The Dude Wrangler Page 4

  CHAPTER IV

  THE BRAND OF CAIN

  There never was a nose so completely out of joint as Wallie's nor anowner more thoroughly humiliated and embittered by the fickleness andingratitude of human nature. The sacrifices he had made in escortingdull ladies to duller movies were wasted. The unfailing courtesy withwhich he had retrieved their yarn and handkerchiefs, the sympathy andattention with which he had listened to their symptoms, his solicitudewhen they were ailing--all were forgotten now that Pinkey was in thevicinity.

  The ladies swarmed around that person, quoted his sayings delightedly,and declared a million times in Wallie's hearing that "he was acharacter!" And the worst of it was that Helene Spenceley did not seemsufficiently aware of Wallie's existence even to laugh at him.

  As the displaced cynosure sat brooding in his room the third morningafter Pinkey's arrival he wished that he could think of some perfectlywell-bred way to attract attention.

  He believed in the psychology of clothes. Perhaps if he appeared on theveranda in something to emphasize his personality, something suggestingstrength and virility, like tennis flannels, he could regain his hold onhis audience.

  With this thought in mind Wallie opened his capacious closet filled withwearing apparel, and the moment his eyes fell upon his riding breecheshe had his inspiration. If "the girl from Wyoming" thought her friendPinkey 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 theRiding Academy on the telephone.

  "I want a good-looking mount--something spirited," he instructed theperson who answered.

  "We've just bought some new horses," the voice replied. "I'll send youthe pick of them."

  Wallie hung up the receiver, fairly trembling with eagerness to dresshimself and get down on the veranda. He looked well in ridingtogs--everyone mentioned it--and if he could walk out swinging his cropnonchalantly, well, they would at least _notice_ him! And when he wouldspring lightly into the saddle and gallop away--he saw it as plainly asif it were happening.

  Although Wallie actually broke his record he seemed to himself anunconscionable time in dressing, but when he gave himself a final surveyin the mirror, he had every reason to feel satisfied with the result. Hewas correct in every detail and he thought complacently that he couldnot but contrast favourably with the appearance of that "roughneck" fromMontana--or was it Wyoming?

  "What you taking such a hot day to ride for?" Mrs. Appel called when shecaught 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 andPinkey were on the veranda and regarding him with interest. His posebecame a little theatrical while he waited for his mount, striking hisriding boot smartly with his crop as he stood in full view of them.

  Everyone was interested when they saw the horse coming, and a fewsauntered over to have a look at him, Miss Spenceley and Pinkey amongthe 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 toride strange horses."

  Wallie laughed lightly, and as he went down to meet the groom who wasnow at the foot of the steps with the horses he assured her that therewas not the least cause for anxiety.

  "Why, that's a Western horse!" Miss Spenceley exclaimed. "Isn't that abrand 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 butpositively. "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 hiscracked 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 ridehorseback?"

  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,' ifyou'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 thestirrup.

  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 impliedthat 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 saidas 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 hisback, and went at it.

  It was over in less time than it requires to tell and Wallie wasconvinced beyond the question of a doubt that the horse had not beenbred in Kentucky. As he described an aerial circle Wallie had awhimsical notion that his teeth had bitten into his brain and his spinewas projected through the crown of his derby hat. Darkness and oblivioncame upon him for a moment, and then he found himself being liftedtenderly from a bed of petunias and dusted off by the groom from theRiding 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 mouthsand 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 thecorners. "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 yourfront yard a little."

  "Go to it!" cried Mr. Cone, whose sporting blood was up. "There'snothin' here that won't grow again. Ride him!"

  Everybody was trembling, and when Miss Eyester looked at her lips theywere white as alabaster, but she meant to see the riding, if she had oneof her sinking spells immediately it was over.

  When Pinkey swung into the saddle, the horse turned its head aroundslowly and looked at the leg that gripped him. Pinkey leaned down,unbuckled the throat-latch, and slipped off the bridle. Then, as hetouched the horse in the flank with his heels, he took off his cap andslapped him over the head with it.

  The horse recognized the familiar challenge and accepted it. What hehad done to Wallie was only the gambolling of a frisky colt as comparedwith 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 downstiff-legged--squealing
. Now with his head between his forelegs he shotup his hind hoofs and at an angle to require all the grip in his rider'sknees 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 hetried to throw his rider, rearing finally to fall backward and mash to apulp a bed of Mr. Cone's choicest tulips. But when the horse rose Pinkeywas with him, while the spectators, choking with excitement, forgettingthemselves and each other, yelled like Apaches.

  With nostrils blood-red and distended, his eyes the eyes of a wildanimal, now writhing, now crouching, now lying back on his haunches andspringing forward with a violence to snap any ordinary vertebra, thehorse 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 theterrible jar of it all. Even the uninitiated could see that Pinkey wasweakening, and the result was doubtful, when, suddenly, the horse gaveup and stampeded. He crashed through the trellis over which Mr. Cone hadcarefully trained his crimson ramblers, tore through a neat border ofmignonette and sweet alyssum that edged the driveway, jumped through"snowballs," lilacs, syringas, and rhododendrons to come to a haltfinally conquered and chastened.

  The "88" brand has produced a strain famous throughout Wyoming for itsbuckers, and this venerable outlaw lived up to every tradition of hisyouth and breeding.

  There never was worse bucking nor better riding in a Wild West Show orout of it, and Mr. Appel declared that he had not been so stirred sincethe 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 kittensthat look like kittens and disputed the path with a black-and-whiteanimal which proved not to be.

  Mrs. C. D. Budlong was shedding tears like a crocodile, without moving afeature. Mr. Budlong put the lighted end of a cigar in his mouth andburned his tongue to a blister, while Miss Eyester dropped into a chairand had her sinking spell and recovered without any one remarking it. Inan abandonment that was like the delirium of madness Mr. Cone went inand lifted Miss Gaskett's cat "Cutie" out of the plush rocker, where shewas leaving hairs on the cushion, and surreptitiously kicked her.

  Altogether it was an unforgettable occasion, and only Pinkey seemedunthrilled by it--he dismounted in a businesslike, matter-of-fact mannerthat had in it neither malice toward the horse nor elation at havingridden him. He felt admiration, if anything, for he said as he rubbedthe horse's forehead:

  "You shore made me ride, Old Timer! You got all the old curves and somenew ones. If I had a hat I'd take it off to you. I ain't had such achurnin' sence I set 'Steamboat' fer fifteen seconds. Oh, hullo----" asWallie advanced with his hand out.

  "I congratulate you," said Wallie, feeling himself magnanimous in viewof 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 mostpatronizing and priggish manner. He found it very hard to be generous,with Helene Spenceley listening.

  "It seemed so, after _your_ performance, 'Gentle Annie'!" snapped MissSpenceley.

  Actually the woman seemed to spit like a cat at him! She had the tongueof a serpent and a vicious temper. He hated her! Wallie removed his hatwith exaggerated politeness and decided never to have anything more tosay to Miss Spenceley.