joy in living. Happy Jack cooked the breakfast, but his coffee was
weak and his biscuits "soggy," and Patsy had managed to make the
butter absolutely uneatable with sand; also they were late and Chip
was surly over the double loss of cook and cowboy. Happy Jack packed
food and dishes in much the same spirit which Patsy had shown the
night before, climbed sullenly to the high seat, gathered up the reins
of the four restive horses, released the brake and let out a yell
surcharged with all the bitterness bottled within his soul. _He_ had
not done anything to precipitate the trouble. Beyond eating half a pie
he had been an innocent spectator, not even taking part in the
rough-riding. Yet here he was, condemned to the mess-wagon quite as if
he were to blame for Patsy's leaving. The eyes of Happy Jack gazed
gloomily upon the world, and his driving seemed a reckless invitation
to disaster. "I betche I'll make 'em good and sick uh _my_ cooking!"
he plotted while he went rattling and bumping over the untrailed
prairie.
He succeeded so well that two days later Chip gave a curt order or two
and headed his wagons, horses and his lean-stomached bunch of riders
for Dry Lake, passing by even the Flying U coulee in his haste. Just
outside the town, upon the creek which saves the inhabitants from
dying of thirst or _delirium tremens_, he left the wagons with Happy
Jack, Slim and one alien to set up camp and rode dust-dogged to the
little, red depot.
The telegram which went speeding to Great Falls and to a friend there
was brief, but it was eloquent and not quite flattering to Happy Jack.
It read like this:
"JOHN G. SCOTT,
"The Palace, Great Falls.
"For God's sake send me a cook by return train; must deliver goods
or die hard.
"BENNETT, Flying U."
Whether the cook must die hard, or whether he meant the friend, Chip
did not trouble to make plain. Telegrams are bound by such rigid
limitations, and he had gone over the ten-word rate as it was. But he
told Weary to receive the cook, be he white or black, have him restock
the mess-wagon to his liking and then bring the outfit to the ranch,
when Chip would again take it in hand. He said that he was going home
to get a square meal, and he mentioned Happy Jack along with several
profane words. "Johnny Scott will send a cook, and a good one,"; he
added hopefully. "Johnny never threw down a friend in his life and he
never will. And say, Weary, if he wires, you collect the message and
act accordingly. I'm going to have a decent supper, to-night!" He was
riding a good horse and there was no reason why he should be late in
arriving, especially if he kept the gait at which he left town.
In two hours Weary, Pink and Andy Green were touching hat-brims over a
telegram from Johnny Scott--a telegram which was brief as Chip's, and
more illuminating:
"CHIP BENNETT,
"Dry Lake.
"Kidnaped Park hotel chef best cook in town will be on next train.
J.G. SCOTT."
"Sounds good," mused Andy, reading it for the fourth time. "But
there's thirteen words in that telegram, if yuh notice."
"I wish yuh wouldn't try to butt in on Happy Jack's specialty," Weary
remonstrated, folding the message and slipping it inside the yellow
envelope. "If this is the same jasper that cooked there a month ago,
we're going to eat ourselves plumb to death; a better meal I never
laid away inside me than the one I got at the Park Hotel when I was up
there last time. Come on over to the hotel and eat; their chuck isn't
the best in the world, but it could be a lot worse and still beat
Happy Jack to a jelly."
PART TWO
The whole Happy Family--barring Happy Jack, who was sulking in camp
because of certain things which had been said of his cooking and which
he had overheard--clanked spurs impatiently upon the platform and
waited for the arrival of the train from the West. When at last it
snorted into town and nosed its way up to the platform they bunched
instinctively and gazed eagerly at the steps which led down from the
smoker.
A slim little man in blue serge, a man with the complexion of a strip
of rawhide and the mustache of a third-rate orchestra leader, felt his
way gingerly down by the light of the brakeman's lantern, hesitated
and then came questioningly toward them, carrying with some difficulty
a bulky suitcase.
"It's him, all right," muttered Pink while they waited.
The little man stopped apologetically before the group, indistinct in
the faint light from the office window. Already the train was sliding
away into the dark. "Pardon," he apologized. "I am looking for the U
fich flies."
"This is it," Weary assured him gravely. "We'll take yuh right on out
to camp. Pretty dark, isn't it? Let me take your grip--I know the way
better than you do." Weary was not in the habit of making himself a
porter for any man's accommodation, but the way back to where they had
left the horses was dark, and the new cook was very small and slight.
They filed silently back to Rusty Brown's place, invited the cook in
for a drink and were refused with soft-voiced regret and the gracious
assurance that he would wait outside for them.
