“‘Crude’? What’s ‘crude’?” demanded Captain Dan Rugley. “That isn’t anything very bad, is it, Frances?” and his eyes twinkled.
“Can’t be anything much worse, Daddy,” she whispered, “if you are all ‘fed up,’ as the boys say, on ‘culchaw’!”
He chuckled at that, and began to eye Sue Latrop with more interest. When the shuffle-footed Ming called them to luncheon, he kept close to the girl from Boston, and sat with her and Mrs. Bill Edwards at one of the small tables.
“I reckon you’re not used to this sort of slapdash eating, Miss?” suggested Captain Rugley, with perfect gravity, as he saw Sue casting doubtful glances about the inner garden.
The fountain was playing, the trees rustled softly overhead, a little breeze played in some mysterious way over the court, and from the distance came the tinkle of some Mexican mandolins, for Frances had hidden José and his brother in one of the shadowy rooms.
“Oh, it’s quite al fresco, don’t you know,” drawled Sue. “Altogether novel and chawming–isn’t it, Mrs. Edwards?”
The neighboring rancher’s wife had originally come from the East herself; but she had lived long enough in the Panhandle to have quite rubbed off the veneer of that “culchaw” of which Sue was an exponent.
“The Bar-T is the show place of the Panhandle,” she said, promptly. “We are rather proud of it–all of us ranchers.”
“Indeed? I had no idea!” cooed the girl from Boston. “And I thought all you ranch folk had your wealth in cattle, and re’lly had no time for much social exchange.”
“Oh!” exclaimed the Captain, “when we have folks come to see us we manage to treat ’em with our best.”