The Dude Wrangler (3 page)

Wallie had thought that his aunt would surely relent to the extent of writing him a Christmas letter but, yesterday, after riding eight miles to look in the bluing box nailed to a post by the roadside, he had found that it had contained only a circular urging him to raise mushrooms in his cellar.

Helene Spenceley, too, might have sent him a Christmas card or something. He had seen her only twice since the sale, and each time she had whizzed past him in Canby's machine on the way to Prouty. The sight had given him a curious feeling which he had tried to analyze but had been unable to find a satisfactory name for it.

Altogether, Wallie felt very lonely and forlorn and forgotten this Christmas morning as he lay in a knot under the soogan, listening to the wind twanging the stove-pipe wire and contemplating his present and future.

He had discovered that by craning his neck slightly when in a certain position he could look through a crack and see the notch in the mountain, below which was the Spenceley ranch, according to Pinkey. He was prompted to do so now, but an eyeful of snow discouraged his observation, so he decided that he would get up, feed his animals and, after breakfast, wash his shirt and a few towels by way of recreation.

The cabin was not only as cold as it looked but colder, and as Wallie hopped over the floor bare-footed and shivering he reflected that very likely his potatoes and onions were frozen and wished he had taken them to bed with him.

They were, unmistakably, for they rattled like glass balls when he picked up several onions and examined them with a pained expression.

Wallie was still wearing much of the wardrobe he had brought with him, and when dressed to go outside he was warm but unique in a green velour hat, his riding breeches, brilliant golf stockings that were all but feetless thrust in arctics, a blue flannel shirt from the Emporium in Prouty, and a long, tight-fitting tan coat which had once been very smart indeed.

The snow had stopped falling by the time he had done his chores and breakfasted. The only benefit the storm had brought him was that it did away with the necessity of carrying water for his washing. He had acquired the agility of a cliff-dweller from scaling the embankment by means of the "toe-holts"; yet, at that, it was no easy matter to transport a bucket of water without spilling it.

He wished for a well every time that he panted in from a trip to the creek, and meant to have one as soon as he could afford it.

While the snow-water was melting Wallie considered the manner in which he should prepare the prairie-dogs. He presumed that it was too much to expect that the cook book would have anything to say on the subject, but it surely would recognize rabbit, and a recipe suitable for one would do for the other.

Wallie got out his cook book and turned eagerly to the index. There was no mention of rabbit. A thought struck him-rabbit was hare and hare was rabbit, wasn't it? If so, the cook book would not admit it, for there was no such word under the H's.

He was disgusted. What good was such a cook book, he asked himself as he turned the leaves in resentment. He wished he could collect the two-fifty he had paid for it. He read aloud, sneeringly:

"Caviar toast, garnished. Crab, scalloped, in shell. Aspic in jelly. Fondu of cheese. Floating Island. Meringue glace, and Whipped Cream."

The mere mention of the dishes made his mouth water, while his anger against the dame who had compiled it mounted higher. He remotely contemplated writing to inquire of the culinary oracle why she had ignored hare and rabbit.

Continuing to scan the index, his eye caught a word which held possibilities. Game! If rabbit was not game, what was it?

Ah! Wallie looked at a picture of a rabbit lying on a platter with its legs in the air and artistically decorated with parsley until he felt more hungry than ever. Then he read aloud with gusto:

"Barbecued rabbit. Casserole of rabbit. Roast rabbit. Smothered rabbit. Stewed rabbit."

He perused all the recipes carefully. After giving weighty consideration to each, roast rabbit seemed to make the strongest appeal to him. He read the recipe aloud twice that he might the better comprehend it:

"Dress and wash the wilycoureur de bois , but leave the heads on in cleaning them. Stuff the bodies with a forcemeat of fat, salt pork, minced onions, and fine bread crumbs well seasoned with salt and pepper. Sew them up with fine thread and lay upon thin slices of pork, covering the grating of the roaster. Lay other slices of pork over them, pour over all a cupful of stock, and roast one hour. Remove the pork, then wash with butter and dredge with flour and brown.

