"Oh!" breathed Bowles sympathetically. "That is bad! Why don't you get married and live somewhere else, then?"
"That's jest it," frowned Brigham. "Gal's a Mormon too, and she won't come. So there I am!"
"Ah!" said Bowles; and they rode a long time in silence.
"That letter was from her," volunteered Brigham, jerking his head back toward the place where they had been camped, and after that he said no more. The old cynical look came into his squinted eyes, and he strung out the cattle methodically until they came to the home ranch. It was four o'clock in the afternoon then, and they lay over until the next day.
The Bat Wing bunk-house was hardly a cheery lounging place. Outside of the illustrated magazine literature with which the walls were papered, the library consisted of three books—a boot, spur and saddle catalogue, "Lin McLean," and that classic of the cow camps, "Three Weeks." When the entire outfit was at "the home," Happy Jack was in the habit of reading choice passages of "Three Weeks" to his friends, he being the scholar of the bunch, and closing each selection with the remark: "Well, I reckon that's plain enough for you, ain't it?" And the boys would generally agree that it was.
With the memory of Happy Jack still in mind, Bowles took shame to himself and read Owen Wister's "Lin McLean" instead, finding there a tenderfoot on another range who was worse even than himself. As things were coming now, Bowles hardly considered himself a tenderfoot any more. To be sure, he could not rope in the corral; but there were several local punchers in the same fix; and when it came to riding, he still had Wa-ha-lote in his string as a tribute to his skill as a fence jumper. He had also sat out a bucking fit or two when the boys put high-life on his horse; and, taken all in all he was not the worst rider in the outfit, by any means. As a branding hand, also, he was able to do his share; he had learned some of the rudiments of handling cattle; and his face had peeled off and tanned again, leaving him with a complexion in no wise different from that of his bronzed companions. And then, to top it all, he had won the friendship of Brigham, who was so good that he passed for a cowman.
Poor old Brigham! He never said what was in that letter from his girl, but Bowles knew he was wrestling with his problem. His carefree laugh was silenced for the time and, after cooking up a little food in the kitchen that stood next to the bunk-house, he had caught up a fresh mount and ridden off alone. The windmill man and the fence mender were out on their rounds, and Bowles was reading "The Winning of the Biscuit-shooter" and wondering if it was true, when a horse trotted into the yard. Presently he heard a saddle hit the ground, and the pasture gate swing to, and then there was a clank of spurs on the stoop. The door swung open, and as he glanced up from where he lay he saw Dixie Lee looking in at him.
The instincts of a lifetime prompted Bowles to rise to his feet and bow, but other instincts were crowding in on him now, and he only nodded his head. The memory, perhaps, of a fake letter to Samuel Houghton gave color to his indifference, and for the first time in his life he gazed at her with a shadow of disapproval. She was glorious indeed to look upon; but it is the heart that counts, and Dixie had seemed a little unkind. So he lay there with the book before him, and waited for her to speak. It was the first time they had been alone together since he had left her at Chula Vista, and it was not his part to make advances after what she had told him then.
As for Dixie, she seemed suddenly embarrassed and ill at ease, though she carried it off with her usual frontier recklessness.
"Hello there, cowboy!" she said, dropping down on the steps. "Where'd you come from?"