THE BRAND OF CAIN
There never was a nose so completely out of joint as Wallie's nor an
owner more thoroughly humiliated and embittered by the fickleness and
ingratitude of human nature. The sacrifices he had made in escorting
dull ladies to duller movies were wasted. The unfailing courtesy with
which he had retrieved their yarn and handkerchiefs, the sympathy and
attention with which he had listened to their symptoms, his solicitude
when they were ailing--all were forgotten now that Pinkey was in the
vicinity.
The ladies swarmed around that person, quoted his sayings delightedly,
and declared a million times in Wallie's hearing that "he was a
character!" And the worst of it was that Helene Spenceley did not seem
sufficiently aware of Wallie's existence even to laugh at him.
As the displaced cynosure sat brooding in his room the third morning
after Pinkey's arrival he wished that he could think of some perfectly
well-bred way to attract attention.
He believed in the psychology of clothes. Perhaps if he appeared on the
veranda in something to emphasize his personality, something suggesting
strength and virility, like tennis flannels, he could regain his hold on
his audience.
With this thought in mind Wallie opened his capacious closet filled with
wearing apparel, and the moment his eyes fell upon his riding breeches
he had his inspiration. If "the girl from Wyoming" thought her friend
Pinkey was the only person who could ride a horse, he would show her!
It took Wallie only so long to order a horse as it required to get the
Riding Academy on the telephone.
"I want a good-looking mount--something spirited," he instructed the
person who answered.
"We've just bought some new horses," the voice replied. "I'll send you
the pick of them."
Wallie hung up the receiver, fairly trembling with eagerness to dress
himself and get down on the veranda. He looked well in riding
togs--everyone mentioned it--and if he could walk out swinging his crop
nonchalantly, well, they would at least _notice_ him! And when he would
spring lightly into the saddle and gallop away--he saw it as plainly as
if it were happening.
Although Wallie actually broke his record he seemed to himself an
unconscionable time in dressing, but when he gave himself a final survey
in the mirror, he had every reason to feel satisfied with the result. He
was correct in every detail and he thought complacently that he could
not but contrast favourably with the appearance of that "roughneck" from
Montana--or was it Wyoming?
"What you taking such a hot day to ride for?" Mrs. Appel called when she
caught sight of Wallie.
The question jarred on him and he replied coolly:
"I had not observed that it was warmer than usual, Mrs. Appel."
"It's ninety, with the humidity goodness knows how much!" she retorted.
Without seeming to look, Wallie could see that both Miss Spenceley and
Pinkey were on the veranda and regarding him with interest. His pose
became a little theatrical while he waited for his mount, striking his
riding boot smartly with his crop as he stood in full view of them.
Everyone was interested when they saw the horse coming, and a few
sauntered over to have a look at him, Miss Spenceley and Pinkey among
the others.
"Is that the horse you always ride, Wallie?" inquired Miss Gaskett.
"No; it's a new one I'm going to try out for them," Wallie replied,
indifferently.
"Wallie, _do_ be careful!" his aunt admonished him. "I don't like you to
ride strange horses."
Wallie laughed lightly, and as he went down to meet the groom who was
now at the foot of the steps with the horses he assured her that there
was not the least cause for anxiety.
"Why, that's a Western horse!" Miss Spenceley exclaimed. "Isn't that a
brand on the shoulder?"
"It looks like it," Pinkey answered, ruffing the hair then smoothing it.
"Shore it's a brand." He stepped off a pace to look at it.
"Pardon me, but I think you're mistaken," Wallie said, politely but
positively. "The Academy buys only thoroughbreds."
"If that ain't a bronc, I'll eat it," Pinkey declared, bluntly.
"Can you make out the brand?" asked Miss Spenceley.
Pinkey ruffed the hair again and stepped back and squinted. Then his
cracked lips stretched in a grin that threatened to start them bleeding:
"'88' is the way I read it."
She nodded: "The brand of Cain."
Then they both laughed immoderately.
Wallie could see no occasion for merriment and it nettled him.
"Nevertheless, I maintain that you are in error," he declared,
obstinately.
"I doubt if I could set one of them hen-skin saddles," observed Pinkey,
changing the subject.
Wallie replied airily:
"Oh, it's very easy if you've been taught properly."
"Taught? You mean," wonderingly, "that somebody _learnt_ you to ride
horseback?"
Wallie smiled patronizingly:
"How else would I know?"
"I was jest throwed on a horse and told to stay there."
"Which accounts for the fact that you Western riders have no 'form,' if
you'll excuse my frankness."
"Don't mention it," replied Pinkey, not to be outdone in politeness.
"Maybe, before I go, you'll give me some p'inters?"
"I shall be most happy," Wallie responded, putting his foot in the
stirrup.
He mounted creditably and settled himself in the saddle.
"Thumb him," said Miss Spenceley, "and we'll soon settle the argument."
"How--thumb him? The term is not familiar."
"Show him, Pinkey." Her eyes were sparkling, for Wallie's tone implied
that the expression was slang and also rather vulgar.
"He'll unload his pack as shore as shootin'." Pinkey hesitated.
"No time like the present to learn a lesson," she replied, ambiguously.
"Certainly--if there's anything you can teach me," Wallie's smile said
as plain as words that he doubted it. "Mr. Fripp--er--'thumb' him."
"You're the doctor," said Pinkey, grimly, and "thumbed" him.
