A Texas Matchmaker | Page 6

she busied herself with the preparations. "It's so kind of you to look
after me. I was listening to every word you said, and I've got my best
bib and tucker in that hand box. And just you watch me dazzle that Mr.
Mule-buyer. Strange you didn't tell me sooner about his being in the
country. Here, take these boxes out to the ambulance. And, say, I put in
the middle-sized coffee pot, and do you think two packages of ground
coffee will be enough? All right, then. Now, where's my gloves?"
We were all dancing attendance in getting the ambulance off, but Uncle
Lance never relaxed his tormenting, "Come, now, hurry up," said he, as
Jean and himself led the way to the gate where the conveyance stood
waiting; "for I want you to look your best this evening, and you'll be all
tired out if you don't get a good rest before the dance begins. Now, in

case the mule-buyer don't show up, how about Sim Oliver? You see, I
can put in a good word there just as easily as not. Of course, he's a
widower like myself, but you're no spring pullet--you wouldn't class
among the buds--besides Sim branded eleven hundred calves last year.
And the very last time I was talking to him, he allowed he'd crowd
thirteen hundred close this year--big calf crop, you see. Now, just why
he should go to the trouble to tell me all this, unless he had his eye on
you, is one too many for me. But if you want me to cut him out of your
string of eligibles, say the word, and I'll chouse him out. You just bet,
little girl, whoever wins you has got to score right. Great Scott! but you
have good taste in selecting perfumery. Um-ee! it makes me half drunk
to walk alongside of you. Be sure and put some of that ointment on
your kerchief when you get there."
"Really," said Miss Jean, as they reached the ambulance, "I wish you
had made a little memorandum of what I'm expected to do--I'm all in a
flutter this morning. You see, without your help my case is hopeless.
But I think I'll try for the mule-buyer. I'm getting tired looking at these
slab-sided cowmen. Now, just look at those mules--haven't had a
harness on in a month. And Tiburcio can't hold four of them, nohow.
Lance, it looks like you'd send one of the boys to drive me down to the
ferry."
"Why, Lord love you, girl, those mules are as gentle as kittens; and you
don't suppose I'm going to put some gringo over a veteran like Tiburcio.
Why, that old boy used to drive for Santa Anna during the invasion in
'36. Besides, I'm sending Theodore and Glenn on horseback as a
bodyguard. Las Palomas is putting her best foot forward this morning
in giving you a stylish turnout, with outriders in their Sunday livery.
And those two boys are the best ropers on the ranch, so if the mules run
off just give one of your long, keen screams, and the boys will rope and
hog-tie every mule in the team. Get in now and don't make any faces
about it."
It was pettishness and not timidity that ailed Jean Lovelace, for a
pioneer woman like herself had of course no fear of horse-flesh. But the
team was acting in a manner to unnerve an ordinary woman. With me

clinging to the bits of the leaders, and a man each holding the wheelers,
as they pawed the ground and surged about in their creaking harness,
they were anything but gentle; but Miss Jean proudly took her seat;
Tiburcio fingered the reins in placid contentment; there was a parting
volley of admonitions from brother and sister--the latter was telling us
where we would find our white shirts--when Uncle Lance signaled to
us; and we sprang away from the team. The ambulance gave a lurch,
forward, as the mules started on a run, but Tiburcio dexterously threw
them on to a heavy bed of sand, poured the whip into them as they
labored through it; they crossed the sand bed, Glenn Gallup and
Theodore Quayle, riding, at their heads, pointed the team into the road,
and they were off.
The rest of us busied ourselves getting up saddle horses and dressing
for the occasion. In the latter we had no little trouble, for dress
occasions like this were rare with us. Miss Jean had been thoughtful
enough to lay our clothes out, but there was a busy borrowing of collars
and collar buttons, and a blacking of boots which made the sweat stand
out on our foreheads in beads. After we were dressed and ready to start,
Uncle Lance could not be