Nan and young Dugdale laughed and chattered their way in the wake of the several couples ahead. Dugdale's desire to please was more than evident. And Nan was at no time difficult. Just now she seemed to enter into the spirit of everything with a zest which sent the man's hopes soaring skyward.
Once only during the brief ride did the girl give the least sign that her interest lay on anything but her good-looking escort. It was at a moment when Dugdale was pointing out to her the humorous inspiration of his own registered cattle brand.
"You see, 'B.B.' don't sound much of a scream, Miss Tristram," he said, in great seriousness. "I don't guess it's likely to set you falling out of your saddle in one wild hysterical whoop of unrestrained mirth. Course I'm known by it, same as you're known by the 'Obar,' but some of the language the boys fix to my brand 'ud set a Baptist minister hollerin' help. Say, I can't hand you it all. I just can't, that's all. 'Bill's Bughouse' is sort of skimmed milk to pea soup. Then there's 'Bill's Boneyard.' That wouldn't offend any one but my foreman. 'Busy Bee' kind of hands me a credit I don't guess I'm entitled to. But there's others smack of the intelligence of badly raised hogs." Then he laughed. "The truth is, when I first pitched camp on Lime Creek I wasn't as wise to things ranching as a Sunday-school committee. I lived mostly on beans an' bacon, and when the boys fell in at night, why, I don't guess there was much beside beans and bacon to keep 'em from falling into a state of coma on my blankets. It generally fixed them right, and I'm bound to say they never seemed to find they couldn't sit a saddle after it. Yes, and hit the trail for fifty miles, if there was fresh meat at the end of it. I sort of got known around as 'Beans and Bacon.' Then it was abbreviated to B.B. And so when I registered my brand it just seemed natural to set down B.B."
Nan's laugh was very genuine. Dugdale's ingenuous manner always pleased her.
"You hadn't learned prairie hospitality," she said. "You surely were committing a grave offense."
The man was full of pretended penitence.
"I don't guess that needed learning!" he said, with a wry smile. "The boys just handed it to me same as a parson hands a heart-to-heart talk on things you're hatin' to hear about. Oh, I was put wise quick. But when you've got just about ten thousand dollars that's telling you you're all sorts of a fool, and you're yearning for 'em to believe you're a twin brother to Pierpont Morgan, why, you don't feel your hide's made of gossamer, and don't care a cuss if folks start right in to hammer tacks into it for shoe leather."
"And the dollars? You convinced them?" Nan's eyes were full of humor.
"Convinced 'em?" The man's eyes opened wide. "Say, Miss Tristram, it was a mighty big argument. Oh, yes, and I guess there were times when we come near bein' such bad friends that I wanted to hand 'em right on to the nearest saloon-keeper I could find. But in the end I won. Oh, I won. I just told 'em right out what I thought of 'em, and their parents, and their ancestors, and their forthcoming progeny, and—that, seemed to fix things. They got civil then. Sort of raised their hats, and—got busy. You'd be astonished if you saw the way they hatched out—after that. You see," he added whimsically, "there's just about only one way of makin' life act the way you need it. Set your back teeth into the seat of things, and—hang on."
But Nan's reply was slow in coming, and her usually ready laugh was not in evidence. His final remark had brought very near the surface all those feelings and thoughts she had striven so hard to bury where they could no longer offend. It seemed to the man that her eyes had grown unnecessarily serious. But then he did not know that there was any unusual interest for her in the fact that Jeff Masters was escorting Mrs. Van Blooren.