PLANNING A DANCE
“Gus!” exclaimed Mr. Manley. “What happened?” Teddy and Roy looked
anxiously at the rider.
“Had a little accident, boss,” Gus replied, a wry smile on his
somewhat pale face. “Mebby if you an’ I was to take a little walk--”
Mr. Manley nodded quickly, understandingly, and turned to the girls.
“Belle Ada,” he said swiftly, “suppose you show Nell an’ Ethel the
garden? I know they’d like to see it.”
Sensing the reason behind her father’s suggestion, Belle led the way
toward the side of the ranch house. Gus turned in his saddle and
watched the three girls depart. When they were out of sight and
hearing, he took a long breath, swayed in the saddle, then gritted
his teeth and straightened up. Roy walked over to him and, reaching
up, seized him around the waist and practically lifted him from his
horse.
“Let’s see that wound, Gus,” Mr. Manley demanded. His teeth set
grimly in his lower lip, the puncher thrust the injured arm forward.
The cattle owner took hold of it gently and bent over it. Then he
gave a cry.
“It’s a gunshot wound! You’ve been plugged, Gus!”
“Cor-rect.” Gus turned his head wearily. “Teddy, I wonder if you’d
cut this here sleeve off me? You see it’s kind o’ stuck, an’ when I
pull it--”
“Sure, Gus!” the boy answered with a note of pity in his voice.
“Have it off in a jiffy.”
Opening his jackknife, Teddy slit the sleeve loose just below the
armpit. As gently as he could, he peeled the cloth away from the
wound. Gus winced, but uttered never a word until the sleeve was
off. Then he heaved a sigh and said laconically:
“Thanks, Teddy! Feels better now. Much obliged.”
Sing Lung, who stood watching the scene with wide eyes, now scurried
into the cookhouse and returned in a moment with a stool.
“Gus,” he said, “you sittee down. Feel bettah. I gettee you dlink!”
Entering the kitchen once more, the Chinese came back with a cup of
water. Gus drank it gratefully.
“You’re a fine cook, Sing Lung,” the injured man drawled, handing
the cup back. The sun-tanned red had returned to his cheeks, but Mr.
Manley noticed that there was just a bit too much color there now.
“Yep, a fine cook,” Gus repeated, as though to himself. “A fine
cook! Only--you can’t bake _bread_.”
“Here, Gus,” Roy said in a loud voice, “snap out of that! Does your
arm hurt much? What happened?”
“What--this?” Gus held up the arm and examined it as if it belonged
to another man. “Naw, she don’t hurt. Feels kind of funny, that’s
all. Well, I’ll tell you what happened.” Taking another deep breath,
the cowboy regained control of himself with an obvious effort and
went on:
“You know I went down to Eagles for the mail.” Mr. Manley turned to
Sing Lung and said something in a low voice. The cook disappeared,
to return in a moment with a white shirt. While Gus talked, Mr.
Manley was using strips of this as a bandage to stop the bleeding.
“For the mail,” Gus repeated. “When I reached town I tied my bronc
up an’ stopped for a second outside Rimor’s Place, thinkin’ of
Checkered Shirt. But I thought there was no use in goin’ in there to
look, ’cause, even if I did find him, I didn’t have nothin’ on him.
So I started for the post-office.” He hesitated, while Mr. Manley
wound the improvised bandage tightly about the arm. “Well,” he
continued, “just then Rimor’s door swung open and a puncher came
out. He took a quick look at me, turned around, an’ ducked back
again. Boss, that’s plenty tight! Where was I? Yea--he ran in again.
“Thinks I, I’ve seen that buckeroo some place before. Then it hits
me like a load of bricks. It was Gilly Froud!”
Teddy and Roy started back. Mr. Manley looked up into the eyes of
the injured man.
“Go ahead, Gus,” the cattle owner said tensely. “What else?”
“Well, I couldn’t let a chance like that slip by, so I made a jump
for the door an’ followed. The second I got inside, I seen my
mistake. Froud was leanin’ against the bar, gun out, starin’ my way.
We had a few words about them stolen horses, an’ all of a sudden
before I could make a move he blazed at me an’ put my arm out of
commish. I couldn’t do nothin’ then, crippled like that, except let
out a few of my opinions about Froud, but he only laughed an’ tole
me to bring my army next time. So I hopped back on Axlegrease an’
come home. Here’s yore mail.”
Reaching inside his shirt, Gus drew out several letters. He made as
though to hand them to Mr. Manley. Suddenly his body went limp. His
head dropped forward, and the envelopes fell from his nerveless
fingers. Roy leaped forward just in time to keep the cowboy from
pitching off the stool to the ground.
“The nervy fellow!” Teddy said slowly, looking first at the letters
and then at the still form of Gus. “Gets shot, goes to the
post-office for the mail, an’ rides twelve miles back home with his
arm still bleeding!” The boy looked at the unconscious man with open
admiration. Then, bending swiftly down, he seized the puncher’s
shoulders. “Where’ll we take him?” he asked of his father. “In
here?” motioning toward the cook-house.
“No, better take him to the house,” Mr. Manley suggested, looking at
Gus closely. “He’s out, cold! No wonder! Ridin’ twelve miles under
that sun with a hole ripped in his arm! He sure is a nervy boy!”
