"Who said pork-and-beans?"
"Does my necktie kiver my collar-button?" asked a third.
"Come, boys!" called Curtis, cheerily. "While the sheriff and I have a
little set-to, you water your ponies and dust off, and be ready for cold
potatoes. You're a little late for a square meal, but I think we can
ease your pangs."
With a patter of jocose remarks the cowboys rode off down towards the
creek, taking the sheriff's horse along with them.
Curtis turned to Lawson. "I wish you'd bring that code over to the
house, Lawson. I want to show that special clause to the sheriff."
Turning to Winters, he said: "Come, let's go across to my library and
talk our differences over in comfort."
The sheriff dusted his trousers with the broad of his hand. "Well, now,
I'm in no condition to sit down with ladies."
"I'll give you a chance to clean up," replied Curtis, who plainly saw
that the girls had the rough bordermen "on the ice and going," as Calvin
would say. A man can brag and swear and bluster out of doors, or in a
bare, tobacco-stained office; but in a library, surrounded by books, in
the hearing of ladies, he is more human--more reasonable. Jennie's
invitation had turned impending defeat to victory.
Curtis took Winters into his own bedroom and put its toilet articles at
his service and left him. As the sheriff came out into the Captain's
library five minutes later, it was plain he had washed away a large part
of his ferocity; his hair, plastered down smooth, represented the change
in his mental condition--his quills were laid. He was, in fact, fairly
meek.
Curtis confidentially remarked, in a low voice: "You see, sheriff, we
must manage this thing quietly. We mustn't endanger these women, and
especially Miss Brisbane. If the old Senator gets a notion his daughter
is in danger--"
Winters blew a whiff. "Great God, he'd tear the State wide open! No, the
boys were too hasty. As I say, I saw the irregularity, but if I hadn't
consented to lead a posse in here that whole inquest would have come
a-rampin' down on ye. I said to 'em, 'Boys,' I says, 'you can't do that
kind of thing,' I says. 'These Tetongs are fighters,' I says, 'and
you'll have a sweet time chasin' 'em over the hills--just go slow and
learn to peddle,' I says--"
Lawson, entering with the code, cut him short in his shameless
exculpation, and Curtis said, suavely: "Mr. Winters, I think you know
Mr. Lawson."
"We've crossed each other's trail once or twice, I believe," said
Lawson. "Here is the clause."
Curtis laid the book before the sheriff, who pushed a stubby forefinger
against the letters and read the paragraph laboriously. His thick wits
were moved by it, and he said: "Seems a clear case, and yet the
reservation is included in the lines of Pinon County. 'Pears like the
county'd ought 'o have some rights."
"Well, here comes the posse," said Curtis; "we'll talk it all over with
them after lunch. Come in, boys!" he called cheerily to the straggling
herders, who came in sheepishly, one by one, their spurs rattling, their
big, limp hats twisted in their hands. They had pounded the alkali from
each other's shirt, and their red faces shone with the determined
rubbing they had received. All the wild grace of their horsemanship was
gone, and as they sidled in and squatted down along the wall they were
anything but ferocious in manner or speech.
"Ah, now, this is all right," each man said, when Curtis offered chairs.
"You take the chair, Jim; you take it, Joe--this suits me."
Lawson was interested in their cranial development, and their alignment
along the wall gave a fine opportunity for comparison. "They were, for
the most part, shapeless and of small capacity," he said
afterwards--"just country bumpkins, trained to the horse and the
revolver, but each of them arrogated to himself the judicial mind of the
Almighty Creator."
The sheriff, leaning far back in the big Morris chair, wore a smirking
smile which seemed to say: "Boys, I'm onto this luxury all right.
Stuffed chair don't get me no back-ache. Nothing's too rich for _my_
blood--if I can get it."
The young fellows were transfixed with awe of Calvin, for, though the
last to enter the house, he walked calmly past the library door on into
the dining-room, and a moment later could be heard chatting with the
girls, "sassy as a whiskey-jack."
One big, freckled young fellow nudged his neighbor and said: "Wouldn't
that pull your teeth? That wall-eyed sorrel has waltzed right into the
kitchen to buzz the women. Say, his neck needs shortening."
"Does he stand in, or is it just gall?"
"It's nerve--nothing else. We ain't onto our job, that's all."
"Oh, he knows 'em all right. I heered he stands in with the agent's
sister."
"The hell he does! Lookin' that way? Well, I don't think. It's his
brass-bound cheek. Wait till we ketch him alone."
