THE ENGLISH LORD
A remarkable series of accidents happened to Bat Wing Bowles immediately
after his discourtesy to the lady--accidents which seemed to indicate
that he had lost his horseshoe as well as the good-will of his
associates. For while Bowles had been a raw hand from the start it had
early been remarked that horses would not pitch with him--but now, on
the very morning after his contretemps, his mount took a fit of bucking
which all but landed him in the dirt. A term of years in a military
academy, as well as a considerable experience in riding to hounds, had
left Bowles a little vain of his horsemanship; but in this emergency he
had been compelled to reach down and frankly grab the horn. Otherwise he
would have been "piled" before he could recover from the surprise. As it
was, he was badly jarred, not only by the shock of the buck-jumps but
also by the caustic comments of the cowboys.
"Oh, mamma!" shouted one. "See 'im choke that horn!"
"Let go of the noodle, Sam!" advised another; and then, in a kind of
chant, they recited those classic lines that are supposed to drive
Englishmen mad:
"Hit's not the 'unting that 'urts the 'orse's 'oofs; hit's the 'ammer,
'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard 'ighway!"
Time and again Bowles had explained that he was not English, that all
gentlemen rose to the trot in the East, and that his people had never
dropped an "h" in their lives. Like an old and groundless scandal that
lives on denial alone, the tradition still clung to him; and now, as
some vagrant fancy turned their will against him, they voiced their
disapproval in this ancient gibe.
"It's Hinglish, you know!" they shouted; and once more Bowles was
branded as an alien. And all for refusing a letter and speaking saucily
to a lady.
As for the lady, she stayed at a ranch over night and went out early in
the morning, taking a short-cut through the nesters' lanes for Chula
Vista. A telegram must be sent to the receiving company that the cattle
would be delivered on the twentieth, the cattle-cars must be ordered
from the railroad, and the cattle inspector notified of the change; for
the grass was eaten down to the rocks at Chula Vista, and a wait at the
pens would be fatal. All these details Henry Lee trusted to his
daughter, and, forgetting the frivolous nothings of yesterday, she rode
past the Bat Wing outfit without stopping or waving her hand. Then
somebody put something on Bowles' horse and they started the day with a
circus.
A second day, full of excitement and rough riding, followed, and then
the gang took pity on the poor tenderfoot and left him to think it over.
But Bowles was not broken in spirit; far from it, for he had been
secretly longing for a horse that would buck. He was rapidly becoming so
wise that deception was no longer practicable. When a man has an old
staid cow-pony rise up under him and try to paw the white out of the
moon, he is liable to look over his rigging rather carefully to see what
it was all about; and if he should find a yellow spot on the flap of his
saddle-blanket, a tender place on his horse's rump, and a suspicious
odor of carbon bisulphide in the air, he is likely to shy away from
unfriendly horsemen, even if he never heard of "high-lifing" a bronk.
Those were eventful days for Samuel Bowles, and he found himself
learning fast, when Henry Lee suddenly called him aside and told him to
go with Brigham.
Brigham was taking a bunch of dogies back to the home ranch and he
needed a man to help him--also the boss was getting a little tired of
these sudden accidents to Bowles. He was not conducting a circus or a
Wild West Show but a serious and precarious business, and a touch of
"high-life" at the wrong time might stampede his whole herd of cattle.
So he told the tenderfoot to go on the drive with Brigham.
There is a good deal left unsaid in a cow camp--so much, in fact, that a
stranger never knows what is going on; and Brigham had been as silent as
the rest while Bowles was taking his medicine. Even on the drive he was
strangely quiet, chewing away soberly at his tobacco and looking out
from under his hat with squinting and cynical eyes. They were friends
now, as far as a tenderfoot can expect to have a friend, but Brigham
said nothing about stringing the cattle, and asked no questions about
gay New York--he had something on his mind. And when the time came he
spoke it out.
"Say, stranger," he said, still calling him by that cold name which
marked him as a man apart, "did you see Dixie Lee back in New York last
winter?"
It was a bolt out of the blue sky; but Bowles was trained to
evasions--he had lived in polite society and tried to keep friends with
Truth.
"Miss Lee?" he repeated in tones of wonderment.
"W'y, sure," answered Brigham; "she was back there all winter."
"So I hear," observed Bowles; "but there were about four million other
people there too, Brig; so I can't say for sure. Why? What made you
ask?"
"Oh--nothin'," mumbled Brig, playing with the rowel on his spur as he
watched the cattle graze; "only it seemed like, the way she spoke to you
the other day, you'd mebbe met before. Some of the boys said they
reckoned you knowed her back there--she talked so kinder friendly-like."
A thrill went over Bowles at those kind words, but he hastened to cover
up his tracks. Once let the boys know that he had followed her from the
East, and there would be a dramatic end to all his hopes and dreams.
"I'll tell you, Brig," he said, speaking confidentially; "I did meet
Miss Lee down at Chula Vista the morning she came home, and that
probably gave them the idea. But, say, now--about that letter. She
didn't even know my name--now, why should she do a thing like that? My
name isn't Houghton, and she knew I couldn't take the letter. It's
against the law! What was she trying to do--play a joke on me?"
He made his voice as boyish and pleading as possible; but it takes a
good actor to deceive the simple-hearted, and Brigham only looked at him
curiously.
