The Dude Wrangler Part 52

"Flattery is bad for growing boys," she smiled mischievously.

"I'm sure you've never spoiled any one by it. You've treated me like a hound, mostly."

Her eyes sparkled as she answered:

"I like hounds, if they have mettle."

"Even when they run themselves down following a cold trail?" he asked in self-derision.

Her reply was interrupted by voices raised in altercation in the vicinity of the supply-wagon. A clump of bushes concealed the disputants, but they easily recognized the rasping nasal tones of Mr.

Stott and the menacing bellow peculiar to the cook in moments of excitement.

The wrangle ended abruptly, and while Helene and Wallie stood wondering as to what the silence meant, Pinkey with a wry smile upon his face came toward them.

"Well, I guess we're out of the dude business," he said, laconically.

"What's the matter now?" Wallie demanded so savagely that the two burst out laughing.

"Nothin' much, except that Hicks is runnin' Stott with the butcher-knife and aims to kill him. I don't know as I blame him. He said his grub was full of ants and looked like sc.r.a.ps for Fido."

Wallie was alarmed, but Pinkey rea.s.sured him.

"Don't worry! He won't catch him, unless he's got wings, the gait Stott was travellin'. He'll be at the hotel in about twenty minutes--it's only five miles. What do you make of this, pardner?" Pinkey handed him a worn and grimy envelope as he added in explanation:

"I found it stuck in the cupboard of the wagon."

Wallie took the envelope, wondering grimly as he turned it over if there was anything left that could surprise him. There was. On the back was written:

Ellery Hicks INSULTED August 3rd, this year of our Lord, 1920.

Below, in pencil, was a list of the party with every name crossed out save Mr. Stott's, and at the bottom, ornamented with many curlicues and beautifully shaded, was the significant sentence, with the date as yet blank:

Ellery Hicks AVENGED, August ---- this year of our Lord, 1920.

CHAPTER XXV

"AND JUST THEN----"

Mr. Cone stood at his desk, looking all of ten years younger for his rest at the Sanatorium. Indeed, it was difficult to reconcile this smiling, affable host of the Magnolia House with the glaring maniac of homicidal tendencies who had hung over the counter of The Colonial Hotel, fingering the potato pen-wiper and hurling bitter personalities at his patrons.

The Florida hostelry had just opened and the influx of guests promised a successful season, yet there was a regret and a wistfulness in Mr.

Cone's brown eyes as they scanned the register, for in the long list there was no name of any member of The Happy Family.

As all the world knows, sentiment has no place in business, yet for sentimental reasons solely Mr. Cone had to date refused to rent to strangers the rooms occupied for so many winters by the same persons.

Ordinarily, it was so well understood between them that they would return and occupy their usual quarters that he reserved their rooms as a matter of course and they notified him only when something occurred to change their plans or detain them. But this winter, owing to the circ.u.mstances in which they had parted, his common sense told him that if they intended to return to the Magnolia House they would have so informed him.

Nevertheless, so strong were the ties of friendship that Mr. Cone determined to give them forty-eight hours longer, and if by then he had no word from them, of course there was nothing to think but that the one-time pleasant relations were ended forever.

There were strangers aplenty, the "newcomers" had arrived, and Miss Mary Macpherson, but he wanted to see Henry Appel sitting on his veranda, and Mrs. Budlong and "C. D.," and Miss Mattie Gaskett--in fact, he missed one not more than another.

What did it matter, after all, he reflected, if "Cutie" had kittens in the linen closet, and that Mrs. Appel used the hotel soap to do her laundry? As Mr. Cone looked off across the blue waters of the Gulf, which he could see through the wide open doorway, he wished with all his heart that he had not "flown off the handle."

The Happy Family had been friends as well as patrons, and without friends what did life amount to? The hotel was full of new people, but in spite of his professional affability Mr. Cone was not one to "cotton"

to everybody, and it would be a long time, he told himself sadly, before these old friends could be replaced in his affections.

He would have listened gladly to the story of how Mr. Appel got his start in life; he was hungry for the sight of Mrs. C. D. Budlong sitting like a potted oleander; he would have welcomed----

Mr. Cone's generous ears seemed suddenly to quiver, almost they went forward like those of a startled burro. A voice--obstinate, cantankerous--a voice that could belong to no one on earth but old Mr.

Penrose, was engaged outside in a wrangle with a taxi-cab driver!

Before Mr. Cone could get around the desk and at the door to greet him, Mr. Penrose was striding across the office with the porter behind him, round-shouldered under the weight of two portmanteaux and a bag of golf clubs.

Mr. Penrose was the same, yet different in an elusive way that Mr. Cone could not define exactly. There was an air about him which on the spur of the moment he might have called "brigandish"--the way he wore his hat, a slight swagger, a something lawless that surely he never had acquired in his peach orchard in Delaware. When Mr. Penrose extended his hand across the counter Mr. Cone noticed that he was wearing a leather bracelet.

As they greeted each other like reunited brothers there was nothing in the manner of either to indicate that they had parted on any but the happiest terms, though Mr. Penrose's gaze wavered for an instant when he asked:

"Is my room ready?"

"Since the day before yesterday," replied Mr. Cone, turning to the key-rack. Then generously:

"What kind of a summer did you have? I trust, a pleasant one."

Mr. Penrose's faded eyes grew luminous. His voice quavered with eager enthusiasm as he ignored the efforts of the bell-boy to draw his attention to the fact that he was waiting to open his room for him.

"Superb! Magnificent! A wonderful experience! The Land of Adventure!

Cone," Mr. Penrose peered at him solemnly from under his bushy eyebrows, "I know what it is to look into the jaws of Death, literally!" Mr.

Penrose could look into Mr. Cone's jaws also, for he was so impressive that the lower one dropped automatically. He added: "I am thankful to be alive to tell the story."

"You don't mean it!"

"Yes. Alone, unarmed, I defended myself against an attack from one of the savage grizzlies of the Rocky Mountains."

Mr. Cone's eyes were as round as a child's awaiting a fairy tale. If Mr.

Penrose had needed encouragement they would have furnished it. He continued:

"We were camped near the Canon Hotel where the bears swarm--swarm like flies over the garbage. A remarkable sight. It was a very dark night--so dark, in fact, that I hesitated to go to my teepee, which was placed apart that I might not be disturbed by the others. I must have my rest, as you will remember.

"I had been asleep only a few minutes when I was awakened by the feeling that something was happening. It was. My tent was moving--actually bounding over rocks and hummocks.

"Believing myself the victim of a practical joke, I sprang out and brought my fish-pole down on what I supposed to be the head of a fellow disguised in a big overcoat. There was a roar that was plainly heard for miles, and a monster grizzly struck at me.

"If it had not been for my presence of mind, that would have been the end of me. Now it was all that saved me. As the bear, on his hind legs, came toward me with his arms outstretched, to grapple, I ducked and came up between them, and so close to his body that he was unable to sink his terrible claws into me.

"He let out another roar--simply appalling--it will ring in my ears forever--almost deafened me. Again my remarkable presence of mind came to my rescue. I reached up and held his jaws open. It was my purpose to dislocate the lower one, if possible.