Weary it was, and Pink to bear him company, who piloted the stranger
out to camp and showed him where he might sleep in Patsy's bed. Patsy
had left town, the Happy Family had been informed, with the
declaration often repeated that he was "neffer cooming back alreatty."
He had even left behind him his bed and his clothes rather than meet
again any member of the Flying U outfit.
"We'd like breakfast somewhere near sunrise," Weary told the cook at
parting. "Soon as the store opens in the morning, we'll drive in and
you can stock up the wagon; we're pretty near down to cases, judging
from the meals we have been getting lately. Hope yuh make out all
right."
"I will do very nicely, I thank you," smiled the new cook in the light
of the lantern which stood upon the fireless cook-stove. "I wish you
good-night, gentlemen, and sweet dreams of loved ones."
"Say, he's a polite son-of-a-gun," Pink commented when they were
riding back to town. "'The U fich flies'--that's a good one! What is
he, do you thing? French?"
"He's liable to be most anything, and I'll gamble he can build a good
dinner for a hungry man. That's the main point," said Weary.
At daybreak Weary woke and heard him humming a little tune while he
moved softly about the cook-tent and the mess-wagon, evidently
searching mostly for the things which were not there, to judge from
stray remarks which interrupted the love song. "Rolled oat--I do not
find him," he heard once. And again: "Where the clean towels they are,
that I do not discover." Weary smiled sleepily and took another nap.
The cook's manner of announcing breakfast was such that it awoke even
Jack Bates, notoriously a sleepy-head, and Cal Emmett who was almost
as bad. Instead of pounding upon a pan and lustily roaring
"_Grub-pi-i-ile!_" in the time-honored manner of roundup cooks, he
came softly up to the bed-tent, lifted a flap deprecatingly and
announced in a velvet voice:
"Breakfast is served, gentlemen."
Andy Green, whose experiences had been varied, sat up and blinked at
the gently swaying flap where the cook had been standing. "Say, what
we got in camp?" he asked curiously. "A butler?"
"By golly, that's the way a cook _oughta_ be!" vowed Slim, and reached
for his hat.
They dressed hastily and trooped down to the creek for their morning
ablutions, and hurried back to the breakfast which waited. The new
cook was smiling and apologetic and anxious to please. The Happy
Family felt almost as if there were a woman in camp and became very
polite without in the least realizing that they were not behaving in
the usual manner, or dreaming that they were unconsciously trying to
live up to their chef.
"The breakfast, it is of a lacking in many things fich I shall
endeavor to remedy," he assured them, pouring coffee as if he were
serving royalty. He was dressed immaculately in white cap and apron,
and his mustache was waxed to a degree which made it resemble a cat's
whiskers. The Happy Family tasted the coffee and glanced eloquently at
one another. It was better than Patsy's coffee, even; and as for Happy
Jack--
There were biscuits, the like of which they never had tasted before.
The bacon was crisp and delicately brown and delicious, the potatoes
cooked in a new and enticing way. The Happy Family showed its
appreciation as seemed to them most convincing: They left not a scrap
of anything and they drank two cups of coffee apiece when that was not
their habit.
Later, they hitched the four horses to the mess-wagon, learned that
the new cook, though he deeply regretted his inefficiency, did not
drive anything. "The small burro," he explained, "I ride him, yes, and
also the automobile drive I when the way is smooth. But the horses I
make not acquainted with him. I could ride upon the elevated seat,
yes, but to drive the quartet I would not presume."
"Happy, you'll have to drive," said Weary, his tone a command.
"Aw, gwan!" Happy Jack objected, "He rode out here all right last
night--unless somebody took him up in front on the saddle, which I
hain't heard about nobody doing. A cook's supposed to do his own
driving. I betche--"
Weary went close and pointed a finger impressively. "Happy, you
_drive_," he said, and Happy Jack turned without a word and climbed
glumly up to the seat of the mess-wagon.
"Well, are yuh coming or ain't yuh?" he inquired of the cook in a tone
surcharged with disgust.
"If you will so kindly permit, it give me great pleasure to ride with
you and to make better friendship. It now occurs to me that I have not
yet introduce. Gentlemen, Jacques I have the honor to be name. I am
delighted to meet you and I hope for pleasant association." The bow he
gave the group was of the old school.