“I’ll tell a maverick!” Roy exploded. “Come on, Teddy, we’ll lift
him over to the house. Sing Lung, you run ahead and tell mother to
get a bed ready. And talk English, not Chinese.”
“Me fixee! Me fixee!” Sing Lung chattered, setting out on a run.
With Teddy at his shoulders and Roy at his feet, Gus was soon being
carried toward the ranch house. Mr. Manley walked alongside, holding
the injured arm so that it should not hang down.
Gus was soon resting quietly in a bed upstairs. Teddy telephoned for
the doctor, but Mrs. Manley took no chances of blood poisoning
setting in while waiting for the physician. She dressed the arm
herself, with swift, sure fingers. Later, when the medical man
arrived, he declared that no professional nurse could have done a
better job.
Leaving the cowboy resting quietly, Mr. Manley and his two sons
walked toward the corral.
“There’s one thing sure,” the rancher declared, “and this is that
Froud is the one who stole our broncs! And another thing--I have an
idea that he’s one of the gang of rustlers that have been operatin’
hereabouts. Bug Eye said he saw a scar-faced man ridin’ away from
the 8 X 8 the very day their cattle was stolen. And I’ll lay money
it was Froud!”
“Didn’t I tell you?” cried Teddy excitedly, turning to Roy. “Froud!
He’s in that gang sure as fate! And so is Checkered Shirt! I can’t
give you a reason for saying that, but I’ll bet it’s so, just the
same.”
Mr. Manley looked over at his son.
“You mean that bad egg who was standin’ outside Rimor’s the day
General an’ Flash an’ Star were rustled? The one I wanted to talk to
later? The chap who vamoosed?”
“That’s the one, Dad! Yes sir, he and Froud are together on these
shady deals, I’ll bet a gold mine!”
“Mebby,” Mr. Manley said slowly, “mebby.” He rested his foot against
the lower rail of the corral fence. “But we can’t do anything just
yet. Froud ain’t in town now, that’s sure. Wouldn’t do any good to
ride after him. What we’ve got to do, is to get him when he doesn’t
know we’re comin’. I don’t mind sayin’ I’ll have him for shootin’
Gus.”
Slow in speech, slow to declare what he intended to do, both Teddy
and Roy recognized fixed determination in their father’s tone.
Froud’s days of freedom were numbered. It might take time, but the
boys knew that Mr. Manley would never rest until he had placed Froud
behind bars--or put him permanently out of commission.
When the other punchers heard that Gus had been shot, they were loud
in their declarations of vengeance upon Froud. Gus was well liked by
all the boys on the X Bar X, and each puncher vowed:
“I’ll square it up for you, Gus!”
Pop, especially, was wild with anger at the rustler. He asserted
that:
“Shootin’ a man is worse than stealin’ the X Bar X brand,” which,
for Pop, was the criterion of mean and despicable actions.
Nell and Ethel had been persuaded to stay several days longer than
they had intended, Belle meeting the objection that they “had no
clothes,” by the statement that on a ranch they needed none, and as
Norine offered to wash any needed linen over night, the excuse of
“no clothes” was taken from them.
Truth to tell, Roy and Teddy were as insistent as was their sister
that the girls stay. Having found that Nell and Ethel were no
strangers to horses, Teddy and Roy took them for many miles over the
mountainous land about the X Bar X, showing the real West. Ethel, or
“Curly,” as Teddy called her because of her light, tousled, bobbed
hair, was a tireless rider, and she and Teddy had many happy jaunts
over the prairie. In Teddy’s language, she was “a regular fellow.”
One afternoon, a few days following the incident of the wounding of
Gus, found Nell, Ethel, Belle and the two boys listening to Nick
play his mouth-organ in accompaniment with Sing Lung, who caused
varied and sundry noises to come from his “fi’il.” It was a slow
day. The chores of the ranch having been attended to, Mr. Manley was
waiting for something definite to lead him before starting the hunt
for Gilly Froud. He had, of course, reported the shooting of Gus to
the sheriff of Easton, a fairly large town to the south of Eagles,
and aid in capturing the horse thieves had been promised. Mr. Manley
was doubtful as to the efficacy of this help, but he determined to
give the law a chance before acting.
Nick and Sing Lung were in the midst of “Oh, Susannah,” when Belle
and Ethel suddenly exclaimed in the same breath:
“Let’s have a dance!”
“What’s that, a chorus?” Teddy asked, with a grin. “You two have
been practicing, I can see that!”
“No, we just thought of it!” Ethel declared. “Wasn’t that funny,
Belle, both saying it together?”
With a laugh, Belle agreed.
“But I really mean it,” she added. “We could use the living room and
push all the furniture to one side. Would you play for us, Nick?”
“Sure would, ma’am!” Nick declared, with a grin. “An’ Jim Casey can
shake an accordion a little--or a whole lot, accordin’ to him,” and
he chuckled noiselessly.
“And Sing Lung could play his fiddle!” Nell exclaimed. “That _would_
be great!”
“Then it’s settled!” Belle cried. “A cowboy dance! Teddy, you can be
master of ceremonies. Roy can be manager. We’ll have it tomorrow
night!”