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The Dude Wrangler, a novel by Caroline Lockhart |
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Chapter 25. "And Just Then----" |
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_ CHAPTER XXV. "AND JUST THEN----" Mr. Cone stood at his desk, looking all of ten years younger for his rest at the Sanatorium. Indeed, it was difficult to reconcile this smiling, affable host of the Magnolia House with the glaring maniac of homicidal tendencies who had hung over the counter of The Colonial Hotel, fingering the potato pen-wiper and hurling bitter personalities at his patrons. The Florida hostelry had just opened and the influx of guests promised a successful season, yet there was a regret and a wistfulness in Mr. Cone's brown eyes as they scanned the register, for in the long list there was no name of any member of The Happy Family. As all the world knows, sentiment has no place in business, yet for sentimental reasons solely Mr. Cone had to date refused to rent to strangers the rooms occupied for so many winters by the same persons. Ordinarily, it was so well understood between them that they would return and occupy their usual quarters that he reserved their rooms as a matter of course and they notified him only when something occurred to change their plans or detain them. But this winter, owing to the circumstances in which they had parted, his common sense told him that if they intended to return to the Magnolia House they would have so informed him. Nevertheless, so strong were the ties of friendship that Mr. Cone determined to give them forty-eight hours longer, and if by then he had no word from them, of course there was nothing to think but that the one-time pleasant relations were ended forever. There were strangers aplenty, the "newcomers" had arrived, and Miss Mary Macpherson, but he wanted to see Henry Appel sitting on his veranda, and Mrs. Budlong and "C. D.," and Miss Mattie Gaskett--in fact, he missed one not more than another. What did it matter, after all, he reflected, if "Cutie" had kittens in the linen closet, and that Mrs. Appel used the hotel soap to do her laundry? As Mr. Cone looked off across the blue waters of the Gulf, which he could see through the wide open doorway, he wished with all his heart that he had not "flown off the handle." The Happy Family had been friends as well as patrons, and without friends what did life amount to? The hotel was full of new people, but in spite of his professional affability Mr. Cone was not one to "cotton" to everybody, and it would be a long time, he told himself sadly, before these old friends could be replaced in his affections. He would have listened gladly to the story of how Mr. Appel got his start in life; he was hungry for the sight of Mrs. C. D. Budlong sitting like a potted oleander; he would have welcomed---- Mr. Cone's generous ears seemed suddenly to quiver, almost they went forward like those of a startled burro. A voice--obstinate, cantankerous--a voice that could belong to no one on earth but old Mr. Penrose, was engaged outside in a wrangle with a taxi-cab driver! Before Mr. Cone could get around the desk and at the door to greet him, Mr. Penrose was striding across the office with the porter behind him, round-shouldered under the weight of two portmanteaux and a bag of golf clubs. Mr. Penrose was the same, yet different in an elusive way that Mr. Cone could not define exactly. There was an air about him which on the spur of the moment he might have called "brigandish"--the way he wore his hat, a slight swagger, a something lawless that surely he never had acquired in his peach orchard in Delaware. When Mr. Penrose extended his hand across the counter Mr. Cone noticed that he was wearing a leather bracelet. As they greeted each other like reunited brothers there was nothing in the manner of either to indicate that they had parted on any but the happiest terms, though Mr. Penrose's gaze wavered for an instant when he asked: "Is my room ready?" "Since the day before yesterday," replied Mr. Cone, turning to the key-rack. Then generously: "What kind of a summer did you have? I trust, a pleasant one." Mr. Penrose's faded eyes grew luminous. His voice quavered with eager enthusiasm as he ignored the efforts of the bell-boy to draw his attention to the fact that he was waiting to open his room for him. "Superb! Magnificent! A wonderful experience! The Land of Adventure! Cone," Mr. Penrose peered at him solemnly from under his bushy eyebrows, "I know what it is to look into the jaws of Death, literally!" Mr. Penrose could look into Mr. Cone's jaws also, for he was so impressive that the lower one dropped automatically. He added: "I am thankful to be alive to tell the story." "You don't mean it!" "Yes. Alone, unarmed, I defended myself against an attack from one of the savage grizzlies of the Rocky Mountains." Mr. Cone's eyes were as round as a child's awaiting a fairy tale. If Mr. Penrose had needed encouragement they would have furnished it. He continued: "We were camped near the Canon Hotel where the bears swarm--swarm like flies over the garbage. A remarkable