Bat Wing Bowles Part 14

"Maybe it's money from home," she suggested; but still he refused to accept. He was ignorant of the ways of women, but his instincts were trained to a hair-line, and he read mischief in her heart. Yet curiosity almost tempted him to accede--or was it the witchery of her presence?

For Dixie May stood very close to him, closer than was necessary, and as she argued, half in earnest, she fixed him with her eyes.

The boys by the fire, who had been looking on in wonder, became suddenly restive and impatient. Their little game of post-office had been broken up in the middle, and this stranger was monopolizing the postmistress.

"But the postmaster thought it was for you," persisted Dixie May, now apparently annoyed. "He described you down to your hat-band; and if I don't get rid of this letter I'll have to take it clear back to town. Of course----"

"Aw, take the letter!" broke in Hardy Atkins, striding over from his place and fiercely confronting Bowles. "What's the matter with you--ain't you got no manners? Well then, when a lady asks you to take a letter, _take it_!"

He reached out to get the letter and force it upon him forthwith, but Dixie May tossed her head and jerked the missive away.

"Who called you in on this, Hardy Atkins?" she inquired, turning upon him haughtily. "It's a wonder you wouldn't go off somewhere and read those pink scented billets-doux I gave you. I reckon this man knows his own name without any outside help. Now, you go on away and let me do this!"

He went, his lips pouted out petulantly and a s.h.i.+fty look in his eye, and once more the fair postmistress turned upon her victim.

"Now, here," she said, lowering her voice and speaking confidentially, "I'm not trying to force this upon you, but I've got a duty to perform.

Think of the poor lady that wrote this letter," she urged, smiling significantly; "she may have something important to tell you. And don't mind a little thing like an alias--these boys have all got one." Once more she smiled, holding out the letter; and the boys favored him with dark and forbidding glances; but Bowles was game to the end.

"So sorry," he murmured, bowing deferentially; "but my name is Bowles, not Houghton."

"Well, well," said Dixie Lee, looking him between the eyes; "so your name is Bowles, eh? I certainly hope you'll excuse me, stranger, but I sure thought your name was Houghton!"

So saying, she turned and left him; and after pondering upon the matter for some time Bowles suddenly felt his heart go sick, for she had addressed him at the last as "Stranger."

CHAPTER XIV

THE ENGLISH LORD

A remarkable series of accidents happened to Bat Wing Bowles immediately after his discourtesy to the lady--accidents which seemed to indicate that he had lost his horseshoe as well as the good-will of his a.s.sociates. For while Bowles had been a raw hand from the start it had early been remarked that horses would not pitch with him--but now, on the very morning after his contretemps, his mount took a fit of bucking which all but landed him in the dirt. A term of years in a military academy, as well as a considerable experience in riding to hounds, had left Bowles a little vain of his horsemans.h.i.+p; but in this emergency he had been compelled to reach down and frankly grab the horn. Otherwise he would have been "piled" before he could recover from the surprise. As it was, he was badly jarred, not only by the shock of the buck-jumps but also by the caustic comments of the cowboys.

"Oh, mamma!" shouted one. "See 'im choke that horn!"

"Let go of the noodle, Sam!" advised another; and then, in a kind of chant, they recited those cla.s.sic lines that are supposed to drive Englishmen mad:

"Hit's not the 'unting that 'urts the 'orse's 'oofs; hit's the 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard 'ighway!"

Time and again Bowles had explained that he was not English, that all gentlemen rose to the trot in the East, and that his people had never dropped an "h" in their lives. Like an old and groundless scandal that lives on denial alone, the tradition still clung to him; and now, as some vagrant fancy turned their will against him, they voiced their disapproval in this ancient gibe.

"It's Hinglish, you know!" they shouted; and once more Bowles was branded as an alien. And all for refusing a letter and speaking saucily to a lady.

As for the lady, she stayed at a ranch over night and went out early in the morning, taking a short-cut through the nesters' lanes for Chula Vista. A telegram must be sent to the receiving company that the cattle would be delivered on the twentieth, the cattle-cars must be ordered from the railroad, and the cattle inspector notified of the change; for the gra.s.s was eaten down to the rocks at Chula Vista, and a wait at the pens would be fatal. All these details Henry Lee trusted to his daughter, and, forgetting the frivolous nothings of yesterday, she rode past the Bat Wing outfit without stopping or waving her hand. Then somebody put something on Bowles' horse and they started the day with a circus.

A second day, full of excitement and rough riding, followed, and then the gang took pity on the poor tenderfoot and left him to think it over.

But Bowles was not broken in spirit; far from it, for he had been secretly longing for a horse that would buck. He was rapidly becoming so wise that deception was no longer practicable. When a man has an old staid cow-pony rise up under him and try to paw the white out of the moon, he is liable to look over his rigging rather carefully to see what it was all about; and if he should find a yellow spot on the flap of his saddle-blanket, a tender place on his horse's rump, and a suspicious odor of carbon bisulphide in the air, he is likely to shy away from unfriendly hors.e.m.e.n, even if he never heard of "high-lifing" a bronk.