"Drain off the gravy, lay the bits of bacon about the rabbit in the dish: thicken the gravy with browned flour. Boil up, add a tablespoonful of tomato catsup and a glass of claret, then take from the fire."

Wallie reflected, as he sat with his feet on the stove-hearth overflowing with ashes, that when it came to the "forcemeat" he was "there with the crumbs," since he had an accumulation of ancient biscuit too hard to eat. Also he had salt pork and onions. The butter, tomato catsup, stock, claret, he must dispense with. After all, the prairie-dogs were the main thing and he had them.

He congratulated himself that he had decided to leave on the heads when skinning them. The recipe so enthused him that he decided to prepare them before starting in with his washing.

Obviously the first thing to do was to thaw the onions, so he put them in the oven, after which he went to a box in the corner and selected a few biscuit. Crumbs were crumbs, as he viewed it, and biscuit crumbs were quite as good as bread crumbs for his purpose.

There were certain marks on these biscuit that were made unmistakably by the teeth of mice and chipmunks, but these traces he removed painstakingly. As he reduced the biscuit to crumbs with a hammer, he recalled that he had been awakened several times by the sound of these pestiferous animals frisking in the box in the corner. He did not allow his mind to dwell upon this, however, lest it prejudice him when it came to the eating of the "forcemeat."

Onions, he found, were not improved by freezing. Those he removed from the oven were distinctly pulpy, but since they smelled like onion and tasted like it, he mushed them in with the biscuit crumbs, and seasoned.

Then he crammed the prairie-dogs with the mixture and looked for a thread among his sewing articles. Since he could find nothing but black linen, Wallie threaded a darning needle and did a fancy "feather" stitch down the middle of each of them.

This accomplished, he stood off and viewed his handiwork with eminent pride and satisfaction, though it occurred to him that owing to his generous use of "forcemeat" they had a bloated appearance, as if they had died of strychnine poisoning.

The heads, too, were decidedly rat-like, and as the long, sharp teeth of the pair of them grinned up at Wallie he covered them hastily and set about his washing.

He had come to begrudge every stick of firewood, and it took an incredible amount to heat wash-water. A man could very well fill his time if he did nothing but collect wood and carry water.

As he set his tub and washboard on a box and rubbed vigorously on his undergarments, he smiled to himself and wondered what his friends of The Colonial would say if they could see him at the moment. He did not so much mind washing, it was easier than digging post holes, but it was not much of a way to spend Christmas and he was desperately lonely. He wished someone would come along to talk to.

He was so far from the road that there were no passersby, and no one wanted to see him anyhow, but his loneliness became so great as he dwelt upon it that on the remote chance that he might see someone even in the distance he stopped washing and walked to the window, where with his elbow he rubbed a spot clear of frost.

Looking out through the loop-hole, it was a white, tractless world he gazed upon, and he might have been in the Arctic Circle for all the signs of life he could discover. He told himself that he might have known better than to hope for any.

As he squinted, he suddenly pressed his eye harder against the window. Did he see a speck that moved or did he imagine it? He enlarged the hole and strained his eyes until they watered. Surely it moved-surely. It would be too disappointing for words if it were only a delusion.

It did! It did! There was now no mistake about it. Someone was coming toward the cabin. Wallie shook with excitement at the prospect of a visitor. Whoever it might be, Wallie would make him stay for dinner if he had to pay him by the hour for his company. That was settled. Very likely it was Pinkey, but to-day even Boise Bill would be welcome.

Wallie shoved his Christmas dinner in the oven and slammed the door upon it, stoked the fire lavishly, then fell upon the washboard and rubbed furiously that he might be done the sooner. At intervals he dashed to the window, half afraid to look lest the rider had changed his mind and gone in another direction.

But no, he kept coming, and there was something in the way he sat his horse which made him think it was Pinkey.

