The Dude Wrangler Part 43

Mr. Hicks had an alert, suspicious manner as if he feared that someone would jump forward and s.n.a.t.c.h something before he had given the signal.

When the operation of bread-slicing was completed, Mr. Hicks stuck the point of the knife in the tail-board and, gripping the handle, struck a pose like that of the elder Salvini, while in a sonorous voice he enumerated the delicacies he had to offer. It sounded like a roll-call, and his tone was so imperative that almost one expected the pickles and cheese to answer--"present."

"Come and get it!" he finished, abruptly, and retired to sit down under sagebrush as if he were disgusted with food and people who ate it. There Wallie joined him and from the vantage point watched his guests eat their first meal in the open.

If there was one thing upon which The Happy Family at The Colonial had prided itself more than another it was upon its punctilious observance of the amenities. There were those among the "newcomers" who averred that they carried their elaborate politeness to a point which made them ridiculous. For example, when two or more met at the door of the elevator they had been known to stand for a full minute urging precedence upon the other, and no gentleman, however bald or susceptible to draughts, would converse with a lady with his head covered.

Now Wallie felt that his eyes must have deceived him when Mr. Budlong prodded Miss Eyester in the ribs with his elbow in his eagerness to get in ahead of her, while old Mr. Penrose reached a long arm over Aunt Lizzie Philbrick's shoulder and took away a piece of apple pie upon which she already had closed her fingers.

When Miss Gaskett and Mr. Appel chanced to select the same slice of ham neither seemed disposed to relinquish it but displayed considerable spirit as they pulled until it gave way in its weakest sector, leaving Mr. Appel with only an inch of fat between his thumb and finger. He regarded his portion with chagrin while Miss Gaskett went off triumphantly to make a sandwich.

Mr. Stott with his usual enterprise and shrewdness had gotten next to the tail-board, where he stood munching and reviewing the food with an eye to his next selection. He was astonished to see Miss Mercy's alpine hat rising, as it were, from the earth at his feet to crowd him from his desirable position. As she stood up she jabbed him in the nostril with the quill, and Mr. Stott gave ground before he realized it. Miss Mercy snickered in appreciation of the cleverness of her manoeuvre.

As Wallie observed them while waiting his opportunity to get a dill pickle or whatever crumb they might leave him, he thought grimly that if they had been without food for twenty-four hours instead of less than half a dozen, they would have been close to cannibalism. He, for one, would not care to be adrift in an open boat with Mrs. Budlong--hungry and armed with a hatchet--while Stott, he was sure would murder him for a frankfurter in those circ.u.mstances.

Aunt Lizzie, to whom accidents of an unusual nature seemed always to be happening, wandered off with a wedge of pie and a cup of coffee and sat down on an ant-hill.

While she sipped her coffee and drank in the scenery simultaneously, the inhabitants of the hill came out in swarms to investigate the monster who was destroying their home. They attacked her with the ferocity for which red ants are noted, and she dropped her pie and coffee and ran screaming to the wagon.

Fearful that she would be pursued by them, she got into the surrey, where she became involved in a quarrel with Miss Mercy, who was eating her lunch there.

Miss Mercy caught a b.u.t.terfly that lighted on a seat-cover and pulled off first one wing and then the other in spite of Aunt Lizzie's entreaties. She dropped it on the bottom of the surrey and put her astonishingly large foot upon it.

"There," she snickered, "I squashed it."

Aunt Lizzie, to whom anything alive was as if it were human, wrung her hands in anguish.

"I think you are horrid!"

"What good is it?"

"What good are you, either? I shan't ride with you." Aunt Lizzie climbed into the third seat of the surrey, where she refused to answer Miss Mercy when she spoke to her.

The rest and food freshened the party considerably but by four o'clock they were again hungry and drooping in their saddles. Only Mr. Stott, endowed, as it seemed, with the infinite wisdom of the Almighty, retained his spirits and kept up an unending flow of instructive conversation upon topics of which he had the barest smattering of knowledge. Constantly dashing off on his part to investigate gulches and side trails caused Wallie's smouldering wrath to burn brighter, as the buckskin hourly grew more jaded.

Complaints increased that their horses were hard-gaited, and the voices of the ladies held plaintive notes as they declared their intention of riding in the surrey when they overtook it. Pinkey was stopped finally, and his pa.s.sengers augmented by the addition of Mrs. Stott, Miss Gaskett, and Mrs. Budlong, who carefully folded their jackets to sit on.

