The Heart of the Range | Page 2

Dawson, solemnly. "Le's have another."
They had another--several others.
The upshot was that when Mr. Richie (who was the lucky possessor of a head that liquor did not easily affect) departed homeward at four P.M., he left behind him a sadly plastered Mr. Dawson.
Mr. Tunstall, of course, was still sleeping deeply and noisily. But Mr. Dawson had long since lost interest in Mr. Tunstall. It is doubtful whether he remembered that Mr. Tunstall existed. The two had begun their party immediately after breakfast. Mr. Tunstall had succumbed early, but Mr. Dawson had not once halted his efforts to make the celebration a huge success. So it is not a subject for surprise that Mr. Dawson, some thirty minutes after bidding Mr. Richie an affectionate farewell, should stagger out into the street and ride away on the horse of someone else.
The ensuing hours of the evening and the night were a merciful blank to Mr. Dawson. His first conscious thought was when he awoke at dawn on a side-hill, a sharp rock prodding him in the small of the back and the bridle-reins of his dozing horse wound round one arm. Only it was not his horse. His horse was a red roan. This horse was a bay. It wasn't his saddle, either.
"Where's my hoss?" he demanded of the world at large and sat up suddenly.
The sharp movement wrung a groan from the depths of his being. The loss of his horse was drowned in the pains of his aching head. Never was such all-pervading ache. He knew the top was coming off. He knew it. He could feel it, and then did--with his fingers. He groaned again.
His tongue was dry as cotton, and it hurt him to swallow. He stood up, but as promptly sat down. In a whisper--for speech was torture--he began to revile himself for a fool.
"I might have known it," was his plaint. "I had a feelin' when I took that last glass it was one too many. I never did know when to stop. I'd like to know how I got here, and where my hoss is, and who belongs to this one?"
He eyed the mount with disfavour. He had never cared for bays.
"An' that ain't much of a saddle, either," he went on with his soliloquy. "Cheap saddle--looks like a boy's saddle--an' a old saddle--bet Noah used one just like it--try to rope with that saddle an' you'd pull the horn to hellen gone. Wonder what's in that saddle-pocket."
He pulled himself erect slowly and tenderly. His knees were very shaky. His head throbbed like a squeezed boil, but--he wanted to learn what was in that saddle-pocket. Possibly he might obtain therein a clue to the horse's owner.
He slipped the strap of the pocket-flap, flipped it open, inserted his fingers, and drew forth a small package wrapped in newspaper and tied with the blue string affected by the Blue Pigeon Store in Farewell.
Mr. Dawson balanced the package on two fingers for a reflective instant, then he snapped the string and opened the package.
"Socks an' a undershirt," he said, disgustedly, and started to say more, but paused, for there was something queer about that undershirt. His head was still spinning, and his eyes were sandy, but he perceived quite plainly that there were narrow blue ribbons running round the neck of that undershirt. He unrolled the socks and found them much longer in the leg than the kind habitually worn by men. Mr. Dawson agitatedly dived his hand once more into the saddle-pocket. And this time he pulled out a tortoise-shell shuttle round which was wrapped several inches of lingerie edging. But Mr. Dawson did not call it lingerie edging. He called it tatting and swore again.
"That settles it," he said, cheerlessly. "I've stole some woman's cayuse."

CHAPTER II
THE YELLOW DOG
It was a chastened Racey Dawson that returned to Farewell. He went directly to the blacksmith shop.
"'Lo, Hoss Thief," was Piney Jackson's cheerful greeting.
"Whose is it?" demanded Racey Dawson, wiping his hot face. "Whose hoss have I stole?"
"Oh, you'll catch it," chuckled the humorous Piney. "Yep, you betcha. You've got a gall, you have. Camly prancing out of a saloon an' glooming onto a lady's hoss. What kind o' doin's is that, I'd like to know?"
"You blasted idjit!" cried the worried Racey. "Whose hoss is this?"
"I kind o' guessed maybe something disgraceful like this here would happen when I seen you and yore friend sashay into the Happy Heart. And the barkeep said you had two snifters and a glass o' milk, too. Honest, Racey, you'd oughta be more careful how you mix yore drinks."
"Don't try to be a bigger jack than you are," Racey adjured him in a tone that he strove to make contemptuous. "You think yo're awful funny--just too awful funny, don't you? I'm askin' you, you