Those were eventful days for Samuel Bowles, and he found himself learning fast, when Henry Lee suddenly called him aside and told him to go with Brigham.

Brigham was taking a bunch of dogies back to the home ranch and he needed a man to help him--also the boss was getting a little tired of these sudden accidents to Bowles. He was not conducting a circus or a Wild West Show but a serious and precarious business, and a touch of "high-life" at the wrong time might stampede his whole herd of cattle.

So he told the tenderfoot to go on the drive with Brigham.

There is a good deal left unsaid in a cow camp--so much, in fact, that a stranger never knows what is going on; and Brigham had been as silent as the rest while Bowles was taking his medicine. Even on the drive he was strangely quiet, chewing away soberly at his tobacco and looking out from under his hat with squinting and cynical eyes. They were friends now, as far as a tenderfoot can expect to have a friend, but Brigham said nothing about stringing the cattle, and asked no questions about gay New York--he had something on his mind. And when the time came he spoke it out.

"Say, stranger," he said, still calling him by that cold name which marked him as a man apart, "did you see Dixie Lee back in New York last winter?"

It was a bolt out of the blue sky; but Bowles was trained to evasions--he had lived in polite society and tried to keep friends with Truth.

"Miss Lee?" he repeated in tones of wonderment.

"W'y, sure," answered Brigham; "she was back there all winter."

"So I hear," observed Bowles; "but there were about four million other people there too, Brig; so I can't say for sure. Why? What made you ask?"

"Oh--nothin'," mumbled Brig, playing with the rowel on his spur as he watched the cattle graze; "only it seemed like, the way she spoke to you the other day, you'd mebbe met before. Some of the boys said they reckoned you knowed her back there--she talked so kinder friendly-like."

A thrill went over Bowles at those kind words, but he hastened to cover up his tracks. Once let the boys know that he had followed her from the East, and there would be a dramatic end to all his hopes and dreams.

"I'll tell you, Brig," he said, speaking confidentially; "I did meet Miss Lee down at Chula Vista the morning she came home, and that probably gave them the idea. But, say, now--about that letter. She didn't even know my name--now, why should she do a thing like that? My name isn't Houghton, and she knew I couldn't take the letter. It's against the law! What was she trying to do--play a joke on me?"

He made his voice as boyish and pleading as possible; but it takes a good actor to deceive the simple-hearted, and Brigham only looked at him curiously.

"What did you say yore name was?" he inquired at last; and when Bowles told him he chewed upon it ruminatively. "Some of the boys thought mebbe you was an English lord, or somethin'," he observed, glancing up quickly to see how Mr. Bowles would take it. "Course I knowed you wasn't," he admitted as Bowles wound up his protest; "but you certainly ain't no puncher."

Bowles could read the jealousy and distrust in his voice, and he saw it was time to speak up.

"Say, Brig," he said, trying as far as possible to speak in the new vernacular, "I've always been friendly to you, haven't I? I know I've tried to be, and I want to keep your friends.h.i.+p. Now, I don't care what Hardy Atkins and his gang think, because they're nothing to me anyway, but I want you to know that I am on the square. Of course, I'm under an a.s.sumed name, and I guess you've noticed I don't get any letters; but that's no crime, is it?"

There was a genuine ring to his appeal now, and Brigham was quick to answer it.

"Aw, that's all right, pardner," he said. "I don't care what you did.

Kinder hidin' out myself."

"Well, but I want to tell you, anyway," protested Bowles. "A man's got to have a friend somewhere, and I know you won't give me away. I didn't commit any crime--it isn't the sheriff I'm afraid of--but there must have been somebody down in Chula Vista that was following me, because I came away from New York on a ticket that was signed Sam Houghton. That isn't my name, you understand--but I signed it for a blind. Then I left the train at Albuquerque and came quietly off down here. But it looks as if somebody is searching for me."

"Umm!" murmured Brigham, nodding his head and squinting wisely. "I got into a little racket down on the river one time, and the _sheriff_ was lookin' fer me. Made no difference--the feller got well anyhow--but you bet I was ridin' light fer a while.

"_I_'ll tell you what we'll do!" he cried, carried away by some sudden enthusiasm. "I'm gittin' tired of this Teehanno outfit--let's call fer our time and hit the trail! Was you ever up in the White Mountains?

Well, pardner, we'll head fer them--that's the prettiest country in G.o.d's world! Deer and bear and wild turkeys everywhere--and fis.h.!.+ Say, them cricks is so full of trout they ain't hardly room fer the water.

The Apaches never eat 'em--nor turkeys neither, fer that matter--and all you have to have is a little flour and bacon, and a man can live like a king. They's some big cow outfits up there, too--Double Circles, an'

Wine Gla.s.s an' Cherrycow. Come on! What d'ye say? Let's quit! This ain't the only outfit in America!"

For the moment Bowles was almost carried away by this sudden rush of enthusiasm, and even after a second thought it still appealed to him strongly.

"Are there many bears up there?" he inquired, as if wavering upon a decision.

"Believe me!" observed Brigham, swaggering at the thought. "And mountain lions, too! A man has to watch his horses in that country, or he'll find himself afoot."

"And the Indians?"