sight. It was a very dark night--so dark, in fact, that I hesitated to go to my teepee, which was placed apart that I might not be disturbed by the others. I must have my rest, as you will remember. "I had been asleep only a few minutes when I was awakened by the feeling that something was happening. It was. My tent was moving--actually bounding over rocks and hummocks. "Believing myself the victim of a practical joke, I sprang out and brought my fish-pole down on what I supposed to be the head of a fellow disguised in a big overcoat. There was a roar that was plainly heard for miles, and a monster grizzly struck at me. "If it had not been for my presence of mind, that would have been the end of me. Now it was all that saved me. As the bear, on his hind legs, came toward me with his arms outstretched, to grapple, I ducked and came up between them, and so close to his body that he was unable to sink his terrible claws into me. "He let out another roar--simply appalling--it will ring in my ears forever--almost deafened me. Again my remarkable presence of mind came to my rescue. I reached up and held his jaws open. It was my purpose to dislocate the lower one, if possible. "For fifteen minutes--twenty--perhaps--we fought desperately. Writhing, struggling, I could feel the brute's hot breath on my face and his lolling tongue dripped saliva. Finally, his heavy breathing told me he was getting winded, and I knew that if my strength did not fail me I should be the victor. Fortunately, I was in splendid physical condition. Not once did I lose my presence of mind in this terrible crisis. I was as calm as I am this minute, while the bear was letting out roars of rage and pain that curdled the blood of those who heard them. "At last I made a superhuman effort and backed the brute up against a tree. Gripping his nose and jaw, I had doubled up my leg and thrust my knee into his stomach, which was of course cruel punishment--when, just then----" A slight cough made Mr. Penrose turn quickly. Miss Mattie Gaskett, whose eyes were nearly as large as Mr. Cone's at this version of the encounter, was standing behind him with "Cutie" in a wicker basket. Mr. Penrose looked disconcerted for a moment, and then that presence of mind of which he boasted came to his assistance and he said ingratiatingly: "This young lady will vouch for the fact that my clothes were in shreds--ribbons----" "Why--er--yes, you had lost your shirt bosom," Miss Gaskett agreed, doubtfully. Remarking that he would finish the story when Mr. Cone had more leisure, Mr. Penrose "skedaddled" after the bell-boy with unmistakable alacrity. "And how is kitty?" inquired Mr. Cone, beaming upon Miss Gaskett. "Did you take her with you this summer?" As he lifted the cover and looked in the basket, "Cutie's" pupils enlarged and she shrank from him. "Cutie" had a good memory. "Luckily for her I did not," Miss Gaskett answered. "If I had, I should have lost her." "Lost her?" "Coyotes." "They would have eaten her?" Miss Gaskett nodded. "Undoubteely. They were thick as anything. They howled hideously every morning before sunrise, and it was not safe to leave one's tent at night without a weapon." "Whew!" Mr. Cone's lips puckered in a whistle. His astonishment inspired Miss Gaskett to continue: "Yes, indeed! And once when I was out walking ever so far from everybody I met one face to face. My first impulse was to run, but I thought if I did so it might attack me, so, trying not to show that I was frightened, I picked up a stick, and just then----" Seeing that Mr. Cone's gaze wandered, Miss Gaskett paused to learn the cause of it. She flushed as she found that Mrs. Budlong, with a smile wreathing her face, was listening to the recital. "I'll tell you the rest when you are not so busy," Miss Mattie said, taking her key from Mr. Cone hastily. Mrs. Budlong declared that her pleasure equalled his own when Mr. Cone expressed his delight at seeing her, and there was no thought on the minds of either as to the hotel rules she had violated or the food she had carried away from the table in the front of her blouse and her reticule. "You are looking in splendid health, Mrs. Budlong," he asserted, quite as if that lady ever had looked otherwise. "Yes, the change benefited me greatly." A stranger might have gathered from the plaintive note in her voice that prior to her trip she had been an invalid. "You, too, found the Western country interesting?" "Oh, very! At heart, Mr. Cone, I am a Child of Nature, and the primitive always appeals to me strongly," Mrs. Budlong hesitated and seemed debating. Having made her decision she asked in an undertone: "I can trust you?" "Absolutely," replied Mr. Cone with emphasis, which intimated that the torture chamber could not wring from him any secret she chose to deposit. "I had a very peculiar experience in the Yellowstone. I should never mention it, if you were not more like a brother to me than a stranger. It is altogether shocking." Mr. Cone's eyes sparkled. "Purely in a spirit of adventure, I took a bath in a beaver dam. It was in a secluded spot, and so well protected that I went in--er--I did not wear my bathing suit. The