NORINE ENTERTAINS
Leaving the horses to drink their fill at the watering trough, Roy
and Teddy hurried over towards the car, which had come to a stop
near the entrance to the ranch house.
“Howdy, boys!” Bug Eye called, as he alighted and opened the rear
door. “The ladies was afraid I wouldn’t get here before dark. But
they needn’t have worried. I can make any place before dark! I got
you here O.K., didn’t I?” he asked proudly, as he helped Nell and
Ethel out of the auto.
“You certainly did!” Nell answered, with a laugh. “Hello, Roy and
Teddy!”
“Hello, Nell!” Roy greeted.
“How are you, Ethel?” asked Teddy. “Have a good trip over?”
“Sounds as though we just landed from an ocean voyage!” Ethel
laughed. “Yes, we had a fine trip, Teddy. Bug Eye is such a careful
driver that--”
“_Careful_, ma’am?” Bug Eye interrupted, pushing his sombrero back
and wiping the perspiration from his forehead with the back of his
hand. “Careful? I guess you ain’t heard about the time--”
“Here it comes,” Teddy remarked in an undertone.
“About the time I was sent over to Eagles by the boss to bring back
a crate of eggs,” Bug Eye went on imperturbably. “You see--nope,
Roy, they didn’t bring no bags except them two pocket-books in the
rear; you can tote them in if you want. As I was sayin’, the boss
sent me down to Eagles to bring back a crate of eggs what was comin’
in on the train. Now you know what a freight wrastler does to eggs.
‘Handle with care’ means ‘Treat ’em rough’ to baggage heavers.
“Well, as soon as I saw them eggs I knew what had happened. The
yaller was drippin’ down the sides of the crate an’ there wasn’t a
whole egg in the lot. Thinks I, I’ll cart the box home, anyway, an’
show the boss. So I shoves her in the back of this here bus an’ sets
out for the 8 X 8. Well, sir, believe it or not, when I hit the
ranch, every last one of them eggs was back in their shells, just as
they were the day the hens laid ’em! _Careful!_ Why--”
“Whoa, Bug Eye, you’re going around a curve!” Teddy sang out. “Take
it easy! You’ll strain yourself! I guess the girls know by this time
what a careful driver you are.”
“We do,” Nell said laughingly. “We didn’t even know we were riding!”
With a nod of approval at this remark, Bug Eye once more took his
place behind the wheel, and with a shout of, “telephone if you need
anything and I’ll bring it over in the tin puddle-jumper,” the
puncher started with a rush back to the 8 X 8.
“He’s quite a boy,” Roy remarked as, carrying the girls’ week-end
bags, or “pocket-books,” as Bug Eye called them, he led the way into
the house. Teddy went to put the horses in the corral for the night.
“He surely is,” Nell replied to Roy. “Tell me, Roy, did you ever get
your horses back?” she went on, her face suddenly serious.
“Never did--yet,” Roy answered. “We--Teddy and I--saw them being
ridden, and we chased after them, but they got away.”
“And that fresh man in the checkered shirt!” Ethel exclaimed. “Have
you ever seen him again, Roy?”
“Once,” was the grim answer. Hurriedly the boy opened the door and
stood aside to let the girls pass in. “Oh, Mother!” he called.
“Visitors!”
The sound of light footsteps descending the stairs was heard
immediately, and in a moment Mrs. Manley appeared. She greeted the
girls warmly and said that Belle Ada would be ready in a moment.
“Roy, turn on the lights, please, won’t you?” his mother asked. He
pushed a wall-button, and a soft glow immediately illuminated the
room. Then, as Mrs. Manley saw the girls glance up in apparent
surprise, she said, smiling a little: “Yes, we have electric
lights--and everything. Mr. Ball has them, also, as you must have
noticed. You see most of the ranchers around here have their own
gasoline motors which generate the current. But take off your
things, won’t you? You are tired and dusty, so come upstairs. Belle
is eager to see you.”
Roy was hurrying to his own room to “slick up,” as he called it,
when Teddy burst into the house.
“I just wanted to--” he began. Then, seeing his brother was alone,
he stopped in confusion.
“Go on, tell me,” Roy jeered. “I make a fine audience. What was it
now?”
“Nothing!” answered Teddy, his face a trifle red. “I--I forget what
I was going to say. Where you bound for in such a rush?”
“Oh, I was just going to put on a clean shirt,” Roy responded
carelessly. “Have to dog-up a bit for supper.”
“Uh-huh,” Teddy grunted, with a grin. “For supper! Sure! Have to get
dogged-up for supper. Guess I will, too.” Then his face took on a
more serious expression. “Say, Roy, you don’t think we’ll have to
stop looking for those thieves while the girls are here, do you?”
“I’ll tell a maverick we won’t!” Roy exploded. “Not if dad has
anything to say about it, and I guess he has! He wants General back,
and he wants him bad. If any clue turns up, we’ll go right after the
rustlers!”
The evening meal, with the two girls as guests, was a jolly one. Mr.
Manley was at his best, and his chuckling remarks kept the company
in a gale of laughter, though often he directed a sly remark toward
Roy or Teddy, which caused them to change the subject hurriedly.
Belle, following her father’s leads, contributed not a little to the
general hilarity.
When the meal ended they all strolled into the living room of the
ranch, a large, well-lighted apartment with a huge oak table in the
center, on which were piled books and magazines. A stone hearth was
built into the wall, and a log fire was crackling away merrily,
lighted, Mr. Manley hastened to explain, with a sly grin at his
wife, “not for warmth but for effect.” Above the fireplace, was the
mounted head of a bison, set on a wooden panel.
