“Singletree Jennings!” observed the Reverend Handout F. Johnson, in a tone of solemn anger, while his pistol pocket still throbbed from the visitation of Andrew Jackson, “Elder Shakedown Bixby is in pursuit of dat goat of your'n with a razor. He has orders to immolate when cotched. At de nex' conference dar'll be charges ag'in you for substitutin' a deboshed goat for de Ram of Holy Writ. I keers nothin' for my pussonel sufferin's, but de purity of de Word mus' be protected. De congregashun will now join in singin' de pestilential Psalms, after which de social will disperse.”
JESS
It was sunset at the Cross-K ranch. Four or five cowboys were gloomily about outside the adobe ranch house, awaiting supper. The Mexican cook had just begun his fragrant task, so a half hour would elapse before these Arabs were fed. Their ponies were “turned” into the wire pasture, their big Colorado saddles reposed astride the low pole fence which surrounded the house, and it was evident their riding was over for the day.
Why were they gloomy? Not a boy of them could tell. They had been partners and campaneros, and “worked” the Cross-K cattle together for months, and nothing had come in misunderstanding or cloud. The ranch house was their home, and theirs had been the unity of brothers.
The week before, a pretty girl—the daughter she was of a statesman of national repute—had come to the ranch from the East. Her name was Jess.
Jess, the pretty girl, was protected in this venture by an old and gnarled aunt, watchful as a ferret, sour as a lime. Not that Jess, the pretty girl, needed watching; she was, indeed! propriety's climax.
No soft nor dulcet reason wooed Jess, the pretty girl, to the West; she came on no love errand. The visitor was elegantly tired of the East, that was all; and longed for western air and western panorama.
Jess, the pretty girl, had been at the Cross-K ranch a week, and the boys had met her, everyone. The meeting or meetings were marked by awkwardness as to the boys, indifference as to Jess, the pretty girl. She encountered them as she did the ponies, cows, horned-toads and other animals, domestic and fero naturo, indigenous to eastern Arizona. While every cowboy was blushingly conscious of Jess, the pretty girl, she was serenely guiltless of giving him a thought.