And Pinkey it was, brilliant as a rainbow in orange chaps, red flannel shirt, and a buckskin waistcoat. His coat tied behind the cantle suggested that he either had become overheated or at only twelve below zero had not yet felt the need of it. His horse was snorting steam like a locomotive and icicles of frozen breath were pendent from its nostrils.

Wallie stood in the door, suds to the elbow and his hands steaming, waiting to receive him.

His voice trembled as he greeted him:

"I never was so glad to see anybody in my life, Pinkey."

"This is onct I know you ain't lyin'. Got anything to eat? I'm starvin'. I been comin' sence daylight."

"I got something special," Wallie replied, mysteriously. "Tie your horse to the haystack. I'll hurry things up a little."

Pinkey returned shortly and sniffed as he entered:

"It smells good, anyhow. There's something homelike about onions. What you cookin'?"

"It's a secret, but you'll like 'em. I made 'em out of the cook book."

Pinkey threw his coat on the table and the thud sounded as if it had a brick rolled in it.

"Here's something Helene sent-she made it-it's angel food or somethin', I reckon."

"Now wasn't that good of her!" Wallie exclaimed, gratefully.

"I can't tell till I taste it. I wouldn't call her much of a cook generally." He prodded the cake as he unrolled it and commented:

"Gosh, it's hard! I turned my thumb-nail back on it."

"It's frozen-that's what's the matter," Wallie defended, promptly.

"I think it's a bum cake," declared Pinkey, callously.

"I think you don't know what you're talking about until you try it," Wallie retorted with asperity.

Pinkey looked at him thoughtfully and changed the subject.

"I see you're playin' a tune on the washboard."

Wallie replied stiffly:

"Yes, I'm doing a little laundry." Pinkey's criticism of the cake still rankled.

"You ain't washin' that blue shirt a'ready?" Pinkey demanded, incredulously. "You only bought it Thanksgivin'."

"The front of it bent like rubber-glass and I couldn't stand it any longer." He added reminiscently: "There was a time when I wore a fresh shirt daily."

Pinkey stared at him awe-stricken:

"I wouldn't think changin' as often as that would be healthy."

The clothes in the dishpan on the stove boiled over, and as Wallie jumped for the broom-handle to poke them under, Pinkey demanded:

"Are you bilin' your flannens?"

"Certainly."

"A ten-year-ol' boy can't git in that suit of underwear onct you're done cookin' it," Pinkey explained, and added, disgustedly: "Wallie, don't you know nuthin'?"

Wallie looked his consternation.

"I'll know better next time," he said, humbly.

Pinkey consulted his watch and hinted:

"Don't you want me to make the bread?"

"No, I have some biscuit to warm over, we'll boil potatoes, thaw the cake out, open some pineapple, and with what I have in the oven we will have a dinner that'll be nothing short of a banquet."

"Great! I'm so hungry I could eat with a Digger Injun."

Wallie opened the oven door.

"They're browning beautifully!" he reported.

"Chickens?"

Wallie shook his head:

"I shan't tell you until you've passed upon them."

"If you've got enough of whatever it is-that's all that's worryin' me," declared Pinkey, hungrily. "You'd ought to build you a root cellar next winter-if you're livin'," he remarked as the potatoes rattled when Wallie dropped them in the kettle.

"Do you suppose I could grow potatoes? Is it too dry?"

"This is a great country for potatoes. There's somethin' in the soil that gits in the potatoes' eyes and makes 'em water so they irrigate themselves. Shore! you can grow potatoes."

"I want to make a good many improvements here before next winter," announced Wallie, hopefully. "I wish you could come over for awhile and help me."

"That mightn't be a bad idea," said Pinkey, thoughtfully. "Sence the country went dry I don't much care whether I draw wages or not-they's nothin' to spend money for, so what's the use of workin'? If I was over here I might add a few feet to my rope and git me a good little start off Canby."