CHAPTER VII
THE QUEEN AT HOME
The Bat Wing ranch, with its big white house on the hill, its whirlingwindmill, its tank that spread out like a lake and gleamed like liquidsilver, its pole corrals, its adobe houses half shaded by wind-tossedcottonwoods, was one of the most sightly in Arizona. The yellow-whitesheen of the bunch grass made the distance seem fair and inviting; atsunset the saw-toothed summits of the Tortugas changed to blues andpurples and mysterious, canon-deep black; the heavy bunches of sacatonout in the horse pasture gleamed white in the evening glow. Many riderspassed by that way, rigged out in the finery of their kind, and most ofthem took it all in--and yet, at times, the place looked kind of bareand tame.
Bowles was a stranger to those parts and he admired the landscapemightily; but to him too it seemed a little bare. It needed a dash ofcolor, a vigorous girlish figure in the foreground, to give it the lastvivid touch. But the queen, of course, must be humored--let the picturewait! So Bowles waited, along with the rest of the bunch, and in theevening while they were at their supper the Queen of the Bat Wing came.At the Wordsworth Society she had been stunningly gowned in a creationwhich Bowles would not soon forget; on the train she had worn a tailoredtraveling dress, very severe and becoming, the only note of defiancebeing in the hat, which was her Western sombrero with a veil to take offthe curse. But now the trimming was gone, and a silver-buckled,horsehair band took its place. Dixie May was back on her own range andshe wore what clothes she pleased!
First there was the hat, a trim, fifteen-dollar Stetson held on by astrap that lapped behind; then a white shirt-waist to supply the touchof color; a divided skirt of golden-brown corduroy; and high-heeledcowboy boots, very tiny, and supplied with silver-mounted spurs, ornatewith Mexican conchos. She wore a quirt on her wrist, and her hair inIndian braids, and a fine coat of newly acquired tan on her cheeks.
A silence fell on the squatting punchers as she ran lightly down fromthe house; one or two of them ducked out of sight as she passed throughthe gate, but the rest sat motionless, stoically feeding themselves withtheir knives, and waiting for the queen to pass. Only Bowles, the manfrom the East, rose up and took off his hat; but Dixie Lee rememberedher promise, and never so much as looked at him.
"ONLY BOWLES, THE MAN FROM THE EAST, ROSE AND TOOK OFFHIS HAT"]
"Hello, Brig," she said, singling out the blushing Brigham for a teasinggrin. "'Evening, Mr. Mosby. Say, Maw sent me down to look for someeggs--she wants to make a cake for these worthless punchers before sheinvites 'em up to hear the phonograph."
"Well, well, Miss Dix," responded the cook, shuffling and ill at ease."I'm afraid yore maw is goin' to be disapp'inted. If you can find anyeggs around here, you're welcome to 'em. _I_ ain't got none hidout--that's all I'll say."
"Oh, I know where they go to, Mr. Mosby," replied Dixie Lee, showing herwhite teeth in a knowing smile. "If a man will suck eggs, he'llsteal--you know that saying yourself--and I can tell by the shellsaround the fire here what's going on o' nights."
"Oh, that's that big fat Brigham Clark!" spoke up Hardy Atkins. "Youdon't want to judge the whole outfit by _him_!"
At this bare-faced libel Bowles cleared his throat to speak. He hadnoticed particularly on the evening before that the eggs were brought inby Happy Jack and Hardy Atkins himself; but before he could enter aprotest a general rumble of laughter set him back to a thinking part.
"Yes, sir!" observed Buck Buchanan, speaking to the world at large."That feller sucks aigs worse'n a setter pup."
"An' he don't deny it none, neither," commented Happy Jack, as poorBrigham blushed deeper and hung his head.
"Jest born that way, I reckon," remarked Poker-face in a tone of pity;and then the whole outfit broke into a whoop of laughter. It was a newform of jesting to Bowles, and he retired to the shelter of thewood-pile. A sudden gloom had come over his soul, and it even affectedhis appetite, whetted keen by the cold, thin air. Of course, Dixie Leehad told him she would do so, but it seemed rather heartless not to lookat him. He sat down with his back against the jagged juniper stubs andlistened sullenly, while the punchers chuckled in front of him andcontinued to eat with their knives.