Big Medicine grinned suddenly and came forward. "Honest to grandma,
I'm happy to know yuh!" he bellowed, and caught the cook's hand in a
grip that sent him squirming upon his toes. "These here are my
friends: Happy Jack up there on the wagon, and Slim and Weary and Pink
and Cal and Jack Bates and Andy Green--and there's more scattered
around here, that don't reely count except when it comes to eating. We
like you, by cripes, and we like your cookin' fine! Now, you amble
along to town and load up with the best there is--huh?" It occurred to
him that his final remarks might be construed as giving orders, and he
glanced at Weary and winked to show that he meant nothing serious. "So
long, Jakie," he added over his shoulder and went to where his horse
waited.
Jacques--ever afterward he was known as "Jakie" to the Flying
U--clambered up the front wheel and perched ingratiatingly beside
Happy Jack, and they started off behind the riders for the short mile
to Dry Lake. Immediately he proceeded to win Happy from his glum
aloofness.
"I would say, Mr. Happy, that I should like exceeding well to be
friends together," he began purringly. "So superior a gentleman must
win the admiration of the onlooker and so I could presume to question
for advisement. I am experience much dexterity for cooking, yes, but I
am yet so ignorant concerning the duties pertaining to camp. If the
driving of these several horses transpire to pertain, I will so gladly
receive the necessary instruction and endeavor to fulfil the
accomplishment. Yes?"
Happy Jack, more in stupefaction at the cook's vocabulary than
anything else, turned his head and took a good look at him. And the
trustful smile of Jakie went straight to the big, soft heart of him
and won him completely. "Aw, gwan," he adjured gruffly to hide his
surrender. "I don't mind driving for yuh. It ain't that I was kicking
about."
"I thank you for the so gracious assurement. If I transgress not too
greatly, I should like for inquire what is the chuck for which I am
told to fill the wagon. I do not," he added humbly, "understand yet
all the language of your so glorious country, for fich I have so
diligently study the books. Words I have not yet assimilated
completely, and the word chuck have yet escape my knowledge."
"Chuck," grinned Happy Jack, "is grub."
"Chuck, it is grub," repeated Jakie thoughtfully. "And grub, that
is--Yes?"
Happy Jack struggled mentally with the problem. "Well, grub is grub;
all the stuff yuh eat is grub. Meat and flour and coffee and--"
"Ah, the light it dawns!" exclaimed Jakie joyously. "Grub it is the
supply of provision fich I must obtain for camping, yes? I thank you
so graciously for the information; because," he added a bit wistfully,
"that little word chuck she annoy me exceeding and make me for not
sleep that I must grasp the meaning fich elude. I am now happy that I
do not make the extensive blunder for one small word fich I apprehend
must be a food fich I must buy and perhaps not to understand the
preparation of it. Yes? It is the excellent jest at the expense of
me."
"There ain't much chuck in camp," Happy observed helpfully, "so yuh
might as well start in and get anything yuh want to cook. The outfit
is good about one thing They don't never kick on the stuff yuh eat.
The cook always loads up to suit himself, and nobody don't ask
questions or make a holler--so long as there's plenty and it's good."
Jakie listened attentively, twisting his mustache ends absently. "It
is simply that I purchase the supplies fich I shall choose for my
judgment," he observed, to make quite sure that he understood. "I am
to have _carte blanche_, yes?"
"Sure, if yuh want it," said Happy Jack. "Only they might not keep it
here. Yuh can't get _everything_ in a little place like this." It is
only fair to Happy Jack to state that he would have understood the
term if he had seen it in print. It was the pronunciation which made
the words strange to him.
Jakie looked puzzled, but being the soul of politeness he made no
comment--perhaps because Happy Jack was at that moment bringing his
four horses to a reluctant stand at the wide side-door of the store.
"The horses, they are of the vivacious temperament, yes?" Jakie had
scrambled from the seat to within the door and was standing there
smiling appreciatively at the team.
"Aw, they're all right. You go on in--I guess Weary's there. If he
ain't, you go ahead and get what yuh want. I'll be back after awhile."
Thirst was calling Happy Jack; he heeded the summons and disappeared,
leaving the new cook to his own devices.
So, it would seem, did every other member of the Flying U. Weary had
been told that Miss Satterly was in town, and he forgot all about
Jakie in his haste to find her. No one else seemed to feel any
responsibility in the matter, and the store clerks did not care what
the Flying U outfit had to eat. For that reason the chuck-wagon
contained in an hour many articles which were strange to it, and
lacked a few things which might justly be called necessities.
"Say, you fellows are sure going to live swell," one of the clerks
remarked, when Happy Jack finally returned. "Where did yuh pick his
nibs? Ain't he a little bit new and shiny?"
