Essential Western Novels - Volume 4. Max Brand

come now, Kay," he expostulated. "That's different."

      "Did you notice his luggage?" said the Tom Mix girl. "Brand new and his clothes, too. He must have bought a whole new outfit just to rough it in."

      "I hope he can play bridge," said the fat lady.

      "I'll bet he plays ping-pong," said Bert Adams, the man from Boston.

      "I think he is real nice looking," interjected Miss Pruell, Kay White's spinster aunt.

      Twenty minutes later silence fell upon the company as Marvel came out onto the porch—one of those uncomfortable silences that may last but a moment and still seem endless.

      This one Cory Blaine relieved by introducing Marvel to his other guests, and a moment later the clatter of an iron pipe on a metal triangle announced the evening meal.

      At the long table Bruce Marvel found himself seated between Kay White, the blond in overalls, and Dora Crowell, the Tom Mix girl.

      He had noticed the difference in the apparel of the two girls; and though he was duly impressed by the ornate trappings of Dora, he thought that the other girl somehow looked more genuine in her blue overalls pulled over high heeled boots, her denim workshirt, and a bandanna handkerchief knotted loosely about her throat. He surmised that she belonged here and this supposition prompted his first question.

      "This is your home, Miss White?" he asked.

      "It commences to look like it," she replied. "I have been here two months now, but my real home is in California."

      "What time do we start tomorrow, Cory?" asked Adams.

      "Almost any time you folks want to," replied Blaine. "The chuck wagon went on ahead today as far as Mill Creek. That's only about fifteen miles. I didn't want to make it too hard the first day."

      "We're going on a lion hunt," Kay White explained to Marvel. "We had planned on leaving yesterday, but when Cory got your telegram he decided to wait so that you could go along with us."

      "Can you ride?" demanded Dora Crowell.

      "I guess I can manage," replied Marvel, "but I suppose these cow horses aren't much like polo ponies."

      "Do you play bridge, Mr. Marvel?" demanded Mrs. Talbot.

      "Do you play bridge here?" he asked.

      "I can't get any one to play with me," complained the fat lady. "Those that play say they get enough of it at home."

      "Well I suppose that's true," agreed Marvel. "What we want here is a change."

      "Then I suppose you won't play with me either," whined Mrs. Talbot.

      "We might get up a poker game," suggested Mr. Talbot.

      "You would suggest that, Benson," snapped his wife. "You know I perfectly loathe poker."

      "I wouldn't mind learning how to play poker," said Marvel.

      "I reckon we'd be glad to teach you," said Cory Blaine with a wink at Talbot.

      The buckboard that had brought Marvel had also brought the mail, and after supper the news of the day was the principal topic of conversation.

      "Is there anything about the Gunderstrom murder in your paper, Cory?" asked Dora Crowell, and then to Marvel, who was near her, "I went to school with Mr. Gunderstrom's daughter in Philadelphia."

      "They haven't found that fellow Mason yet," said Blaine. "He's been missing for three weeks—disappeared the day after the murder."

      "You see," explained Dora to Marvel, "this man Mason was a neighbor of Gunderstrom's, and they'd been fighting over a piece of land for nearly twenty years."

      "And they think Mason killed him?" asked Marvel.

      "They know it," replied Dora. "A man called up the sheriff's office on the telephone and told them so."

      "Mason was a deputy sheriff," explained Kay White, "and he took advantage of his office to pretend that he was looking for the murderer so that he could get away himself."

      "Clever at that," commented Adams.

      "A man who was well enough known to be a deputy sheriff ought not to be hard to find," commented Marvel.

      "It says here in the paper," said Blaine, "that his horse showed up on the range a day or two ago; so that looks like he probably caught a train and beat it out of the country."

      "He must be a terrible man," said Dora Crowell. "He shot poor Mr. Gunderstrom right through the heart as he lay asleep on his bed."

      "Between the eyes," corrected Cory Blaine.

      "It didn't say that in the paper," said Dora.

      "Oh," said Blaine, "well, maybe it was in the heart."

      Bruce Marvel rose. "What time are you starting in the morning?" he asked. "I think I'll be going to bed now."

      "Breakfast at seven," said Blaine.

      "Seven sharp," said Mr. Talbot.

      "And we'll be leaving right after breakfast," said Blaine.

      The entire party was assembled at the breakfast table when Bruce Marvel entered the dining room the following morning. Dora Crowell voiced an audible "My God" while Mrs. Talbot choked in an effort to control herself. Cory Blaine dissembled whatever surprise he felt, for it was his business not to notice the various eccentricities of dress evidenced by his guests, so long as they paid their bills.

      "Good morning," said Marvel. "I'm sorry to be late, but I had trouble getting into my boots. My man usually helps me, you know."

      No comment seemed to occur to anyone at the breakfast table; and so, amid silence, Marvel took his place between Kay White and Dora Crowell. He was arrayed in flagrantly new English riding boots, light tan English riding breeches, and a white polo shirt. But even more remarkable than his outfit was the fact that he did not seem to realize the incongruity of it. Apparently he was the only person at the breakfast table who was perfectly at ease.

      If Cory Blaine realized the necessity of overlooking the foibles of his guests, his diplomacy was not always shared by the cowhands who herded the dudes on range; and when, shortly after breakfast, Bruce Marvel strode past the bunkhouse down toward the corrals he must need have been totally deaf to have missed all of the flippant remarks his sartorial effulgence precipitated.

      The men were already leaving for the corrals to fetch up and saddle the horses, and Marvel soon had company.

      "You aint aimin' to ride in them things, Mister, are you?" asked one of the men.

      "That's what they were made for," replied Marvel.

      "Them thar panties weren't never made to ride in. You can't tell me that," said a bow-legged puncher called Butts.

      "You'll get 'em all dirty," opined another.

      "And then what'll your mama say?" chimed in a third.

      "They look funny to you, don't they?" asked Marvel good naturedly.

      "They sure do, Mister," said Butts.

      "That all depends upon who is doing the looking," said Marvel. "Did you ever look at yourself in a mirror?"

      The other men laughed then at Butts' expense.

      "What's wrong with me?" he demanded angrily.

      "You're just funny looking," said Marvel with a laugh. "The only difference between us is that you don't know you're funny looking."

      "It's a damn good thing for some of these dudes around here that they're guests," growled Butts.

      "You needn't let that cramp your style any," said Marvel.

      'Aw, cheese it," said one of the other men. "A guy's got a right to wear whatever he wants around here. It aint none of nobody's business."

      "But