"Don't give a rip if he did!" snorted Gus, to whom Uncle Sam's gay young forest-savers were intimately associated with an extra plate; and, grumbling and slamming down dishes, he returned to his manifold duties.
But the stranger was evidently not a common chuck-rider; in fact, so gloriously was he appareled that the moment his rigging became apparent the idling cowboy made a swift sneak to the bunk-house, where the boys were wrangling over a pitch game, and turned in a general alarm.
"Come out, fellers," he whispered hoarsely, "and see the new tenderfoot! Hurry up, he's goin' over to the big house! Say, he's a forest ranger all right!"
"Nothin' of the kind!" asserted a burly cow-puncher, thrusting his head out the door. "Movin' picture cowboy, I'll bet a hat!"
The stranger remounted gracefully as they gazed out at him; then he touched his jaded sorrel with the spur and trotted over to the big house gate—and as he trotted he rose rhythmically in his stirrups, while all cowboy-land stood aghast!
"English!" they gasped in a chorus, and burst into fervid curses as they stared at the uncouth sight. A grown man, a white man, and hopping up and down like that! Holy, jumping Jerusalem! They beat each other on the back in an agony of despair—and yet it was no more than Mr. Bowles, dropping back into his old Central Park habits. To be sure, the man who coached him at Chula Vista had warned him against it repeatedly, but the customs of a lifetime are not wiped out in a minute, and to that extent Mr. Bowles was still an Easterner.
The big white house in which Henry Lee made his home was a landmark in southeast Arizona. Some people merely referred to it as "The White House," and though it was forty miles from the railroad it was as well known in its way as the abiding place of Presidents in Washington. The White House was a big, square, adobe building, set boldly on the top of a low hill and surrounded by a broad wooden gallery, from behind whose clambering honeysuckles and gnarled rose-bushes Mrs. Lee and Dixie May looked down upon the envious world below. To be invited up to the big house, to sit on the flower-scented porch and listen to the soft voices of the women—that was a dream to which every cow-puncher's heart aspired, although in the realization many a bold, adventurous man lost face and weakened. But to Bowles the big house was the natural place to go, and he unlatched the gate and mounted to the gallery without a tremor.
Upon the edge of the porch, smoking his pipe and gazing out over his domain, sat Henry Lee, the pioneer cattleman of the Tortugas Valley, and a man who had fought Indians to get his start. He was a great man—old Henry Lee—but to Bowles chiefly distinguished by being the father of Dixie May.
"Ah, good-evening!" he began, bringing his heels together and bowing. "Are you Mr. Lee?"
The cattleman looked at him a moment with a calm, appraising eye. He was a small, rather slight man, but square-shouldered and far from decrepit—also, he had seen the procession go by for quite a while, and he could judge most men by their faces.