The Dude Wrangler Part 7

What the atlas omitted, however, was supplied by Wallie's imagination.

When he closed his eyes he could see great herds of cattle--his--with their broad backs glistening in the suns.h.i.+ne, and vast tracts--his also--planted in clover, oats, barley, or whatever it was they grew in the country. For diversion, he saw himself scampering over the country on horseback on visits to the friendly neighbours, entertaining frequently himself and entertained everywhere. As for Helene Spenceley--she would soon learn the manner of man she had belittled!

This frame of mind was responsible for the fact that when he had finished dressing and gone below he spoke patronizingly to Mr. Appel, who paid an income tax on fourteen million.

It was a wrench after all--the going--and the fact that his aunt did not relent made it the harder. It was the first time he ever had packed his own boxes and decided upon the clothes in which he should travel. But she sat erect and unyielding at the far end of the veranda while he was in the midst of a sympathetic leave-taking from the guests of The Colonial. There were tears in Mrs. Budlong's eyes when she warned him not to fall into bad habits, and Wallie's were close to the surface when he promised her he would not.

"Aw--you'll be back when it gets cold weather," said Mr. Appel.

"I shall succeed or leave my bones in Wyoming!" Wallie declared, dramatically.

Mr. Appel snickered: "They'll help fertilize the soil, which I'm told needs it." His early struggles had made Mr. Appel callous.

Miss Macpherson, looking straight ahead, gave no indication that she saw her nephew coming.

"Will you say good-bye to me, Aunt Mary?"

She appeared not to see the hand he put out to her.

"I trust you will have a safe journey, Wallace." Her voice was a breath from the Arctic.

He stood before her a moment feeling suddenly friendless. "This makes me very unhappy, Aunt Mary," he said, sorrowfully.

Since she did not answer, he could only leave her, and her failure to ask him to write hurt as much as the frigidity of the leave-taking.

The motor-bus had arrived and the chauffeur was piling his luggage on top of it, so, with a final handshake, Wallie said good-bye, perhaps forever, to his friends of The Colonial.

They were all standing with their arms about each other's waists or with their hands placed affectionately upon each other's shoulders as the bus started, calling "Good-bye and good luck" with much waving of handkerchiefs. Only his aunt sat grim-visaged and motionless, refusing to concede so much as a glance in her nephew's direction.

Wallie, in turn, took off his girlish sailor and swung it through the bus window and wafted kisses at the dear, amiable folk of The Colonial until the motor had pa.s.sed between the stately pillars of the entrance.

Then he leaned back with a sigh and with the feeling of having "burned his bridges behind him."

CHAPTER VII

HIS "GAT"

"How much 'Jack' did you say you got?" Pinkey, an early caller at the Prouty House, sitting on his heel with his back against the wall, awaited with evident interest an answer to this pointed question. He explained further in response to Wallie's puzzled look: "Kale--dinero--the long green--_money_."

"Oh," Wallie replied, enlightened, "about $1,800." He was in his blue silk pajamas, sitting on the iron rail of his bed--it had an edge like a knife-blade.

There was no resemblance between this room and the one he had last occupied. The robin's egg-blue alabastine had scaled, exposing large patches of plaster, and the same thing had happened to the enamel of the wash-bowl and pitcher--the dents in the latter leading to the conclusion that upon some occasion it had been used as a weapon.

A former occupant who must have learned his art in the penitentiary had knotted the lace curtains in such a fas.h.i.+on that no one ever had attempted to untie them, while the prison-like effect of the iron bed, with its dingy pillows and counterpane and sagging middle, was such as to throw a chill over the spirits of the cheeriest traveller.

It had required all Wallie's will power, when he had arrived at midnight, to rise above the depression superinduced by these surroundings. His luggage was piled high in the corner, while the two trunks setting outside his doorway already had been the cause of threats of an alarming nature, made against the owner by sundry guests who had bruised their s.h.i.+ns on them in the ill-lighted corridor.

Pinkey's arrival had cheered him wonderfully. Now when that person observed tentatively that $1,800 was "a good little stake," Wallie blithely offered to count it.

"You got it with you?"

Wallie nodded.

"That's chancey," Pinkey commented. "They's people in the country would stick you up if they knowed you carried it."

"I should resist if any one attempted to rob me," Wallie declared as he sat down on the rail gingerly with his bulging wallet.

"What with?" Pinkey inquired, humorously.

Wallie reached under his pillow and produced a pearl-handled revolver of 32 calibre.

"Before leaving I purchased this pistol."

Pinkey regarded him with a pained expression.

"Don't use that dude word, feller. Say 'gun,' 'gat,' 'six-shooter,'

anything, but don't ever say 'pistol' above a whisper."

A little crest-fallen, Wallie laid it aside and commenced to count his money. Pinkey, he could see, was not impressed by the weapon.

"Yes, eighteen hundred exactly. I spent $250 purchasing a camping outfit."

Pinkey looked at him incredulously. He was thinking of the frying-pan, coffee-pot, and lard-kettle of which his own consisted. He made no comment, however, until Wallie mentioned his portable bath-tub, which, while expensive, he declared he considered indispensable.

"Yes," Pinkey agreed, drily, "you'll be needin' a portable bath-tub something desperate. I wisht I had one. The last good wash I took was in Crystal Lake the other side of the Bear-tooth Mountain. When I was done I stood out till the sun dried me, then brushed the mud off with a whisk-broom."

"That must have been uncomfortable," Wallie observed, politely. "I hope you will feel at liberty to use my tub whenever you wish."

"That won't be often enough to wear it out," said Pinkey, candidly. "But you'd better jump into your pants and git over to the land-office. We want to nail that 160 before some other 'Scissor-bill' beats you to it."

Under Pinkey's guidance Wallie went to the land office, which was in the rear of a secondhand store kept by Mr. Alvin Tucker, who was also the land commissioner.

The office was in the rear and there were two routes by which it was possible to get in touch with Mr. Tucker: one might gain admittance by walking over the bureaus, centre-tables, and stoves that blocked the front entrance, or he could crawl on his hands and knees through a large roll of chicken-wire wedged into the side door of the establishment.

The main-travelled road, however, was over the tables and bureaus, and this was chosen by Pinkey and Wallie, who found Mr. Tucker at his desk attending to the State's business.

Mr. Tucker had been blacking a stove and had not yet removed the traces of his previous occupation, so when Pinkey introduced him his hand was of a colour to make Wallie hesitate for the fraction of a second before taking it.

Mr. Tucker being a man of great good nature took no offense, although he could scarcely fail to notice Wallie's hesitation; on the contrary, he inquired with the utmost cordiality:

"Well, gents, what can I do for you this morning?" His tone implied that he had the universe at his disposal, and he also looked it as he tipped back his swivel chair and regarded them.

"He wants to file on the 160 on Skull Crick that Boise Bill abandoned,"

said Pinkey.

Tucker's gaze s.h.i.+fted.