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Two wolves had killed a calf and dragged it into a long patch of dense brush where there was a little spring, the whole furnishing admirable cover for any wild beast. Early in the morning we started on horseback for this bit of cover, which was some three miles off. The party consisted of the Judge, old man Prindle, a cowboy, myself, and the dogs.
The judge and I carried our rifles and the cowboy his revolver, but old man Prindle had nothing but a heavy whip, for he swore, with many oaths, that no one should interfere with his big dogs, for by themselves they would surely "make the wolf feel sicker than a stuck hog." Our shaggy ponies racked along at a five-mile gait over the dewy prairie grass.
"Well, ole Prindle says he'd give fifty bucks a week to the guy who'll handle him 'n' I needs the money . . . fur certain reasons." "Fur certain reasons" was added diffidently, I thought. This was an altogether new quality in Blister. And I remembered the pretty, spoiled-looking, young girl I had seen with him quite often of late.
The children stood silently by in their picturesque costumes, looking round the room, as children will, while their father and mother conversed with the host and hostess. Finally they were all seated, and Madam Santa Claus began in quite a motherly way to talk about her children. "It's Polly Dudley," whispered Mrs. Tenney to Mrs. Prindle. "I know her voice.
"What if you don't wake early enough?" asked Mrs. Prindle with a shrug. "Then you're late for breakfast or lose your chance of going back to thirty-five!" laughed Miss Crilly. "How can you thrash your arms round in bed?" Miss Mullaly queried. "You don't have to. It isn't like gymnastics." "Well, do tell us, Polly! I'm just crazy to begin!" Miss Crilly laughingly shook Polly's shoulders.
You wish us to witness your signature?" "If you please, sir." And he advanced to the bureau ready to sign. Mr. Owlett rang a bell sharply twice. An angular man with a youngish face and a very elderly manner answered the summons. "My confidential clerk," said Owlett, briefly introducing him. "Here, Prindle! I want you to be witness with me to this gentleman's Will."
Prindle bowed, and passed his hand across his mouth to hide a smile. Prindle was secretly amused to think that a working man had anything to leave worth the trouble of making a Will at all. Mr. Owlett dipped a pen in ink, and handed it to his client. Whereat, Helmsley wrote his signature in a clear, bold, unfaltering hand. Mr. Owlett appended his own name, and then Prindle stepped up to sign.
Posting the cowboy, to whom he gave his rifle, with two greyhounds on one side of the upper end, and old man Prindle with two others on the opposite side, while I was left at the lower end to guard against the possibility of the wolves breaking back, the Judge himself rode into the thicket near me and loosened the track-hounds to let them find the wolves' trail.
The party broke ranks and scattered among the bushes, eager for the fruit that was just in its prime. "Do you suppose they belong to anybody?" queried Mrs. Prindle, a bit anxiously. "If they do they don't love 'em a whole lot," Miss Crilly returned. "See those! They are so ripe they almost fall to pieces lookin' at 'em! But they're sweet as sugar!" She plumped them into her mouth.
"And if you contradict their lies, they're so savage at being put in the wrong that they'll blazon the lies all the more rather than confess them. That will do, Prindle! You can go." Prindle, aware that his employer was not a man to be argued with, at once retired, and Owlett, folding up the Will, handed it to Helmsley. "That's all right," he said, "I suppose you want to take it with you?
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