Santa Fé kept a-talking away to him cheerful while they was hashing; and when they’d finished off he told him he hoped what he’d see of the bright side of Palomitas––before his train started––would make him forget the cruelly sorrowful shadows of that melancholy 188 afternoon. He was a daisy at word-slinging, Charley was––better’n most auctioneers. Then they come along together back to the bar-room––where the cloth was off the table, and the cards and chips out, ready for business to begin. All the boys was jammed in there––Nosey Green with his face tied up like he had a toothache, so it didn’t show who he was––waiting to see what more was coming; and they was about busting with the laughs they had inside ’em, and ready to play close up to Santa Fé’s hand.
Charley set down to deal, same as usual, and asked the little man to set down aside of him––telling him he’d likely be interested in knowing that what come to the bank that night would go to getting the melodeon the Sunday-school needed bad. And then he shoved the cards round the table, and things begun. The little man took it all dreamy––saying kind of to himself he’d never in all his born days expected to see a minister making money for Sunday-school melodeons by running a faro-bank. But he wasn’t so dreamy but he had sense enough to keep out 189 of the game. Santa Fé kept a-asking him polite to come in; but he kept answering back polite he wouldn’t––saying he was no sort of a hand at cards.
About the size of it was, in all the matters he could see his way to that little man had as good a load of sand as anybody––and more’n most. Like enough at home he’d read a lot of them fool Wild West stories––the kind young fellers from the East, who swallow all that’s told ’em, write up in books with scare pictures––and that was why in some ways he was so easy fooled. But I guess it would a-been a mistake to pick him up for a fool all round. Anyhow, Santa Fé got a set-back from him on his melodeon-faro racket––and set-backs didn’t often come Santa Fé’s way.
It wasn’t a real game the little man was up against, and like enough he had the savey to ketch on to what was being give him. For the look of the thing they’d fixed to start with a baby limit, and not raise it till he got warmed up and asked to; and it was fixed only what he dropped––the rest going back 190 to the boys––should stay with the bank. But as he didn’t warm up any worth speaking of, and wasn’t giving himself no chances at all to do any dropping, Santa Fé pretty soon found out they might as well hang up the melodeon fund and go on to the next turn.
The Sage-Brush Hen managed most of what come next, and she done it well. She’d dressed herself up in them white clothes of hers with a little blue bow tied on at the neck––looking that quiet and tidy and real lady-like you’d never a-notioned what a mixed lot she was truly––and she’d helped the other girls rig out as near the same way as they could come. Some of ’em didn’t come far; but they all done as well as they knowed how to, and so they wasn’t to be blamed. Old Tenderfoot Sal––she was the limit, Sal was––wasn’t to be managed no way; so they just kept her out of the show.
When Santa Fé come to see faro-banking for melodeons wasn’t money-making, he passed out word to the Hen to start up her 191 part of the circus––and in the Hen come, looking real pretty in her white frock, and put her hand on his shoulder married-like and says: “Now, my dear, it isn’t fair for you gentlemen to keep us ladies waiting another minute longer. We want our share in the evening’s amusement. Do put the cards away and let us have our dance.” And then she says to the little man, nice and friendly: “My husband is so eager to get our melodeon––and we really do need it badly, of course––that I have trouble with him every night to make him stop the game and give us ladies the dance that we do so enjoy.” And then she says on to Charley again: “How has the melodeon fund come out to-night, my dear?”
“Very well indeed. Very well indeed, my angel,” Charley says back to her. “Eleven dollars and a half have been added to that sacred deposit; and the contributions have been so equally distributed that no one of us will feel the trifling loss. But in interrupting our game, my dear, you are quite right––as you always are. Our guest is not taking 192 part in it; and––as he cannot be expected to feel, as we do, a pleasurable excitement in the augmentation of our cherished little hoard––we owe it to him to pass to a form of harmless diversion in which he can have a share.” And then he says to the little man: “I am sure, sir, that Mrs. Charles will be charmed to have you for her partner in the opening dance of what we playfully term our ball.”
“The pleasure will be mine,” says the little man––he was a real friendly polite little old feller––and up he gets and bows to the Hen handsome and gives her his arm: and then in he went with her to the dance-hall, with Santa Fé and the rest of us following on. It give us a first-class jolt to find all the girls so quiet-looking; and they being that way braced up the whole crowd to be like a dancing-party back East. To see the boys a-bowing away to their partners, while José––he was the fiddler, José was––was a tuning up, you wouldn’t a-knowed where you was!
It was a square dance to start in with: 193 with the little man and the Hen, and Charley and Kerosene Kate, a-facing each other; and Denver Jones with Carrots––that was the only name she ever had in Palomitas––and Shorty Smith and Juanita, at the sides. Them three was the girls the Hen had done best with; and she’d fixed ’em off so well they most might have passed for back-East school-ma’ams––at least, in a thickish crowd. Everybody else just stood around and looked on––and that time, with all the Forest Queen ways of managing dancing upset, it was the turn of the Palomitas folks to think they’d struck a dream! The little man, of course, didn’t know he’d struck anything but what went on always––and the way he kicked around spirited on them short little fat legs of his was just a sight to see!