'
steers ter begin housekeepin' on.”
”Does Sally know all that?” asked Ruth, slyly.
”Great Peter!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ike. ”She'd oughter. Ev'rybody else in the county does.”
”But did you ever ask Sally right out to marry you?” asked the Eastern girl.
”She never give me a chance,” declared Ike, gruffly.
”Chance!” gasped Ruth, wanting to laugh, but being too kind-hearted to do so. ”What sort of a chance do you expect?”
”I never git to talk with her ten minutes at a time,” grumbled Ike.
”But why don't you _make_ a chance?”
”Great Peter!” cried the foreman again. ”I can't throw an' hawg-tie her, can I? I never can git down to facts with her-she won't let me.”
”If I were a great, big man,” said Ruth, her eyes dancing, ”I surely wouldn't let a little wisp of a girl like Miss d.i.c.kson get away from me-if I wanted her.”
”How am I goin' to he'p it?” cried Ike, in despair. ”She's jest as sa.s.sy as a cat-bird. Ye can't be serious with her. She plumb slips out o' my fingers ev'ry time I try to hold her.”