t’-night. And Patsy, Old Man says for you t’ git a move on and cook something fit to eat; something that ain’t plum full uh microbes.”
Shorty became suddenly engaged in cooling his coffee, enjoying the varied emotions depicted on the faces of the boys.
“Who’s coming?”
“What’s up?”
Shorty took two leisurely gulps before he answered:
“Old Man’s sister’s coming out to stay all summer—and then some, maybe. Be here to-morrow, he said.”
“Gee whiz! Is she pretty?” This from Cal Emmett.
“Hope she ain’t over fifty.” This from Jack Bates.
“Hope she ain’t one of them four-eyed school-ma’ams,” added Happy Jack—so called to distinguish him from Jack Bates, and also because of his dolorous visage.
“Why can’t some one else haul her out?” began Chip. “Cal would like that job—and he’s sure welcome to it.”
“Cal’s too dangerous. He’d have the old girl dead in love before he got her over the first ridge, with them blue eyes and that pretty smile of his’n. It’s up to you, Splinter—Old Man said so.”
“She’ll be dead safe with Chip. HE won’t make love to her,” retorted Cal.
“Wonder how old she is,” repeated Jack Bates, half emptying the syrup pitcher into his plate. Patsy had hot biscuits for supper, and Jack’s especial weakness was hot biscuits and maple syrup.
“As to her age,” remarked Shorty, “it’s a cinch she ain’t no spring chicken, seeing she’s the Old Man’s sister.”
“Is she a schoolma’am?” Happy Jack’s distaste for schoolma’ams dated from his tempestuous introduction to the A B C’s, with their daily accompaniment of a long, thin ruler.
“No, she ain’t a schoolma’am. She’s a darn sight worse. She’s a doctor.”
“Aw, come off!” Cal Emmett was plainly incredulous.
“That’s right. Old Man said she’s just finished taking a course uh medicine—what’d yuh call that?”
“Consumption, maybe—or snakes.” Weary smiled blandly across the table.
“She got a diploma, though. Now where do you get off at?”
“Yeah—that sure means she’s a doctor,” groaned Cal.
“By golly, she needn’t try t’ pour any dope down ME,” cried a short, fat man who took life seriously—a man they called Slim, in fine irony.
“Gosh, I’d like to give her a real warm reception,” said Jack Bates, who had a reputation for mischief. “I know them Eastern folks, down t’ the ground. They think cow-punchers wear horns. Yes, they do. They think we’re holy terrors that eat with our six-guns beside our plates—and the like of that. They make me plum tired. I’d like to—wish we knew her brand.”
“I can tell you that,” said Chip, cynically. “There’s just two bunches to choose from. There’s the Sweet Young Things, that faint away at sight of a six-shooter, and squawk and catch at your arm if they see a garter snake, and blush if you happen to catch their eye suddenly, and cry if you don’t take off your hat every time you see them a mile off.” Chip held out his cup for Patsy to refill.
“Yeah—I’ve run up against that brand—and they’re sure all right. They suit ME,” remarked Cal.
“That don’t seem to line up with the doctor’s diploma,” commented Weary.
“Well, she’s the other kind then—and if she is, the Lord have mercy on the Flying U! She’ll buy her some spurs and try to rope and cut out and help brand. Maybe she’ll wear double-barreled skirts and ride a man’s saddle and smoke cigarettes. She’ll try to go the men one better in everything, and wind up by making a darn fool of herself. Either kind’s bad enough.”
“I’ll bet she don’t run in either bunch,” began Weary. “I’ll bet she’s a skinny old maid with a peaked nose and glasses, that’ll round us up every Sunday and read tracts at our heads, and come down on us with both feet about tobacco hearts and whisky livers, and the evils and devils wrapped up in a cigarette paper. I seen a woman doctor, once—she was stopping at the T Down when I was line-riding for them—and say, she was a holy fright! She had us fellows going South before a week. I stampeded clean off the range, soon as my month was up.”
“Say,” interrupted Cal, “don’t yuh remember that picture the Old Man got last fall, of his sister? She was the image of the Old Man—and mighty near as old.”
Chip, thinking of the morrow’s drive, groaned in real anguish of spirit.
“You won’t dast t’ roll a cigarette comin’ home, Chip,” predicted Happy Jack, mournfully. “Yuh want t’ smoke double goin’ in.”
“I don’t THINK I’ll smoke double going in,” returned Chip, dryly. “If the old girl don’t like my style, why the walking isn’t all taken up.”
“Say, Chip,” suggested Jack Bates, “you size her up at the depot, and, if she don’t look promising, just slack the lines on Antelope Hill. The creams ‘ll do the rest. If they don’t, we’ll finish the job here.”
Shorty tactfully pushed back his chair and rose. “You fellows don’t want to git too gay,” he warned. “The Old Man’s just beginning to forget about the calf-shed deal.” Then he went out and shut the door after him. The boys liked Shorty; he believed in the old adage about wisdom being bliss at certain times, and the boys were all the better for his living up to his belief. He knew the Happy Family would stop inside the limit—at least, they always had, so far.
“What’s the game?” demanded Cal, when the door closed behind their indulgent foreman.
“Why, it’s this. (Pass the syrup, Happy.) T’morrow’s Sunday, so we’ll have time t’ burn. We’ll dig up all the guns we can find, and catch up the orneriest cayuses in our strings, and have a real, old lynching bee—sabe?”
“Who yuh goin’ t’ hang?” asked Slim, apprehensively. “Yuh needn’t think I’LL stand for it.”
“Aw, don’t get nervous. There ain’t power enough on the ranch t’ pull yuh clear of the ground. We ain’t going to build no derrick,” said Jack, witheringly. “We’ll have a dummy rigged up in the bunk house. When Chip and the doctor heave in sight on top of the grade, we’ll break loose down here with our bronks and our guns, and smoke up the ranch in style. We’ll drag out Mr. Strawman, and lynch him to the big gate before they get along. We’ll be ‘riddling him with bullets’ when they arrive—and by that time she’ll be so rattled she won’t know whether it’s a man or a mule we’ve got strung up.”
“You’ll have to cut down your victim before I get there,” grinned Chip. “I never could get the creams through the gate, with a man hung to the frame; they’d spill us into the washout by the old shed, sure as fate.”
“That’d be all right.