"Aw, he's all right," Happy Jack defended jealously. "He's a real
_chaff_, and he can build the swellest meals yuh ever eat. Patsy can't
cook within a mile uh him. And _clean_--I betche _he_ don't keep his
bread-dough setting around on the ground for folks to tromp on." Which
proves how completely Jakie had subjugated Happy Jack.
That night--nobody but the horse-wrangler and Happy Jack had shown up
at dinner-time--the boys of the Flying U dined luxuriously at their
new-made camp upon the creek-bank at the home ranch, and ate things
which they could not name but which pleased wonderfully their palates.
There was a salad to tempt an epicure, and there was a pudding the
like of which they had never tasted. It had a French name which left
them no wiser than before asking for it, and it looked, as Pink
remarked, like a snowbank with the sun shining on it, and it tasted
like going to heaven.
"It makes me plumb sore when I think of all the years I've stood for
Patsy's slops," sighed Cal Emmett, rolling over upon his back because
he was too full for any other position--putting it plainly.
"By golly, I never knowed there was such cookin' in the world," echoed
Slim. "Why, even Mis' Bixby can't cook that good."
"The Countess had ought to come down and take a few lessons," declared
Jack Bates emphatically. "I'm going to take up some uh that pudding
and ask her what she thinks of it."
"Yuh can't," mourned Happy Jack. "There ain't any left--and I never
got more'n a taste. Next time, I'm going to tell Jakie to make it in a
wash tub, and make it full; with some uh you gobblers in camp--"
He looked up and discovered the Little Doctor approaching with Chip.
She was smiling a friendly welcome, and she was curious about the new
cook. By the time she had greeted them all and had asked all the
questions she could think of and had gone over to meet Jakie and to
taste, at the urgent behest of the Happy Family, a tiny morsel of
salad which had been overlooked, it would seem that the triumph of the
new cook was complete and that no one could possibly give a thought to
old Patsy.
The Little Doctor, however, seemed to regret his loss--and that in the
face of the delectable salad and the smile of Jakie. "I do think it's
a shame that Patsy left the way he did," she remarked to the Happy
Family in general, being especially careful not to look toward Big
Medicine. "The poor old fellow _walked_ every step of the way to the
ranch, and Claude"--that was Chip's real name--"says it was
twenty-five or six miles. He was so lame and he looked so old and
so--well, friendless, that I could have _cried_ when he came limping
up to the house! He had walked all night, and he got here just at
breakfast time and was too tired to eat.
"I dosed him and doctored his poor feet and made him go to bed, and he
slept all that day. He wanted to start that night for Dry Lake, but of
course we wouldn't let him do that. He was wild to leave, however, so
J.G. had to drive him in the next day. He went off without a word to
any of us, and he looked so utterly dejected and so--so _old_. Claude
says he acted perfectly awful in camp, but I'm sure he was sorry for
it afterwards. J.G. hasn't got over it yet; I believe he has taken it
to heart as much as Patsy seemed to do. He's had Patsy with him for so
long, you see--he was like one of the family." She stopped and
regarded the Happy Family a bit anxiously. "This new cook is a very
nice little man," she added after a minute, "but after all, he isn't
Patsy."
The Happy Family did not answer, and they refrained from looking at
one another or at the Little Doctor.
At last Big Medicine brought his big voice into the awkward silence.
"Honest to grandma, Mrs. Chip," he said earnestly, "I'd give a lot
right now to have old Patsy back--er--just to have _around_, if it
made him feel bad to leave. I reckon maybe that was my fault: I hadn't
oughta pitched quite so hard, and I had oughta looked where I was
throwin' m' rider. I reelize that no cook likes to have a fellow
standin' on his head in a big pan uh bread-sponge, on general
principles if not on account uh the bread. Uh course, we've all knowed
old Patsy to take just about as great liberties himself with his
sponge--but we've got to recollect that it was _his_ dough, by cripes,
and that pipe ashes ain't the same as a fellow takin' a shampoo in the
pan. No, I reelize that I done wrong, and I'm willin' to apologize for
it right here and now. At the same time," he ended dryly, "I will own
that I'm dead stuck on little Jakie, and I'd ruther ride for the
Flying U and eat Jakie's grub than any other fate I can think of right
now. Whilst I'm sorry for what I done, yuh couldn't pry me loose from
Jakie with a stick uh dynamite--and that's a fact, Mrs. Chip."
The Little Doctor laughed, pushed back her hair in the way she had,
glanced again at the unresponsive faces of the original members of the
Happy Family and gave up as gracefully as possible.
