Chapter 22. "Knocking 'em For A Curve"

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_ CHAPTER XXII. "KNOCKING 'EM FOR A CURVE"

It had been put to a vote as to whether the party should make the trip through the Yellowstone Park by motor, stopping at the hotels, or on horseback with a camping outfit.

Mr. Stott, after the persuasive manner in which he addressed a jury, argued:

"We can ride in automobiles at home. That is no novelty. Than horseback riding, there is no more healthful exercise. We are all agreed that we have had enough of hotels, while camping will be a new and delightful experience. In the brief period that we shall lie next to nature's heart we will draw strength from her bosom. By camping, we can loaf along in leisurely fashion, taking our own time for seeing the wonders of the Yellowstone, and fishing."

The programme he outlined was so sensible and attractive that everybody was in favour of it strongly except old Mr. Penrose, who declared that sleeping on the ground would give him rheumatism, and the fear that bugs would crawl in his ears made him restless. Mr. Stott, however, overcame his objection by assuring him that the ground was too dry to give any one rheumatism and he could provide himself with cotton against the other contingency.

The outlook for a successful trip from every viewpoint was most promising, yet there were moments when Wallie had his doubts and misgivings. He supposed that it was his experience in dry-farming which had made him pessimistic concerning all untried ventures. Certainly it had destroyed his beautiful, child-like faith in the teaching that the hairs of his head were numbered and no harm could come to him. He had noticed that everyone who ever had dry-farmed carried the scars afterward. It was an unforgettable experience, like a narrow escape from lynching.

Pinkey, on the contrary, had no sombre thoughts to disturb him. He was filled with boundless enthusiasm; though this condition was chronic since he had become engaged to Miss Eyester.

Pinkey, in love, was worse than useless. Escorting Miss Eyester was now his regular business, with dude wrangling reduced to a side issue. Therefore it had devolved upon Wallie to buy teepees, extra bedding, food, and the thousand and one things necessary to comfort when camping.

It all had been accomplished finally, and the day came when the caravan was drawn up beside the Prouty House ready to start toward the Yellowstone.

A delighted populace blocked the sidewalk while they awaited the appearance of Miss Gaskett's friend, Miss Mercy Lane, who had arrived on a night train according to arrangement.

The cavalcade, if not imposing, was at least arresting. No one could pass it yawning. There was no one who had come to see the party start who did not feel repaid for the effort.

First, there was Mr. Hicks, driving four horses and the "grub-wagon," and leading the procession. He handled the lines with an aplomb reminiscent of the coaching days of Reginald Vanderbilt, together with the noble bearing of the late Ben Hur tooling his chariot. Mr. Hicks dignified the "grub-wagon" to such an extent that it was a treat to look at him.

Second in place was Pinkey, driving the tent-and-bed-wagon, with Miss Eyester on the high spring-seat beside him. Behind Pinkey came "Red" McGonnigle, driving a surrey provided for those who should become fatigued with riding horseback. The vehicle, like the stage-coach, was a bargain, sold cheaply by the original owner because of the weakness of the springs, which permitted the body to hit the axle when any amount of weight was put in it. This was a discovery they made after purchase. Aunt Lizzie Philbrick was the only passenger, though it was anticipated that Miss Mercy Lane would prefer to drive also, since she had had no previous riding.

Behind the surrey was the riding party, even more startling than when they had first burst upon Wallie in their bead-work and curio-store trappings. Mr. Stott was wearing a pair of "chaps" spotted like a pinto, while Mr. Budlong in flame-coloured angora at a little distance looked as if his legs were afire.

Their ponies peered out shamefacedly through brilliant, penitentiary-made, horse-hair bridles, and old Mr. Penrose was the envy of everybody in a greasy, limp-brimmed Stetson he had bought from a freighter. Also he had acquired a pair of 22-inch, "eagle's bill" tapaderas. He looked like a mounted pirate, and, in his evil moments, after sleeping badly, he acted like one.