Cal appeared at the door. "Well, fellers, come in; grub's all spread
out."
"What you got to say about it?" asked Green.
"Think you're the nigger that rings the bell, don't ye?" remarked
Galvin. "We're waitin' for the boss to say 'when.'"
Not one of them stirred till Curtis rose, saying to the sheriff, "Well,
we'll take time later to discuss that; come right out and tame the
wolf."
The fact that Curtis accepted Calvin's call impressed the crowd deeply.
"You'd think he was one o' the fambly," muttered Galvin. "Wait till we
get a rope 'round his neck."
The table, looking cool and dainty in its fleckless linen, was set with
plates of cold chicken and ham, with pots of jelly and white bread at
each end of the cloth, beside big pitchers of cool milk. To the cowboys,
accustomed only to their rude camps and the crude housekeeping of the
settlers round about, this dainty cleanliness of dining-room was
marvellously subduing. They shuffled into their seats noisily, with only
swift, animal-like glances at the girls, who were bubbling over with the
excitement of feeding this band of Cossacks.
As they drank their milk and fed great slices of bread and jelly into
their mouths, fighting Indians seemed less necessary than they had
supposed. Whiskey and alkali dust, and the smell of sweating ponies,
were all forgotten in the quiet and sweetness of this pretty home. The
soft answer had turned wrath into shamefaced wonder and awkward
courtesy.
Curtis, sitting at the head of the board as host, plied the sheriff with
cold chicken, discussing meanwhile the difficulties under which the
Tetongs labored, and drew from that sorely beleaguered officer
admissions which he afterwards regretted. "That's so, I don't know as
I'd do any better in their places, but--"
Jennie, with a keen perception of her power over her guests, went from
one to the other, inquiring, in her sweetest voice: "Won't _you_ have
another slice of bread? Please do!"
Elsie, less secure of manner, followed her with the pitcher of milk,
while the young men bruised each other's shins beneath the table in
their zealous efforts to diminish the joy each one took in the alluring
presence of his cup-bearer.
Calvin sat near the end of the table, and his assured manner made the
others furious. "Look at that stoatin' bottle," growled Green, out of
the corner of his mouth; "he needs killin'."
"Ah, we'll fix that tommy-cod!" replied Galvin.
While the girls were at the upper end of the table the man on Calvin's
right leaned over and said:
"Say, Cal, 'pears like you got the run o' the house here."
Calvin, big with joy and pride, replied: "Oh, I ride round and picket
here once in a while. It pays."
"Well, I should say yes--carry all your cheek right with ye, don't ye?"
As the boys began to shove back, Curtis brought out a box of cigars and
passed them along the line.
"Take hearty, boys; they don't belong to the government; they're mine,
and you'll find them good."
As they were all helping themselves, the sheriff coughed loudly and
called out: "Boys, the Major and me has fixed this thing up. I won't
need but three of you; the rest can ride back and tell the gang on the
West Fork it's all right. Cal, you and Tom and Green stay with me. The
rest of you can go as soon as your dinner's settled."
The ones not chosen looked a little disappointed, but they made no
protest. As they rose to go out they all made powerful effort to do the
right thing; they lifted their eyes to the girls for a last glance and
grumbled:
"Much obliged, ladies!"
And in this humble fashion the ferocious posse of the sheriff retreated
from the house of their enemy.
Once outside, they turned on each other with broad grins. They
straightened--took on grace and security of manner again. They were
streaming with perspiration, and their neckerchiefs were moist with the
drip of it, but they lit their cigars nonchalantly, flung their hats
rakishly on their heads, and turned to take a last look at the house.
Elsie appeared at the door. "Boys!" she called, and her clear voice
transfixed every soul of them. "You mustn't do anything reckless. You
won't, will you?"
Galvin alone was able to reply. "No, miss, we won't. We won't do nothing
to hurt you nor the Major's sister--you needn't be scart."
"You can trust Captain Curtis; he will do what is right, I'm sure of
that. Good-bye."
"Good-bye," they answered, one by one. Nothing further was said till
they had crossed the road. Then one of the roughest-looking of the whole
gang turned and said: "Fellers, that promise goes. We got to keep that
mob from goin' to war while these girls are here. Ain't that right?"
"That's right!"
"Say, fellers, I'll tell you a job that would suit me--"
"Hain't got any work into it if it does."
"What is it?"
"I'd like to be detailed to guard these 'queens' from monkeys like you."
The others fell upon this reckless one with their hats and gloves till
he broke into a run, and all disappeared down the road in a cloud of
dust.