"Oh, of course Patsy's an old crank, and Jakie's a waxed angel," she
surrendered with a little grimace. "You think so now, but that's
because you are being led astray by your appetites, like all men. You
just wait: You'll be _homesick_ for a sight of that fat, bald-headed,
cranky old Patsy bouncing along on the mess-wagon and swearing in
Dutch at his horses, before you're through. If you're not so
completely gone over to Jakie that you will eat nothing but what he
has cooked, come on up to the house. The Countess is making a
twogallon freezer of ice-cream for you, and she has a big pan of angel
cake to go with it! You don't deserve it--but come along anyway."
Which was another endearing way of the Little Doctor's--the way of
sweetening all her lectures with something very nice at the end.
The Happy Family felt very much ashamed and very sorry that they could
not feel kindly toward Patsy, even to please the Little Doctor. They
sincerely wanted to please her and to have her unqualified approval;
but wanting Patsy back, or feeling even the slightest regret that he
was gone, seemed to them a great deal too much to ask of them. Since
this is a story of cooks and of eating, one may with propriety add,
however, that the invitation to ice cream and angel cake, coming
though it did immediately after that wonderful supper of Jakie's, was
accepted with alacrity and their usual thoroughness of accomplishment;
not for the world would they have offended the Little Doctor by
declining so gracious an invitation--the graciousness being manifested
in her smile and her voice rather than in the words she spoke--leaving
out the enchantment which hovers over the very name of angel cake and
ice cream. The Happy Family went to bed that night as complacently
uncomfortable as children after a Christmas dinner.
Not often does it fall to the lot of a cowboy to have served to him
stuffed olives and lobster salad with mayonnaise dressing, French
fried potatoes and cream puffs from the mess-tent of a roundup outfit.
During the next week it fell to the lot of the Happy Family, however.
When the salads and the cream puffs disappeared suddenly and the smile
of Jakie became pensive and contrite, the Happy Family, acting
individually but unanimously, made inquiries.
"It is that I no more possess the fresh vegetables, nor the eggs,
gentlemen," purred Jakie. "Many things of a deliciousness must I now
abstain because of the absence of two, three small eggs! But see, one
brief arrival in the small town would quickly remedy, yes? It is that
we return with haste that I may buy more of the several articles for
fich I require?" He spread his small hands appealingly.
"By golly, _Patsy_ never had no eggs--" began Slim traitorously.
"Aw, gwan! Patsy never fed yuh like Jakie does, neither!" Happy Jack
was heart and soul the slave of the chef. "If Chip don't care, I'll
ride over to Nelson's and git some eggs. Jakie said he'd make some
more uh that pudding if he had some. It ain't but six or seven miles."
"Should you but obtain the juvenile hen, yes, I should be delighted to
serve the chicken salad for luncheon. It is the great misfortune that
the fresh vegetable are not obtain, but I will do the best and
substitute with a cleverness fich will conceal the defect--yes?"
Jakie's caps and aprons had lost their first immaculate freshness, but
his manner was as royally perfect as ever and his smile as wistfully
friendly.
"Well, I'll ask Chip about it," Happy Jack yielded.
Eggs and young chickens were of a truth strange to a roundup in full
blast, but so was a chef like Jakie, and so were the salads, stuffed
olives and cream puffs; and the white caps and the waxed mustache and
the beautiful flow of words and the smile. The Happy Family was in no
condition, mentally or digestively, to judge impartially. A month ago
they would have whooped derision at the suggestion of riding anywhere
after fresh eggs and "juvenile hens," but now it seemed to them very
natural and very necessary. So much for the demoralization of expert
cookery and white caps and a smile.
Chip also seemed to have fallen under the spell. It may have been that
the heavenly peace which wrapped the Flying U was, in his mind, too
precious to be lightly disturbed. At any rate he told Happy Jack
briefly to "Go ahead, if you want to," and so left unobstructed the
path to the chicken salad and cream puffs. Happy Jack wiped his hands
upon an empty flour sack, rolled down his shirtsleeves and hurried off
to saddle a horse.
Happy Jack did not realize that he was doing two thirds of the work
about the cook-tent, but that was a fact. Because Jakie could not
drive the mess-wagon team, Happy Jack had been appointed his
assistant. As assistant he drove the wagon from one camping place to
another, "rustled" the wood, peeled the potatoes, tended fires and
washed dishes, and did the thousand things which do not require expert
hands, and which, in time of stress, usually falls to the
horse-wrangler. Jakie was ever smiling and always promising, in his
purring voice, to cook something new and delicious, and left with the
leisure which Happy's industry gave him, he usually kept his promise.