Frances of the Ranges Part 43

Her adornments had been only a crescent in her hair and a brooch; but Sue had been forced to admire the beauty and value of these. Beside Frances, the other girls seemed overdressed. The range girl had dignity enough to carry off her part perfectly.

Under the soft glow of the candles in the wonderful old candelabra, to which the Captain referred as "a part of the loot of Senor Morales'

_hacienda_," Frances of the ranges sat as hostess, calmly beautiful, and governing the course of the dinner without the least hesitancy or confusion.

She looked out for every guest's needs and directed the two Mexican boys and Ming in their service with all the calmness and judgment of a hostess who was long used to dinner parties. Indeed, Sue Latrop was forced to admit in her secret soul that she had never seen any hostess manage better at an entertainment of this kind.

At the upper end of the table, the old Captain fairly beamed his hospitality and delight. He kept the boys in a gale of laughter, and the girls seemed all to enjoy themselves, too. Critical Miss Latrop could throw no wet blanket upon the proceedings; to tell the truth, her sour face was quite overlooked by the other guests, and about all the attention she attracted was when Mrs. Bill Edwards asked her if she had the toothache.

"No, I have no toothache!" snapped Sue. "I don't see why you should ask."

"Well, my dear," said the lady, soothingly, "something must surely be the matter. I never saw a person at dinner with so miserable a countenance. Does something pinch you?"

Yes! it was Sue's vanity pinching her, if the truth were known. Her diatribes about Frances and the old Captain were not to be easily forgotten by the girl from Boston. Not so much was she smitten because of her unkindness; but she felt that she had played the fool!

Her friends from Amarillo must be quietly laughing in secret over what Sue had said regarding the uncouthness of the Captain and the lack of breeding of the "Cattle Queen." Sue felt that she had laid herself open to ridicule, and it did hurt Sue Latrop to think that her young friends were laughing at her.

As for the dinner, that was a revelation to the girl from Boston. The service, if a bit odd, was very good. And the silver, cut gla.s.s, napery, and all were as rich as Sue had ever seen.

After the dinner, and the other guests began to arrive, and the band struck up behind the palms in the inner court of the _hacienda_, Sue continued to be surprised, though she failed to admit it to her friends.

It was true the boys came up from the bunk-house without evening dress.

But their black clothes were clean and well brushed, and those who wore the usual kerchief about their necks sported silk ones and carried their bullion-loaded sombreros in their hands.

And they could all dance. Sue refused the first few dances and tried to sit and look on in a superior way; but she presently failed to make good at this.

When the kindly old ranchman considered her a wall-flower and came and begged her to "give him a whirl," Sue had to break through her "icy reserve."

Although they did not dance the more modern dances, she found that Captain Rugley knew his steps and was as light on his feet as a man half his age.

"I have given Mr. Rheumatism the time of his life to-night!" declared the owner of the Bar-T brand. "That's what I told Frances I would do."

And Captain Rugley suffered no ill effects from the dance, as was shown by his appearance here at the Jackleg schoolhouse to-night, when the canvas curtain slowly rolled up to reveal first the painted curtain behind it, on which was a picture of the meeting of Cortez and the Aztec princes soon after the Conqueror's arrival in Mexico.

The school teacher read the prologue, and the spectators settled down to listen and to see. His explanation of what was to follow was both concise and well written, and the whisper went around:

"And she's only a girl! Yes, Miss Rugley wrote it all."

Sue sniffed. The teacher stepped back into the shadow and the painted curtain rolled up.

There was a gasp of amazement when the audience saw what was revealed behind the painted sheet. One of the moving picture machines was already running, and on the great screen was thrown a representation of the staked plains of the Panhandle as they were in the days before the white man ever saw them.

Far, far away appeared a band of painted and feather-bedecked Indians, riding their mustangs, and sweeping down toward the immediate foreground of the picture with a vividness that was almost startling.

Into that foreground was drifting a herd of buffaloes. They started, the bulls giving the signal as the enemy approached, and the end of that section was the scampering of the great, hairy beasts, with the Indians in full chase, brandishing their spears.