“Oh, I think this is simply gorgeous!” Ethel murmured as she looked
about her. “Belle, you don’t know how lucky you are to be able to
live in such a wonderful place!”
“Maybe she wishes she could live in New York,” Teddy remarked, with
a glance at his sister. “Then she could go to parties and dances
every night--if she had any one to take her.”
“I wouldn’t want to go to dances every night, Teddy Manley, and you
know it!” Belle answered. “Even if I did have some one to take me,”
and she pouted in mock anger.
“There wouldn’t be much difficulty about that,” Nell declared, with
a look at Belle’s raven hair and lustrous, dark eyes.
“So you think my girl would be the Belle-Ada of the town, hey?” Mr.
Manley laughed, as he ruffled his daughter’s hair with an
affectionate hand. “Well, maybe next year you can go to school in
New York if you want to, daughter.”
“And leave you and mother?” Belle asked with wide eyes. “No! Not me,
Daddy!”
“Of course she forgets all about Ted and me,” Roy said, grinning.
“We just _live_ here. Nell, what would you do with a sister like
that?”
“Now don’t tease,” Mrs. Manley said, and smiled. “Bardwell, couldn’t
we have some sort of entertainment for the girls? Some of the
cowboys play musical instruments. Don’t you think they’d oblige us?”
“Nick Looker!” exclaimed Teddy and Roy in the same breath.
“What’s Nick do? Play on the linoleum?” Mr. Manley asked, with a
grin.
“The mouth-organ, Dad,” Teddy replied seriously. “What do you say?
Shall we get him to perform? He’ll do it, I know.”
“How about getting Norine to dance that Irish jig of hers?” Roy
suggested. “With Nick playing for her, she ought to be great!”
“Yea, if Nick doesn’t get too bashful when he sees Norine,” Teddy
said. “But let’s try it. Shall we, Mother?”
Hardly waiting for the assent he knew his mother would give, Teddy
made for the front door.
“Belle,” he called over his shoulder, “you go and talk to Norine!
Tell her Nick loves to see her dance. Then she’ll come. Roy, grab
some of these chairs and cart ’em out on the porch. We can all sit
there. We’ll have a moonlight show!”
“Wait! We’ll come with you!” Ethel declared, getting up. “Come on,
Nell, we can help too. Where are you going, Teddy?”
“Going to root out Nick and the rest of ’em. Come along, both of
you, if you want to. See what the ranch yard looks like in
moonlight.”
While Roy and Mr. Manley were bringing the chairs to the porch,
Teddy led the way toward the bunk-house. In the light of the full
moon the forms of the punchers dotting picturesquely the landscape
near the door of the shack could be seen. As the two girls
approached, plaintive wailings came to their ears.
“A handsome young cowboy was dy-ing,
(dy-ing)
And as on the prairie he lay--
(he lay--)
To the punchers who came round him sigh-ing,
(sigh-ing,)
These last dy-ing words he did say:
(he-e-e di-i-id say-y -y -y.)
“‘Take his forefoot from out of my back-bone,
(back-bone)
His back te-eeth from out of my brain,
(my brain)
His hindfoot from out of my liver
(liver)
And assemble the bronco agai-ai-ai-ai-ain!’”
“Hey, you birds, close up that butcher-shop!” Teddy called out.
“Don’t you keep union hours? Nick! Where’s Nick?”
“Right here, Teddy, right here,” one of the figures replied,
separating himself from the group. “What’ll it be?”
“Feel in the mood for a little mouth-organ solo tonight, Nick?”
“Yep! Sure do! I just learnt a new piece. It’s an Irish dance,
and--”
“Atta boy, Nick! Just what we want! Norine is going to jig for us.”
“Oh, she is?” Ethel could see the young puncher hesitating. “Well,
Teddy, if you’ll wait just a second while I--”
“He wants to get dooked out!” came a voice which Teddy recognized as
Pop’s. “What’d I tell you?”
“Aw, dry up!” Nick growled playfully. “All right, Teddy, I’ll be
over in two minutes. Want the rest of these here pinto wrestlers?”
“Sure! Everybody!” Teddy answered. “Over to the front porch as soon
as you’re ready.”
When Teddy and the two girls reached the house, they found that a
row of chairs had been placed on one end of the porch. Norine was
waiting, and, after being introduced to the girls, she shyly told
them:
“I knew a boy once that came from New York. He had curly hair and
finger nails that glistened just like Pop Burns’ head. Oh, he was
lovely! Did you know him, at all?”
Nell and Ethel confessed that they did not, by that description.
“But then we haven’t seen Pop’s head yet, so we can’t just say.”
Norine laughed merrily, and began a torrent of questions about New
York that was only stopped by the arrival of Nick and his fellows.
“All set, boys?” Mr. Manley called out.
“All set, boss!” Nick repeated. “Is--er--Miss Norine--er--ready?”
“I am that, Nick!” was the answer. “An’ when you blow into that
pipe-organ, think of something else besides horses an’ cows! Think
of that moon up there, an’ maybe you can make music!”
“He’s not thinking of cows just at present,” Roy remarked in a low
voice to Nell. “See him watch Norine!”
Then Nick put his instrument to his lips and began to blow; slowly
at first, then faster. Norine took up the dance.
Nick must have been thinking of the moon, for it was real music that
came from that cheap mouth-organ. As the strains of “Rory O’More”
floated out into the night air, the ranch house disappeared and, to
the girl’s mother, even the silvered prairie, and Norine was dancing
upon the grassy heath of Ireland. Mrs. Moore stood in the doorway, a
proud look in her eye, her head swaying from side to side, her foot
gently tapping the doorsill. This was _her_ girl that was dancing!