"Calamity," cooed Rattlesnake, "let me have a word alone with Cimarron."

"You-all can have what words you please," snorted Miss Barndollar, beginning to dry her indignant eyes, "you can have what words you please with this person. But I wants to saw it off on you right yere, Rattlesnake Sanders, that no lady would be jestified in entrustin' her footure to a gent who'd go argufyin' an' h'ar-splittin' about a triflin'

matter like this. You'll either get that laig fixed, or our engagement's at an end. Yes, sir," concluded Miss Barndollar in a sudden gust of temper, "it's no longer a laig. Which it's now ceased to be a laig and become a principle," and Miss Barndollar flounced from the room.

"The first day I can ride," groaned Rattlesnake, "I'll sh.o.r.e descend upon that sawbones all spraddled out, an' obtain a spec'men of his h'ar!"

Calming himself, Rattlesnake discoursed sagely and at length with Cimarron, saying that he was in favour of yielding to the demands of Miss Barndollar. The leg could easily be rebroken. Both he and Cimarron would of course understand that it did not require such treatment. They would agree that it was simply a concession to Miss Barndollar, and not to be held as reflecting on Cimarron.

"Because, d'ye see," said Rattlesnake, "take it every way from the jack, I wouldn't miss marryin' Calamity if it meant breakin' a dozen laigs. I think we'd better let her have her way, Cimarron. You don't know girls like I do; but the fact is, you allers want to humour 'em in little things so's to have your own way in big ones. You call her in, Cimarron, an' tell her she's plumb right about this fool laig."

In the teeth of this specious argument, Cimarron still persisted with his objections. He said that the att.i.tude of Miss Barndollar was born of vanity. He pointed out that the much debated leg was as straight as a gun barrel. He re-told the insult put upon himself in the epithet of empiric. Constantly, he hinted that untold good lay behind his present obstinacy, and that Rattlesnake would admit his grat.i.tude therefore in days to come. He closed by suggesting that they send for Mr. Masterson.

With a talent for compromise, and p.r.o.ne to middle paths, Mr. Masterson believed that, inasmuch as a fortnight had already elapsed, Miss Barndollar ought not to object to the leg continuing as it then was.

Rattlesnake Sanders would give his promise to have the leg instantly refractured in event of any final queerness.

Upon this proposal being carried to Miss Barndollar by Jack, who was delegated to the trust by Rattlesnake and Mr. Masterson, she called that youth a "cub prairie dog" and demanded his authority for meddling with two throbbing hearts. Jack, deeply chagrined, pled the commission of Rattlesnake and Mr. Masterson. Miss Barndollar wept, and Jack, being mercurial and a child of active sympathies, wept with her. In the end Miss Barndollar dried her eyes, kissed Jack and bid him return to the callous Rattlesnake and say that she had cast him out of her heart forever.

"Tell him," said Miss Barndollar, "that he has shown himse'f keerless of my feelin's an' I'm mighty lucky to be saved in time."

Cimarron Bill wore a brow of cloudy victory when Jack made his report, while Rattlesnake Sanders swore in a discouraged way. As for Mr.

Masterson, he counseled Rattlesnake to be of cheer, and gave it as his belief that Miss Barndollar would come back to his arms in time. Mr.

Masterson was on the brink of basing this conclusion on the fact that Miss Barndollar would not be able to find another who would have her, but caught himself on the verge. He said instead that she was only testing Rattlesnake's love.

"Just let everything go as it lays," concluded Mr. Masterson, consolingly, "and when you are out and around again, it's two for one that you and Calamity'll be like turtledoves."

Rattlesnake said he hoped so, while Cimarron shook his head.

"That's the luckiest laig you ever broke, Rattlesnake," was the mysterious remark of Cimarron as the conference adjourned.

Rattlesnake Sanders, being recovered, invited the judgment of Mr.

Masterson concerning his legs.

"What I wants," explained Rattlesnake, "is an opinion at once onprejewdyced an' offishul, an' nacherally I asts Bat."

Mr. Masterson, after a most critical survey of Rattlesnake from, as he himself expressed it, "foretop of fetlock," gave his honour for it that nothing showed amiss.

"Your leg," said Mr. Masterson, "is as straight as it ever was."

"Straighter," chimed in the confident Cimarron, who stood at his elbow.

"Rattlesnake's laigs, on account of bein' frequent storm-soaked about the herds an' then dried preematoorly by camp fires, was a heap warped.

Now they're as par'llel as two fiddle strings. I ain't the gent to say it, seein' I set that fracture myse'f, but it's my view Rattlesnake's laigs quits winner on the deal."

These a.s.surances gave mighty satisfaction to Rattlesnake Sanders. So much set up by them was he, that he sought a meeting with Miss Barndollar, meditating in her sh.e.l.l-like ear a loving word. The lady was in the Wright House kitchen, and observing her lover's approach made haste to slam and bolt the door in his adoring face. Sinking under this rebuff, Rattlesnake withdrew to the Alhambra, and became grievously drunk.

The next day, Rattlesnake Sanders again attempted converse with his obdurate sweetheart as she was coming from Mr. Wright's store. She repelled him with double scorn.

"Not bein' desirous," observed Miss Barndollar on this withering occasion, "of the attentions of no sech tarripin as you, I forbids you speakin' to me now or yereafter."

It is to be supposed that a deal of Miss Barndollar's hardness was the growth of pique. Now that the unreasonable character of her surgical demands had been demonstrated, her resentment was multiplied. Also, because of this second effort at an interview, she complained to Mr.

Masterson.

"Be you Sheriff of Ford I'd like for to ast?" she demanded.