Everyone was in high spirits and eager to get started. Mr. Stott surreptitiously spurred his horse to make him cavort more spiritedly before the spectators, and the horse responded in such a manner that the rising young attorney was obliged to cling with both hands to the saddle-horn.

When he came back, slightly paler, Wallie said curtly:

"You don't need spurs on that horse."

"I'm the best judge of that," Stott retorted.

Wallie said nothing further, for at the moment the crowd parted to permit the passing of the newcomer from Zanesville, Ohio.

As he saw her, Wallie felt willing to renew his promise to Miss Gaskett not to fall in love with her. Wallie was a charitable soul, and chivalrous, but he could not but think that Miss Mercy, who was a trained nurse, must have changed greatly since she and Miss Gaskett were school-girls.

She wore a masculine hat with a quill in it and a woollen skirt that bagged at the knees like trousers. Her hair was thin at the temples, and she wore gold glasses astride her long, "foxy" nose. Although no average cake would have held the candles to which Miss Mercy's birthdays entitled her, she was given to "middy" blouses and pink sweaters.

"Merce has such a unique personality that I am sure you are going to enjoy her," beamed Miss Gaskett in presenting Wallie.

Wallie murmured that he had no doubt of it, and boosted Miss Mercy into the surrey.

With nothing further to detain them, Mr. Hicks swung his lash and the four went off at a gallop, with the cooking utensils in the rear rattling so that it sounded like a runaway milk-wagon.

He had been instructed to drive ahead and select a suitable place for the noon-day luncheon in order that everything should be in readiness upon their arrival, but to the others Wallie had suggested that they ride and drive more slowly to save the horses.

In spite of Wallie's request, however, Mr. Stott, seeing the cook getting ahead, started off at a gallop to overtake him. In no uncertain voice Wallie called to him.

"You will oblige me if you will ride more slowly," Wallie said, speaking very distinctly when Mr. Stott came back to ask what was wanted.

"Why, what's the matter?"

His feigned innocence added to Wallie's anger.

"I don't want that horse ruined."

"I am paying for him," Stott returned, insolently.

"I still own him, and it's my privilege to say how he shall be ridden."

Stott dropped back suddenly but Wallie foresaw trouble with him before the trip was finished, though he meant to hold his temper as long as possible.

The reprimand had a beneficial effect upon the other equestrians, who had contemplated dashing after Mr. Stott, but now concluded to jog along at a reasonable gait, working off their superfluous energy in asking questions. Did eagles really carry off children? And was the earth under the Yellowstone Park hollow?

In the surrey "Red" McGonnigle was putting forth his best efforts to entertain Aunt Lizzie and Miss Mercy, which he considered as much a part of his duties as driving.

A portion of the road was through a canon, cut from the solid rock in places, with narrow turnouts, and a precipitous descent of hundreds of feet to a sinister-looking green river roaring in the bottom.

"Now, here," said Mr. McGonnigle, as they entered it, lolling back in the seat and crossing his legs in leisurely fashion, "is where there's been all kinds of accee-dents."

He pointed with the stub of a buggy-whip:

"About there is where four horses on a coal-wagon run away and went over. Two was killed and one was crippled so they had to shoot it."

"Oh, how dread-ful!" Aunt Lizzie exclaimed, nervously.

Miss Mercy's contralto voice boomed at him:

"What happened to the driver?"

"His bones was broke in a couple of dozen places, but they picked him up, and sence, he has growed together."

Miss Mercy snickered.

"You see that p'int ahead of us? Onct a feller ridin' a bronc backed off there. They rolled two hundred feet together. Wonder it didn't kill 'em."

Aunt Lizzie was twisting her fingers and whispering:

"Oh, how dread-ful!"

