The Virginian, a Horseman of the Plains Part 14

"Well, boys," said Wiggin, "I expect it will be Miss Schoolmarm says who's number one to-night."

"So she's arrived in this hyeh country?" observed the Virginian, very casually.

"Arrived!" said Trampas again. "Where have you been grazing lately?"

"A right smart way from the mules."

"Nebrasky and the boys was tellin' me they'd missed yu' off the range,"

again interposed Wiggin. "Say, Nebrasky, who have yu' offered your canary to the schoolmarm said you mustn't give her?"

Nebrasky grinned wretchedly.

"Well, she's a lady, and she's square, not takin' a man's gift when she don't take the man. But you'd ought to get back all them letters yu'

wrote her. Yu' sure ought to ask her for them tell-tales."

"Ah, pshaw, Honey!" protested the youth. It was well known that he could not write his name.

"Why, if here ain't Bokay Baldy!" cried the agile Wiggin, stooping to fresh prey. "Found them slippers yet, Baldy? Tell yu' boys, that was turruble sad luck Baldy had. Did yu' hear about that? Baldy, yu' know, he can stay on a tame horse most as well as the schoolmarm. But just you give him a pair of young knittin'-needles and see him make 'em sweat!

He worked an elegant pair of slippers with pink cabbages on 'em for Miss Wood."

"I bought 'em at Medicine Bow," blundered Baldy.

"So yu' did!" a.s.sented the skilful comedian. "Baldy he bought 'em. And on the road to her cabin there at the Taylors' he got thinkin' they might be too big, and he got studyin' what to do. And he fixed up to tell her about his not bein' sure of the size, and how she was to let him know if they dropped off her, and he'd exchange' 'em, and when he got right near her door, why, he couldn't find his courage. And so he slips the parcel under the fence and starts serenadin' her. But she ain't inside her cabin at all. She's at supper next door with the Taylors, and Baldy singin' 'Love has conqwered pride and angwer' to a lone house. Lin McLean was comin' up by Taylor's corral, where Taylor's Texas bull was. Well, it was turruble sad. Baldy's pants got tore, but he fell inside the fence, and Lin druv the bull back and somebody stole them Medicine Bow galoshes. Are you goin' to knit her some more, Bokay?"

"About half that ain't straight," Baldy commented, with mildness.

"The half that was tore off yer pants? Well, never mind, Baldy; Lin will get left too, same as all of yu'."

"Is there many?" inquired the Virginian. He was still stretched on his back, looking up at the sky.

"I don't know how many she's been used to where she was raised," Wiggin answered. "A kid stage-driver come from Point of Rocks one day and went back the next. Then the foreman of the 76 outfit, and the horse-wrangler from the Bar-Circle-L, and two deputy marshals, with punchers, stringin'

right along,--all got their tumble. Old Judge Burrage from Cheyenne come up in August for a hunt and stayed round here and never hunted at all.

There was that horse thief--awful good-lookin'. Taylor wanted to warn her about him, but Mrs. Taylor said she'd look after her if it was needed. Mr. Horse-thief gave it up quicker than most; but the schoolmarm couldn't have knowed he had a Mrs. Horse-thief camped on Poison Spider till afterwards. She wouldn't go ridin' with him. She'll go with some, takin' a kid along."

"Bah!" said Trampas.

The Virginian stopped looking at the sky, and watched Trampas from where he lay.

"I think she encourages a man some," said poor Nebrasky.

"Encourages? Because she lets yu' teach her how to shoot," said Wiggin.

"Well--I don't guess I'm a judge. I've always kind o' kep' away from them good women. Don't seem to think of anything to chat about to 'em.

The only folks I'd say she encourages is the school kids. She kisses them."

"Riding and shooting and kissing the kids," sneered Trampas. "That's a heap too p.u.s.s.y-kitten for me."

They laughed. The sage-brush audience is readily cynical.

"Look for the man, I say," Trampas pursued. "And ain't he there? She leaves Baldy sit on the fence while she and Lin McLean--"

They laughed loudly at the blackguard picture which he drew; and the laugh stopped short, for the Virginian stood over Trampas.

"You can rise up now, and tell them you lie," he said.

The man was still for a moment in the dead silence. "I thought you claimed you and her wasn't acquainted," said he then.

"Stand on your laigs, you polecat, and say you're a liar!"

Trampas's hand moved behind him.

"Quit that," said the Southerner, "or I'll break your neck!"

The eye of a man is the prince of deadly weapons. Trampas looked in the Virginian's, and slowly rose. "I didn't mean--" he began, and paused, his face poisonously bloated.

"Well, I'll call that sufficient. Keep a-standin' still. I ain' going to trouble yu' long. In admittin' yourself to be a liar you have spoke G.o.d's truth for onced. Honey Wiggin, you and me and the boys have hit town too frequent for any of us to play Sunday on the balance of the gang." He stopped and surveyed Public Opinion, seated around in carefully inexpressive attention. "We ain't a Christian outfit a little bit, and maybe we have most forgotten what decency feels like. But I reckon we haven't forgot what it means. You can sit down now, if you want."

The liar stood and sneered experimentally, looking at Public Opinion.

But this changeful deity was no longer with him, and he heard it variously a.s.senting, "That's so," and "She's a lady," and otherwise excellently moralizing. So he held his peace. When, however, the Virginian had departed to the roasting steer, and Public Opinion relaxed into that comfort which we all experience when the sermon ends, Trampas sat down amid the reviving cheerfulness, and ventured again to be facetious.

"Shut your rank mouth," said Wiggin to him, amiably. "I don't care whether he knows her or if he done it on principle. I'll accept the roundin' up he gave us--and say! You'll swallo' your dose, too! Us boys'll stand in with him in this."

So Trampas swallowed. And what of the Virginian?

He had championed the feeble, and spoken honorably in meeting, and according to all the const.i.tutions and by-laws of morality, he should have been walking in virtue's especial calm. But there it was! he had spoken; he had given them a peep through the key-hole at his inner man; and as he prowled away from the a.s.semblage before whom he stood convicted of decency, it was vicious rather than virtuous that he felt.

Other matters also disquieted him--so Lin McLean was hanging round that schoolmarm! Yet he joined Ben Swinton in a seemingly Christian spirit.

He took some whiskey and praised the size of the barrel, speaking with his host like this: "There cert'nly ain' goin' to be trouble about a second helpin'."

"Hope not. We'd ought to have more tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, though. We're shy on ducks."

"Yu' have the barrel. Has Lin McLean seen that?"

"No. We tried for ducks away down as far as the Laparel outfit. A real barbecue--"

"There's large thirsts on Bear Creek. Lin McLean will pa.s.s on ducks."

"Lin's not thirsty this month."

"Signed for one month, has he?"

"Signed! He's spooning our schoolmarm!"

"They claim she's a right sweet-faced girl."

"Yes; yes; awful agreeable. And next thing you're fooled clean through."

"Yu' don't say!"

"She keeps a-teaching the darned kids, and it seems like a good growed-up man can't interest her."