“Same old Manuel,” was Sandy’s reply. “But he’s kind o’ got some new notions in his headpiece lately, along of our sin-bustin’ friend Mister Gard gettin’ after ’im last time he started onto a spree.”
“Yes?” His hearer was deeply interested in examining Dickens’ sound little knees, and did not look up.
“Why do you call Mr. Gard your sin-busting friend, Sandy?” she asked, still intent upon the pony. Nothing loth, the foreman plunged into an enthusiastic account of his first meeting with Gard. Helen listened, her cheeks still glowing from exercise.
“I never got the rights o’ how he took hold o’ Manuel,” Sandy said, when the story was finished, “Manuel, he ain’t talkin’ none about it; but he started out on one o’ his regular imbibin’ bees, which same the patron’d give out was n’t to be overlooked again, an’ all I know is he comes home all right next mornin’ an’ gets on his job, just as I’m supposin’ it’s me to be rustlin’ another puncher. I’m mighty glad just then, for Manuel’s sure a first-class man on cows. He allows Gard made him come, an’ I know nobody else ever was able to gentle ’im in when he was up against the impulses for a tussle with booze.”
“Gard, he’s got me,” the foreman went on. “He ain’t none o’ your hymn-tune kind Miss Helen; but he ’s a right kind all right; just plain good man; which the same ain’t common now’days.”
Helen, with Patsy beside her, was starting for the casa.
“I guess you’re right Sandy,” she called back, absently, without turning around, and Sandy looked after her with scant approval.
“There you’ve got it,” he muttered discontentedly, to the pony, “Old an’ young they’re all alike, the women, when it comes to sizin’ up a real man. If it ain’t the shine an’ the pretty manners for them, why it’s the high forehead, an’ the big idees. I’m disappointed she don’t see that more clearly, an’ she ridin’ herd on a college education for four years!”
He led Dickens away toward the sheds and turned him over to one of the men.
“I suppose now”—he went on with his meditations—“She’s fooled into thinkin’ that there side-winder of an Ash Westcott’s the real thing. Lord! If the right brand was on him I know what it’d look like!” and the foreman went about his duties with a heavy heart.