The Fighting Shepherdess | Page 7

His rise was rapid from that time, until now his services as an orator were so greatly in demand for cornerstone layings and barbecues that, owing to distance between towns, it kept him almost constantly on the road.
The Major sold an occasional box of salve, and in an emergency pulled teeth, in addition to the compensation which he received for what was designated privately as his "gift of gab." But the Major, nevertheless, had his dark moments, in which he contemplated the day when age should force him to retire to private life. Since the wagon containing his patent leather valise was his home, the Major had no private life to retire to, and his anxiety concerning the future would seem not without cause. Now in a flash all his worries smoothed out. He would capitalize his wide acquaintance and his influence, gain independence and perpetuate his name in the same stroke. At the moment he actually suffered because there was no one present to whom he could communicate his thoughts.
The cloud of dust was closer, but not near enough yet to distinguish the moving objects that caused it, so he set himself energetically to applying White Badger Salve to the axle, replacing the wheel and tightening the nut. When he straightened a horseman who had ridden out of the creek bed was scrambling up the side of the "bench." He was dressed like a top cowpuncher--silver-mounted saddle, split-ear bridle and hand-forged bit. The Major was familiar with the type, though this particular individual was unknown to him.
"Howdy!" The cowboy let the reins slip through his fingers so his horse could feed, and sagged sidewise in the saddle.
"How are you, sir?" There was nothing in the dignified restraint of the Major's response to indicate that his vocal cords ached for exercise and he was fairly quivering in his eagerness for an ear to talk into. There was a silence in which he removed a nose bag, bridled and shoved a horse against the tongue.
"Back, can't ye!"
"Nooned here, I reckon?"
The Major thought of his chickenless handout and his face clouded.
"I et a bite."
"Thought maybe you was in trouble when I first see you."
"Had a hot box, but I don't call that trouble." He added humorously:
"I can chop my wagon to pieces and be on the road again in twenty minutes, if I got plenty of balin' wire."
The cowboy laughed so appreciatively that the Major inquired ingratiatingly:
"I bleeve your face is a stranger to me, ain't it?"
"I don't mind meetin' up with you before. I've just come to the country, as you might say."
The Major waited for further information, but since it was not forthcoming he ventured:
"What might I call your name, sir?"
The cowboy shifted his weight uneasily and hesitated. He said finally while the red of his shiny sun-blistered face deepened perceptibly: "My name is supposed to be Teeters--Clarence Teeters."
As a matter of fact he knew that his name was Teeters, but injecting an element of doubt into it in this fashion seemed somehow to make the telling easier. Teeters was bad enough, but combined with Clarence! Only Mr. Teeters knew the effort it cost him to tell his name to strangers. He added with the air of a man determined to make a clean breast of it:
"I'm from Missoury."
The Major's hand shot out unexpectedly.
"Shake!" he cried warmly. "I was drug up myself at the foot of the Ozarks."
"I pulled out when I was a kid and wrangled 'round considerible." Teeters made the statement as an extenuating circumstance.
"I took out naturalization papers myself," replied the Major good-humoredly. "My name is Prouty--Stephen Douglas Prouty. You'll prob'ly hear of me if you stay in the country. The fact is, I'm thinkin' of startin' a town and namin' it Prouty."
"Shoo--you don't say so!" In polite inquiry, "Whur?"
"Thur!"
Mr. Teeters looked a little blank as he stared at the town site indicated.
"It seems turrible fur from water," he commented finally.
"Sink--drill--artesian well--maybe we'll strike a regular subterranean river. Anyway, 'twould be no trick at all to run a ditch from Dead Horse Canyon and get all the water we want." He waved his arm at the distant mountains and settled that objection.
"Wouldn't them alkali bogs breedin' a billion 'no-see-'ems' a second be kind of a drawback?" inquired Teeters tentatively.
"That'll all be drained, covered with sile and seeded down in lawns," replied the Major quickly. "In two year that spot'll be bloomin' like the Garden of Eden.
"I've got to be movin'," the Major continued. "I'm on my way from a cornerstone layin' at Buffalo Waller to a barbecue at No Wood Crick. I'm kind of an orator," he added modestly.
"And I got about three hundred head of calves to drag to the fire, if I kin git my rope on 'em," said Teeters, straightening in the saddle.
The Major