“Hello, Bug Eye!” Teddy cried. “What’s the news? Why the rush?”
“Rush!” Bug Eye looked at the speaker reproachfully. “I wasn’t rushin’. I was goin’ slow! You want to see me when I’m in a hurry! Er—oh, yea, I knew I came over here fer somethin’. I got a message fer Belle.”
Bug Eye was a hand on the 8 X 8, and Mr. Ball frequently made use of him to drive one of the ranch cars. Bug Eye was always delighted to oblige, and had almost forsaken horses for the “puddle jumper.”
Now he reached laboriously inside an upper pocket of his shirt and unearthed tobacco, “makin’s,” and finally a soiled envelope.
“She’s a little dirty,” he apologized, “but I guess she ain’t hurt none. Got that way from Lizzie hoppin’ around so much. Baby, this here tin mule is a flyin’ fool! One minute she’s on the road an’ the next she’s skimmin’ over a cloud, or—or somethin’. Want a ride? Take you any place! I just put in a new dofunny, an she goes like a jack-rabbit. How about it, Teddy? Roy? Take a little jaunt? She’s good. Bust her hide, she’s good! Why, on the way over I seen a prairie dog that was goin’ the same way I was, an’—”
“Save it, save it!” Nick yelled. “Why don’t you write a book, Bug Eye? Snakes! I never see a man that could talk as much as you an’ say so little.”
“Yes?” Bug Eye glanced at Nick calmly. “Maybe you don’t understand. You know I talk English, an’ I guess it’s kind of hard for you birds to catch on. Here’s the note, Roy. Fer yore sister. Got anything to eat in there, Gus? Where’s Sing Lung? He ought to have some beans warmin’.”
Roy took the missive from Bug Eye, and the messenger stretched high and entered the bunk-house, carefully oblivious of Nick’s taunting reply. The note was addressed to “Miss Belle Ada Manley,” and, boylike, Roy held it to his nose and inhaled deeply.
“Perfume?” Teddy asked, grinning.
“Tobacco,” Roy answered briefly, making a wry face. “It was buried in Bug Eye’s pocket. Let’s take it in to Belle.”