Bat Wing Bowles. Coolidge Dane

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СКАЧАТЬ to lean over backwards, and finally, when everything was set, he threw a flip-flap and hit that tank a dead center without hurtin' himself a bit. Now, how about it – is that a lie?"

      He looked up at Bowles with a steady gaze; and that gentleman did not fail him.

      "Why, no," he said; "really, I see no reason to doubt what you say. Of course, I haven't been to Coney Island recently, but such events are quite a common occurrence there."

      "Now, you see?" inquired Brigham triumphantly. "This gentleman has been around a little. Back at Coney them stunts is nothin'! They don't even charge admission."

      "But how can that feller hit the water every time?" argued Bill the doubter, pressing forward to fight the matter out.

      "Don't make no difference how he does it," answered Brigham; "that's his business. If people knowed how he done it, they wouldn't come to see 'im no more. By jicks, I'd jest like to take some of you fellers back to New York and show you some of the real sights. I ain't hardly dared to open my mouth since I took on with this ignorant outfit, but now that I got a gentleman here that's been around a little I may loosen up and tell you a few things."

      "Oh, my Joe!" groaned Hardy Atkins, making a motion like fanning bees from his ears. "Hear the doggone Mormon talk – and never been outer the Territory! Been pitchin' hay and drinkin' ditch-water down on the Gila all his life and – "

      "That's all right," retorted Brigham stoutly; "I reckon – "

      "Well, git out of the way!" shouted the voice of Buck. "And throw down that frame so I can roast these ribs!"

      That ended the controversy for the time, but before the ribs were cooked Brigham edged in another story – and he proved it by Mr. Bowles. It was a trifle improbable, perhaps, but Bowles was getting the spirit of the Great West and he vouched for it in every particular. Then when the ribs were done he cut some of the scorched meat from the bones, and ate it half-raw with a pinch of salt, for he was determined to be a true sport. Buck and Brigham devoured from one to two pounds apiece and gnawed on the bones like dogs; but Mr. Bowles was more moderate in his desires. What he really longed for was a bed or a place to sleep; but the gentleman who had coached him on cowboy life – and sold him his fancy outfit – had not mentioned the sleeping accommodations, and Bowles was too polite to inquire. So he hung around until the last story was told, and followed the gang back to the bunk-house.

      Each man went to his big blanket roll and spread it out for the night without a single glance at the suppliant, for a cowboy hates to share his bed; but as they were taking off their boots Brigham Clark spoke up.

      "Ain't you got no bed, stranger?" he inquired; and when Bowles shook his head he looked at Hardy Atkins, who as bronco-twister and top-hand held the job of straw-boss. A silence fell and Bowles glanced about uneasily.

      "There's a bed over there in the saddle-room," observed Atkins, with a peculiar smile.

      A startled look went around the room, and then Buck came in on the play.

      "Yes," he said, "that feller ain't here now."

      "Oh, thank you," began Bowles, starting toward it; but he was halted in his tracks by a savage oath from Brigham.

      "Here!" he ordered. "You come and sleep with me – that's Dunbar's bed!"

      "Dunbar's!" exclaimed Bowles with a gasp. "Ah, I see!" And with a secret shudder he turned away from the dead man's bed and crept in next to Brigham.

      CHAPTER V

      WA-HA-LOTE

      The cowboy's day begins early, no matter how he spends his night. It was four o'clock in the morning and Bowles was dead with sleep when suddenly the light of a lantern was thrown in his eyes and he heard the cook's voice rousing up the horse wranglers.

      "Wranglers!" he rasped, shaking Brigham by the shoulder. "Git up, Brig; it's almost day!"

      "All right, Gus!" answered Brigham, cuddling down for another nap; but Gloomy Gus had awakened too many generations of cowboys to be deceived by a play like that, and on his way out to finish breakfast he stumbled over Brigham's boots and woke him up to give them to him. So, with many a yawn and sigh, poor Brigham and his fellow wrangler stamped on their boots and went out to round up the horse pasture, and shortly afterward a shrill yell from the cook gave notice that breakfast was ready. Five minutes later he yelled again and beat harshly on a dishpan; then, as the rumble of the horse herd was heard, he came and kicked open the door.

      "Hey, git up, boys!" he shouted. "Breakfast's waitin' and the remuda is in the c'rell! The old man will be down hollerin' 'Hawses!' before you git yore coffee!"

      The bite of the cold morning air swept in as he stood there and roused them at last to action. Swiftly Buck and Bill and Happy Jack rolled out and hustled into their clothes; other men not yet known by name hurried forth to wash for breakfast; and at last Bowles stepped out, to find the sky full of stars. A cold wind breathed in from the east, where the deceitful radiance of the false dawn set a halo on the distant ridges; and the cowboy's life, for the moment, seemed to offer very little to an errant lover. Around the cook's fire, with their coat collars turned up to their ears, a group of punchers was hovering in a half-circle, leaving the other half for Gloomy Gus. Their teeth chattered in the frosty silence, and one by one they washed their faces in hot water from the cook's can and waited for the signal to eat. Then the wranglers came in, half frozen from their long ride in the open pasture, and as Brigham poured out a cup of coffee, regardless, old Gus raised the lid from a Dutch oven, glanced in at the nicely browned biscuits and hollered:

      "Fly at it!"

      A general scramble for plates and cups followed; then a raid on the ovens and coffee-pots and kettles; and inside of three minutes twenty men were crouching on the ground, each one supplied with beans, biscuits and beef – the finest the range produced. They ate and came back for more, and Bowles tried to follow their example; but breakfast at home had been served at a later hour, and it had not been served on the ground, either. However, he ate what he could and drank a pint of coffee that made him as brave as a lion. It was real range coffee, that had set on the grounds over night and been boiled for an hour in the morning. It was strong, and made him forget the cold; but just as he was beginning to feel like a man again silence fell on the crowd, and Henry Lee appeared.

      In his riding boots, and with a wooden-handled old Colt's in his shaps, Mr. Lee was a different creature from the little man that Bowles had whipsawed on the previous evening. He was a dominating man, and as he stood by the fire for a minute and waited for enough light to rope by, Mr. Bowles began to have his regrets. It is one thing to bully-rag a man on his front steps, and quite another to ride bronks on a cold morning. The memory of a man named Dunbar came over him, and he wondered if he had died in the morning, when his bones were brittle and cold. He remembered other things, including Dixie Lee, but without any positive inspiration; and he took a sneaking pleasure at last in the fact that Mr. Lee appeared to have forgotten all about him.

      But Henry Lee was not the man to let an Eastern tenderfoot run it over him, and just as he called for horses and started over toward the corral he said to Hardy Atkins:

      "Oh, Hardy, catch up that Dunbar horse and put this gentleman's saddle on him, will you?"

      He waved his hand toward Bowles, whose heart had just missed a beat, and pulled on a trim little glove.

      "What – Dunbar?" gasped the bronco-twister, startled out of his calm.

      "Yes," returned Lee quietly. "The gentleman claims he can ride."

      "Who СКАЧАТЬ