"Why?" asked Mr. Masterson, humble but defensive. Mr. Masterson owned a hare's heart where a woman was concerned, and his instinct was for the fugitive and the non-committal. Wherefore he put the query, being heedful to throw into his tone a propitiating quaver of apology: "Why?

What's fetched loose?"

"Nothin'," returned Miss Barndollar, in her most icy manner, "only I dee-mands protection from that profligate." Here she pointed a chilling finger at the forlorn Rattlesnake who, with head bowed and in an att.i.tude of deepest dejection, stood leaning in the Long Branch door.

"Who, Rattlesnake?" returned Mr. Masterson, with a gentle purpose of reconciliation. "Why, he dotes on you! He loves you like a prairie fire."

"Which the love," said Miss Barndollar, with a sudden vehemence that sent shafts of terror to the soul of Mr. Masterson, "of sech miscreants is the worst outrage they can commit. I'm a weak female, an' I dee-mands protection. Likewise, you'd better give it to me, Bat Masterson, or I'll lay up trouble for your gray ha'rs."

"Taking her up one side and down the other, Rattlesnake," observed Mr.

Masterson, in the confab which in deference to the threats of Miss Barndollar he deemed it wise to hold with that young man, "my notion is that you'd better hit the trail for the White Woman, an' give Calamity a chance to cool. She's a whole lot heated just now, but most likely in a month, or may be in two, it'll be safe to say 'Howdy!' to her, and bid her the time of day."

"Then you'd give her up?" asked the mournful Rattlesnake.

"Only for a spell," replied Mr. Masterson, cheerfully. "But you see yourself there's nothing to be gained by hankering 'round her at this time. The way she feels you couldn't get near enough to her to hand her a ripe peach. Later, it'll be different, and I shall hope to shake a moccasin at your wedding."

Rattlesnake mused a moment, and then broke forth with unexpected spirit.

"Which I'll take your steer, Bat. Also, it's the last I'll have to do with that Calamity. I sh.o.r.e should not regret surrenderin' a lady so narrow as to hold that the only evidence a gent can give of his affection is to go about cripplin' himse'f promiscus."

"Now don't come to any rash decisions," urged the prudent Mr. Masterson.

"Dodge wants those nuptials to come off, and if you'll give Calamity time to round on herself, they will. She's only a bit peevish with you for getting well, but that'll fade away. You go back to your cattle, Rattlesnake, and leave me to ride herd on Calamity. The moment she begins to melt I'll send you word."

It has been the puzzle of every age that woman, with her infinite superiority over man in all that is morally, mentally and physically beautiful, should be seldom or never satisfied. Within three days after Rattlesnake Sanders rode away, Miss Barndollar met Mr. Masterson in the thoroughfares of Dodge and, with tears guttering her freckled cheeks, openly charged upon him the crime of their cruel separation.

"Rattlesnake's the only gent I ever loved!" she sobbed, "an' yere you onfeelin'ly cuts in an' stampedes him out o' my very arms."

Mr. Masterson was somewhat discouraged, and extricated himself from the interview with what polite speed he might. None the less, about the roots of his soul he felt a self-gratulatory flutter. His remedy had worked; his advice was justified. He had recommended for the haughty coldness of Miss Barndollar a course of what Christian Scientists would describe as "absent treatment" and here was the lady yielding to it like a willow to the wind. Mr. Masterson had cause for exultation, and unbent moderately to that sentiment. Withal he was practical, and lost no time in moving to reunite the lovers. In this, however, Mr. Masterson was guilty of an error. He dispatched Cimarron to bring in Rattlesnake, when he should have sent the sympathetic Jack.

"Go over," said Mr. Masterson to Cimarron, "and break the news to Rattlesnake. Tell him he wins, and that there's nothing now to do but consider Calamity's feelings."

Cimarron Bill sullenly threw a saddle on a pony, and pointed away into the desolate north. His heart was not for this journey; it was to him as though he were summoning Rattlesnake not for his marriage but for his execution.

"Bat's takin' a heap on himse'f!" he muttered. "As for me; I washes my hands of the whole play."

Mr. Masterson said afterward that Cimarron Bill, in that matter of the love-coil between Miss Barndollar and Rattlesnake, betrayed a side of his character hitherto unknown. Mr. Masterson should have reflected.

Never before had he been called upon to consider Cimarron while under what peculiar pressures were here exerted. Deep within the inner recesses of Cimarron's nature, abode objections to matrimony as rooted as the hills.

"An' in partic'lar," Cimarron had observed, when once he mooted the subject with Mr. Short as part of a review they were then and there making of the conjugal experiences of Mr. McBride and Bridget, "an' in partic'lar I contends that if the world must have sech things as matrimony, then no gent should be pinned down to jest one wife. An' for this reason," he continued, waving an impressive paw: "It ain't good sense. Is it good farobank sense to put your whole bundle on one kyard?

No. Then it ain't good weddin' sense for to resk your whole heart on one lady. She may fall to lose, an' then where be you at? It's my idee that if a party must go ag'inst this weddin' game, he'll be safer if he spreads his bets."

Holding fast to these beliefs, Cimarron Bill rode forth full of an unconscious willingness to play the marplot. He would deliver the message of Mr. Masterson; but he would deliver it in such fashion that, when the worst occurred, as it hereafter-according to his thinking-must most certainly occur, he, Cimarron, could felicitate himself with the reflection that he had in no sort contributed towards bringing that worst about. He would bear the message of Mr. Masterson; he would also proffer warnings all his own. Should the locoed Rattlesnake then persist in riding open-eyed to Dodge and to destruction-why, his blood be on his head!

It was in this frame that Cimarron Bill sat down to flap-jacks with Rattlesnake Sanders that night at the latter's camp on the White Woman.

And this was the conversation that pa.s.sed between the pair: