The Cow Puncher

by Robert J. C. Stead

"But how's it to be done?" Dave questioned, with returning interest. "Schools an' books cost money, an' I never save a dollar."

"And never will," said Mr. Duncan, "until you start. But I think I see a plan that might help, and if it appeals to you it will also be a great convenience to me. My wife likes to go driving Sundays, and sometimes on weekday evenings, but I have so many things on hand I find it hard to get out with her. My daughter used to drive, but these new-fangled automobiles are turning the world upside down—and many a buggy with it. They're just numerous enough to be dangerous. If there were more or less they would be all right, but just now every horse is suspicious of them. Well—as I saw you driving in here I said to myself, 'There's the man for that job of mine, if I can get him,' but I'm not rich, and I couldn't pay you regular wages. But if I could square the account by helping with your studies a couple of nights a week—I used to teach school, and haven't altogether forgotten—why, that would be just what I want. What do you say?"

"I never saw anything on four feet I couldn't drive," said Dave, "an' if you're willing to take a chance, I am. When do we start?"

"First lesson to-night. Second lesson Thursday night. First drive Sunday." Mr. Duncan did not explain that he wanted to know the boy better before the drives were commenced, and he felt that two nights together would satisfy him whether he had found the right man.

Dave hurried back to the coal-yard and completed the day's work in high spirits. It seemed he was at last started on a road that might lead somewhere. After supper he surprised his fellow labourers by changing to his Sunday clothes and starting down a street leading into the residential part of the town. There were speculations that he had "seen a skirt."

Mr. Duncan met him at the door and showed him into the living-room. Mrs. Duncan, plump, motherly, lovable in the mature womanliness of forty, greeted him cordially. She was sorry Edith was out; Edith had a tennis engagement. She was apparently deeply interested in the young man who was to be her coachman. Dave had never been in a home like this, and his eyes, unaccustomed to comfortable furnishings, appraised them as luxury. There were a piano and a phonograph; leather chairs; a fireplace with polished bricks that shone with the glow of burning coal; thick carpets, springy to the foot; painted pictures looking down out of gilt frames. And Mr. Duncan had said he was not rich! And there was more than that; there was an air, a spirit, an atmosphere that Dave could feel although he could not define it; a sense that everything was all right. He soon found himself talking with Mrs. Duncan about horses, and then about his old life on the ranch, and then about coming to town. Almost, before he knew it, he had told her about Reenie Hardy, but he had checked himself in time. And Mrs. Duncan had noticed it, without comment, and realized that her guest was not a boy, but a man.

Then Mr. Duncan talked about gardening, and from that to Dave's skill in backing his team to the coal-chute, and from that to coal itself. Dave had shovelled coal all winter, but he had not thought about coal, except as something to be shovelled and shovelled. And as Mr. Duncan explained to him the wonderful provisions of nature; how she had stored away in the undiscovered lands billions of tons of coal, holding them in reserve until the world's supply of timber for fuel should be nearing exhaustion, and as he told of the immeasurable wealth of this great new land in coal resources, and of how the wheels of the world, traffic and industry, and science, even, were dependent upon coal and the man who handled coal, Dave felt his breast rising with a sense of the dignity of his calling. It was no longer dirty and grimy; it was part of the world; it was essential to progress and happiness—more essential than gold, or diamonds, or all the beautiful things in the store windows. And he had had to do with this wonderful substance all winter, and not until to-night had it fired the divine spark of his imagination. The time ticked on, and although he was eager to be at work he almost dreaded the moment when Mr. Duncan should mention his lesson. But before that moment came there was a ripple of laughter at the door, and a girl in tennis costume, and a young man a little older than Dave, entered.

"Edith," said Mrs. Duncan. Dave arose to shake hands, but then his eyes fell full on her face. "Oh, I know you," he exclaimed. "I heard you sing yesterday."

Slowly he felt the colour coming to his cheeks. Had he been too familiar? Should he have held that back? What would she think? But then he felt her hand in his, and he knew it was all right.

"And I know you," she was saying. "I saw you—" she stopped, and it was her turn to feel the rising colour.