"Jest around that bend," went on the entertainer, expectorating with deliberation before he continued, "a buggy tried to pass a hay-wagon. It was a brand-new buggy, cost all of $250, and the first time he'd took his family out in it. Smashed it to kindlin' wood. The woman threw the baby overboard and it never could see good out of one eye afterward. She caught on a tree when she was rollin' and broke four ribs, or some such matter. He'd ought to a-knowed better than to pass a hay-wagon where it was sidlin'. Good job, says I, fer havin' no judgment though I was one of his pall-bearers, as an accommodation."

Aunt Lizzie was beyond exclaiming, and Miss Mercy's toes were curling and uncurling, though she preserved a composed exterior.

After setting the brake, McGonnigle went on humorously, gesticulating spaciously while the slack of the lines swung on the single-tree:

"On this here hill the brake on a dude's automo-bubbly quit on him. When he come to the turn he went on over. Ruined the car, plumb wrecked it, and it must a cost $1,500 to $2,000. They shipped his corp' back East somewhere."

Pale, and shaking like an aspen, Aunt Lizzie clung tightly to Miss Mercy. The scenery was sublime, but they had no eye for it. Their gaze was riveted upon the edge of the precipice some six or eight inches from the outer wheels of the surrey, and life at the moment looked as sweet as it seemed uncertain.

Driving with one hand and pointing with the other, McGonnigle went on with the fluency for which he was celebrated:

"That sharp curve we're comin' to is where they was a head-on collision between a chap on a motorcycle and a traction en-jine they was takin' through the canon. He was goin' too fast, anyhow--the motorcycle--and it jest splattered him, as you might say, all over the front of the en-jine."

Mr. McGonnigle put the lines between his knees and gripped them while he readjusted his hat with one hand and pointed with the other:

"You see that hangin' rock? There where it sticks over? Well, sir, two cayuses tryin' to unload their packs bounced off there and----"

A shriek in his ear interrupted McGonnigle at this juncture. He turned, startled, to see Aunt Lizzie with her fingers in her ears screaming that she was going to have hysterics.

To prove that she was a woman of her word, she had them, while Mr. McGonnigle, utterly unconscious that he was the cause, regarded her in astonishment.

"She's got a fit," he said to Wallie, who hurried forward.

"He's scared her out of her wits," declared Miss Mercy, glaring at him.

"Me?"

"You! You're a careless driver. I don't believe you understand horses, and I shan't ride any further with you."

"Red" jammed the whip in its socket and wrapped the lines around it. Springing over the wheel he stood by the roadside and declared defiantly:

"I'm quittin'. Hate to leave you in a pinch, Wallie, but I take sass from no female. I'd ruther herd sheep than wrangle dudes, anyhow. I tried to be entertainin', and this is the thanks I git fer it."

"Nobody asked you to talk," Miss Mercy snapped at him.

Wallie succeeded in pacifying "Red" finally and suggested that he and Pinkey exchange places. Pinkey consented reluctantly, and "Red" climbed upon the seat of the bed-wagon with a dark look at the "female" who had questioned his knowledge of horses, while he mumbled something about "fixin' her."

By ten-thirty food was the chief topic of conversation, and everyone was keeping an eye out for Hicks and the "grub-wagon." At eleven the hilarity had simmered to monosyllables, and old Mr. Penrose, who always became incredibly cross when he was hungry, rode along with his face screwed up like a bad youngster that is being carried out of church for a spanking in the vestibule.

"I'm so weak I can scarcely sit in the saddle!" Mrs. J. Harry Stott snapped at Wallie as if she held him responsible.

"I'm simply ravenous--starving!" declared Mrs. Budlong. She also looked at him accusingly.

By eleven-thirty they were all complaining bitterly that the cook had been allowed to get so far ahead that they should all perish of hunger before they could overtake him. Mr. Stott galloped ahead as if he were pursued by hostile Indians to see if he could see Hicks, and galloped back again to say that he could not.

At twelve the animals in a zoo just before feeding time had "nothing on" The Happy Family when it came to ferocity, but they brightened immediately as they finally caught a glimpse of Hicks' camp-fire, and grew almost cheerful when they saw him cutting bread on the lowered tail-board of the wagon, where the lunch was waiting for them.

