Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.fadedpage.net [Illustration: "_And you can chalk down forty votes fer Miss Macie Sewell_" (See p. 64)] ALEC LLOYD COWPUNCHER Originally published under the title of CUPID: THE COWPUNCH BY ELEANOR GATES AUTHOR OF THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL, THE PLOW WOMAN, Etc. ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALLEN TRUE NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1907, by The McClure Company Published, November, 1907 Copyright, 1905, 1906, 1907 by The Curtis Publishing Company Copyright, 1906, 1907, by International Magazine Company CONTENTS Chapter Page I. ROSE ANDREWS'S HAND AND DOCTOR BUGS'S GASOLINE BRONC 3 II. A THIRST-PARLOUR MIX-UP GIVES ME A NEW DEAL 31 III. THE PRETTIEST GAL AND THE HOMELIEST MAN 52 IV. CONCERNIN' THE SHERIFF AND ANOTHER LITTLE WIDDA 85 V. THINGS GIT STARTED WRONG 132 VI. WHAT A LUNGER DONE 157 VII. THE BOYS PUT THEY FOOT IN IT 169 VIII. ANOTHER SCHEME, AND HOW IT PANNED OUT 195 IX. A ROUND-UP IN CENTRAL PARK 234 X. MACIE AND THE OP'RA GAME 260 XI. A BOOM THAT BUSTED 276 XII. AND A BOOM AT BRIGGS 300 CHAPTER ONE ROSE ANDREWS'S HAND AND DOCTOR BUGS'S GASOLINE BRONC "Sweet is the vale where the Mohawk gently glides On its fair, windin' way to the sea; And dearer by f-a-a-ar----" "Now, look a-here, Alec Lloyd," broke in Hairoil Johnson, throwin' up one hand like as if to defend hisself, and givin' me a kinda scairt look, "you shut you' bazoo right this minute--and git! Whenever you begin singin' that song, I know you're a-figgerin' on how to marry somebody off to somebody else. And I just won't have you _around!_" We was a-settin' t'gether on the track side of the deepot platform at Briggs City, him a-holdin' down one end of a truck, and me the other. The mesquite lay in front of us, and it was all a sorta greenish brown account of the pretty fair rain we'd been havin'. They's miles of it, y' savvy, runnin' so far out towards the west line of Oklahomaw that it plumb slices the sky. Through it, north and south, the telegraph poles go straddlin'--in the _di_rection of Kansas City on the right hand, and off past Rogers's Butte to Albuquerque on the left. Behind us was little ole Briggs, with its one street of square-front buildin's facin' the railroad, and a scatterin' of shacks and dugouts and corrals and tin-can piles in behind.