birds twittered. The arched trees made a green canopy above me. The sunshine sparkled on the placid bosom of the water. A gentle breeze, warm, sweet-scented, caressed me as I drank in the beauty of the scene. "Then I plunged in--the temperature was warmer than tepid--delightful. I felt like a nymph, a water-sprite, or something, as I swam out to the middle and found a footing. The bottom was rather oozy, and there were green patches floating on the surface, otherwise it was ideal. "Noticing a brown spot on my arm, I touched it. It was squashy and pulpy. Then it moved! A leech--and it sunk a million feet into me as soon as I attempted to remove it. I was black with them, if you will believe me, literally covered. Repulsive, disgusting--blood-suckers, sucking my blood like vacuum-cleaners, Mr. Cone! Imagine my horror." Mr. Cone tried to. "Another woman would have screamed or fainted," Mrs. Budlong continued, "but I come of different stock, and ancestry will tell at such moments. I am a Daughter of the Revolution and my father fought all through the Civil War as a sutler. Not a sound passed my lips as I got back to shore, somehow, and, weak from loss of blood, sank down to consider how to get rid of the leeches. "In emergencies I am a resourceful woman. Recalling that I had a match--only one little match--in my sweater pocket, it occurred to me that I might build a smudge and smoke them off. I scraped some leaves together, struck my match, and, just then----" But just then Mr. Budlong, who had stopped to look after the trunks, scuffled in the doorway, and in his eagerness to greet him Mr. Cone forgot completely the narrative Mrs. Budlong was reciting for his benefit. Nor did he ever hear its termination. Even as the proprietor stood at his desk wondering if the later train had brought any more prodigals, a commotion on the veranda was followed by the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Appel. Mr. Appel was using a stick and walking with such difficulty that Mr. Cone hurried forward and asked with real solicitude: "My dear friend, whatever is the matter? Has your old enemy Rheumatism again got his clutches on you?" "Rheumatism!" Mr. Appel snorted. "You lie on your back with 2,000 pounds on top of you and see how you like it!" Mr. Cone was puzzled, and said so. Mr. Appel explained tersely: "A bear walked on me--that's all that happened. A silvertip stood on the pit of my stomach and ground his heel into me." "Tsch! tsch! tsch!" Mr. Cone's eyes were popping. "If it were not for the fact that I'm quick in the head my wife would be a widow. I was in my sleeping bag and saw the bear coming. I knew what was going to happen, and that I had one chance in a thousand. It flashed through my mind that a horned toad when threatened with danger will inflate itself to such an extent that a wagon may pass over it, leaving the toad uninjured. I drew a deep breath, expanded my diaphragm to its greatest capacity, and lay rigid. It was all that saved me." Again Mr. Cone's tongue against his teeth clicked his astonishment at this extraordinary experience, and while he congratulated Mr. Appel upon his miraculous escape he noted that he was wearing souvenirs of his trip in the way of an elk-tooth scarf-pin and a hat-band of braided horse hair. The same train had brought Mrs. J. Harry Stott apparently, for the elevator was barely closed upon the victim of the picturesque accident to which Mr. Cone had just listened, when the office was illumined by her gracious presence. The last time that lady had extended a supine hand it had been to offer him one of the most serious affronts that can befall a self-respecting landlord; now the hand contained only cordiality, and in that spirit Mr. Cone took it. "You enjoyed your summer?" As Mr. Cone passed the pen for her to register. "Delightful! Altogether unique! Do you know, Mr. Cone, I never before have fully appreciated my husband--his splendid courage?" "Is that so?" Mr. Cone replied with polite interest. "Yes, when put to the test he was magnificent. You see, we had a cook, oh, a most offensive--a rully violent and dangerous person. In fact, it was because of him that I left the party prematurely. "It was plain that both Wallie and Pinkey were afraid of him, and dared not discharge him, so, one day when he had been more objectionable than usual, my husband took things into his own hands--he simply had to! "Hicks--his name was Hicks--was disrespectful when Mr. Stott reprimanded him for something, and then he attempted to strike my husband with a pair of brass knuckles. Brass knuckles, it seems, are not a gentleman's weapon, and the cowardly attack so infuriated Mr. Stott that he knocked the bully down and took them away from him. He still has them. Before he let him up he pummelled him well, I assure you. Mr. Stott doesn't know how strong he is when angry. Such muscles! "He punished the cook until he begged for mercy and promised to do better. But as soon as he was on his feet he tried to stab my husband with a bread-knife. Fancy! Mr. Stott took this away from him, also, and ran him down the road with it. He ran him for seven miles--seven miles, mind