Confusion reigned in their small room. Roarer danced around, struggling to fasten a collar, his face becoming apoplectic; while Holy, with his entire vocabulary and muscular strength, was coaxing his feet into patent leather shoes a size too small. When his frantic efforts culminated in a broken loop-strap, it left him, for once in his life, speechless.
Before a bilious mirror, Limber plastered his hair down rigidly with a stick of barber's cosmetique, recommended by the bar-tender; and Bronco stood ruefully contemplating four enormous pairs of white kid gloves reposing in a long row on the bed.
"I don't balk at toggin' up swell for the Boss's weddin'," came in a gasp from Roarer as he clutched at his throat, "but derned if I see why the feller what invented collar-buttons and biled shirts wasn't lynched for his fust offense. Doggone the beastly little contraption, anyhow!"
The others regarded him sympathetically, for they, too, had struggled, as the numerous twisted, soiled collars about the room testified; even those now decorating their brown throats showed marks of desperate fray.
"I've spiled seven collars and busted five collar buttons already," groaned Roarer, pausing in his struggle. "Oh, Lord! Where did that thing go. Any one see it? It's wusser'n a flea the way it lit out."
They grasped his meaning. Each had recently been on a voyage of discovery for other collar buttons.
"Mebbe it's under the bed," suggested Holy, trying to balance himself and walk in the tight shoes. He paused, standing like a gigantic stork on one foot. "Mine rolled under the bed."
Roarer fell to his knees and groped without avail, then crawled out on all fours, gazing up disconsolately into the faces of the other men. "Not a hair nor a hide of it," he puffed, still on his knees. "That's the last one we had, and what's wust, thar ain't no more collar-buttons in the whole blamed town. Everyone's been buyin' 'em this afternoon."
"Well, it couldn't get outen the room;" consoled Limber, whose toilet was finished before the others, because he had had the foresight to enlist the services of a clerk in Soto's store, and after buying a shirt, collar and tie, the two had retired to a small back room. Hence, Limber had emerged victorious and unruffled, but his sympathies were with the other punchers.
"They say collar-buttons take to a bureau if the bed don't suit 'em," he suggested. "Suppose you start a round-up on that range, Roarer. I'd like to help you out, but this collar checks me up too high."