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"Did Cal have much money with him?" he asked, finally. "Not so awful much, near's the boys can tell. Mebbe a few hundred, fer spendin' money, like." "Had he had any furse with ary feller down in there lately?" "Nope, not that any one knows of. He just done went off over the range, an' fanned out, seems like, without no special reason."
Standing very erect before Keith's desk, his beaver hat poised on his left forearm, he said: "I am requested, suh, to enquiah of yo' the name of a friend with whom I can confer." "If that means a challenge, Major, I must first ask the name of your principal," returned Keith. "I am actin' fo' Mr. Calhoun Bennett, suh," stated the major. "Tell Cal Bennett I will not fight him," said Keith quietly.
So help me, Josephine, if anybody goes rubbing it in where I can hear, he'll get his face punched!" "Say, I guess we ain't let down on our faces, or anything!" sighed Cal Emmett, coming up to them. "I thought Andy could ride! Gee whiz, but it was fierce! Why, Happy could make a better ride than that!" "By golly, I want t' have a talk with that there broncho-tamer," Slim growled behind them.
"These here are my friends: Happy Jack up there on the wagon, and Slim and Weary and Pink and Cal and Jack Bates and Andy Green and there's more scattered around here, that don't reely count except when it comes to eating. We like you, by cripes, and we like your cookin' fine! Now, you amble along to town and load up with the best there is huh?"
The man nodded his head for so it seemed to him, a woodsman to whom trees in their general sense were common things. In this great growth he felt a quality and a presence. Its moods were as varied as those of life itself as it stood triumphing over decades of vicissitude, blight, and storm. "I wonder ef hit knows," said the girl, abruptly, "who hit war thet shot ye, Cal?"
It occurred to Weary then that a word of cheer to the Old Man and his anxious watchers might not cone amiss. Therefore the Happy Family mounted and rode to the depot to send it, and on the way wrangled over the wording of the message after their usual contentious manner. "Better tell 'em everything is fine, at this end uh the line," Cal suggested, and was hooted at for a poet.
He whispered in her ear: "Courage, little mother!" Ringing the bell at the low front step of a two-story brick dwelling, Duff Salter was admitted by Mr. Knox Van de Lear, the proprietor, a tall, plain, commonplace man, who scarcely bore one feature of his venerable father. "Come in, Mr. Salter," bellowed Knox, "tea's just a-waitin' for you. Pap's here. You know Cal, certain!
And she thought just as much of him. He sent her to the academy over at Birdstail for two years when it took nearly every pound of wool to pay the expenses. "Along about Tuesday Uncle Cal put out for San Antone on the last wagonload of wool. Marilla's uncle Ben, who lived in Birdstail, come over and stayed at the ranch while Uncle Cal was gone.
It was a cry from a patch of woods to the northward, and straining his eyes he saw Cal Clemmer waving his sombrero toward him. Scout and cowboy boomer were soon together. "Well, whar's Rasco and the gal?" were Clemmer's first words. "Both gone I don't know where, Cal. Where are the other boys?" "Started back toward Honnewell; thet is, all but Dick Arbuckle.
Though stiff and sore from unaccustomed riding, Pink felt quite content to be where he was; to watch the quiet land and the peaceful, slumbering herd; with the drifting gray clouds above, and the moon swimming, head under, in their midst. Twice in a complete round he met Cal, going in opposite direction. At the second round Cal stopped him. "How yuh coming?" he queried cheerfully.
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