you! The cook was nearly dead when Mr. Stott let up on him. I had to drag this story from my husband, little by little. But wasn't it exciting?" Mr. Cone, who never had thought of Mr. Stott as such a warrior, tried to visualize the episode, and though he failed to do so he was greatly impressed by it. He stood for some time after Mrs. Stott had left him, reflecting enviously that his life was dull and uneventful, and that he must seem a poor stick to the heroes and heroines of such adventures. He wished that he could think of some incident in his past to match these tales of valour, but as he looked back the only thing that occurred to him was the occasion upon which the laundress had stolen the cooking sherry and gone to sleep in her chemise on the front veranda. She had fought like a tiger when the patrol wagon came for her, and he had been the one to hold her feet as she was carried to it. At the time he had been congratulated upon the able and fearless manner in which he had met the emergency, but a bout with an intoxicated laundress, though it had its dangers, seemed a piffling affair as compared to a hand-to-hand combat with a grizzly. Gazing absently through the doorway and comforting himself by thinking that perhaps he, too, had latent courage which would rise to heights of heroism in propitious circumstances, he did not see Miss Eyester, who had come in the side entrance, until she stood before him. He had not expected Miss Eyester, because she was usually employed during the winter, and it was only when a well-to-do relative sent her a check that she could afford a few weeks in Florida. But Miss Eyester was one of his favourites, and he immediately expressed the hope that she was to stay the entire season, while he noticed that she was wearing a mounted bear-claw for a hat-pin. "No," she replied, blushing. Not until then had Mr. Cone observed the Montana diamond flashing on her finger. "Ah-h?" He raised his eyebrows inquiringly. Miss Eyester nodded. "In January." "A Western millionaire, I venture?" he suggested playfully. "A stockman." "Indeed?" A new respect was in Mr. Cone's manner. "Cattle?" "Sheep," replied Miss Eyester, proudly. "Mr. Fripp is herding at present." * * * * * In a week Mr. Cone was as familiar with the glorious summer which The Happy Family had spent in the West as if he had been there. Although he knew the story by heart he still thrilled when Mr. Penrose backed the bear up against a tree and separated its jaws until it "moaned like a human." He continued to listen with flattering attention to the recital of the intrepid spinster who would have given battle to a hungry coyote if it had attacked her, as he did to the account of Mr. Stott's reckless courage in putting to flight a notorious outlaw who had hired out as a cook for some sinister purpose. But, gradually, Mr. Cone began to detect discrepancies, and he noticed also that the descriptions not only varied but grew more hair-raising with repetition. Also, he guessed shrewdly that the reason the members of The Happy Family never contradicted one another was that they dared not. The day came, finally, when Mr. Cone found it not only expedient but necessary to arrange a signal with the operator at the switchboard for certain contingencies. A close observer might have noticed that a preliminary "That reminds me" was invariably followed by an imperative announcement from the operator that Mr. Cone was wanted on the telephone. A haste which resembled flight frequently marked the departure of other guests when a reminiscence seemed threatening until, forsooth, the time arrived when they had only themselves for audience and their "That reminds me" became "Do you remember?" The only wonder was, to those less travelled, that The Happy Family ever had brought themselves to leave that earthly paradise in Wyoming, even for the winter. The only person whom their enthusiasm did not weary was Miss Mary Macpherson, because directly and indirectly it all redounded to the credit of her nephew, whom she now carefully called Wallace, as more befitting the dignity of a successful "Dude Wrangler" than the diminutive. Wallie's refusal to accept her offer had brought tears of disappointment to the eyes of the lonely woman, yet secretly she respected his pride and boasted to strangers of his independence. "My nephew, Wallace Macpherson--you may have heard of him? He has large interests in Wyoming. Went West without a penny, practically; too proud to accept help from any one--that's the Macpherson of it--and now, they tell me, he is one of the important men of the country." She was sometimes tempted to mention the extent of his holdings, and put the acreage well up into the thousands, but since Miss Macpherson was a truthful woman with a sensitive conscience, she contented herself with declaring, merely: "My nephew, Wallace Macpherson, has a large ranch, oh, a very large place--several days' ride around it." He was all she had, and blood is far thicker than water. She was hungry for a sight of him, and every day increased her yearning. While letters from him now arrived regularly, he said nothing in any of them of coming to Florida. His extensive interests, she presumed, detained him, and he was too good a business man to neglect affairs that needed him. She had promised to go to him next summer, but next summer was a long way off and there were times when she was strongly tempted to make the journey in winter in spite of the northern blizzards of which, while fanning themselves, they read with gusto. A blizzard was raging at present, according to the paper from which Mr. Appel was reading the headlines aloud to the group on the veranda. All trains were stalled west of the Mississippi and there was three feet of snow on the level in Denver. "That reminds me----" Only too well Mr. Cone knew what Mr. Budlong's remark portended. The hotel proprietor was having an interesting conversation with Mrs. Appel upon the relative merits of moth-preventatives, but he arose abruptly. Mr. Budlong squared away again. "That reminds me that I was wondering this morning how deep the snow would be at that point where Mr. Stott slid down the glacier in the gold-pan. By the way, Mr. Cone, have you heard that story? It's a good one." Edging toward the doorway, Mr. Cone fairly chattered in his vehemence: "Oh, yes--yes--yes!" Mr. Penrose interrupted eagerly: "The drifts must be about forty feet high on that stretch south of The Lolabama. There's a gap in the mountain where the wind comes through a-whoopin'. I mean the place where the steer chased Aunt Lizzie--did any one ever tell you that yarn, Cone?" Mr. Cone, with one foot over the door-sill and clinging to the jamb, as if he half expected they would wrench him loose and make him go back and listen, answered with unmistakable irony: "I think I recall having heard someone mention it." It required more than irony to discourage Mr. Penrose, however, and he insisted petulantly: "Come on back here, Cone! I'll explain just how Wallie jumped that steer and went to the ground with him. It's worth listening to twice." Twice! Mr. Cone had heard it more times than he had fingers and toes. "The telephone's ringing," he pleaded. "Go answer it, then; looks like you'd want to learn something!" Miss Macpherson had heard the story an even greater number of times than Mr. Cone, but now she urged Mr. Penrose to repeat it, and he did so with such spirit and so vividly that she shuddered almost continuously through the telling. He concluded by asserting emphatically that if it had not been for his foresight in providing himself with field-glasses, the steer would have been running over the flat with Aunt Lizzie empaled on its horns like a naturalist's butterfly, before any one could have prevented it. Mr. Appel opined, when Mr. Penrose had finished, that "Canby made a poor showing." "I could have done as well myself if I had been able to get there." He added speculatively: "I suppose Canby and Miss Spenceley are engaged by now--or married. Wallie hasn't mentioned it in his letters, has he?" Miss Macpherson replied in the negative. "He might not, anyway," remarked Mrs. Appel. "Helene was a nice girl, and attractive, but I could see that she did not interest him." Mrs. Budlong, who had one eye closed trying to thread a needle without her glasses, observed succinctly: "Men are funny." She intended to qualify her statement by saying that some are funnier than others, only, before she had time to do so, an exclamation from Miss Macpherson attracted her attention. Following Miss Macpherson's unbelieving stare she saw Helene and Wallie getting out of the motor-bus with a certain air which her experienced eye recognized as "married." Mrs. Budlong specialized in detecting newly wedded people and she was seldom mistaken. Her cleverness along this line sometimes amounted to clairvoyancy, but, in this instance, no one needed to be supernaturally gifted to recognize the earmarks, for no man could look so radiantly happy as Wallie unless he had inherited a million dollars--or married the girl he wanted. Miss Mary Macpherson threw her arms about her nephew's neck and kissed him with an impetuosity seemingly incompatible with a lady who wore a high starched collar in summer, and the others welcomed him with a sincerity and warmth which made his eyes grow misty. It was hard to believe, as he looked at them beaming upon him in genuine fondness, that only a few short months before they had been barely speaking to him, or that he had wished The Happy Family had, as the saying is, a single neck that he might wring it. Above the volley of questions and chatter he heard old Mr. Penrose's querulous voice reproaching him: "I hope you have the grace to be ashamed of yourself for not telling us, Wallace!" "If I look sheepish," Wallie replied, smiling, "it may be due to the nature of my new occupation. You see," in reply to their looks of inquiry, "Canby bought me out, to get rid of me, and for a far more munificent sum than I ever expected. I re-invested, and am now," with mock dignity, "a wool-grower--with one Mr. Fripp engaged as foreman." Wallie's eyes twinkled as he added: "I trust that the percentage of loss will not be so great as in the dude business." [THE END] _ |
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