The Trail Rider/Chapter 2
UNCLE BOLEY was the proudest man on the fair grounds that afternoon when Texas came over from the office with the money in his hand. The old man was in the very first row of the grand stand, his whiskers combed out to their mightiest, his face glowing like a Santa Claus mask.
"It was as purty a piece of ropin' as I ever seen, Texas," he declared, going forward to meet the young man, as proud of the admiration in the ladies' eyes, the complimentary comment of cowmen and cowboys around him, as if the stranger were his son.
"It wasn't such a scan'lous hard piece of work with that horse of yours, sir. He's the finest cowpony I ever threw a leg over, sir, and the smartest."
The old man's eyes softened with a mist of tenderness at this praise.
"I raised that horse from a colt, but I didn't teach him them tricks, Texas. It was a girl that broke him in to handle cattle."
"Why, sir, you don't tell me!"
Texas looked at Uncle Boley with amazement in his face. Animated by his success he seemed younger and livelier by many years than when he had stood in the shop-door a few hours before, dusty and roadworn, hungry and downhearted.
"You'll see her purty soon—she's in this here ladies' contest that's comin' next. Well, if there's any excuse for any girl in Kansas bein' in it, that girl's Sallie McCoy. I would take down the bars for Sallie, for she's a lady, no matter what she does."
"I'm sure she is, sir; the actions of that little horse tell me as much."
"She'll ride him when she goes in. You'll have a chance to see his work."
"She'll ride him? Why, if I'd 'a' known it, sir—it wasn't fair of me to use him and tire him all out!"
"That's all right; he's able to stand it and never turn a hair."
"But if I'd 'a' known that you intended to let her ride him, I never would 'a' thrown a leg over him, sir."
"I ain't a lettin' her use him—it was her that lent him to us—she owns him."
Texas looked at him with fallen countenance most woeful to behold. Injured pride flushed his cheeks, humiliation lurked in his eyes like the pain of a wound.
"But I understood you to say, sir—"
"That I raised him. I did; but I give him to Sallie five years ago. If you think runnin' down and ropin' one fool chuckleheaded steer's a goin' to wind that horse, then you've got another guess comin' to you, young feller."
"But I'm scan'lous sorry, just the same. I feel like I'd taken a mean advantage of a lady's generosity; I feel—just like—a whipped pup!"
Uncle Boley passed if off with a grunt, taking it all as a reflection on the endurance of the horse. He spread his big red handkerchief on the rough board seat for which he had paid two dollars, and nodded for Texas to compose himself beside him.
"Two dollars for a piece of board a foot and a half long!" he protested. "Might know it wasn't any bunch of cowmen that got this thing up. Keep a man pickin' splinters out of his britches for the next month!"
"Didn't the cowmen get it up, sir? I understood from the bill—"
"Yes, but it wasn't the association; the association didn't have nothing to do with the fair. They're holding the convention here, all right, but a crowd of Wichita men, and some of the light-heels of this town, got up this show to rastle a few more dollars away from folks."
"Well, they sure have succeeded," said Texas, sweeping a quick look over the crowded grand stand.
Uncle Boley nodded, but did not look about him. Instead, he was surveying Texas, with every evidence of satisfaction in his glowing face. He had insisted on boots, and had found a pair among the unclaimed ones on his shelf that fitted Texas as if they had been measured for him. It made a great difference in the young man's legs, Uncle Boley reflected; it gave him the shape and proportions of a proper man.
"Yes, and there'll be a heap of money put up on Sallie McCoy," the old man said, twisting his head to express magnitude; "scads and piles of it. Every cowman and puncher in fifty miles is here to put his money on Sallie. Pore as I am, I rolled up a little and put it on her, and if I had more, I'd resk it too, by Ned!"
Texas jumped to his feet, seeing here an opening to express his gratitude.
"I'll put up a hundred apiece for us!"
"I don't encourage gamblin'," said the old man sagely; "but when I run into a bunch of light-heels that's achin' to git rid of their money, I'm bound to help 'em all I can. Put it up for yourself, if you want to, but I ain't a goin' to split that money with you, and I told you that at the start."
Moved by his sense of obligation to this unknown Sallie McCoy, Texas went down to post a bet on her. From what the old man had said, he expected to find the odds largely in her favor, and was not a little surprised to learn that it was the other way. There was no lack of money at two to one against Sallie McCoy, and the friends and supporters of that young lady were covering it as fast as they could count.
On all sides he heard it expressed that somebody was in for a shearing. The fact that strangers should come from Wichita and bet against the local favorite was hotly resented. It was being said that they had offered odds to bring out the money, and the challenge was working very well.
Texas crossed over to where a crowd stood round a pen in which the steers were confined, hoping that he might get a glimpse of Sallie McCoy among the contestants, who were waiting on the other side of the big corral gate. There were three girls looking over the animals, which were soon to fall before their cunning hands, making wise comments on the points of strength and speed which the steers presented. They were range-roughened girls, browned by sun and wind, dressed in divided skirts, with more or less savage trinkery and ornamentation on their hats and belts. He did not believe that Sallie McCoy was among them.
