“It's a laundry,” replied Sal; and then observing that Riley Bent was in his cups, she continued with delicate firmness; “an' if you-all ain't mighty keerful how you line out, you'll shorely get a smoothin' iron direct.”
Nothing daunted by the lady's candour, Riley Bent sat down on a furloughed tub which reposed bottom up in one corner. In the course of a conversation, whereof he furnished the questions, and Sal the short, inhospitable replies, it occurred that she and Riley Bent became mutually, albeit dimly, known to one another.
During the three months following, Riley Bent was much and persistently in the laundry of Wagon Mound Sal. Wolfville, eagle-eyed in the softer and more dulcet phenomena of life, looked confidently for a wedding. So in truth did Sal, emulous of Benson Annie. Also Sal was a clear-minded, resolute young lady; and having one day concluded to take Riley Bent for better or for worse, she lost no time in bringing matters to a focus.
“You're a maverick?” she one day asked, suddenly looking up from her ironing. Sal's tones were steady and cool, but it was noticed that she burnt a hole in the bosom of Doc Peets's shirt while waiting a reply. “You-all ain't married none?”
“Thar ain't no squaw has ever been able to rope, throw an' run her brand on me!” said Riley Bent. “Which I'm shorely a maverick!”
“Whatever then is the matter of you an' me dealin'?” asked Sal, coming around to Riley Bent's side of the ironing table.
That personage surveyed her in a thoughtful maze.
“You're a long horn, an' for that much so be I,” he said at last, as one who meditates. “Neither of us would grade for corn-fed in anybody's yards!”
Then came another long pause, during which, with his eyes fixedly gazing into Wagon Mound Sal's, Riley Bent gave himself to the unwonted employment of thinking. At last he shook his head until the little gold bells on his bullion hatband tinkled in a dubious, uncertain way, as taking their tone from the wearer.
“Which the idee bucks me plumb off!” he remarked, with a final deep breath; and then with no further word Riley repaired to the Red Light Saloon and became dejectedly yet deeply drunk.