The spot he had selected could not truthfully be called ideal, viewed from any angle, since there was no shade and the sand, sizzling hot, reflected the glare of the mid-day sun as painfully as a mirror. None, however, had the temerity to offer any criticism to Mr. Hicks personally, for his vitriolic tongue had long since properly subjugated even the rambunctious attorney.

The "dudes" dismounted stiffly and stood at a respectful distance, sniffing the bubbling coffee and watching the cook slice ham with a knife that had a blade like the sword of a Crusader.

Mr. Hicks had an alert, suspicious manner as if he feared that someone would jump forward and snatch something before he had given the signal.

When the operation of bread-slicing was completed, Mr. Hicks stuck the point of the knife in the tail-board and, gripping the handle, struck a pose like that of the elder Salvini, while in a sonorous voice he enumerated the delicacies he had to offer. It sounded like a roll-call, and his tone was so imperative that almost one expected the pickles and cheese to answer--"present."

"Come and get it!" he finished, abruptly, and retired to sit down under sagebrush as if he were disgusted with food and people who ate it. There Wallie joined him and from the vantage point watched his guests eat their first meal in the open.

If there was one thing upon which The Happy Family at The Colonial had prided itself more than another it was upon its punctilious observance of the amenities. There were those among the "newcomers" who averred that they carried their elaborate politeness to a point which made them ridiculous. For example, when two or more met at the door of the elevator they had been known to stand for a full minute urging precedence upon the other, and no gentleman, however bald or susceptible to draughts, would converse with a lady with his head covered.

Now Wallie felt that his eyes must have deceived him when Mr. Budlong prodded Miss Eyester in the ribs with his elbow in his eagerness to get in ahead of her, while old Mr. Penrose reached a long arm over Aunt Lizzie Philbrick's shoulder and took away a piece of apple pie upon which she already had closed her fingers.

When Miss Gaskett and Mr. Appel chanced to select the same slice of ham neither seemed disposed to relinquish it but displayed considerable spirit as they pulled until it gave way in its weakest sector, leaving Mr. Appel with only an inch of fat between his thumb and finger. He regarded his portion with chagrin while Miss Gaskett went off triumphantly to make a sandwich.

Mr. Stott with his usual enterprise and shrewdness had gotten next to the tail-board, where he stood munching and reviewing the food with an eye to his next selection. He was astonished to see Miss Mercy's alpine hat rising, as it were, from the earth at his feet to crowd him from his desirable position. As she stood up she jabbed him in the nostril with the quill, and Mr. Stott gave ground before he realized it. Miss Mercy snickered in appreciation of the cleverness of her manoeuvre.

As Wallie observed them while waiting his opportunity to get a dill pickle or whatever crumb they might leave him, he thought grimly that if they had been without food for twenty-four hours instead of less than half a dozen, they would have been close to cannibalism. He, for one, would not care to be adrift in an open boat with Mrs. Budlong--hungry and armed with a hatchet--while Stott, he was sure would murder him for a frankfurter in those circumstances.

Aunt Lizzie, to whom accidents of an unusual nature seemed always to be happening, wandered off with a wedge of pie and a cup of coffee and sat down on an ant-hill.

While she sipped her coffee and drank in the scenery simultaneously, the inhabitants of the hill came out in swarms to investigate the monster who was destroying their home. They attacked her with the ferocity for which red ants are noted, and she dropped her pie and coffee and ran screaming to the wagon.

Fearful that she would be pursued by them, she got into the surrey, where she became involved in a quarrel with Miss Mercy, who was eating her lunch there.

Miss Mercy caught a butterfly that lighted on a seat-cover and pulled off first one wing and then the other in spite of Aunt Lizzie's entreaties. She dropped it on the bottom of the surrey and put her astonishingly large foot upon it.

"There," she snickered, "I squashed it."

Aunt Lizzie, to whom anything alive was as if it were human, wrung her hands in anguish.

"I think you are horrid!"

