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Page 37
The Marquis and Miss Sally grew to be quite close comrades. After supper
was over, and everything cleaned up, you would generally find them
together, Miss Sally smoking his brier-root pipe, and the Marquis
plaiting a quirt or scraping rawhide for a new pair of hobbles.
The superintendent did not forget his promise to keep an eye on the
cook. Several times, when visiting the camp, he held long talks with
him. He seemed to have taken a fancy to Miss Sally. One afternoon he
rode up, on his way back to the ranch from a tour of the camps, and said
to him:
"There'll be a man here in the morning to take your place. As soon as he
shows up you come to the ranch. I want you to take charge of the ranch
accounts and correspondence. I want somebody that I can depend upon to
keep things straight when I'm away. The wages'll be all right. The
Diamond-Cross'll hold its end up with a man who'll look after its
interests."
"All right," said Miss Sally, as quietly as if he had expected the
notice all along. "Any objections to my bringing my wife down to the
ranch?"
"You married?" said the superintendent, frowning a little. "You didn't
mention it when we were talking."
"Because I'm not," said the cook. "But I'd like to be. Thought I'd wait
till I got a job under roof. I couldn't ask her to live in a cow camp."
"Right," agreed the superintendent. "A camp isn't quite the place for a
married man--but--well, there's plenty of room at the house, and if you
suit us as well as I think you will you can afford it. You write to her
to come on."
"All right," said Miss Sally again, "I'll ride in as soon as I am
relieved to-morrow."
It was a rather chilly night, and after supper the cow-punchers were
lounging about a big fire of dried mesquite chunks.
Their usual exchange of jokes and repartee had dwindled almost to
silence, but silence in a cow camp generally betokens the brewing of
mischief.
Miss Sally and the Marquis were seated upon a log, discussing the
relative merits of the lengthened or shortened stirrup in long-distance
riding. The Marquis arose presently and went to a tree near by to
examine some strips of rawhide he was seasoning for making a lariat.
Just as he left a little puff of wind blew some scraps of tobacco from a
cigarette that Dry-Creek Smithers was rolling, into Miss Sally's eyes.
While the cook was rubbing at them, with tears flowing, "Phonograph"
Davis--so called on account of his strident voice--arose and began a
speech.
"Fellers and citizens! I desire to perpound a interrogatory. What is the
most grievous spectacle what the human mind can contemplate?"
A volley of answers responded to his question.
"A busted flush!"
"A Maverick when you ain't got your branding iron!"
"Yourself!"
"The hole in the end of some other feller's gun!"
"Shet up, you ignoramuses," said old Taller, the fat cow-puncher. "Phony
knows what it is. He's waitin' for to tell us."
"No, fellers and citizens," continued Phonograph. "Them spectacles
you've e-numerated air shore grievious, and way up yonder close to the
so-lution, but they ain't it. The most grievious spectacle air that"--he
pointed to Miss Sally, who was still rubbing his streaming eyes--"a
trustin' and a in-veegled female a-weepin' tears on account of her heart
bein' busted by a false deceiver. Air we men or air we catamounts to
gaze upon the blightin' of our Miss Sally's affections by a
a-risto-crat, which has come among us with his superior beauty and his
glitterin' title to give the weeps to the lovely critter we air bound to
pertect? Air we goin' to act like men, or air we goin' to keep on eaten'
soggy chuck from her cryin' so plentiful over the bread-pan?"
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