by Zane Grey
“Boys, there’s the boss,” suddenly broke out Andy, pointing, and he ducked into the nearest doorway, which happened to be that of another saloon. It was half full of cowboys, ranchers, Mexicans, tobacco smoke, and noise.
Andy’s companions had rushed pell-mell after him, and not until they all got inside did they realize that this saloon was a rendezvous for cowboys decidedly not on friendly terms with Springer’s outfit. Nevada was the only one of the trio who took the situation nonchalantly.
“Wal, we’re in, an’ what the hell do we care for Beady Jones an’ his outfit,” he remarked, quite loud enough to be heard by others besides his friends.
Naturally they lined up at the bar, and this was not a good thing for young men who had an important engagement and who must preserve sobriety. After several rounds of drinks had appeared, they began to whisper and snicker over the possibility of Tex meeting the boss.
“If only it doesn’t come off until Tex gets our forty-year-old schoolmarm from Missouri with him in the buckboard!” exclaimed Panhandle in huge glee.
“Shore. Tex, the handsome galoot, is most too blame for this mess,” added Nevada. “Thet cowboy won’t be above makin’ love to Jane, if he thinks we’re not around. But, fellows, we want to be there.”
“Wouldn’t miss seein’ the boss meet Tex for a million,” said Andy.
Presently a tall striking-looking cowboy, with dark face and small bright eyes like black beads, detached himself from a group of noisy companions, and confronted the trio, more particularly Nevada.
“Howdy, men,” he greeted them, “what you-all doin’ in here?”
He was coolly impertinent, and his action and query noticeably stilled the room. Andy and Panhandle leaned back against the bar. They had been in such situations before and knew who would do the talking for them.
“Howdy, Jones,” replied Nevada coolly and carefully. “We happened to bust in here by accident. Reckon we’re usually more particular what kind of company we mix with.”
“Ahuh! Springer’s outfit is shore a stuck-up one,” sneered Beady Jones in a quite loud tone. “So stuck up they won’t even ride around drift fences.”
Nevada slightly changed his position.
“Beady, I’ve had a couple of drinks an’ ain’t very clear-headed,” drawled Nevada. “Would you mind talkin’ so I can understand you?”
“Bah! You savvy all right,” declared Jones sarcastically. “I’m tellin’ you straight what I’ve been layin’ to tell your yaller-headed Texas pard.”
“Now you’re speakin’ English, Beady. Tex an’ me are pards, shore. An’ I’ll take it kind of you to get this talk out of your system. You seem to be chock-full.”
“You bet I’m full an’ I’m a-goin’ to bust!” shouted Jones, whose temper evidently could not abide the slow cool speech with which he had been answered.
“Wal, before you bust, explain what you mean by Springer’s outfit not ridin’ around drift fences.”
“Easy. You just cut through wire fences,” retorted Jones.
“Beady, I hate to call you a low-down liar, but that’s what you are.”
“You’re another!” yelled Jones. “I seen your Texas Jack cut our drift fence.”
Nevada struck out with remarkable swiftness and force. He knocked Jones over upon a card table, with which he crashed to the floor. Jones was so stunned that he did not recover before some of his comrades rushed to him, and helped him up. Then, black in the face and cursing savagely, he jerked for his gun. He got it out, but, before he could level it, two of his friends seized him, and wrestled with him, talking in earnest alarm. But Jones fought them.
“Ya damn’ fool!” finally yelled one of them. “He’s not packin’ a gun. It’d be murder.”
That brought Jones to his senses, although certainly not to calmness.
“Mister Nevada…next time you hit town you’d better come heeled,” he hissed between his teeth.
“Shore. An’ thet’ll be bad for you, Beady,” replied Nevada curtly.
Panhandle and Andy drew Nevada out to the street, where they burst into mingled excitement and anger. Their swift strides gravitated toward the saloon across from the post office.