"Aw, Brig's jest bashful, that's all," explained some simple-mindedjoker, after every one else had had his say; and as his hollow laughterrose up, Bowles wondered dimly why Brigham did not retort. The eveningbefore, when he was telling stories around the fire, he had returned aRoland for an Oliver until even Hardy Atkins had been content to quit;but now he confined himself to self-conscious mutterings andexhortations to shut up. Perhaps the simple-minded joker was right--poorBrigham was bashful.
But Dixie Lee had come down to get some eggs and she did not allow camppersiflage to divert her from her purpose.
"Well, say," she said, getting up from the cook's private seat, "I camedown to hunt for eggs--who wants to help me?"
"That's where I shine!" cried Hardy Atkins, throwing his tin plate intothe washtub with a great clatter. "They's a nest around hyer in thewood-pile!"
He capered around the end of the wood-pile, and soon Bowles could hearhim panting as he forced his way in between the crooked sticks.
"Hyer they are!" he shouted at last. "I got a whole hatful--somebodypull me out by the laig!"
There was a ripple of high-pitched laughter from Dixie Lee, an intervalin which Bowles cursed his fate most heartily, and then a frantic outcryfrom Hardy:
"Hey, there, don't pull so fast! You Dix, you'll break my aigs! Well,laugh, then, doggone it! Now see what you went and done!"
A general shout of laughter followed, and Hardy Atkins, his lips poutedout to play the fool, and his eyes rolling to catch their laughter, cameambling around the wood-pile with a hat that looked like an amateurconjurer's after the celebrated egg trick. But there were enough wholeones left to make a cake, and Happy Jack came galloping in with a hatfulfrom his own private cache; so everybody laughed, though Brigham lookedon sourly enough. A rapid fire of barbed jests followed; then, with hertwo admirers behind her and the others gazing dumbly on, Dixie Lee ranlightly back to the house, and Bowles had had his first lookin on ranchsociety. It did not look so good to him, either, and yet--well, just asDixie May turned away she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.To be sure, it was one of Hardy Atkins' raw jokes at which she waslaughing, but somehow a golden glow crept into the sunset, and ranchsociety did not seem so bad.
Five minutes later Dixie Lee was down at the corral bridling awhite-faced roan, and soon, with Happy Jack for an escort, she wasgalloping away to the east where, like glowworms in the dusk, thescattered lights of settlers' houses showed the first beginnings of aneighborhood. The phonograph was going to play in the big house thatevening, and all the "nesters" were invited.
No one had been more outraged than Henry Lee when the first nesters camein on his range; but latterly he had come to regard them tolerantly aspoor, misguided creatures, slightly touched in the head on the subjectof high-and-dry farming. Having seen a few hundred of them starve outand move on, he had accepted them as a necessary evil, and deemed it nomore than right, if the women-folks wanted to invite them, to ask thefew nearest ones to the house and help them forget their misery. So thewhole-souled Dixie May was off to call in the company while the cowboyswere scraping their beards off and dolling up for the dance.
It was Saturday night, as a matter of fact, and though all days arealike to a puncher his evenings are his own around the ranch. One by onethe socially backward and inept caught the fever and began to searchtheir war-bags for silk handkerchiefs and clean shirts. Only Brighamremained recalcitrant, and no argument could induce him to shave.
"I was on the wrangle last night," he complained, as the forehanded onescame back to argue the matter, "and I'm short on my sleep. Say, lemmebe, can't ye--what difference does it make to you fellers, anyway? Theywon't be girls enough to go around, nohow!"
"Well, come up and hear the music," urged the Bar Seven stray man, whowanted him for company.
"Mr
s. Lee invited you, Brig," reminded Gloomy Gus, who believed thatevery man should do his duty.
"Aw, it's too late to do anything now," grumbled Brigham, beginning atlast to weaken. "And my beard is a fright, too!"
