A second day, full of excitement and rough riding, followed, and then
the gang took pity on the poor tenderfoot and left him to think it over.
But Bowles was not broken in spirit; far from it, for he had been
secretly longing for a horse that would buck. He was rapidly becoming so
wise that deception was no longer practicable. When a man has an old
staid cow-pony rise up under him and try to paw the white out of the
moon, he is liable to look over his rigging rather carefully to see what
it was all about; and if he should find a yellow spot on the flap of his
saddle-blanket, a tender place on his horse's rump, and a suspicious
odor of carbon bisulphide in the air, he is likely to shy away from
unfriendly horsemen, even if he never heard of "high-lifing" a bronk.
Those were eventful days for Samuel Bowles, and he found himself
learning fast, when Henry Lee suddenly called him aside and told him to
go with Brigham.
Brigham was taking a bunch of dogies back to the home ranch and he
needed a man to help him--also the boss was getting a little tired of
these sudden accidents to Bowles. He was not conducting a circus or a
Wild West Show but a serious and precarious business, and a touch of
"high-life" at the wrong time might stampede his whole herd of cattle.
So he told the tenderfoot to go on the drive with Brigham.
There is a good deal left unsaid in a cow camp--so much, in fact, that a
stranger never knows what is going on; and Brigham had been as silent as
the rest while Bowles was taking his medicine. Even on the drive he was
strangely quiet, chewing away soberly at his tobacco and looking out
from under his hat with squinting and cynical eyes. They were friends
now, as far as a tenderfoot can expect to have a friend, but Brigham
said nothing about stringing the cattle, and asked no questions about
gay New York--he had something on his mind. And when the time came he
spoke it out.
"Say, stranger," he said, still calling him by that cold name which
marked him as a man apart, "did you see Dixie Lee back in New York last
winter?"
It was a bolt out of the blue sky; but Bowles was trained to
evasions--he had lived in polite society and tried to keep friends with
Truth.
"Miss Lee?" he repeated in tones of wonderment.
"W'y, sure," answered Brigham; "she was back there all winter."
"So I hear," observed Bowles; "but there were about four million other
people there too, Brig; so I can't say for sure. Why? What made you
ask?"
"Oh--nothin'," mumbled Brig, playing with the rowel on his spur as he
watched the cattle graze; "only it seemed like, the way she spoke to you
the other day, you'd mebbe met before. Some of the boys said they
reckoned you knowed her back there--she talked so kinder friendly-like."
A thrill went over Bowles at those kind words, but he hastened to cover
up his tracks. Once let the boys know that he had followed her from the
East, and there would be a dramatic end to all his hopes and dreams.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account