"You will excuse me, Mrs. Lee, I'm sure," he said, speaking very low. "But when I spoke of my motives being misunderstood, I did not have reference to the cowboys. I was—er—thinking of your daughter."
"My daughter!" echoed Mrs. Lee, suddenly sitting up very straight in her seat. Then, as the significance of his remarks became evident, she gazed across at him reproachfully.
"Why, Mr. Bowles!" she said; and then there was a long, pensive silence, broken only by the thud of flying feet, the rattle and rumble of wheels, and the yikr-r-r of startled prairie-dogs.
CHAPTER XIII
A LETTER FROM THE POSTMISTRESS
The morning after Bowles' return from his trip to Chula Vista—during which he had made the startling proposition about being misunderstood by Dixie Lee—the entire Bat Wing outfit packed up its plunder and pulled out for the big round-up. First the cowboys, with a fifteen-mile ride ahead of them before they began to gather, went stringing across the plains at a high trot; then the remuda, stretching out in a mighty fan of horses, came fogging along behind them, to be ready for a change at the cutting-grounds; and last the chuck-wagon and the bed-wagon—one full of Dutch ovens and provisions, the other piled high with well-lashed beds—went hammering through chuck holes and dipping into dry washes in a desperate attempt to reach the rendezvous in time for dinner.
A gangling youth in overalls, and with a pair of cheap "can-opener" spurs on his shoes, acted the part of assistant to the horse-wrangler; and an open-faced individual with a great taste for plug tobacco and the song called "Casey Jones" drove the bed-wagon for Gloomy Gus; but Bowles rode out with the cowboys. By a piece of good luck, he had backed Wa-ha-lote into a corner that morning, and so menaced him with his rope that the good-natured monarch had finally stood and surrendered for a handful of sugar. So Mr. Bowles rode out in style, without any ostensible glances toward the big house, where Dixie May was reviewing her admirers from the gallery. By this time, of course, Mrs. Lee would have informed her daughter of the Eastern stray's presumption—of his daring to suggest that, in case he called, she, Dixie, might misunderstand his motives and think he was laying siege to her heart—and of course Dixie May would be indignant!
But, if she was, she carried it off well, for Bowles never got a look from her. Of course, in a bunch of thirty cowboys, even on such a fancy mount as high-headed Wa-ha-lote, one man does not stand out conspicuously from the rest—that is, not unless his horse is pitching. Hardy Atkins was on an outlaw sorrel called El Paso del Norte, and he made up the center of the picture. Del Norte was a wonder at the buck-jump, especially if some one spurred him in the shoulders, which Hardy did, and the departure of our hero was a little dimmed by his dust. Still Bowles was pleased, even if he was leaving the home of his beloved for two weeks, for something told him that he had at last won distinction in the ruck of suitors—the only man who had not let it go for granted that he was in love with Dixie Lee. Of course, he was—desperately so—but an instinct deep down in his breast warned him to conceal it from all the world. And especially from Dixie, the capricious; otherwise, she might win him by a glance and a smile, and then disprize him forever.
But now the stern realities of life loomed up before him, and Bowles found himself with a real round-up on his hands. It does not take much of a man to sit on the front porch and talk near-love with a girl; but to follow a Western round-up is a task to try the hardiest. For three hours Bowles rode at a rough trot across the valley, fighting down the awful instinct to rise in his stirrups and "bob"; and then as the distant hills grew nearer the cowboys broke into a lope. They separated into two parties that formed the horns of a circle, dropping off man after man as they jumped up cattle, and still spurring on and on. The puncher with the weakest horse was dropped first, for there would be no chance to change till noon, and the best mounted was saved to the last in order to get his full strength. Bowles was on Wa-ha-lote, and he rode to the end before Henry Lee sent him back with the herd.