CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
LANCE PLAYS THE GAME
That night Lance sauntered into the bunk house, placidly ignoring the fact that Tom was there, and that some sort of intermittent conference was taking place. Cool and clean and silk-shirted and freshly shaved, the contrast was sharp between him and the men sprawled on their beds or sitting listlessly around the table playing keno. Tom lifted an eyebrow at him; Lance sent him a look to match and went over to the card players.
They did not want him in the bunk house. He who had spent nearly all of his life on the Devil’s Tooth ranch knew that he was not wanted. They did not want him to know that he was not wanted, and by their very effort to hide it did they betray themselves.
“Didn’t go to Jumpoff after all, dad,” Lance remarked idly, a rising inflection turning the phrase into a question.
Tom grunted and got up to go. His men cast furtive glances at one another, looked at Lance from under their brows, noted the silk shirt and the low, tan Oxfords, and the texture and cut of 284 his gray trousers with the tan leather belt that had a small silver buckle. Plain as it was they knew that buckle was silver. They saw how clean-cut was the hairline at the back of his head and over his ears––sure sign that he was “citified.” And toward the man who is citified your purely range-bred product cherishes a distinct if secret grudge. His immaculate presence made them all feel frowsy and unwashed and ill-clad. And to hide how conscious he was of his own deficiencies, the man who sat nearest Lance lifted his hat and rumpled his hair still more.
“Duke and Al didn’t get in yet, eh?” Lance picked up an extra deck of cards and began to shuffle them absent-mindedly but nevertheless dexterously.
“Nope––they stayed out,” replied a blond man named Winters. They called him “Chilly.”
“Hot weather for working cattle,” Lance observed indifferently.