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THE DUDE WRANGLER
by
CAROLINE LOCKHART
Frontispiece by Dudley Glyne Summers
[Illustration: "Wallie swung the frying pan with all his strength ...
knocking the six-shooter from Boise Bill's hand as he jumped across the
fire at him"]
Garden City, N. Y., And Toronto
Doubleday, Page & Company
1921
Copyright, 1921, by
Doubleday, Page & Company
All Rights Reserved, Including That of Translation into Foreign
Languages, Including the Scandinavian
Copyright, 1921, by Street & Smith Corporation
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Girl from Wyoming 3
II. "The Happy Family" 10
III. "Pinkey" 18
IV. The Brand of Cain 24
V. "Gentle Annie" 33
VI. "Burning His Bridges" 42
VII. His "Gat" 47
VIII. Neighbours 62
IX. Cutting His Eyeteeth 69
X. The Best Pulling Team in the State 81
XI. Merry Christmas 92
XII. The Water Witch 112
XIII. Wiped Out 131
XIV. Lifting a Cache 142
XV. Collecting a Bad Debt 156
XVI. The Exodus 168
XVII. Counting Their Chickens 176
XVIII. The Millionaires 182
XIX. A Shock for Mr. Canby 196
XX. Wallie Qualifies as a First-Class Hero 207
XXI. "Worman! Worman!" 221
XXII. "Knocking 'Em for a Curve!" 231
XXIII. Rifts 247
XXIV. Hicks the Avenger 261
XXV. "And Just Then----" 301
THE DUDE WRANGLER
CHAPTER I
THE GIRL FROM WYOMING
Conscious that something had disturbed him, Wallie Macpherson raised
himself on his elbow in bed to listen. For a full minute he heard
nothing unusual: the Atlantic breaking against the sea-wall at the foot
of the sloping lawn of The Colonial, the clock striking the hour in the
tower of the Court House, and the ripping, tearing, slashing noises like
those of a sash-and-blind factory, produced through the long, thin nose
of old Mr. Penrose, two doors down the hotel corridor, all sounds to
which he was too accustomed to be awakened by them.
While Wallie remained in this posture conjecturing, the door between the
room next to him and that of Mr. Penrose was struck smartly several
times, and with a vigour to denote that there was temper behind the
blows which fell upon it. He had not known that the room was occupied;
being considered undesirable on account of the audible slumbers of the
old gentleman it was often vacant.
The raps finally awakened even Mr. Penrose, who demanded sharply:
"What are you doing?"
"Hammering with the heel of my slipper," a feminine voice answered.
"What do you want?"
"A chance to sleep."
"Who's stopping you?" crabbedly.
"You're snoring." Indignation gave an edge to the accusation.
"You're impertinent!"
"You're a nuisance!" the voice retorted. Wallie covered his mouth with
his hand and hunched his shoulders.
There was a moment's silence while Mr. Penrose seemed to be thinking of
a suitable answer. Then:
"It's my privilege to snore if I want to. This is my room--I pay for
it!"
"Then this side of the door is mine and I can pound on it, for the same
reason."
Mr. Penrose sneered in the darkness: "I suppose you're some sour old
maid--you sound like it."
"And no doubt you're a Methuselah with dyspepsia!"
Wallie smote the pillow gleefully--old Mr. Penrose's collection of
bottles and boxes and tablets for indigestion were a byword.
"We will see about this in the morning," said Mr. Penrose,
significantly. "I have been coming to this hotel for twenty-eight
years----"
"It's nothing to boast of," the voice interrupted. "I shouldn't, if I
had so little originality."
Mr. Penrose, seeming to realize that the woman would have the last word
if the dialogue lasted until morning, ended it with a loud snort of
derision.
He was so wrought up by the controversy that he was unable to compose
himself immediately, but lay awake for an hour framing a speech for Mr.
Cone, the proprietor, which was in the nature of an ultimatum. Either
the woman must move, or he would--but the latter he considered a remote
possibility, since he realized fully that a multi-millionaire, socially
well connected, is an asset which no hotel will dispense with lightly.
The frequency with which Mr. Penrose had presumed upon this knowledge
had much to do with Wallie's delight as he had listened to the
encounter.
Dropping back upon his pillow, the young man mildly wondered about the
woman next door to him. She must have come in on the evening train while
he was at the moving pictures, and retired immediately. Very likely she
was, as Mr. Penrose asserted, some acrimonious spinster, but, at any
rate, she had temporarily silenced the rich old tyrant of whom all the
hotel stood in awe.