These were the kind of girls whom the cowboys flung heels-high in their rough dances; strongarmed, broad-chested, afraid of neither man nor beast. He believed Sallie McCoy must be out of a more delicate mold than these.
One of the judges rode into the arena to announce the rules governing this contest, which were somewhat different from those under which the men had competed.
Each contestant was to enter the arena alone, after having selected the steer upon which she was to practise her art from the number 'in the pen. The animal was to be allowed a running start before the rope was thrown. No assistance would be given, except in the event that the contestant became entangled or otherwise imperiled. A man with a megaphone would announce before the grand stand each contestant's name as she entered, and the time it took her to throw and hog-tie the steer, when she had accomplished that feat.
The first girl was mounting her horse as Texas turned to go back to Uncle Boley; but at that moment one entered the enclosure where the contestants waited whose appearance rooted his feet to the ground. Texas drew himself up to his toes to look at her as she swept past the other girls, giving them an indifferent, rather superior, glance as she passed.
She was dressed in green velvet bolero and divided skirt, with silver buttons down the outside seams of this wide, trouser-like garment. Her little spurs were silver, a silver ornament held back the brim of her broad hat, showing the engaging sweep of her abundant dark hair over her dainty ear. Her skin was of a tender whiteness, reddened on cheek and lip by nature's own cosmetics, in fine contrast with her brilliant habit and dark eyes. She was handsome, and so well aware of it that there was a certain haughtiness in her carriage, near neighbor to disdain.
Texas thought she was the most superb human being he ever had seen. He did not believe that it was possible that she could sit a saddle against the shock of a roped steer, or leap to the ground, while her horse strained on the taut lariat, and run with rope in hand and secure the thrown creature's wild-striving legs.
Could this ripe beauty, this voluptuous creature, be Sallie McCoy? Texas was all of a-quiver to find out. He saw that the officials of the fair paid her the utmost deference, fairly jumping in their eagerness to make a place for her as she set her dainty foot on the plank of the stock-pen and climbed up to get a better view of the arena.
He hurried back to ask Uncle Boley about her, arriving before the grand stand to find that the passage leading into the arena had been blocked completely by late arrivals, chiefly women. He was too timid, too considerate, to disturb them. Uncle Boley saw him, and waved his hand understandingly.
Texas took up his station in front of the grand stand with the fringe of favored ones who had been allowed to penetrate that far, and one came past on a horse to warn them back close against the wall, and to caution them that they would have to look out for themselves when things began to pop between the ladies and the steers.
Texas watched the work of the first three girls keenly. Two of them were ordinary; one was excellent. But none of them was Sallie McCoy. But he had not expected one of them to turn out to be Sallie McCoy. Surely it was the girl in the velvet dress who was Sallie; and yet—there was something deeper in his heart that denied this; why, he could not tell. Perhaps it was because she was grander than he had pictured Uncle Boley's friend to be, and bolder, perhaps, if that word might be permitted in the description of a lady.
The grand stand was going wild over the last girl. She was the comeliest of the three whom he had seen in the corral, and he thought that if she was not one of the "queens of the range" which the poster had announced, then she was a princess, at least. The spectators appeared to hold the same opinion. They would not be satisfied until she had ridden past, modest and blushing, her hair in disorder from her struggle with the steer, her hat in her hand. Sallie McCoy would have to go a pretty good pace to beat that girl's time, Texas thought, and began to fear for her reputation.
He looked again toward the stock-pen. There another girl had appeared on horse-back, and—there was no mistaking it—the very horse that he had ridden to a winning finish not more than an hour before. So that would be Sallie McCoy, beyond a doubt, and it was not the gorgeous lady in the velvet dress and silver spurs.
Anything, indeed, but gorgeous this little lady appeared as she rode into the arena and came to a stop not a rod from the spot where Texas stood. She was dressed plainly in a loose, shirtlike upper garment, laced at the front in the cowboy style, a modest blue necktie tucked into the bosom. Her gray blouse disappeared under the broad belt around her waist, with a plain suggestion of a tail to it equal to any cowboy's shirt on the Arkansas Valley range that day. The skirt was of corduroy, divided into voluminous trousers, set with large mother-of-pearl buttons down the legs. She wore no spurs; her tawny, weathered hat was weighted by a heavy leather band.
The sun had turned to a reddish tint the ends and light-flying tresses of her heavy, brown hair and had set its little brown pigment spots in her fine-textured skin, like marks of kisses from the lips of an ardent lover. Her eyes were as brown as walnut, and sorrowful as a Madonna's, but in the sorrow of innocence, whose only grief is for a dream.
