“The Cactus” was personable, and her advent into Wolfville society caused something of a flutter. Her mission was to cook, and in the fulfilment of her destiny she presided over the range at the stage station.
Being publicly hailed as “The Cactus” seemed in no wise to depress her. It was even possible she took a secret glow over an epithet, meant by the critical taste awarding it, to illustrate those thorns in her nature which repelled and held in check the amorous male of Wolfville.
Women were not frequent in Wolfville, and on her coming, “The Cactus” had many admirers. Every man in camp loved her the moment she stepped from the Tucson stage; that is, every man save Cherokee Hall. That scientist, given wholly to faro as a philosophy, had no time—in a day before he met Faro Nell—for so dulcet an affair as love. Also Cherokee had scruples born of his business.
“Life behind a deal box is a mighty sight too fantastic,” observed the thoughtful Cherokee, “for a fam'ly. It does well enough for single-footers, which it don't make much difference with when some gent they've mortified an' hurt, pulls his six-shooter an' sends them lopin' home to heaven all spraddled out. But a lady ain't got no business with a sport who turns kyards as a pursoot.”
As time unfurled, the train of lovers to sigh on the daily trail of “The Cactus” dwindled. There were those who grew dispirited.
“I'm clean-strain enough,” said Dan Boggs, in apologetic description of his failure to persevere, “but I knows when I've got through. I'll play a game to a finish, but when it's down to the turn an' my last chip's gone over to the dealer, why! I shoves my chair back an' quits. An' it's about that a-way of an' concernin' my yearnin's for this yere Cactus girl. I jest can't get her none, an' that settles it. I now drops out an' gives up my seat complete.”
“That's whatever!” said Texas Thompson, who was an interested listener to the defeated Boggs, “an' you can gamble I'm with you on them views! Seein' as how my wife in Laredo gets herse'f that divorce, I turns in an' loves this Cactus person myse'f to a frightful degree. Thar's times I simply goes about sobbin' them sentiments publicly. But yere awhile back I comes wanderin' 'round her kitchen, an' bing! arrives a skillet at my head. That lets me out! You bet! I don't pursoo them explorations 'round her no more. I has exper'ence with one, an' I don't aim to get any lariat onto a second female who is that callous as to go a-chunkin' of kitchen bric-a-brac at a heart which is merely pinin' for her smiles.”
There were two at the shrine of “The Cactus,” who were known to Wolfville, respectively, as Cottonwood Wasson and Cape Jinks. These were distinguished for the ardour wherewith they made siege to the affection of “The Cactus,” and the energy of their demands for her capitulation.
That virgin, however, paid neither heed to their court, nor took an interest in the comment of onlook-ing Wolfville. She pursued her path in life, even and unmoved. She set her tables, washed her dishes, and perfected her daily beefsteaks by the ingenious process, popular in the Southwest, of burning them on the griddles of the range, and all with a composure bordering hard on the stolid.
“All I'm afraid of,” said Old Man Enright, the head of the local vigilance committee, “is that some of these yere young bucks'll take to pawin' 'round for trouble with each other. As the upshot of sech doin's would most likely be the stringin' of the survivors by the committee, nuptials, which now looks plenty feasible, would be plumb busted an' alienated, an' the camp get a setback it would be hard to rally from. I wishes this maiden would tip her hand to some discreet gent, so a play could be made in advance to get the wrong parties over to Tucson or some'ers. Whatever do you think yourse'f, Cherokee?”