A second time the ripping sound of yard after yard of calico being
viciously torn broke the night's stillness and, grinning, Wallie waited
to hear what the woman next door was going to do about it. But only a
stranger would have hoped to do anything about it, since to prevent Mr.
Penrose from snoring was a task only a little less hopeless than that of
stopping the roar of the ocean. Guests whom it annoyed had either to
move or get used to it. Sometimes they did the one and sometimes the
other, but always Mr. Penrose, who was the subject of a hundred
complaints a summer, snored on victoriously. The woman next door, of
course, could not know this, so no doubt she had a mistaken notion that
she might either break the old gentleman of his habit or have him
banished to an isolated quarter.
Wallie had not long to wait, for shortly after Mr. Penrose started again
the tattoo on the door was repeated.
In response to a snarl that might have come from a menagerie, she
advised him curtly:
"You're at it again!"
Another angry colloquy followed, and once more Mr. Penrose was forced to
subside for the want of an adequate answer.
All the rest of the night the battle continued at intervals, and by
morning not only Wallie but the entire corridor was interested in the
occupant of the room adjoining his.
Wallie was in the office when the door of the elevator opened with a
clang and Mr. Penrose sprang out of it like a starved lion about to hurl
himself upon a Christian martyr. While his jaws did not drip saliva, the
thin nostrils of his bothersome nose quivered with eagerness and anger.
"I've been coming here for twenty-eight years, haven't I?" he demanded.
"Twenty-eight this summer," Mr. Cone replied, soothingly.
"In that time I never have put in such a night as last night!"
"Dear me!" The proprietor seemed genuinely disturbed by the information.
"I could not sleep--I have not closed my eyes--for the battering on my
door of the female in the room adjoining!"
"You astonish me! Let me see----" Mr. Cone whirled the register around
and looked at it. He read aloud:
"Helene Spenceley--Prouty, Wyoming."
Mr. Cone lowered his voice discreetly:
"What was her explanation?"
"She accused me of snoring!" declared Mr. Penrose, furiously. "I heard
the clock strike every hour until morning! Not a wink have I slept--not
a _wink_, Mr. Cone!"
"We can arrange this satisfactorily, Mr. Penrose," Mr. Cone smiled
conciliatingly. "I have no doubt that Miss--er--Spenceley will gladly
change her room if I ask her. I shall place one equally good at her
disposal---- Ah, I presume this is she--let me introduce you."
Although he would not admit it, Mr. Penrose was quite as astonished as
Wallie at the appearance of the person who stepped from the elevator and
walked to the desk briskly. She was young and good looking and wore
suitable clothes that fitted her; also, while not aggressive, she had a
self-reliant manner which proclaimed the fact that she was accustomed to
looking after her own interests. While she was as far removed as
possible from the person Mr. Penrose had expected to see, still she was
the "female" who had "sassed" him as he had not been "sassed" since he
could remember, and he eyed her belligerently as he curtly acknowledged
the introduction.
"Mr. Penrose, one of our oldest guests in point of residence, tells me
that you have had some little--er--difference----" began Mr. Cone,
affably.
"I had a hellish night!" Mr. Penrose interrupted, savagely. "I hope
never to put in such another."
"I join you in that," replied Miss Spenceley, calmly. "I've never heard
any one snore so horribly--I'd know your snore among a thousand."
"Never mind--we can adjust this matter amicably, I will change your room
to-day, Miss Spenceley," Mr. Cone interposed, hastily. "It hasn't
_quite_ the view, but the furnishings are more luxurious."
"But I don't want to change," Miss Spenceley coolly replied. "It suits
me perfectly."
"I came for quiet and I can't stand that hammering," declared Mr.
Penrose, glaring at her.
"So did I--my nerves--and your snoring bothers me. But perhaps," with
aggravating sweetness, "I can break you of the habit."
"I wouldn't lose another night's sleep for a thousand dollars!"
"It will be cheaper to change your room, for I don't mean to change
_mine_."
The millionaire turned to the proprietor. "Either this person goes or I
do--that's my ultimatum!"
"I will not be bullied in any such fashion, and I can't very well be
put out forcibly, can I?" and Miss Spenceley smiled at both of them. Mr.
Cone looked from one to the other, helplessly.
"Then," Mr. Penrose retorted, "I shall leave _immediately!_ Mr. Cone,"
dramatically, "the room I have occupied for twenty-eight summers is at
your disposal." His voice rose in a crescendo movement so that even in
the furthermost corner of the dining room they heard it: "I have a peach
orchard down in Delaware, and I shall go there, where I can snore as
much as I damn please; and don't you forget it!"
Mr. Cone, his mouth open and hands hanging, looked after him as he
stamped away, too astonished to protest.