Bat Wing Bowles

A thrill went over Bowles at those kind words, but he hastened to cover up his tracks. Once let the boys know that he had followed her from the East, and there would be a dramatic end to all his hopes and dreams.

"I'll tell you, Brig," he said, speaking confidentially; "I did meet Miss Lee down at Chula Vista the morning she came home, and that probably gave them the idea. But, say, now – about that letter. She didn't even know my name – now, why should she do a thing like that? My name isn't Houghton, and she knew I couldn't take the letter. It's against the law! What was she trying to do – play a joke on me?"

He made his voice as boyish and pleading as possible; but it takes a good actor to deceive the simple-hearted, and Brigham only looked at him curiously.

"What did you say yore name was?" he inquired at last; and when Bowles told him he chewed upon it ruminatively. "Some of the boys thought mebbe you was an English lord, or somethin'," he observed, glancing up quickly to see how Mr. Bowles would take it. "Course I knowed you wasn't," he admitted as Bowles wound up his protest; "but you certainly ain't no puncher."

Bowles could read the jealousy and distrust in his voice, and he saw it was time to speak up.

"Say, Brig," he said, trying as far as possible to speak in the new vernacular, "I've always been friendly to you, haven't I? I know I've tried to be, and I want to keep your friendship. Now, I don't care what Hardy Atkins and his gang think, because they're nothing to me anyway, but I want you to know that I am on the square. Of course, I'm under an assumed name, and I guess you've noticed I don't get any letters; but that's no crime, is it?"

There was a genuine ring to his appeal now, and Brigham was quick to answer it.

"Aw, that's all right, pardner," he said. "I don't care what you did. Kinder hidin' out myself."

"Well, but I want to tell you, anyway," protested Bowles. "A man's got to have a friend somewhere, and I know you won't give me away. I didn't commit any crime – it isn't the sheriff I'm afraid of – but there must have been somebody down in Chula Vista that was following me, because I came away from New York on a ticket that was signed Sam Houghton. That isn't my name, you understand – but I signed it for a blind. Then I left the train at Albuquerque and came quietly off down here. But it looks as if somebody is searching for me."

"Umm!" murmured Brigham, nodding his head and squinting wisely. "I got into a little racket down on the river one time, and the sheriff was lookin' fer me. Made no difference – the feller got well anyhow – but you bet I was ridin' light fer a while.

"I'll tell you what we'll do!" he cried, carried away by some sudden enthusiasm. "I'm gittin' tired of this Teehanno outfit – let's call fer our time and hit the trail! Was you ever up in the White Mountains? Well, pardner, we'll head fer them – that's the prettiest country in God's world! Deer and bear and wild turkeys everywhere – and fish! Say, them cricks is so full of trout they ain't hardly room fer the water. The Apaches never eat 'em – nor turkeys neither, fer that matter – and all you have to have is a little flour and bacon, and a man can live like a king. They's some big cow outfits up there, too – Double Circles, an' Wine Glass an' Cherrycow. Come on! What d'ye say? Let's quit! This ain't the only outfit in America!"

For the moment Bowles was almost carried away by this sudden rush of enthusiasm, and even after a second thought it still appealed to him strongly.

"Are there many bears up there?" he inquired, as if wavering upon a decision.

"Believe me!" observed Brigham, swaggering at the thought. "And mountain lions, too! A man has to watch his horses in that country, or he'll find himself afoot."

"And the Indians?"

"Well," admitted Brigham, "of course them Apaches are bad – but they keep 'em around the Fort most of the time, and don't let 'em carry guns when they go out – nothin' but bows and arrows. Come on – they won't make us no trouble!"

"Well, by Jove, Brig," sighed Bowles, drawing a long breath, "I'm awfully tempted to do it!"

"Sure," nodded Brigham, "finest trip in the world – an' I know that country like a book!"

"But let's finish the round-up first," suggested Bowles. "And, besides, I want to find out who it is that's searching for me. I guess I didn't tell you what I'm hiding for?"

"No," shrugged Brigham; "that's all right. Then if anybody should ask me, I'll tell 'em I don't know nothin'."

"Well, I'm going to tell you, anyhow!" cried Bowles impulsively. "I've got an aunt back East, and she's an awfully nice woman – does everything for me – but I have to do what she says. She doesn't make me do it, you know – she just expects me to do it! Maybe you never had any one like that? Well, I've always tried to do what she liked – she's my father's sister, you know – but this spring I just had to run away."

"Too much fer you, eh?" commented Brigham, grinning.

"No, it wasn't that so much, but she – she told me I ought to get married!"

"Well, what's the matter?" inquired Brigham, his grin wreathing back to his ears. "What's the matter with that?"

Bowles blushed and blinked with embarrassment.

"Well, the fact is, Brigham," he said, "she picked out the girl herself!"

"No! Never asked you, nor nothin'? What did the girl say?"

"Oh, Christabel? Why, she never knew, of course. I came out West immediately."

A puzzled look came over Brigham's honest face.

"Say, lemme git the straight of this," he said. "I'm a kind of Mormon myself, you know, and these fellers are always throwin' it into me about the way Mormons marry off their gals – did yore aunt make some trade with her folks?"

"Who – Christabel?" gasped Bowles, now breaking into a sweat. "Why, bless your soul, no! You don't understand how things are done in New York, Brig. Nothing was even said, you know, it was just understood! My aunt didn't even tell me whom she had in mind – she just told me I ought to be married, and threw me into Christabel's society. But I knew it – I knew it from the first day – and rather than hurt Christabel's feelings I just picked up and ran away!"

