"Wal, no use bellyachin' about it," he answers. "But you're allus a-stickin' in that lip of yourn. And--you'll _re_call what I oncet said concernin' the feller that sticks in his lip." (I could see it made him feel better t' think he had the bulge on me.)

"She won't come back," I goes on. (I felt pretty bad, I can tell y'.) "No, boss, she won't. I know that gal better'n you do. She's gone t'

Briggs, and she'll stay."

"She'll be back in a' hour. Rose cain't keep her, and----"

But I was outen the room and makin' fer the bunk-house. When I got there, I begun t' change my clothes.

Hairoil was inside. (He'd been a-listenin' to the rumpus, likely.) "Don't go off half-c.o.c.ked," he says to me.

"Cupid's drunk," says Monkey Mike. "Somebody's. .h.i.t him with a bar-towel."

But I knowed what I was a-goin' to do. Two wags of a dawg's tail, and I was in the house again, facin' the ole man. "Sewell," I says, "I want my time."

"Where you goin', Cupid?" he ast, reachin' into his britches-pocket.

I took my little forty dollars and run it into my buckskin sack. "I'm a-goin' into Briggs," I says, "t' see if I can talk some sense into that gal's haid."

The ole man give a kinda sour laugh. "Mebbe you think you can bring her home on hossback again," he says. "Wal, just remember, if she turns loose one of her tantrums, that you poured out this drench you'self.

It's like that there feller in Kansas." And he give that laugh of hisn again. "Ever heerd about him?"

"No," I says; "no, what about you' Kansas feller?"

"Wal,"--the boss pulled out a plug of t'bacca,--"he bought a house and lot fer five hunderd dollars. The lot was guaranteed to raise anythin', and the house was painted the prettiest kind of a green.

Natu'lly, he thought he owned 'em. Wal, things went smooth till one night when he was away from home. Then a blamed cyclone come along.

Sh.o.r.e enough, that lot of hisn could raise. It raised plumb into the air, house and all, and the hull business blowed into the neighbourin' State!

"'What goes up must come down,' says the feller. And knowin' which way that cyclone travelled, he started in the same _di_rection, hotfoot.

He goes and goes. Fin'lly he comes to a ranch where they was a new barn goin' up. It was a pinto proposition. Part of it wasn't painted, and some of it was green. He stopped to demand portions of his late residence.

"The man he spoke to quit drivin' nails just long enough to answer.

'When you Kansas folks git up one of them baby cyclones of yourn,' he says, 'fer Heaven's sake have sand enough to accept the hand-out it gives y'.'"

"I savvy what you mean," I says to the ole man, "but you fergit that in this case the moccasin don't fit. Another man's behind this, boss.

The little gal has ketched singin'-bugs. And when she gits enough cash----"

"How can _she_ git cash?"

"The eatin'-house is short of, help, Sewell. She can git a job easy--pa.s.sin' fancy Mulligan to the pilgrims that go through."

Say! that knocked all the sarcastic laughin' outen him. A' awful anxious look come into his face. "Why--why, Cupid," he begun. "You don't reckon she'd go do that!"

Just then, _Clickety_--_clickety_--_clickety_--_click_ a hoss was comin'

along the road. We both got to a winda. It was that bald-faced bronc of Macie's again, haid down and tail out. But the bridle-reins was caught 'round the pommel t' keep 'em from gittin' under foot, and the little gal's saddle--was empty!

CHAPTER SIX

WHAT A LUNGEE DONE

"Sweet is the vale where the Mohawk gently glides On its fair, windin' way to the sea--"

It was Macie Sewell singin'. Ole Number 201 'd just pulled outen Briggs City, haided southwest with her freight of tenderfeet, and with Ingineer Dave Reynolds stickin' in his spurs to make up lost time.

The pa.s.sengers 'd had twenty-five minutes fer a good grubbin'-up at the eatin'-house, and now the little gal was help-in' the balance of the Harvey bunch to clear off the lunch-counter. Whilst she worked, she was chirpin' away like she'd plumb bust her throat.

I was outside, settin' on a truck with Up-State. He was watchin'

acrosst the rails, straight afore him, and listenin', and I could see he was swallerin' some, and his eyes looked kinda like he'd been ridin' agin the wind. When I shifted my _po_sition, he turned the other way quick, and coughed--that pore little gone-in cough of hisn.

Wal, I felt pretty bad myself; and I seen somethin' turrible was wrong with Up-State--I couldn't just make out what. Pretty soon, I put my hand on his arm, and I says, "I don't want t' worm anythin' outen you, ole man; I just want t' say I'm you' friend."

"Cupid," he whispers back, "it's The Mohawk Vale."

(He allus whispered, y' savvy; couldn't talk out loud no more, bein'

so turrible shy on lung.)

"Is that a bony fido place?" I ast, "'r just made up a-purpose fer the song?"

"It's _my_ country," he whispers, slow and husky, and begun gazin'

acrosst to the mesquite again. "And, Cupid, it's a _beau_tiful country!"

"I reckon," I says. "It's likely got Oklahomaw skinned t' death."

Up-State, he didn't answer that--too _po_lite. Aw, he was a gent, too, same as the parson.

Minute 'r so, Macie struck up again--

"And dearer by far than all charms on earth byside, Is that bright, rollin' river to me."

Up-State lent over, elbows on his knees, face in his hands, and begun tremblin'--Why, y' know, even a _hoss_ 'll git homesick. Now, I brung a flea-bitten mare from down on the lower Cimarron oncet, and blamed if that little son-of-a-gun didn't hoof it all the way back, straighter 'n a string! Yas, ma'am. And so, a-course, it's natu'al fer a _man_.

Wal, I ketched on to how things was with Up-State, and I moseyed.

I was at the deepot pretty frequent them days--waitin'. Macie hadn't talked to me none yet, and mebbe she wouldn't. But I was on hand in case the notion 'd strike her.

Her hangin' out agin me and her paw tickled them eatin'-house Mamies turrible. They thought her idear of earnin' her own money, and then goin' East to be a' op'ra singer, was just _grand_.

But the rest of the town felt diff'rent. And behind my back all the women folks and the boys that knowed me was sayin' it was a darned shame. They figgered that a gal gone loco on the stage proposition wouldn't make _no_ kind of a wife fer a cow-punch. "Would _she_ camp down in Oklahomaw," they says, "and cook three meals a day, and wash out blue shirts, when she's set on gittin' up afore a pa.s.sel of highflyers and yelpin' 'Marguerite'? _Nixey._"

Next thing, one day at Silverstein's, here come the parson to me, lookin' worried. "Cupid," he says, "git on the good side of that gal as quick as ever you can--and marry her. The stage is a' _awful_ place fer a decent gal. Keep her offen it if you love her soul. And if I can help, just whistle."

I said thank y', but I was feard marryin' was a long way off.

"But, Alec," goes on the parson, "that Simpson has gone back t' Noo York----"

"_What?_"

"Yas. He put all his doctor truck into his gasoline wagon last night and choo-chooed outen town. If _he's_ there, and _she_ goes, wal,--I don't like the looks of it."