THE FIRST SMILE
The next three days were one long, aching agony for Bowles. He carried a
little water for Gloomy Gus, but stubbornly refused the job of flunky.
He helped the horse wrangler--a wild-eyed youth who could pop a rope
like a pistol-shot and yell like a murdering Apache--but as resolutely
refused the job of assistant. He had been taken on as a cowboy, and a
cowboy he tried to be, though every nerve and muscle called a halt. From
the first morning, when they sent him out in the dark to wrangle the
horse pasture, to the third evening, when he crawled wearily into an old
"bed" that he had picked up, his life was a prolonged succession of
accidents, mistakes, and awkward happenings; yet he stayed with it,
bull-headed and determined, until Henry Lee grew tired of hazing him and
put him on the day-herd to get healed up.
There was very little left of the lily-white Mr. Bowles when the ordeal
came to an end. His hands that had been so trim and slender were swelled
up too big for his gloves. The outside was raw with sunburn and
wind-chap and the inside was blistered and rope-worn. His lips had
cracked wide open from the dry north wind, and his face was beginning to
peel like a snake. Also his arms had been nearly jerked from the sockets
by a horse he had tried to hold, and a calf had kicked him in the leg
while he was trying to bulldog it at the branding. Like the cowboy in
the ballad, "he was busted from his somber to his heel," but he had
managed to come through alive. And now, as a reward for his prowess and
daring, he was set to mind the day-herd.
Grass was short in the Bat Wing pastures, and every day brought in new
herds of dogies to be held for the April shipping; so, just to keep all
hands busy and save a little feed, Henry Lee turned his gentle cattle
out on to the prairie to rustle what provender they could. Now riding
day-herd is not supposed to be a very high-grade or desirable
occupation, and good punchers have been known to quit a boss who put
them at it; but Bowles was led to believe that it was a post of honor.
Awful stories of cowboys who had gone to sleep on guard were told by the
fire at night, and the danger from sudden stampedes was played up to the
skies. The monotony of the job was admitted, but the responsibility was
great. So Bowles accepted the position gladly, and the round-up went on
unimpeded.
Lolling in the shade of his horse or sitting with his back to the dry
wind, Bowles watched them "pluck the blossoms" while he doctored his
numerous wounds, meanwhile falling into lovelorn reveries on the subject
of Dixie Lee. It was humiliating, in a way, to be reduced to the ranks;
to be compelled to wait on her pleasure, and court her from afar; but
something told him that Dixie thought of him even though she passed him
by; and just to be one of her lovers, to be allowed to worship with the
rest--that was enough to bear him up and give him courage to wait. And
either in the end she would speak to him and take him back into her
life, or he would depart in silence to hide from her laughing eyes. The
game of love was new to Bowles and he knew little of its stealth and
wiles; just to be near her was all he knew, and the future must solve
the rest. So, like a questing knight, nursing his hurts after his first
combat, he sat out on the boundless prairie and communed with his own
sad heart.
Across the herd from him a battered old-time cowboy sat, crooked-legged,
on his horse. On the day before a bronk had thrown him by treachery and
kicked him as he dragged--even turned around and jumped on him and
stamped him in the face. A great bruise, red and raw, ran up from his
brows to his bald-spot where the iron shoe had struck; but still the
old-timer was content.
"A cowboy don't need no haid above his eyebrows, nohow," he had said.
"Jest think if he had hit me on the jaw!" Yes, indeed, but what if he
had hit him in the temple or trampled him to death! Or suppose, just for
instance, that Mr. Bowles, of New York, had been on the bronk instead of
Uncle Joe, the veteran--would he have had sense enough to get his foot
out of the stirrup? That was the trouble with standing day-herd--it gave
the imagination a chance to work.
Bowles looked out over the plain again and noticed every little
thing--the rattleweed, planted so regularly on the sandy flat; the
dogholes, each with its high-topped mound to keep out the rain and
floods; the black line of mesquite brush against the distant hills; the
band of yuccas along their flanks; and then the soft, moulded summits,
now green, now yellow, now creamy white as shrubs and bushes and bunch
grass caught the light. It was very beautiful, but lonely. Yes, it
lacked color--a vigorous girlish figure in the foreground to give it the
last poetic touch.