"What did you say yore name was?" he inquired at last; and when Bowles
told him he chewed upon it ruminatively. "Some of the boys thought mebbe
you was an English lord, or somethin'," he observed, glancing up quickly
to see how Mr. Bowles would take it. "Course I knowed you wasn't," he
admitted as Bowles wound up his protest; "but you certainly ain't no
puncher."
Bowles could read the jealousy and distrust in his voice, and he saw it
was time to speak up.
"Say, Brig," he said, trying as far as possible to speak in the new
vernacular, "I've always been friendly to you, haven't I? I know I've
tried to be, and I want to keep your friendship. Now, I don't care what
Hardy Atkins and his gang think, because they're nothing to me anyway,
but I want you to know that I am on the square. Of course, I'm under an
assumed name, and I guess you've noticed I don't get any letters; but
that's no crime, is it?"
There was a genuine ring to his appeal now, and Brigham was quick to
answer it.
"Aw, that's all right, pardner," he said. "I don't care what you did.
Kinder hidin' out myself."
"Well, but I want to tell you, anyway," protested Bowles. "A man's got
to have a friend somewhere, and I know you won't give me away. I didn't
commit any crime--it isn't the sheriff I'm afraid of--but there must
have been somebody down in Chula Vista that was following me, because I
came away from New York on a ticket that was signed Sam Houghton. That
isn't my name, you understand--but I signed it for a blind. Then I left
the train at Albuquerque and came quietly off down here. But it looks as
if somebody is searching for me."
"Umm!" murmured Brigham, nodding his head and squinting wisely. "I got
into a little racket down on the river one time, and the _sheriff_ was
lookin' fer me. Made no difference--the feller got well anyhow--but you
bet I was ridin' light fer a while.
"_I_'ll tell you what we'll do!" he cried, carried away by some sudden
enthusiasm. "I'm gittin' tired of this Teehanno outfit--let's call fer
our time and hit the trail! Was you ever up in the White Mountains?
Well, pardner, we'll head fer them--that's the prettiest country in
God's world! Deer and bear and wild turkeys everywhere--and fish! Say,
them cricks is so full of trout they ain't hardly room fer the water.
The Apaches never eat 'em--nor turkeys neither, fer that matter--and all
you have to have is a little flour and bacon, and a man can live like a
king. They's some big cow outfits up there, too--Double Circles, an'
Wine Glass an' Cherrycow. Come on! What d'ye say? Let's quit! This ain't
the only outfit in America!"
For the moment Bowles was almost carried away by this sudden rush of
enthusiasm, and even after a second thought it still appealed to him
strongly.
"Are there many bears up there?" he inquired, as if wavering upon a
decision.
"Believe me!" observed Brigham, swaggering at the thought. "And mountain
lions, too! A man has to watch his horses in that country, or he'll find
himself afoot."
"And the Indians?"
"Well," admitted Brigham, "of course them Apaches are bad--but they keep
'em around the Fort most of the time, and don't let 'em carry guns when
they go out--nothin' but bows and arrows. Come on--they won't make us no
trouble!"
"Well, by Jove, Brig," sighed Bowles, drawing a long breath, "I'm
awfully tempted to do it!"
"Sure," nodded Brigham, "finest trip in the world--an' I know that
country like a book!"
"But let's finish the round-up first," suggested Bowles. "And, besides,
I want to find out who it is that's searching for me. I guess I didn't
tell you what I'm hiding for?"
"No," shrugged Brigham; "that's all right. Then if anybody should ask
me, I'll tell 'em I don't know nothin'."
"Well, I'm going to tell you, anyhow!" cried Bowles impulsively. "I've
got an aunt back East, and she's an awfully nice woman--does everything
for me--but I have to do what she says. She doesn't _make_ me do it, you
know--she just _expects_ me to do it! Maybe you never had any one like
that? Well, I've always tried to do what she liked--she's my father's
sister, you know--but this spring I just had to run away."
"Too much fer you, eh?" commented Brigham, grinning.
"No, it wasn't that so much, but she--she told me I ought to get
married!"
"Well, what's the matter?" inquired Brigham, his grin wreathing back to
his ears. "What's the matter with that?"
Bowles blushed and blinked with embarrassment.
"Well, the fact is, Brigham," he said, "she picked out the girl
herself!"
"No! Never asked you, nor nothin'? What did the girl say?"
"Oh, Christabel? Why, she never knew, of course. I came out West
immediately."
A puzzled look came over Brigham's honest face.
"Say, lemme git the straight of this," he said. "I'm a kind of Mormon
myself, you know, and these fellers are always throwin' it into me about
the way Mormons marry off their gals--did yore aunt make some trade with
her folks?"
"Who--Christabel?" gasped Bowles, now breaking into a sweat. "Why, bless
your soul, no! You don't understand how things are done in New York,
Brig. Nothing was even _said_, you know, it was just understood! My aunt
didn't even tell me whom she had in mind--she just told me I ought to be
married, and threw me into Christabel's society. But I knew it--I knew
it from the first day--and rather than hurt Christabel's feelings I just
picked up and ran away!"
"Well, I'll be durned!" observed Brigham, gazing upon him with wonder.
"And we thought you was tryin' to git Dix!"