Chapter 4. The Brand Of Cain

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_ CHAPTER IV. 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. _

Read next: Chapter 5. "Gentle Annie"

Read previous: Chapter 3. "Pinkey"

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