The Bandit of Hell's Bend, Edgar Rice Burroughs [good novels to read txt] 📗

said. “A pack of fifty or a hundred such as there was last night would tear a fellow to pieces in no time.”

“They are perfectly harmless,” Diana assured him, “and the chances are that there were no more than two or three of them-possibly only one.”

“I guess I heard ‘em,” he insisted.

“They have a way of sounding like a whole lot more than they really are.”

He shook his head. “I guess I know what I heard.”

“I’ll-have to show that cook of yours how to make coffee,” remarked Corson a few minutes later.

Diana flushed. “I suppose We don’t get the best coffee out here,” she said, “but we are accustomed to it and learn to like it first rate. I think Wong does the best he can with what he has to do with.”

“Well, it won’t hurt him any to learn how to make coffee,” said Corson.

“He has been with us a great many years and is very faithful. I think he would be terribly hurt if a stranger criticized his coffee,” said Diana.

“Maurice is very particular about his food,” said Miss Manill. “It is really an education to hear him order a dinner at Delmonico’s, and the way he does flay the waiters if everything isn’t just so. I always get such a thrill-you can see people at the nearby tables listening to him, whispering to one another.”

“I can imagine,” said Diana, sweetly, but she did not say just what she could imagine.

Corson swelled visibly. “Call the Chink in, Miss Henders,” he said, “and I’ll give him a lesson now-you might learn something yourself. Way out here, so far from New York, you don’t get much chance, of course. There’s really nothing quite like the refining influences of the East to take the rough edges off of people.”

“I think I prefer to speak to Wong privately and in person, if I find it necessary,” said Diana.

“Well. just so I get some decent coffee hereafter,” said Corson, magnanimously.

Lillian Manill, having finished her breakfast, rose from the table.

“I’m going to put on my riding habit now, Maurice,” she said. “Go out and tell Mr. Colby to wait for me.”

Diana Henders bit her lip, but said nothing as Corson rose and walked toward the door. He was garbed in a New York tailor’s idea of the latest English riding mode, and again Diana bit her lip, but not in anger. Corson, setting his hat jauntily over one eve, stalked into the open and down toward the corrals where the men were saddling up for the day’s work.

He lighted a big, black cigar and puffed contentedly. As he hove in sight work in the corral ceased spontaneously.

”My Gawd !” moaned Texas Pete.

“Who left the bars down?” inquired Idaho.

“Shut up,” cautioned Colby. “That feller’s likely to be boss around here.”

“He won’t never boss me,” said Shorty, “not with thet funny hat on. I wonder could I crease it,” and he reached for his gun.

“Don’t git funny, Shorty. They’s friends o’ Miss I-tenders,” whispered Colby. “It’d only make her feel bad.”

He could not have hit upon a stronger appeal to these men. Shorty lowered his hand from the butt of his gun and almost at once work was resumed. When Corson joined them he could not have guessed that he was the object either of ridicule or pity, though he was—of both.

“Say, Colby,” he said. “Saddle up a couple of safe horses for Miss Manill and me, and wait around until she comes out. I want you to give her a few lessons in riding.”

“Did Miss Henders say that it would be all right?” lie asked. “You know the work is pretty well laid out an’ we ain’t got none too many hands.”

“0h, that’s all right, my man,” Corson assured him. “You’ll be safe to do anything that I say. I’m handling Miss Manill’s interests and looking after everything in general until the estate is closed. Just trot along and saddle up a couple of horses, and see to it that they are gentle. I haven’t ridden for a number of years, although I was pretty good at it when I was a boy.”

Hal Colby eyed Mr. Maurice B. Corson for a long minute. What was transpiring in his mind it would have been difficult to guess from the expression on his face; though what should have been going on within the convolutions of his brain the other men knew full well, and so they lolled around, their faces immobile, waiting for the fun to begin, but they were doomed to disappointment, for there was no gunplay-Colby, they thought, might have at least “made the dude dance.” Instead he turned away without a word to Corson, gave some final directions for the day’s work, swung into the saddle and rode toward the office, utterly ignoring the Easterner’s instructions. Corson flushed angrily.

“Here you, one of you men,” he snapped, turning toward the punchers, most of whom had already mounted their ponies, “I want two horses saddled immediately—one for Miss Manill and one for me.”

Silently, ignoring him as completely as though he had not existed, the riders filed out of the corral past him. At a little distance they drew rein, waiting for Colby.

“I’ve saw gall before,” remarked Texas Pete in an undertone, “but thet there dude tenderfoot’s got more’n a brass monkey.”

“If he don’t c’ral thet jaw o’ his pronto,” growled Shorty, “I ain’t a-goin’ to be responsible fer what happens—I cain’t hold myself much longer.”

“I wouldn’t a-took what Colby did,” said Idaho.

“Some blokes’ll take a lot to hold their jobs,” said Shorty.

“They c’n hev mine right now,” stated Texas Pete, “ef I gotta take thet dude’s lip.”

“Here comes the boss now,” said Idaho. “She’ll settle things, dum her pretty little hide,” he added affectionately.

Diana had stopped just below the house to listen to Colby, whom the men could see was talking earnestly to her.

