The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox. Ernest Haycox

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       LOLA, SUNDOWN'S OWN SINGING BEAUTY,

       COMES BACK TO HER BIRTHPLACE

       AFTER A TRIUMPHAL TOUR

       OF EUROPE TO PLEASE THE FOLKS

       OF THE OLD HOMETOWN TONIGHT!

      Jake Leverage scanned the notice. "They sure got the country plastered with them notices. I see 'em on every juniper shrub along the road. Been three years since we saw Lola in a play, ain't it, Eve? What's she want to come back to this sun-cooked scope of alkali-crusted land for, anyhow? I got no admiration for foreign places like Yurrup, but if I was a gal with Lola's talents I sure wouldn't waste no time around here. I'd go away and stay away."

      Eve tried to catch her father's attention, but he went on blandly. "A great girl. I'm no hand for this fa-so-la music as a rule, but it was a genuine pleasure to sit back in the old Palace and hear her sing. Yes, sir. Well, I reckon you got to go to that, uh, Eve?"

      He turned to his daughter and received in full measure the impact of her warning glance. She shook her head slightly, at which the old man muttered under his breath and combed back his mustache to drink the rest of his coffee. Eve's clear face seemed sharp and troubled as she watched Dave Denver. He had turned to the notice and was staring at it, all features caught up in a brooding, stormy expression. For a time he appeared to forget all others in the room, to forget that there were people around who might be interested in observing his reaction to Lola Monterey's name. Eve lowered her eyes to the table, knowing very well how many quick and covert glances were thrown toward Dave Denver. Lola was back, bringing with her a breath of the old story and the old gossip.

      Denver squared himself to the table and reached for his cigarette papers. "Yeah," he observed casually, "she always had a fine voice. The outside world was her place."

      "Then why should she come back?" Leverage wanted to know and received a kick on his booted leg under the table.

      "I couldn't say," mused Denver. "Probably Lola doesn't know herself. That's the way she does things."

      "All wimmen's alike," grunted Leverage and scowled on his daughter. His leg hurt.

      Outside was the jangle and clatter of the Ysabel Junction stage making the right-angle turn from Prairie Street to Main. By common consent the people in the dining room adjourned dinner and headed for the door. Denver walked behind Leverage and Eve; the girl, never knowing why she should let herself say such a thing, spoke over her shoulder.

      "Old times for you, David. Aren't you glad?"

      She was instantly sorry, and a little ashamed when she heard Denver's slow answer come gently forward.

      "You've convinced me you're no longer a little girl, Eve. I'm not sure I like the change."

      "And why?"

      "Little girls are more charitable minded than big ones."

      They were on the porch. The stages—there were three of them this trip instead of one—veered up to the hotel porch and stopped. Some courteous citizen opened the door of the front coach and lifted his hat. A woman stepped daintily down, and there was a flash of even teeth as she smiled on the crowd. Eve's small fists tightened; she threw a glance behind her, but Dave Denver had disappeared from the porch and was not to be seen. Eve thought Lola Monterey's eyes went through the ranks of the assembled Sundowners with more than passing interest, but if the woman was disappointed she was too accomplished an actress to reveal it. Old man Leverage muttered, "By Jodey, the girl's pretty, Eve. She's got beyond Sundown."

      Eve nodded, a small ache in her heart. The tempestuous, flamboyant dance-hall girl of three years ago had returned from her conquests with the veneer of fine manners and proud self- confidence. Her jet-black hair bobbed in the sun, and the slim, pointed face, showing the satin smoothness of Spanish blood, had the stirring dignity of actual beauty. Moving up the steps with the same lithe grace that had brought her out of poverty and mean surroundings, she paused, swung around, and smiled again on Sundown. Soft and husky words fell into the silence with a queer vitality.

      "I am home—and glad."

      Then she passed into the hotel, the rest of the opera company following after. A traveling salesman, calling heartily to his friends, swept past. And at the end of the procession strolled an extremely tall man with the jaw and the nose and the eye of England. He seemed weary, bored, puzzled. At the door he paused to ask a plaintive question of a bystander, and those nearest him caught the full fragrance of a broad and richly blurred speech freshly blown from Albion's misty shores.

      "I say, my friend, one of my bally braces has burst a stitching. Can you direct me to the local haberdashery?"

      The crowd was dissolving. Leverage turned on his daughter. "I reckon you'll be wantin' to see the show tonight, uh?"

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