The Dude Wrangler Part 54

The last time that lady had extended a supine hand it had been to offer him one of the most serious affronts that can befall a self-respecting landlord; now the hand contained only cordiality, and in that spirit Mr.

Cone took it.

"You enjoyed your summer?" As Mr. Cone pa.s.sed the pen for her to register.

"Delightful! Altogether unique! Do you know, Mr. Cone, I never before have fully appreciated my husband--his splendid courage?"

"Is that so?" Mr. Cone replied with polite interest.

"Yes, when put to the test he was magnificent. You see, we had a cook, oh, a most offensive--a rully violent and dangerous person. In fact, it was because of him that I left the party prematurely.

"It was plain that both Wallie and Pinkey were afraid of him, and dared not discharge him, so, one day when he had been more objectionable than usual, my husband took things into his own hands--he simply _had_ to!

"Hicks--his name was Hicks--was disrespectful when Mr. Stott reprimanded him for something, and then he attempted to strike my husband with a pair of bra.s.s knuckles. Bra.s.s knuckles, it seems, are not a gentleman's weapon, and the cowardly attack so infuriated Mr. Stott that he knocked the bully down and took them away from him. He still has them. Before he let him up he pummelled him well, I a.s.sure you. Mr. Stott doesn't know how strong he is when angry. Such muscles!

"He punished the cook until he begged for mercy and promised to do better. But as soon as he was on his feet he tried to _stab_ my husband with a bread-knife. Fancy! Mr. Stott took this away from him, also, and ran him down the road with it. He ran him for seven miles--_seven miles_, mind you! The cook was nearly dead when Mr. Stott let up on him.

I had to _drag_ this story from my husband, little by little. But wasn't it exciting?"

Mr. Cone, who never had thought of Mr. Stott as such a warrior, tried to visualize the episode, and though he failed to do so he was greatly impressed by it.

He stood for some time after Mrs. Stott had left him, reflecting enviously that his life was dull and uneventful, and that he must seem a poor stick to the heroes and heroines of such adventures. He wished that he could think of some incident in his past to match these tales of valour, but as he looked back the only thing that occurred to him was the occasion upon which the laundress had stolen the cooking sherry and gone to sleep in her chemise on the front veranda. She had fought like a tiger when the patrol wagon came for her, and he had been the one to hold her feet as she was carried to it. At the time he had been congratulated upon the able and fearless manner in which he had met the emergency, but a bout with an intoxicated laundress, though it had its dangers, seemed a piffling affair as compared to a hand-to-hand combat with a grizzly.

Gazing absently through the doorway and comforting himself by thinking that perhaps he, too, had latent courage which would rise to heights of heroism in propitious circ.u.mstances, he did not see Miss Eyester, who had come in the side entrance, until she stood before him.

He had not expected Miss Eyester, because she was usually employed during the winter, and it was only when a well-to-do relative sent her a check that she could afford a few weeks in Florida. But Miss Eyester was one of his favourites, and he immediately expressed the hope that she was to stay the entire season, while he noticed that she was wearing a mounted bear-claw for a hat-pin.

"No," she replied, blushing.

Not until then had Mr. Cone observed the Montana diamond flashing on her finger.

"Ah-h?" He raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

Miss Eyester nodded.

"In January."

"A Western millionaire, I venture?" he suggested playfully.

"A stockman."

"Indeed?" A new respect was in Mr. Cone's manner. "Cattle?"

"Sheep," replied Miss Eyester, proudly. "Mr. Fripp is herding at present."

In a week Mr. Cone was as familiar with the glorious summer which The Happy Family had spent in the West as if he had been there. Although he knew the story by heart he still thrilled when Mr. Penrose backed the bear up against a tree and separated its jaws until it "moaned like a human."

He continued to listen with flattering attention to the recital of the intrepid spinster who would have given battle to a hungry coyote if it had attacked her, as he did to the account of Mr. Stott's reckless courage in putting to flight a notorious outlaw who had hired out as a cook for some sinister purpose.

But, gradually, Mr. Cone began to detect discrepancies, and he noticed also that the descriptions not only varied but grew more hair-raising with repet.i.tion. Also, he guessed shrewdly that the reason the members of The Happy Family never contradicted one another was that they dared not.

The day came, finally, when Mr. Cone found it not only expedient but necessary to arrange a signal with the operator at the switchboard for certain contingencies. A close observer might have noticed that a preliminary "That reminds me" was invariably followed by an imperative announcement from the operator that Mr. Cone was wanted on the telephone.

A haste which resembled flight frequently marked the departure of other guests when a reminiscence seemed threatening until, forsooth, the time arrived when they had only themselves for audience and their "That reminds me" became "Do you remember?" The only wonder was, to those less travelled, that The Happy Family ever had brought themselves to leave that earthly paradise in Wyoming, even for the winter.

The only person whom their enthusiasm did not weary was Miss Mary Macpherson, because directly and indirectly it all redounded to the credit of her nephew, whom she now carefully called Wallace, as more befitting the dignity of a successful "Dude Wrangler" than the diminutive.

Wallie's refusal to accept her offer had brought tears of disappointment to the eyes of the lonely woman, yet secretly she respected his pride and boasted to strangers of his independence.

"My nephew, Wallace Macpherson--you may have heard of him? He has large interests in Wyoming. Went West without a penny, practically; too proud to accept help from any one--that's the Macpherson of it--and now, they tell me, he is one of the important men of the country."

She was sometimes tempted to mention the extent of his holdings, and put the acreage well up into the thousands, but since Miss Macpherson was a truthful woman with a sensitive conscience, she contented herself with declaring, merely:

"My nephew, Wallace Macpherson, has a large ranch, oh, a very large place--several days' ride around it."

He was all she had, and blood is far thicker than water. She was hungry for a sight of him, and every day increased her yearning. While letters from him now arrived regularly, he said nothing in any of them of coming to Florida. His extensive interests, she presumed, detained him, and he was too good a business man to neglect affairs that needed him.

She had promised to go to him next summer, but next summer was a long way off and there were times when she was strongly tempted to make the journey in winter in spite of the northern blizzards of which, while fanning themselves, they read with gusto.

A blizzard was raging at present, according to the paper from which Mr.

Appel was reading the headlines aloud to the group on the veranda. All trains were stalled west of the Mississippi and there was three feet of snow on the level in Denver.

"That reminds me----"

Only too well Mr. Cone knew what Mr. Budlong's remark portended. The hotel proprietor was having an interesting conversation with Mrs. Appel upon the relative merits of moth-preventatives, but he arose abruptly.

Mr. Budlong squared away again.

"That reminds me that I was wondering this morning how deep the snow would be at that point where Mr. Stott slid down the glacier in the gold-pan. By the way, Mr. Cone, have you heard that story? It's a good one."

Edging toward the doorway, Mr. Cone fairly chattered in his vehemence:

"Oh, yes--yes--yes!"

Mr. Penrose interrupted eagerly:

"The drifts must be about forty feet high on that stretch south of The Lolabama. There's a gap in the mountain where the wind comes through a-whoopin'. I mean the place where the steer chased Aunt Lizzie--did any one ever tell you that yarn, Cone?"

Mr. Cone, with one foot over the door-sill and clinging to the jamb, as if he half expected they would wrench him loose and make him go back and listen, answered with unmistakable irony:

"I think I recall having heard someone mention it."

It required more than irony to discourage Mr. Penrose, however, and he insisted petulantly:

"Come on back here, Cone! I'll explain just how Wallie jumped that steer and went to the ground with him. It's worth listening to twice."

Twice! Mr. Cone had heard it more times than he had fingers and toes.

"The telephone's ringing," he pleaded.