“Look here, Di,” he sas saying, “I want to know ef I gotta take orders from thet tin-horn lawyer feller. Is he boss round these diggin’s, or is you?”

“Why, I supposed I was, Hal,” she replied, “though I must admit there appears to be a suspicion of doubt on the subject in Mr. Corson’s mind. What has he said to you?”

Colby told her, repeating Corson’s words as nearly as he could, and the girl could not suppress a laugh.

“Oh, I reckon it’s funny, all right,” he said, testily, “but I don’t see the joke-hevin’ a paper-collared cracker-fed dude like that-un callin’ me ‘my man’ an’ orderin’ me to saddle up a hoss fer him, right in front o’ all the boys. ‘Trot along,’ he says, ‘an saddle up a couple o’ hosses, an’ see to it thet they’re plumb gentle.’ My Gawd, Di! you don’t expect me to take thet sort o’ jaw, do you?”

Diana, by this time, was frankly in tears from laughter, and finally Colby himself was unable to longer repress a smile.

“Don’t mind him, Hal,” she said, finally. “He is just one of those arrogant, conceited, provincial New

Yorkers. They are mighty narrow and disagreeable, but we’ve got to put up with him for a short time and we might as well make the best of it. Go and ask Willie to saddle up two horses for them, and be sure that the one for Miss Manill is plumb gentle.” She accompanied her last instructions with the faintest trace of a wink.

Colby wheeled his pony and loped off to the corral, where he imparted the boss’s orders to the chore boy, Willie, lank, raw-boned and pimply. Willie, who always thought of himself as Wild Bill, swaggered off to catch up the two ponies, grinning inwardly as he roped Gimlet for Mr. Maurice B. Corson.

Corson, seeing Diana approaching, had gone to meet her. He was still red and angry.

“Look here, Miss Henders,” he exclaimed. “You’ve got to tell those fellows who I am. I asked them to saddle up a couple of horses and they absolutely ignored me. You tell them that when I give orders they are to be obeyed.”

“I think it will be less confusing if the orders come from me, Mr. Corson,” she replied. “It is never well to have too many bosses, and then, you see, these men are peculiar. They are unlike the sort of men you have apparently been accustomed to dealing with. You cannot talk to them as you would to a Delmonico waiter-unless you are tired of life, Mr. Corson. They are accustomed to me-we are friends-and they will take orders from me without question, so I think that it will be better all around if you will explain your wants to me in the future. Colby told me what you wanted just now and the horses are being saddled.”

He started to speak and then, evidently reconsidering, caught himself with a palpable effort. “Very well,” he said, presently, “we’ll let it pass this time.”

Together they walked toward the corral where Willie was saddling a quiet, old horse for Miss Manill. Beside him stood Gimlet with drooping head and dejected mien.

“Which one is for me, sonny?” demanded Corson.

Wild Bill glanced up in sullen scorn, eyed Mr. Corson for a brief moment and then jerked a soiled thumb in the direction of Gimlet.

“What! that old crow-bait?” exclaimed the New Yorker.

“You said you wanted a gentle hoss,” explained Colby, lolling in his saddle nearby, .“an’ Gimlet won’t pitch.”

“I don’t want to ride a skate,” growled Corson. “When I’m on a horse I want to know I’m on something.”

“You’ll know you’re on Gimlet,” Colby assured him, sweetly, “he ain’t so dumb as he looks. Jest stick your spurs into him an’ he’ll act quite lively.”

“All right,” said Corson, glumly; “tell him to hurry-I see Miss Manill coming now.”

There were others who saw her coming, too. Texas Pete was only one of them.

“By gollies!” he exclaimed. “Look what’s got loose!”

Lillian Manill was approaching jauntily, clothed in a black riding habit, with a long, voluminous skirt, a man’s collar and tie and black silk hat, with a flowing veil wound around it. Shorty eyed her for a long minute, then he let his gaze wander to Mr. Corson.

“It wouldn’t never be safe fer me to go to New York,” he confided to Idaho. “I’d shore laugh myself to death.”

By the time Miss Manill joined the group the two horses were saddled and Willie had led them out of the corral.

“Mercy!” exclaimed Miss Manill. “Haven’t you a side-saddle? I could never ride one of those horrid things.”

“I’m sorry,” said Diana, “but we haven’t one. I doubt if there is a side-saddle in the county. I think you can work it though, if you will put your leg around the horn. Next time I’ll fix you up with a skirt like mine and then you can ride astride.”

“Are you sure the horse is perfectly safe?” inquired Lillian. “I’ll have to have a few lessons before I can ride one of those bouncing ones. Oh, Mr. Colby, good morning! Here I am all ready for my first lesson.”

Her eyes took in the punchers grouped a few yards away. “I see you are going to have quite a class this morning. Mr. Pete told me, though, that you taught the cowgentlemen in the afternoon.”

Colby shot a quick glance at Pete, who had just been overcome by a violent fit of coughing, and knowing Texas Pete, as he did, grasped the situation at once.

“Oh, I had to give up the afternoon class,” he told her, “after I found they was a few like Mr. Pete who wouldn’t never larn to ride.”

“Isn’t that too bad,” she said, politely.