"Soak it in hot water, then!" cried Bar Seven enthusiastically. "Comeon, fellers; let's make 'im do it! It ain't right--a nice lady like Mrs.Lee! She'll think you're 'shamed because you done stole them aigs!"
"I did not!" denied Brigham hotly.
"Well, come along, then!" countered Bar Seven triumphantly, "or the boyswill be tellin' everybody!"
So the last unwilling victim was cajoled into going, and at a cheerysummons from Dixie May they marched up the hill in a body. It was tooearly yet for the nester girls to appear, and while they were waitingfor the dance to begin the twenty or more punchers wedged into the bigfront room and settled down to hear the phonograph. A cattle ranchwithout a phonograph nowadays is as rare as a cow outfit without amouth-organ; but the Lees had a fine one, that would play for dances ona scratch, and a rack piled high with classic records. Mrs. Lee satbeside it, and after welcoming the self-conscious cowboys she asked themwhat they would have.
"The barnyard one!" somebody called; and as the cow mooed, the pigsquealed, and the hired girl called the chickens, the cowboys laughedand forgot their feet. Then Caruso sang a high one, caught his breathand expired, and the company shifted in their seats. That was notexactly their style.
"What's the matter with the dog fight?" cried a voice from the corner;and Mrs. Lee, who had dreams of elevating their taste, sat undecided,with the sextet from _Lucia_ in her hand.
"Perhaps you would like the _Anvil Chorus_," she suggested by way of aconcession.
"No, the dog fight!" clamored Hardy Atkins from the same corner. Then,quoting from the well-known favorite, he inquired in up-stage Irish:"'Will some sport kindly let Mr. Ho-ogan, the time-keeper, hold hiswatch?'"
"'Faith,'" broke in Happy Jack, continuing the selection, "'an' who willhold Ho-ogan, then--har, har, har, har, har!'"
So contagious was the spell of this laughter that there was nothing forit but to put on the record, which gave a dog fight in Harlem from thetime the bets were made till the spotted dog licked and the place wasraided by the police. Not very elevating, to be sure, but awfullypopular, and calling for more of the same. Mrs. Lee sighed wearily andlaid the sextet aside; then, with quick decision, she resigned her placeto Dixie May and retired to a seat by the door--and, as luck would haveit, she sat down next to Bowles.
"Won't you take my chair?" he said, rising with all the gallantry of hiskind. "I enjoyed that _Donna e Mobile_ of Caruso's so much!"
"Oh," said Mrs. Lee, beaming with pleasure, "you know it, then! And doyou care for it, too?"
"Very much!" replied Bowles, falling back into the familiar formula ofpolite conversation; and by the time the phonograph had started up on"Casey Jones" they were deep in a discussion of classic music. As oftenhappens in good society, they discovered a wonderful similarity in theirlikes and dislikes; and by the time the nester girls began to arrive andthe dance started up on the gallery, Bowles was very popular in the bighouse--that is, as far as the hostess was concerned.
But the climax of the evening came at the close of the dance, just asMr. Bowles was taking his leave.
"Well, good-night, Mrs. Lee," he murmured as he stood in the half lightof the porch. "It was so kind of you to invite us up."
He paused then with the rest of his politenesses unsaid, for Dixie Leewas coming down the hall.
"I can't say how much I have enjoyed talking with you, Mr. Bowles,"returned the lady, offering him her hand. "It takes me back to mygirlhood days, when music was the breath of my life. Perhaps----Oh,Dixie, have you met Mr. Bowles?"
There was silence for a moment as their eyes met across the abyss, hersstern and forbidding, his smiling and conciliatory; and then Dixie bowedvery stiffly.
"Why, not that I remember," she replied, with a militant toss of thehead.
"How do you do, Miss Lee," observed Mr. Bowles, bowing formally as hereceived his conge. "So glad to make your acquaintance!" And, murmuringother maddening phrases, he bowed himself out the door, leaving DixieLee to explain the feud in any way she chose.
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