The effect was instantaneous. The old horse ducked his head, arched his
back, and went at it.
It was over in less time than it requires to tell and Wallie was
convinced beyond the question of a doubt that the horse had not been
bred in Kentucky. As he described an aerial circle Wallie had a
whimsical notion that his teeth had bitten into his brain and his spine
was projected through the crown of his derby hat. Darkness and oblivion
came upon him for a moment, and then he found himself being lifted
tenderly from a bed of petunias and dusted off by the groom from the
Riding Academy.
The ladies were screaming, but a swift glance showed Wallie not only Mr.
Appel but Mr. Cone and Mr. Budlong with their hands over their mouths
and their teeth gleaming between their spreading fingers.
"Coward!" he cried to Pinkey. "_You_ don't dare get on him!"
"Can you ride him 'slick,' Pinkey?" asked Miss Spenceley.
"I'll do it er bust somethin'." Pinkey's mouth had a funny quirk at the
corners. "Maybe it'll take the kinks out of me from travellin'."
He looked at Mr. Cone doubtfully: "I'm liable to rip up the sod in your
front yard a little."
"Go to it!" cried Mr. Cone, whose sporting blood was up. "There's
nothin' here that won't grow again. Ride him!"
Everybody was trembling, and when Miss Eyester looked at her lips they
were white as alabaster, but she meant to see the riding, if she had one
of her sinking spells immediately it was over.
When Pinkey swung into the saddle, the horse turned its head around
slowly and looked at the leg that gripped him. Pinkey leaned down,
unbuckled the throat-latch, and slipped off the bridle. Then, as he
touched the horse in the flank with his heels, he took off his cap and
slapped him over the head with it.
The horse recognized the familiar challenge and accepted it. What he
had done to Wallie was only the gambolling of a frisky colt as compared
with his efforts to rid his back of Pinkey.
Even Helene Spenceley sobered as she watched the battle that followed.
The horse sprang into the air, twisted, and came down
stiff-legged--squealing. Now with his head between his forelegs he shot
up his hind hoofs and at an angle to require all the grip in his rider's
knees to stay in the saddle. Then he brought down his heels again,
violently, to bite at Pinkey--who kicked him.
He "weaved," he "sunfished"--with every trick known to an old outlaw he
tried to throw his rider, rearing finally to fall backward and mash to a
pulp a bed of Mr. Cone's choicest tulips. But when the horse rose Pinkey
was with him, while the spectators, choking with excitement, forgetting
themselves and each other, yelled like Apaches.
With nostrils blood-red and distended, his eyes the eyes of a wild
animal, now writhing, now crouching, now lying back on his haunches and
springing forward with a violence to snap any ordinary vertebra, the
horse pitched as if there was no limit to its ingenuity and endurance.
Pinkey's breath was coming in gasps and his colour had faded with the
terrible jar of it all. Even the uninitiated could see that Pinkey was
weakening, and the result was doubtful, when, suddenly, the horse gave
up and stampeded. He crashed through the trellis over which Mr. Cone had
carefully trained his crimson ramblers, tore through a neat border of
mignonette and sweet alyssum that edged the driveway, jumped through
"snowballs," lilacs, syringas, and rhododendrons to come to a halt
finally conquered and chastened.
The "88" brand has produced a strain famous throughout Wyoming for its
buckers, and this venerable outlaw lived up to every tradition of his
youth and breeding.
There never was worse bucking nor better riding in a Wild West Show or
out of it, and Mr. Appel declared that he had not been so stirred since
the occasion when walking in the woods at Harvey's Lake in the early
'90's he had acted upon the unsound presumption that all are kittens
that look like kittens and disputed the path with a black-and-white
animal which proved not to be.
Mrs. C. D. Budlong was shedding tears like a crocodile, without moving a
feature. Mr. Budlong put the lighted end of a cigar in his mouth and
burned his tongue to a blister, while Miss Eyester dropped into a chair
and had her sinking spell and recovered without any one remarking it. In
an abandonment that was like the delirium of madness Mr. Cone went in
and lifted Miss Gaskett's cat "Cutie" out of the plush rocker, where she
was leaving hairs on the cushion, and surreptitiously kicked her.
Altogether it was an unforgettable occasion, and only Pinkey seemed
unthrilled by it--he dismounted in a businesslike, matter-of-fact manner
that had in it neither malice toward the horse nor elation at having
ridden him. He felt admiration, if anything, for he said as he rubbed
the horse's forehead:
"You shore made me ride, Old Timer! You got all the old curves and some
new ones. If I had a hat I'd take it off to you. I ain't had such a
churnin' sence I set 'Steamboat' fer fifteen seconds. Oh, hullo----" as
Wallie advanced with his hand out.
"I congratulate you," said Wallie, feeling himself magnanimous in view
of the way his neck was hurting.
"You needn't," replied Pinkey, good-naturedly. "He durned near 'got'
me."
"It was a very creditable ride indeed," insisted Wallie, in his most
patronizing and priggish manner. He found it very hard to be generous,
with Helene Spenceley listening.
"It seemed so, after _your_ performance, 'Gentle Annie'!" snapped Miss
Spenceley.
Actually the woman seemed to spit like a cat at him! She had the tongue
of a serpent and a vicious temper. He hated her! Wallie removed his hat
with exaggerated politeness and decided never to have anything more to
say to Miss Spenceley.