At five o'clock Mr. Stott raced forward and returned to announce that Hicks had camped just around the bend of the river.

"You're wearing that horse out, Stott," said Wallie, coldly.

"He's feeling good--watch him!" cried the lawyer, gaily, putting spurs to the horse and disappearing.

It was a beautiful camping spot that Hicks had selected, though "Red"

McGonnigle grumbled that it was not level enough for the teepees.

Old Mr. Penrose, who had fallen off his horse rather than dismounted, declared he was so tired that he could sleep on the teeth of a harrow, like a babe in its cradle.

"We'll be all right when we get seasoned," said Mr. Appel, cheerfully, hunting in his wife's handbag for the vaseline.

"You couldn't have a better place to start in at," "Red" commented, grimly.

On the whole, the day might be regarded as a pleasant one, and if the remainder of the trip equalled it, there was no doubt but that the party would return satisfied, which meant that they would advertise it and the next season would be even more successful.

Everyone carried wood to build a camp-fire after supper, but by the time they had it going they were too sleepy to sit up and enjoy it. They stumbled away to their several teepees with their eyes half closed and for the first time since they had known each other failed to say "pleasant dreams!" when separating for the night.

Mr. Stott lingered to regale Pinkey and Wallie for the fourteenth time with the story of the hoot-owl which had frightened him while hunting in Florida, but since it was received without much enthusiasm and he was not encouraged to tell another, he, too, retired to crawl between his blankets and "sleep on Nature's bosom" with most of his clothes on.

"I wouldn't wonder but that we'll have to hit him between the horns before the trip is over," Pinkey remarked, looking after Stott.

Wallie said nothing, but his face spoke for him.

Pinkey continued in a tone of satisfaction:

"Outside of him, everything's goin' splendid. The Yellowstone Park is the fightin'est place anybody ever heard of. I've seen life-time friends go in there campin' and come out enemies--each one sittin' on his own grub-box and not speakin'. But it don't look as if we was goin'

to have any serious trouble--they're nice people."

"And they think the world of me," Wallie reiterated.

"I've been thinkin' I could lose the horses for two or three days and that would count up considerable. Ten dudes at $5.00 a day for three days, say---- Oh, we're sittin' pretty! We'll come out of this with a roll as big as a gambler's."

"It _looks_ encouraging," Wallie replied more guardedly, though in his heart he was sharing Pinkey's optimism.

They kicked out the camp-fire and rolled up in their respective blankets, Pinkey to die temporarily, and Wallie to lie awake listening to the roar of the river and speculating as to whether Helene Spenceley had any special prejudice against the dude business.

Of course, he admitted, had he a choice in the matter, he would have preferred to have been an amba.s.sador, a lawyer of international reputation, even a great artist; but for a start, as the foundation of a fortune, dudes were at least as good as _herring_.

With this consoling thought, Wallie turned over on a pillow which would have engaged the earnest attention of the most lax health officer, and fell into a contented slumber.

CHAPTER XXIII

RIFTS

Before the birds had taken their heads from under their wings Miss Mercy Lane was up and crashing through the brambles on a hunt for "Red"

McGonnigle.

It was a morning to thrill the soul of a taxi-cab driver, but it had no interest for Miss Mercy. The dew on the petals of the wild-rose, the opaline tints of a sweet-scented dawn meant nothing to that lady as, without a collar, her shirt-waist wrongly b.u.t.toned, her hair twisted into a hard "Psyche" knot, she searched for her enemy.

In her earnest desire to get in touch with Mr. McGonnigle as soon as possible, she clumped about, peering into the faces of the helpers, who had thrown their tarps down upon whatever spot looked a likely place for sleeping.

Pinkey she found without difficulty; also Mr. Hicks, who, awakened by the feeling that someone was looking at him, sat up and in a scandalized tone told her to go right away, from him. "Red" McGonnigle, however, whether by accident or premeditation, had repaired with his blankets to a bed-ground where the Almighty could not have found him with a spy-gla.s.s. In consequence, Wallie was awakened suddenly by the booming voice of Miss Mercy demanding to know Red's whereabouts.

Her lids were puffed as if she had not closed them, and through the slits her eyes gleamed at him. She looked so altogether formidable as she stood over him that his first impulse was to duck his head under the covers.