When they emerged sometime later, they were arm in arm, and far from steady on their feet. They paraded up the one main street of Beacon, not in the least conspicuous on a Saturday afternoon. As they were neither hilarious nor dangerous, nobody paid any attention to them. Springer, their boss, met them, gazed at them casually, and passed without sign of recognition. If he had studied the boys closely, he might have received an impression that they were hugging a secret, as well as each other.
In due time the trio presented themselves at the railroad station. Tex was there, nervously striding up and down the platform, now and then looking at his watch. The afternoon train was nearly due. At the hitching rail below the platform stood a new buckboard and a rather spirited team of horses.
The boys, coming across the wide square, encountered this evidence of Tex’s extremity, and struck a posture before it.
“Livery stable outfit, by gosh,” said Andy.
“Son-of-a-gun if it ain’t,” added Panhandle with a huge grin.
“Thish here Tex spendin’ hish money royal,” agreed Nevada.
Then Tex espied them. He stared. Suddenly he jumped straight up. After striding to the edge of the platform, with face as red as a beet, he began to curse them.
“Whash mashes, ole pard?” asked Andy, who appeared a little less stable than his comrades.
Tex’s reply was another volley of expressive profanity. And he ended with: “…you-all yellow quitters to get drunk an’ leave me in the lurch. But you gotta get away from heah. I shore won’t have you aboot when thet train comes.”
“Tex, your boss ish in town lookin’ for you,” said Nevada.
“I don’t care a damn,” replied Tex with fire in his eye.
“Wait till he shees you,” gurgled Andy.
“Tex, he jest ambled past us like we wasn’t gennelmen,” added Panhandle. “Never sheen us a-tall.”
“No wonder, you drunken cowpunchers,” declared Tex in disgust. “Now I tell you to clear out of heah.”
“But, pard, we just want to shee you meet our Jane from Missouri,” replied Andy.
“If you-all ain’t a lot of four-flushes, I’ll eat my chaps!” burst out Tex hotly.
Just then a shrill whistle announced the train.
“You can sneak off now,” he went on, “an’ leave me to face the music. I always knew I was the only gentleman in Springer’s outfit.”
The three cowboys did not act upon Tex’s sarcastic suggestion, but they hung back, looking at once excited and sheepish and hugely delighted.
The long gray dusty train pulled into the station, and stopped. There was only one passenger for Springer—a woman—and she alighted from the coach near where the cowboys stood waiting. She was not tall and she was much too slight for the heavy valise the porter handed to her.
Tex strode grandly toward her.
“Miss…Miss Stacey, ma’am?” he asked, removing his sombrero.
“Yes,” she replied. “Are you Mister Owens?”
Evidently the voice was not what Tex had expected and it disconcerted him.
“No, ma’am, I…I’m not Mister Owens,” he said. “Please let me take your bag…. I’m Tex Dillon, one of Springer’s cowboys. An’ I’ve come to meet you…an’ fetch you out to the ranch.”
“Thank you, but I…I expected to be met by Mister Owens,” she replied.
“Ma’am, there’s been a mistake…I’ve got to tell you…there ain’t any Mister Owens,” blurted out Tex manfully.
“Oh!” she said with a little start.
“You see, it was this way,” went on the confused cowboy. “One of Springer’s cowboys…not me…wrote t
hem letters to you, signin’ his name Owens. There ain’t no such named cowboy in this county. Your last letter…an’ here it is…fell into my hands…all by accident, ma’am, it sure was. I took my three friends heah…I took them into my confidence. An’ we all came down to meet you.”
She moved her head and evidently looked at the strange trio of cowboys Tex had pointed out as his friends. They came forward then, but not eagerly, and they still held to each other. Their condition, not to consider their immense excitement, could not have been lost even upon a tenderfoot from Missouri.
“Please…return my…my letter,” she said, turning again to Tex, and she put out a small gloved hand to take it from him. “Then…there is no Mister Frank Owens?”
“No, ma’am, there ain’t,” replied Tex miserably.
“Is there…no…no truth in his…is there no schoolteacher wanted here?” she faltered.
“I think so, ma’am,” he replied. “Springer said he needed one. That’s what started the advertisement an’ the letters to you. You can see the boss an’…an’ explain. I’m sure it will be all right. He’s the grandest fellow. He won’t stand for no joke on a poor old schoolmarm.”
In his bewilderment he had spoken his thoughts, and that last slip made him look more miserable than ever, and made the boys appear ready to burst.
“Poor old schoolmarm,” echoed Miss Stacey. “Perhaps the deceit has not been wholly on one side.”
Whereupon she swept aside the enveloping veil to reveal a pale and pretty face. She was young. She had clear gray eyes and a sweet sensitive mouth. Little curls of chestnut hair straggled from under her veil. And she had tiny freckles.
Tex stared at this apparition.
“But you…you…the letter says she wasn’t over forty!” he ejaculated.
“She’s not,” rejoined Miss Stacey curtly.
Then there were visible and remarkable indications of a transformation in the attitude of the cowboy. But the approach of a stranger suddenly seemed to paralyze him. This fellow was very tall. He strolled up to them. He was booted and spurred. He halted before the group and looked expectantly from the boys to the young woman and back again. But at the moment the four cowboys appeared dumb.
“Are you Mister Springer?” asked Miss Stacey.
“Yes,” he replied, and he took off his sombrero. He had a dark frank face and keen eyes.
“I am Jane Stacey,” she explained hurriedly. “I’m a schoolteacher. I answered an advertisement. And I’ve come from Missouri because of letters I received from a Mister Frank Owens of Springer’s Ranch. This young man met me. He has not been very…explicit. I gather that there is no Mister Owens…that I’m the victim of a cowboy joke. But he said that Mister Springer won’t stand for a joke on a poor old schoolmarm.”
“I sure am glad to meet you, Miss Stacey,” responded the rancher with the easy Western courtesy that must have been comforting to her. “Please let me see the letters.”
She opened a handbag and, searching in it, presently held out several letters.
Springer never even glanced at his stricken cowboys. He took the letters.
“No, not that one,” said Miss Stacey, blushing scarlet. “That’s one I wrote to Mister Owens, but didn’t mail. It’s…hardly necessary to read that.”
While Springer read the others, she looked at him. Presently he asked for the letter she had taken back. Miss Stacey hesitated, then refused. He looked cool, curious, business-like. Then his keen eyes swept over the four cowboys.
“Tex, are you Mister Frank Owens?” he queried sharply.
“I…shore…ain’t,” gasped Tex.
Springer asked each of the other boys the same question and received the same maudlin but negative answers. Then he turned again to the girl.
“Miss Stacey, I regret to say that you are indeed the victim of a low-down cowboy trick,” he said. “I’d apologize for such a heathen if I knew how. All I can say is I’m sorry.”
“Then…then there isn’t any school to teach…any place for me…out here?” she asked, and there were tears in her eyes.
“That’s another matter,” he replied with a winning smile. “Of course there’s a place for you. I’ve wanted a schoolteacher for a long time. Some of the men out at the ranch have kids an’ they sure need a teacher.”
“Oh, I’m…so glad,” she murmured in great relief. “I was afraid I’d have to go…all the way back. You see, I’m not so strong as I used to be…and my doctor advised a change of climate...dry Western air.”
“You don’t look sick,” he said with his keen eyes on her. “You look very well to me.”
“Oh, indeed, I’m not very strong,” she returned quickly. “But I must confess I wasn’t altogether truthful about my age.”
“I was wondering about that,” he said gravely. There seemed just a glint of a twinkle in his eye. “Not over forty!”
Again she blushed and this time with confusion.
“It wasn’t altogether a lie. I was afraid to mention I was only…so young. And I wanted to get the position so much…I’m a good…a competent teacher, unless the scholars are too grown up.”
“The scholars you’ll have at my ranch are children,” he replied. “Well, we’d better be starting if we are to get there before dark. It’s a long ride. Is this all your baggage?”
Springer led her over to the buckboard and helped her in, then stowed the valise under the back seat.
“Here, let me put this robe over you,” he said. “It’ll be dusty. And when we get up on the ridge, it’s cold.”
At this juncture Tex came to life and he started forward. But Andy and Nevada and Panhandle stood motionlessly, staring at the fresh and now flushed face of the young schoolteacher. Tex untied the halter of the spirited team and they began to prance. He gathered up the reins as if about to mount the buckboard.
“I’ve got all the supplies an’ the mail, Mister Springer,” he said cheerfully. “An’ I can be startin’ at once.”
“I’ll drive Miss Stacey,” replied Springer dryly.
Tex looked blank for a moment. Then Miss Stacey’s clear gray eyes seemed to embarrass him. A tinge of red came into his tanned cheek.
“Tex, you can ride my horse home,” said the rancher.
“Thet wild stallion of yours!” expostulated the cowboy. “Now, Mister Springer, I shore am afraid of him.”
This from the best horseman on the whole range!
Apparently the rancher took Tex seriously. “He sure is wild, Tex, and I know you’re a poor hand with a horse. If he throws you, why, you’ll have your own horse.”
Miss Stacey turned away her eyes. There was a hint of a smile on her lips. Springer got in beside her, and, taking the reins without another glance at his discomfited cowboys, he drove away.
II
A few weeks altered many things at Springer Ranch. There was a marvelous change in the dress and deportment of cowboys off duty. There were some clean and happy and interested children. There was a rather taciturn and lonely young rancher who was given to thoughtful dreams and whose keen eyes watched the little adobe schoolhouse under the cottonwoods. And in Jane Stacey’s face a rich bloom and tan had begun to warm out the paleness.
It was not often that Jane left the schoolhouse without meeting one of Springer’s cowboys. She met Tex most frequently, and, according to Andy, that fact was because Tex was foreman and could send the boys off to the ends of the range.
And this afternoon Jane encountered the foreman. He was clean-shaven, bright, and eager, a superb figure. Tex had been lucky enough to have a gun with him one day when a rattlesnake frightened the schoolteacher and he had shot the reptile. Miss Stacey had leaned against him in her fright; she had been grateful; she had admired his wonderful skill with a gun and had murmured that a woman always could be sure with such a man. Thereafter Tex packed his gun unmindful
of the ridicule of his rivals.
“Miss Stacey, come for a little ride, won’t you?” he asked eagerly.
The cowboys had already taught her how to handle a horse and to ride, and, if all they said of her appearance and accomplishment were true, she was indeed worth watching.
“I’m sorry,” replied Jane. “I promised Nevada I’d ride with him today.”
“I reckon Nevada is miles an’ miles up the valley by now,” replied Tex. “He won’t be back till long after dark.”
“But he made an agreement with me,” protested the schoolmistress.
“An’ shore he has to work. He’s ridin’ for Springer, an’ I’m foreman of this ranch,” said Tex.
“You sent him off on some long chase,” averred Jane severely. “Now, didn’t you?”
“I shore did. He comes crowin’ down to the bunkhouse…about how he’s goin’ to ride with you an’ how we-all are not in the runnin’.”
“Oh, he did. And what did you say?”
“I says…‘Nevada, I reckon there’s a steer mired in the sand up in Cedar Wash. You ride up there an’ pull him out.”
“And then what did he say?” inquired Jane curiously.
“Why, Miss Stacey, I shore hate to tell you. I didn’t think he was so…so bad. He just used the most awful language as was ever heard on this heah ranch. Then he rode off.”
“But was there a steer mired up in the wash?”
“I reckon so,” replied Tex, rather shame-facedly. “’Most always is one.”
Jane let scornful eyes rest upon the foreman.
“That was a mean trick,” she said.
“There’s been worse done to me by him, an’ all of them. An’ all’s fair in love an’ war…. Will you ride with me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I think I’ll ride off alone up Cedar Wash and help Nevada find that mired steer.”
“Miss Stacey, you’re shore not goin’ to ride off alone. Savvy that?”