The only men who can stand the monotony of day-herding are those who are
not overburdened with brains, and so have the ability to turn off the
thinking-machine entirely until they need it again. Smoking helps, and
singing long-drawn songs; but Bowles turned back to Wordsworth, the poet
of nature. Stray snatches of poems and sonnets rose in his mind, and he
tried to piece out the rest; then he gazed at the quivering mirage, the
plain, the straying cattle, and wondered how Wordsworth would see it. He
was engaged in this peaceful occupation when, on the second day, he
noted a moving figure, far away; dreamily he watched it as it emerged
from the barbed-wire lanes of the nesters, and then, like a flash, the
words of Brigham came back to him: "I knowed her four miles away by
section lines." It was Dixie Lee, and she was coming his way!
There were three other worthless cowboys like himself on the day-herd,
and they had seen her already. Like Brigham, they knew her by the way
she rode, miles and miles away. Steadily she pounded along, keeping the
rangy bay at an even lope, and then she turned toward the ranch. The
long wire fence of the horse pasture had thrown her from her course, but
now she was on the barren prairie and could skirt the north fence home.
A series of muttered comments marked this sudden turn to the west, and
the tall, cigarette-smoking youth who had been rubbing the sleep from
his eyes lopped down beneath his salt-bush again. But he had returned to
Morpheus too soon, for almost immediately after he had laid his hat over
his eyes the distant rider changed her course, and the boys held up
their hands for silence. Dixie Lee was going to make them a visit, after
all, and they would let her catch him asleep.
Swiftly the tireless bay came loping across the flats, winding in and
out to dodge the dog towns, and soon the queen of the cowboys was up to
the edge of the herd.
"Hello, Uncle Joe!" she hailed, riding over toward the old-timer. "How's
your head?"
"All right, Miss Dix," replied the puncher amiably. "Cain't hurt a
cowboy in the haid, you know."
"No, but you can spoil his looks, Uncle," retorted Dixie May playfully.
"You want to remember that--I heard a lady down here inquiring for you
mighty special. What's the matter with Slim over there?"
A whoop went up at this, and the sleeper sat up guiltily.
"Oh, him?" queried Uncle Joe, speaking loud so that all could hear.
"W'y, kinder overcome by the heat, I reckon. He gits took that way every
once in a while."
"Ever since he begin settin' up with that nester girl!" put in the other
day-herder, with a guffaw; and Dixie May began to chuckle with laughter
as she rode around the herd.
"Well, it's too bad about him," she called back. "I'll have to go over
there and see if he's likely to die."
It took her but a moment to diagnose the sad case of Slim, and then the
other cowboy had his call from the consulting physician. Bowles was the
last man on the circuit, but he did not step out and bow. He did not
expect a visit--and, besides, something told him she did not approve of
it. So he stood quietly by his horse, and only his eyes followed her as
she bore down on him, her head turned back to fling some gay retort and
her horse falling into his stride. She rode to the right of him, and as
she faced about and met his glance she stared, as if surprised.
"Why, hello there, cowboy!" she challenged bluntly; and then, with a
smile on her face, she went galloping on toward the ranch.
Nobody heard her speak but Bowles; and he, poor, unsophisticated man,
was more puzzled than enlightened by her remarks. Of one thing he was
sure--she had lowered her voice on purpose, and her words were for him
alone. But her smile--was it one of derision, or a token of forgiveness
and regard? And her secret greeting--was it an accident, or was she
ashamed of his friendship? Perhaps she had weighty reasons for keeping
their acquaintance unknown. Somehow, that thought appealed to him above
the rest. Perhaps she knew more than he did of the dangers which
surrounded him--from Hardy Atkins, or some other jealous suitor, to whom
a single smile for him might be the signal for reprisal. They
might--why, there were a thousand things they might do if they knew what
was in his heart! Bowles ran it all over in his mind: her sudden turning
upon him as they approached the Chula Vista hotel; her haughty
repudiation of him when he met her at the big house; and now this secret
greeting, so carelessly given, yet so fraught with hidden meaning.
"Why, hello there, cowboy!" she had said. And she appeared surprised, as
if she had not expected to see him in the guise of an ordinary puncher.
She had smiled, too; but--well, a little too broadly. Of course, out in
the West--but, even then, it was a little broad.