Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch Part 13

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.

"Gosh!" 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."

"You are going to the dance at the schoolhouse, aren't you?" asked Ruth.

"I reckon."

"Can't you get her to dance with you? And when you're dancing can't you ask her? Come right out plump with it."

"Why, when I'm a-dancin'," confessed Ike, "I can't think o' nawthin' but my feet."

"Your feet?" cried Ruth.

"Yes, ma'am. They're so e-tar-nal big I gotter keep my mind on 'em all the time, or I'll be steppin' on Sally's. An' if I trod on her jest wunst-wal, that would suah be my finish with her. She ain't got that red hair for nawthin'," concluded the woeful cowpuncher.

Ike was not alone at the Silver Ranch in looking forward to the party at the schoolhouse. Every man who could be spared of the -X0 outfit ("Bar-Cross-Naught") planned to go to the Crossing Sat.u.r.day night. Such a rummaging of "war-bags" for fancy flannel shirts and brilliant ties hadn't occurred-so Old Bill Hicks said-within the remembrance of the present generation of prairie-dogs!

"Jest thinkin' about cavortin' among the gals about drives them 'ombres loco," declared the ranchman. "Hi guy! here's even Jimsey's got a bran'

new shirt on."

"'Tain't nuther!" scoffed Bud. "Whar's your eyes, Boss? Don't you reckernize that gay and festive shirt? Jimsey bought it 'way back when Mis' Hills' twins was born."

"So it's as old as the Hills, is it?" grunted Mr. Hicks. "Wal, he ain't worn it right frequent in this yere neck o' woods-that I'll swear to!

An' a purple tie with it-Je-ru-sha! Somebody'll take a shot at him in that combination of riotin' colors-you hear me!"

The girls too were quite fluttered over the prospect of attending the party. Helen had agreed to take her violin along and Bob offered to help out with the music by playing his harmonica-an instrument without which he never went anywhere, save to bed or in swimming!

"And I can't think of anything more utterly sad, Bobbie," declared his sister, "than your rendition of 'the Suwanee River' on that same mouth-organ. When it comes to your playing for square dances, I fear you would give our Western friends much cause for complaint-and many of them, I notice, go armed," she continued, significantly.

"Huh!" sniffed Bob. "I guess I don't play as bad as all that. Busy Izzy could dance a jig to my playing."

"That's what I thought," responded Madge. "You're just about up to playing jig-tunes on that old mouth-organ."

Just the same, Bob slipped the harmonica into his pocket. "You never can tell what may happen," he grunted.

"It'll be something mighty serious, then, Bobbie, if it necessitates the bringing forth of that instrument of torture," said his sister, bound to have the last word.

At dusk the big automobile got away from Silver Ranch, surrounded by a gang of wall-eyed ponies that looked on the rattling machine about as kindly as they would have viewed a Kansas grain thrasher. The visitors and Jane Ann all rode in the machine, for even Ruth's Freckles would have turned unmanageable within sight and sound of that touring car.

"That choo-choo cart," complained Bud, the cowboy, "would stampede a battalion of hoptoads. Whoa, you Sonny! it ain't goin' tuh bite yuh."

This to his own half-crazy mount. "Look out for your Rat-tail, Jimsey, or that yere purple necktie will bite the dust, as they say in the storybooks."

The hilarious party from Silver Ranch, however, reached the Crossing without serious mishap. They were not the first comers, for there were already lines of saddle ponies as well as many various "rigs" hitched about Lem d.i.c.kson's store. The schoolhouse was lit brightly with kerosene lamps, and there was a string of Chinese lanterns hung above the doorway.

The girls, in their fresh frocks and furbelows, hastened over to the schoolhouse, followed more leisurely by their escorts. Sally d.i.c.kson, as chief of the committee of reception, greeted Jane Ann and her friends, and made them cordially welcome, although they were all some years younger than most of the girls from the ranches roundabout.

"If you Eastern girls can all dance, you'll sure help us out a whole lot," declared the brisk little schoolmistress. "For if there's anything I do dispise it's to see two great, hulking men paired off in a reel, or a 'hoe-down.' And you brought your violin, Miss Cameron? That's fine!

You can play without music, I hope?"

Helen a.s.sured her she thought she could master the simple dance tunes to which the a.s.sembly was used. There were settees ranged around the walls for the dancers to rest upon, and some of the matrons who had come to chaperone the affair were already ensconced upon these. There was a buzz of conversation and laughter in the big room. The men folk hung about the door as yet, or looked in at the open windows.

"Did that big gump, Ike Stedman, come over with you-all, Miss Fielding?"