Code of the West. Zane Grey

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      Cal went about his morning ablutions without paying any attention to his tormentors; and he broke his rule of shaving only once a week. This appeared to be of exceeding interest to the boys.

      “Say, he’s shavin’,” ejaculated Arizona, as if that simple action was astounding.

      “Got on his Sunday jeans, too,” observed Wess. “Reckon he wants to look handsome.”

      “Wal, he never could—no matter what a dude he makes of himself,” added Pan Handle.

      “Rarin’ to go!” exclaimed Tim, mockingly.

      When Cal finally turned to the breakfast table the others had almost finished eating. Cal called into the kitchen: “Mother, won’t you or Molly bring me somethin’ to eat? These hawgs out here have grazed like sheep across a pasture.”

      “Cal,” replied his mother, “you oughta get up in the mawnin’.”

      Then his sister Molly appeared, carrying several smoking dishes which she set down before him. She was a wholesome-looking girl of about seventeen, unmistakably a Thurman in features.

      “Cal, can I go to town with you?” she asked, appealingly.

      “I should say not,” he replied.

      “But I want to buy some things,” she protested.

      “I’ll buy them for you,” replied Cal.

      “Miss Stockwell left a list of things she wants.”

      “All right. Has she gone to school?”

      “Yes. She went with father in the buckboard. She wanted to see you, but you weren’t up. Said good-bye and you weren’t to forget what she told you about meeting Georgiana.”

      “Now, Molly, cain’t you see there ain’t any danger of Cal’s forgettin’ his date with George-anner?” put in Wess, facetiously.

      Then Cal began his breakfast in silence, aware of the bland observance of his comrades, and he did not waste any time eating. Pushing back his empty plate, he looked square at them.

      “Not ridin’ today, huh?” he queried.

      “Nope,” replied Wess, laconically.

      “Nor tacklin’ any of the lot of work that ought to be done?”

      “Nope.”

      “Goin’ huntin’ with the dogs, maybe?”

      “Reckon it’s too dry an’ hot to hunt. But I’m shore goin’ soon as it rains an’ gets cooler. Lots of bear this fall. An’ a world of acorns up on the high ridges.”

      “Well, what are you goin’ to do today?” deliberately questioned Cal.

      “Reckon I’m takin’ a day off,” said Wess, serenely.

      “Goin’ to Ryson?” went on Cal, grimly.

      “Shore. There ain’t any excitement round heah. An’ I’ve got a world of stuff to buy. Tobacco an’ horseshoes an’ cartridges, an’——”

      “I’ll buy your stuff,” cut in Cal.

      “Couldn’t think of trustin’ you,” returned Wess, blandly. “Besides, I want to see Angie.”

      “She’s not home, an’ you know it,” rejoined Cal. Then he directed his gaze at Pan Handle Ames. “Reckon you’ve important reasons to show up in Ryson—huh?”

      “Cal, I jest naturally got to go. There’s a lot——”

      “Bah!” interrupted Cal as he rose to his feet, shoving the bench seat backwards. He did not need to hear more subterfuge or question Arizona or Tim. They were too casual, too unnaturally uninterested. He judged the enormity of their machinations by the singular blankness of their faces.

      “Goin’ to ride in on horseback?” concluded Cal, with a last glimpse of hopelessness.

      “Nope. We’re takin’ the big car,” said Wess. “You see, Uncle Henry wants flour, grain, an’ a lot of supplies he ordered an’ needs bad. Oh, we’ll have a load comin’ back.”

      “I wanted the big car,” retorted Cal, hotly. “Didn’t father know I was goin’ to meet a lady?”

      “I reckon he did, for when we told him how bad we needed it to fetch back all the stuff, he said you could drive the Ford,” replied Wess, with a composure that indicated supreme self-control.

      “An’ father’s gone with the buckboard!” ejaculated Cal, almost showing distress.

      “Yes, he’s drivin’ teacher to school, an’ then he’s goin’ to Hiram Bowes’.”

      “Cal, seein’ what a meekanik you air an’ how you can drive, it seems to us heah thet you’ll go along in the Ford like a turkey sailin’ downhill,” said Pan Handle Ames, with astounding kindliness and admiration.

      Just then Tim doubled up and began to cough violently. Plain indeed were his heroic efforts to control mirth. Cal gazed at these four cronies in slow-gathering wrath. Finally he let go.

      “Wess, I’ll bet you a horse to a pouch of tobacco that you’ll get licked for this job.”

      “Say! What job are you ravin’ aboot? An’ who’s gonna lick me? You cain’t, Cousin Cal.”

      “I’m not afraid to tackle it again, an’ if I can’t, by golly! I’ll find some one who can,” retorted Cal, darkly.

      With that he abruptly turned away from his tormentors and strode for the corrals. The profound silence left behind him was further and final proof of a remarkable self-control exercised by these tricksters. It worried Cal, yet at the same time it began to arouse his antagonism. The task imposed upon him by the good school-teacher had assumed more than irksome possibilities. Manifestly it had furnished his cousin and comrade riders an unusual opportunity. But would they do anything really rude or unkind to Miss Stockwell’s sister? Cal could not, even in temper, believe that they would. But they were equal to any stretch of the imagination as far as he was concerned, and they would do anything under the sun to make him miserable.

      He went directly to look over the Ford car. It had seen three or four years more than its best days. But it miraculously held together and really did not look like the junkheap it actually was. That was because Cal’s father had covered it recently with a paint he wanted to get rid of.

      Cal Thurman loved horses, and as a rider he was second only to his famous brother Boyd. But he hated automobiles and simply could not understand what made them run or stop or get out of order. As mathematics had been the only study Miss Stockwell could not make clear to Cal, so the operation of a threshing-machine or automobile or of the age-old steam-engine at the sawmill, was the only thing about the ranch that Cal’s father could not teach him. To be sure, he had tried to learn to drive an automobile, and had succeeded to some extent. But it took a mechanical genius to make this Ford go. This morning, however, the deceitful engine started with a crack СКАЧАТЬ