"Well, I'll be durned!" observed Brigham, gazing upon him with wonder. "And we thought you was tryin' to git Dix!"

CHAPTER XV

BURYING THE HATCHET

To the hard-riding cowboy of the plains, the subtleties of emotion and romance are a closed book – just as the hand that whirls the rope is too crabbed to play the violin. Some of us in this world must do the heavy work. Some hands must be knotted, some backs bent with labor, some brows furrowed with wind and weather and the hard realities of life; but in return the laborers gain the strength of the wind-tossed oak and the patience of the ages. There are others whose lot it is to write the poetry and paint the pictures and reach out into the great unknown for a thousand haunting chords and harmonies; but they are a people apart. Their very sensitiveness makes them unequal to the stress of life; their slender hands cannot perform hard labor, and their hearts cannot endure the monotony and anguish of unremitting toil – yet they have their place in the world.

The time may come when the tasks and rewards will be divided again and each of us be given a more equal share, but until that day men will fall into classes – and neither will understand the other. Samuel Bowles had lived the protected life, but Brigham had buffeted his way. At the story of the Lady Christabel he stood agape, marveling at the man who could perceive such subtle advances, wondering at the nature that would flee for such a cause; but in the end he gazed upon him pityingly, and accepted him for his friend.

"I'll tell you, pardner," he said, as they drifted their cattle along; "I'm up ag'inst it, too. They's a gal over on the river – don't make no difference about her name – but I used to think a lot of her. Wasn't skeered of her none, the way I am with Dix. She was an awful good girl, too – no fly ways or nothin' – an' I was kinder fixin' to marry her when I had this racket with the bishop. My folks are all Mormons, of course, and so are hers, and I like 'em well enough in certain ways, but I can't stand them dang priests. As long as I'm free I can pull out and go where I please, but the minute I marry and settle down I'm up ag'inst it proper."

"Why, what's the matter?" inquired Bowles, thinking of all the awful things he had heard about the Saints, but discreetly holding his peace. "Will they punish you for running away?"

"No," answered Brigham, shaking his head dolefully, "it ain't that – it's the things they make you do. I'm a renegade now – I don't pay tithes or nothin' – but if I settled down on the river I'd have to come in ag'in. Mebbe jist about the time I'm married they summon me fer a mission. Two years to some foreign country to bring in converts to the church – an' who's goin' to take care of my wife?"

"Oh!" breathed Bowles sympathetically. "That is bad! Why don't you get married and live somewhere else, then?"

"That's jest it," frowned Brigham. "Gal's a Mormon too, and she won't come. So there I am!"

"Ah!" said Bowles; and they rode a long time in silence.

"That letter was from her," volunteered Brigham, jerking his head back toward the place where they had been camped, and after that he said no more. The old cynical look came into his squinted eyes, and he strung out the cattle methodically until they came to the home ranch. It was four o'clock in the afternoon then, and they lay over until the next day.

The Bat Wing bunk-house was hardly a cheery lounging place. Outside of the illustrated magazine literature with which the walls were papered, the library consisted of three books – a boot, spur and saddle catalogue, "Lin McLean," and that classic of the cow camps, "Three Weeks." When the entire outfit was at "the home," Happy Jack was in the habit of reading choice passages of "Three Weeks" to his friends, he being the scholar of the bunch, and closing each selection with the remark: "Well, I reckon that's plain enough for you, ain't it?" And the boys would generally agree that it was.

With the memory of Happy Jack still in mind, Bowles took shame to himself and read Owen Wister's "Lin McLean" instead, finding there a tenderfoot on another range who was worse even than himself. As things were coming now, Bowles hardly considered himself a tenderfoot any more. To be sure, he could not rope in the corral; but there were several local punchers in the same fix; and when it came to riding, he still had Wa-ha-lote in his string as a tribute to his skill as a fence jumper. He had also sat out a bucking fit or two when the boys put high-life on his horse; and, taken all in all he was not the worst rider in the outfit, by any means. As a branding hand, also, he was able to do his share; he had learned some of the rudiments of handling cattle; and his face had peeled off and tanned again, leaving him with a complexion in no wise different from that of his bronzed companions. And then, to top it all, he had won the friendship of Brigham, who was so good that he passed for a cowman.

Poor old Brigham! He never said what was in that letter from his girl, but Bowles knew he was wrestling with his problem. His carefree laugh was silenced for the time and, after cooking up a little food in the kitchen that stood next to the bunk-house, he had caught up a fresh mount and ridden off alone. The windmill man and the fence mender were out on their rounds, and Bowles was reading "The Winning of the Biscuit-shooter" and wondering if it was true, when a horse trotted into the yard. Presently he heard a saddle hit the ground, and the pasture gate swing to, and then there was a clank of spurs on the stoop. The door swung open, and as he glanced up from where he lay he saw Dixie Lee looking in at him.

The instincts of a lifetime prompted Bowles to rise to his feet and bow, but other instincts were crowding in on him now, and he only nodded his head. The memory, perhaps, of a fake letter to Samuel Houghton gave color to his indifference, and for the first time in his life he gazed at her with a shadow of disapproval. She was glorious indeed to look upon; but it is the heart that counts, and Dixie had seemed a little unkind. So he lay there with the book before him, and waited for her to speak. It was the first time they had been alone together since he had left her at Chula Vista, and it was not his part to make advances after what she had told him then.

As for Dixie, she seemed suddenly embarrassed and ill at ease, though she carried it off with her usual frontier recklessness.

"Hello there, cowboy!" she said, dropping down on the steps. "Where'd you come from?"

"I came from the upper water with Brig," answered Bowles, speaking for his part with decorous politeness. "We brought down a bunch of twos."