“Consumption, maybe—or snakes.” Weary smiled blandly across the table.
“She got a diploma, though. Now where do you get off at?”
“Yeah—that sure means she's a doctor,” groaned Cal.
“By golly, she needn't try t' pour any dope down ME,” cried a short, fat man who took life seriously—a man they called Slim, in fine irony.
“Gosh, I'd like to give her a real warm reception,” said Jack Bates, who had a reputation for mischief. “I know them Eastern folks, down t' the ground. They think cow-punchers wear horns. Yes, they do. They think we're holy terrors that eat with our six-guns beside our plates—and the like of that. They make me plum tired. I'd like to—wish we knew her brand.”
“I can tell you that,” said Chip, cynically. “There's just two bunches to choose from. There's the Sweet Young Things, that faint away at sight of a six-shooter, and squawk and catch at your arm if they see a garter snake, and blush if you happen to catch their eye suddenly, and cry if you don't take off your hat every time you see them a mile off.” Chip held out his cup for Patsy to refill.
“Yeah—I've run up against that brand—and they're sure all right. They suit ME,” remarked Cal.
“That don't seem to line up with the doctor's diploma,” commented Weary.
“Well, she's the other kind then—and if she is, the Lord have mercy on the Flying U! She'll buy her some spurs and try to rope and cut out and help brand. Maybe she'll wear double-barreled skirts and ride a man's saddle and smoke cigarettes. She'll try to go the men one better in everything, and wind up by making a darn fool of herself. Either kind's bad enough.”
“I'll bet she don't run in either bunch,” began Weary. “I'll bet she's a skinny old maid with a peaked nose and glasses, that'll round us up every Sunday and read tracts at our heads, and come down on us with both feet about tobacco hearts and whisky livers, and the evils and devils wrapped up in a cigarette paper. I seen a woman doctor, once—she was stopping at the T Down when I was line-riding for them—and say, she was a holy fright! She had us fellows going South before a week. I stampeded clean off the range, soon as my month was up.”
“Say,” interrupted Cal, “don't yuh remember that picture the Old Man got last fall, of his sister? She was the image of the Old Man—and mighty near as old.”
Chip, thinking of the morrow's drive, groaned in real anguish of spirit.
“You won't dast t' roll a cigarette comin' home, Chip,” predicted Happy Jack, mournfully. “Yuh want t' smoke double goin' in.”
“I don't THINK I'll smoke double going in,” returned Chip, dryly. “If the old girl don't like my style, why the walking isn't all taken up.”
“Say, Chip,” suggested Jack Bates, “you size her up at the depot, and, if she don't look promising, just slack the lines on Antelope Hill. The creams 'll do the rest. If they don't, we'll finish the job here.”
Shorty tactfully pushed back his chair and rose. “You fellows don't want to git too gay,” he warned. “The Old Man's just beginning to forget about the calf-shed deal.” Then he went out and shut the door after him. The boys liked Shorty; he believed in the old adage about wisdom being bliss at certain times, and the boys were all the better for his living up to his belief. He knew the Happy Family would stop inside the limit—at least, they always had, so far.
“What's the game?” demanded Cal, when the door closed behind their indulgent foreman.
“Why, it's this. (Pass the syrup, Happy.) T'morrow's Sunday, so we'll have time t' burn. We'll dig up all the guns we can find, and catch up the orneriest cayuses in our strings, and have a real, old lynching bee—sabe?”
“Who yuh goin' t' hang?” asked Slim, apprehensively. “Yuh needn't think I'LL stand for it.”
“Aw, don't get nervous. There ain't power enough on the ranch t' pull yuh clear of the ground. We ain't going to build no derrick,” said Jack, witheringly. “We'll have a dummy rigged up in the bunk house. When Chip and the doctor heave in sight on top of the grade, we'll break loose down here with our bronks and our guns, and smoke up the ranch in style. We'll drag out Mr. Strawman, and lynch him to the big gate before they get along. We'll be 'riddling him with bullets' when they arrive—and by that time she'll be so rattled she won't know whether it's a man or a mule we've got strung up.”
“You'll have to cut down your victim before I get there,” grinned Chip. “I never could get the creams through the gate, with a man hung to the frame; they'd spill us into the washout by the old shed, sure as fate.”
“That'd be all right. The old maid would sure know she was out West—we need something to add to the excitement, anyway.”
“If the Old Man's new buggy is piled in a heap, you'll wish you had cut out some of the excitement,” retorted Chip.
“All right, Splinter. We won't hang him there at all. That old cottonwood down by the creek would do fine. It'll curdle her blood like Dutch cheese to see us marching him down there—and she can't see the hay sticking out of his sleeves, that far off.”
“What if she wants to hold an autopsy?” bantered Chip.
“By golly, we'll stake her to a hay knife and tell her to go after him!” cried Slim, suddenly waking up to the situation.
The noon train slid away from the little, red depot at Dry Lake and curled out of sight around a hill. The only arrival looked expectantly into the cheerless waiting room, gazed after the train, which seemed the last link between her and civilization, and walked to the edge of the platform with a distinct frown upon the bit of forehead visible under her felt hat.
A fat young man threw the mail sack into a weather-beaten buggy and drove leisurely down the track to the post office. The girl watched him out of sight and sighed disconsolately. All about her stretched the rolling grass land, faintly green in the hollows, brownly barren on the hilltops. Save the water tank and depot, not a house was to be seen, and the silence and loneliness oppressed her.
The agent was dragging some boxes off the platform. She turned and walked determinedly up to him, and the agent became embarrassed under her level look.
“Isn't there anyone here to meet me?” she demanded, quite needlessly. “I am Miss Whitmore, and my brother owns a ranch, somewhere near here. I wrote him, two weeks ago, that I was coming, and I certainly expected him to meet me.” She tucked a wind-blown lock of brown hair under her hat crown and looked at the agent reproachfully, as if he were to blame, and the agent, feeling suddenly that somehow the fault was his, blushed guiltily and kicked at a box of oranges.
“Whitmore's rig is in town,” he said, hastily. “I saw his man at dinner. The train was reported late, but she made up time.” Grasping desperately at his dignity, he swallowed an abject apology and retreated into the office.
Miss Whitmore followed him a few steps, thought better of it, and paced the platform self-pityingly for ten minutes, at the end of which the Flying U rig whirled up in a cloud of dust, and the agent hurried out to help with the two trunks, and the mandolin and guitar in their canvas cases.
The creams circled fearsomely up to the platform and stood quivering with eagerness to be off, their great eyes rolling nervously. Miss Whitmore took her place beside Chip with some inward trepidation mingled with her relief. When they were quite ready and the reins loosened suggestively, Pet stood upon her hind feet with delight and Polly lunged forward precipitately.
The girl caught her breath, and Chip eyed her sharply from the corner of his eye. He hoped she was not going to scream—he detested screaming women. She looked young to be a doctor, he decided, after that lightning survey. He hoped to goodness she wasn't of the Sweet Young Thing order; he had no patience with that sort of woman. Truth to tell, he had no patience with ANY sort of woman.
He spoke to the horses