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"Your sister Blanche looked very well in one of my dresses last year; and you know how stout she is. We will find some means to accommodate them all, depend upon it." Mrs. John Rowdy's note to dear Rosa, accepting the latter's invitation, was a very gracious and kind one; and Mrs. Fitz showed it to her husband when he came back from chambers.
"Look at that bloody ear of Rowdy's. He's been shot. That's some of Lopez's work." At once a rush was made for the white bulldog. Rowdy seemed to pay little attention to the lacerated ear, pierced by the outlaw's bullet, but paraded the cabin exhibiting the cloth proudly. "I do believe he got a piece of Lopez's trousers!" declared Jack exultantly.
"Young man, I b'lieve you're a square dealer, and that yuh savvy the cow business. I've thought it ever since yuh started t' work." His keen old eyes twinkled at the memory of Rowdy's arrival, and Rowdy grinned. "I take yuh at your word, and yuh can consider yourself in charge uh this herd as it stands. Take it t' that cow heaven yuh tell about and damn it, yuh won't be none the worse for it!"
He squawked and came to life clawing viciously. "I'd like t' know where the devil yuh come from," a voice remarked plaintively in a soft treble. Rowdy opened his eyes with a snap. "Pink! by all that's good and bad! Get up off my diaphragm, you little fiend." Pink absent-mindedly kneaded Rowdy's stomach with his knuckles, and immediately found himself in a far corner.
"Here comes somebody on the wharf," declared Arnold with a hand on Rowdy's collar. "Wonder who it is now?" "That's the watchman," said Harrison. "He's got the shovels." As the watchman delivered the implements to the Marshal he was requested to keep an eye on the Fortuna. This he promised to do.
He might feel any amount of resentment for wrong done, but cold-blooded revenge was not in him; that he had suffered so much at Conroy's hands was due largely to the fact that Conroy was astute enough to read Rowdy aright, and unscrupulous enough to take advantage. Add to that a smallminded jealousy of Rowdy's popularity and horsemanship, one can easily imagine him doing some rather nasty things.
Pink took three puffs at his cigarette, and lifted his long lashes to Rowdy's gloom-filled face. "Stole?" he asked briefly. "Stole," Rowdy repeated disgustedly. "So was the whole blame' bunch, as near as I can make out." "We might 'a' knowed it. We might 'a' guessed Harry Conroy wouldn't have a straight title to anything if he could make it crooked.
The room stilled on the instant; it was as if every man of them had turned to lay figures. Harry Conroy had winced at sight of Rowdy's face men saw that, and some of them wondered. Pink leaned back in his chair, every nerve tightened for the next move, and waited. It was Harry handsome, sneering, a certain swaggering defiance in his pose who first spoke. "Oh, it's you, is it?
Pink, who knew quite well what was in Rowdy's mind, said nothing at all; it is possible that he was several degrees more jealous of the dignity of Rowdy's position than was Rowdy himself, who had no time to think of anything but the best way of getting the herd to Canada. He would like to have gone along, only that Rowdy did not ask him to.
Rowdy's stumpy tail wagged ecstatically as Arnold lavished affection upon him. He endeavored to "kiss" all hands, but this was discouraged. The boys dearly loved their pet but objected to "kisses." "Anyhow," decided Arnold, "Rowdy never would have let the chap get away if he had thought he was here for harm. So that means the boy is all right!
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