Immediately the scene changed and a train of a different kind broke into view in the dim perspective. The moving figures grew clearer as the moments pa.s.sed. Over a similar part of the staked plain came the exploring Spaniards, with their cattle and caparisoned horses, their enslaved Aztecs, their priests bearing the Cross before.

The moving procession came closer and closer until suddenly the whirring of the picture machine stopped, a great searchlight was turned upon the dusky yard between the screen and the open end of the school building, and with a gasp of amazement the audience saw there the double of the procession which had just been pictured on the moving picture screen.

The actors in this part of the pageant crowded across the desert, were stopped by a stampede of Indian ponies, and later made friends of the wondering savages.

From this point on the history of the Panhandle developed rapidly. The spectators saw the crossing of the plains by the early pioneers, both in picture and by actual people, a train of prairie schooners drawn by oxen, and a sham battle between the pioneers and the Indians.

The buffaloes disappeared from the picture and the wide-horned cattle took their place. A picture of a famous round-up was shown, and then a real herd of cattle was driven into the enclosure (they wore the Bar-T brand) and several cowboys displayed their skill in roping and tying.

The curtain was dropped, there was a swift change, and it arose again on a hastily-built frontier town--a town of one-story shacks with two-story false fronts, dance and gambling halls, saloons, a pitiful hotel, and all the crude and ugly building expressions of a raw civilization.

"My mighty!" gasped Captain Dan Rugley. "That's Amarillo--Amarillo as I first saw it, twenty-five years ago."

People appeared in the street, and rough enough they were. A band of cowpunchers rode in, with yells and pistol shots. The rough life of that early day was displayed in some detail.

And then, after a short intermission, pictures were displayed again of great droves of cattle on the trail, bound for the shipping points; following which came pictures of the new wheat fields--that march of the agricultural regime that is to make the Panhandle one of the wealthiest sections of our great country.

A great reaper was shown at work; likewise a traction gang-plow and a motor threshing machine. The progress in agriculture in the Panhandle during the last half dozen years really excited some of the older residents.

"Did you ever see the beat of that?" demanded Captain Rugley. "I'm blest if I wouldn't like to own one of them. See those little dinguses turn up the ribbons of sod! I don't know but that Frances can encourage me to be that kind of a farmer, after all! There's something big about riding a reaper like that one. And that threshing machine, too! Did you see the straw blowing out of the pipes as though a cyclone was whirling it away?

"By mighty! I wish Lon could have been here to see this, I certainly do!"

For the last time the curtain was lowered and then rose again. On the screen was pictured Amarillo as it is to-day.

First a panorama of the town and its outskirts. Then "stills" of its princ.i.p.al buildings, and its princ.i.p.al citizens.

Then the main streets, full of business life, autos chugging, electric cars clanging back and forth, all of the bustle of a modern town that is growing rich and growing rapidly.

The contrast between what the spectators had seen early in the spectacle and this final scene made them thoughtful. There had been plenty of applause all through the show; but when "Good-night" was shown upon the screen, n.o.body moved, and Pratt raised the shout for:

"Miss Rugley!"

She would not appear before the curtain save with the other members of the committee. But the cheering was for her and she had to run away to hide her blushes and her tears of happiness.

"Wake up, Sue, it's over!" exclaimed one of the other girls, shaking the young lady from Boston.

Sue Latrop came to herself slowly. She had never realized the Spirit of the West before, nor appreciated what it meant to have battled for and grown up with a frontier community.

"Is--is that all true?" she whispered to Pratt.

"Is what all true?" he asked, rather blankly.

"That there have been such improvements and changes here in so few years?"

"You bet!" exclaimed Pratt, with emphasis.

"Well--re'lly--it's quite wonderful," admitted Sue, slowly. "I had no idea it was like that!"

"So you think better of our 'crude civilization,' do you?" laughed one of her girl friends.

"Why--why, it is quite surprising," said Sue, again, and still quite breathless.