She saw Uncle Boley up there among the great crowd, and smiled. Texas felt a quiver leap through his body at the sight of her quickened face, as if she had come and laid her hand on his head. It was just like that, he thought; just exactly as if she had come and laid her hand on his bare head. And her smile was not for him at all; as far as he was concerned, her world was empty of men. But if a smile going over a man's head could make him quiver and tingle like that, how would he feel if she gave it to him, right square in the eyes?
That was what Texas wondered, the velvet lady in her glory dim in his thoughts that moment, as Sallie McCoy's name was announced by the man with the megaphone and the gate was opened to the wildest steer on the waiting list.
It was a white animal with a blotch of red across its loins—the meanest color that a steer could be, and Texas knew it—long-legged, long-horned, and it carried its head high when it rushed out of the pen, as if it was bound for its native Texas and dared any man to stop it on the way. Of course there was a certain advantage in a fast one, Texas reflected, for the faster it went, the harder it would fall. But he had his doubts on the ability of this slender girl, with her small, brown hands, being able to do much with that native of the chaparral.
"He's a regular catamount!" said Texas aloud.
"You said it, pardner," agreed a short, bow-legged man, with a narrow face and long nose, and great black mustache drooping under it like a mourning wreath.
The three judges were mounted, waiting in front of the grand stand to dash out and time the contestant, time beginning the moment that the lariat was thrown. The contestant was allowed the preliminary maneuvering to warm up her horse, limber her arms, and work the steer up in front of the grand stand if she had that desire.
Texas saw from the start that this girl had no such intention. Her aim was to get it over with while her horse was fresh. But the steer seemed to have some crafty design of his own for making a figure in the world. Texas never had seen a swifter one, and few as wild. The animal dashed around the arena in long leaps, like a deer, yet far out of reach of her lariat, and at every circle past the grand stand the enthusiasm of the spectators grew.
Here at last was the real thing; here was a show for your money, a thing to make you lift in your seat and feel a thrill up your backbone when that handsome girl went by, swift as a leaf on the wind, a whirl of dust behind her, her slender limbs holding her to the saddle as lissom as a sapling in a gale.
Accustomed as these people were to seeing men and women tearing about the town on horseback, there was a quality in this girl's exhibition of riding that held their breath in admiration. There was no thought as to when it would end, or how, only the present wonder of her plastic figure and the moving appreciation of her grace and competence, as she went dashing across the dusty field.
Down in the front where Texas and the bow-legged man stood there was some concern lest the long-winded steer might outlast her horse.
"That feller's a wind-splitter from Arkansaw!" said the bow-legged man.
"He sure is built for speed," Texas replied, his anxious eyes on the whirl of dust through which pursuer and pursued were dimly seen.
"He's a racehorse, cuss him!" The bow-legged man pushed forward a little as he spoke, and leaned as if concentrating his faculties to influence the steer. "Now! That's the girl—that's the girl!"
The encouraging exclamation had been drawn from him by Sallie's sudden maneuver. Quitting the pursuit of the steer, throwing her weight across the saddle to swerve her horse sharply, she cut across the arena and intercepted the flying animal directly in front of the place where Texas and the bow-legged man stood.
The steer stiffened his legs and slid in his surprised attempt to escape the trap, wheeled, snorted defiance, and made off on a back track. But his checked race had been fatal to his spectacular calculations, if calculations he had inside his wild, long-horned head. Before he could get back to his lost gait Sallie had swung and cast her reata.
It fell true to the mark. Her watchful horse stiffened in his tracks, braced himself, lunged back, as Sallie half flung herself from the saddle on the opposite side to set her weight against the shock. In a second there was a glimpse of wild-flying legs as eight hundred pounds of steer struggled against the tight-strung lariat to get to its feet again.
The grand stand started a cheer when the steer was thrown, but bit it off as if the door of its emotion had been opened untimely. There was not the sound of a sigh as Sallie ran to the struggling, bellowing animal, her hobble in her hand. The rest of it was only a flash through a cloud of dust.
The grand stand stood to see, and did see, a deft movement of hand and rope, and the next breath, it seemed, the girl standing back out of the dust and confusion. The steer was lying there winded, its four legs gathered and bound like a hog trussed up for market.
Sallie's wise horse, knowing very well when the work was done, eased the strain on the rope, and the grand stand, freed of its tension at the same moment, outdid itself in cheering. The judges released the conquered steer, faced the shouting people, held up hands for silence. Sallie remounted and rode forward with them, and her friends came scrambling over the rail by scores to congratulate her.
The man with the megaphone announced her time. This was seven seconds better than the best made so far, and the opinion was confidently and freely expressed that it could not be beaten. The bow-legged man was so sure of this that he produced money which, he said, stood ready to back that belief against all corners.
Texas saw a tall, soft-shouldered, puffy man, whose black eyebrows were in sharp contrast with the scraped-hog whiteness of his skin, come forward and engage the bow-legged man's money. The judges, as an escort of honor, rode with Sallie to the corral gate, where she continued in her saddle waiting to see the finish.
The man with the megaphone cleared the arena for the closing feature.