"What good is it?"

"What good are you, either? I shan't ride with you." Aunt Lizzie climbed into the third seat of the surrey, where she refused to answer Miss Mercy when she spoke to her.

The rest and food freshened the party considerably but by four o'clock they were again hungry and drooping in their saddles. Only Mr. Stott, endowed, as it seemed, with the infinite wisdom of the Almighty, retained his spirits and kept up an unending flow of instructive conversation upon topics of which he had the barest smattering of knowledge. Constantly dashing off on his part to investigate gulches and side trails caused Wallie's smouldering wrath to burn brighter, as the buckskin hourly grew more jaded.

Complaints increased that their horses were hard-gaited, and the voices of the ladies held plaintive notes as they declared their intention of riding in the surrey when they overtook it. Pinkey was stopped finally, and his passengers augmented by the addition of Mrs. Stott, Miss Gaskett, and Mrs. Budlong, who carefully folded their jackets to sit on.

At five o'clock Mr. Stott raced forward and returned to announce that Hicks had camped just around the bend of the river.

"You're wearing that horse out, Stott," said Wallie, coldly.

"He's feeling good--watch him!" cried the lawyer, gaily, putting spurs to the horse and disappearing.

It was a beautiful camping spot that Hicks had selected, though "Red" McGonnigle grumbled that it was not level enough for the teepees.

Old Mr. Penrose, who had fallen off his horse rather than dismounted, declared he was so tired that he could sleep on the teeth of a harrow, like a babe in its cradle.

"We'll be all right when we get seasoned," said Mr. Appel, cheerfully, hunting in his wife's handbag for the vaseline.

"You couldn't have a better place to start in at," "Red" commented, grimly.

On the whole, the day might be regarded as a pleasant one, and if the remainder of the trip equalled it, there was no doubt but that the party would return satisfied, which meant that they would advertise it and the next season would be even more successful.

Everyone carried wood to build a camp-fire after supper, but by the time they had it going they were too sleepy to sit up and enjoy it. They stumbled away to their several teepees with their eyes half closed and for the first time since they had known each other failed to say "pleasant dreams!" when separating for the night.

Mr. Stott lingered to regale Pinkey and Wallie for the fourteenth time with the story of the hoot-owl which had frightened him while hunting in Florida, but since it was received without much enthusiasm and he was not encouraged to tell another, he, too, retired to crawl between his blankets and "sleep on Nature's bosom" with most of his clothes on.

"I wouldn't wonder but that we'll have to hit him between the horns before the trip is over," Pinkey remarked, looking after Stott.

Wallie said nothing, but his face spoke for him.

Pinkey continued in a tone of satisfaction:

"Outside of him, everything's goin' splendid. The Yellowstone Park is the fightin'est place anybody ever heard of. I've seen life-time friends go in there campin' and come out enemies--each one sittin' on his own grub-box and not speakin'. But it don't look as if we was goin' to have any serious trouble--they're nice people."

"And they think the world of me," Wallie reiterated.

"I've been thinkin' I could lose the horses for two or three days and that would count up considerable. Ten dudes at $5.00 a day for three days, say---- Oh, we're sittin' pretty! We'll come out of this with a roll as big as a gambler's."

"It looks encouraging," Wallie replied more guardedly, though in his heart he was sharing Pinkey's optimism.

They kicked out the camp-fire and rolled up in their respective blankets, Pinkey to die temporarily, and Wallie to lie awake listening to the roar of the river and speculating as to whether Helene Spenceley had any special prejudice against the dude business.

Of course, he admitted, had he a choice in the matter, he would have preferred to have been an ambassador, a lawyer of international reputation, even a great artist; but for a start, as the foundation of a fortune, dudes were at least as good as herring.

With this consoling thought, Wallie turned over on a pillow which would have engaged the earnest attention of the most lax health officer, and fell into a contented slumber. _

Read next: Chapter 23. Rifts

Read previous: Chapter 21. "Worman! Worman!"

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