LITMIR.BIZ

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did you have to wade in—”

      “Naw; he was like this here Native Son—all front. He could look sudden death, all right; he had black eyes like Mig-u-ell—but all a fellow had to do was go after him, and he’d back up so blamed quick—”

      Slim listened that far, saw that he had interrupted a tale evidently more interesting than anything he could say, and went off, muttering to himself.

Chapter II. “When Greek Meets Greek”

       Table of Contents

      The next morning, which was Sunday, the machinations of Big Medicine took Pink down to the creek behind the bunk-house. “What’s hurtin’ yuh?” he asked curiously, when he came to where Big Medicine stood in the fringe of willows, choking between his spasms of mirth.

      “Haw-haw-haw!” roared Big Medicine; and, seizing Pink’s arm in a gorilla-like grip, he pointed down the bank.

      Miguel, seated upon a convenient rock in a sunny spot, was painstakingly combing out the tangled hair of his chaps, which he had washed quite as carefully not long before, as the cake of soap beside him testified.

      “Combing—combing—his chaps, by cripes!” Big Medicine gasped, and waggled his finger at the spectacle. “Haw-haw-haw! C-combin’—his—chaps!”

      Miguel glanced up at them as impersonally as if they were two cackling hens, rather than derisive humans, then bent his head over a stubborn knot and whistled La Paloma softly while he coaxed out the tangle.

      Pink’s eyes widened as he looked, but he did not say anything. He backed up the path and went thoughtfully to the corrals, leaving Big Medicine to follow or not, as he chose.

      “Combin’—his chaps, by cripes!” came rumbling behind him. Pink turned.

      “Say! Don’t make so much noise about it,” he advised guardedly. “I’ve got an idea.”

      “Yuh want to hog-tie it, then,” Big Medicine retorted, resentful because Pink seemed not to grasp the full humor of the thing. “Idees sure seems to be skurce in this outfit—or that there lily-uh-the-valley couldn’t set and comb no chaps in broad daylight, by cripes; not and get off with it.”

      “He’s an ornament to the Flying U,” Pink stated dreamily. “Us boneheads don’t appreciate him, is all that ails us. What we ought to do is—help him be as pretty as he wants to be, and—”

      “Looky here, Little One.” Big Medicine hurried his steps until he was close alongside. “I wouldn’t give a punched nickel for a four-horse load uh them idees, and that’s the truth.” He passed Pink and went on ahead, disgust in every line of his square-shouldered figure. “Combin’ his chaps, by cripes!” he snorted again, and straightway told the tale profanely to his fellows, who laughed until they were weak and watery-eyed as they listened.

      Afterward, because Pink implored them and made a mystery of it, they invited Miguel to take a hand in a long-winded game—rather, a series of games—of seven-up, while his chaps hung to dry upon a willow by the creek bank—or so he believed.

      The chaps, however, were up in the white-house kitchen, where were also the reek of scorched hair and the laughing expostulations of the Little Doctor and the boyish titter of Pink and Irish, who were curling laboriously the chaps of Miguel with the curling tongs of the Little Doctor and those of the Countess besides.

      “It’s a shame, and I just hope Miguel thrashes you both for it,” the Little Doctor told them more than once; but she laughed, nevertheless, and showed Pink how to give the twist which made of each lock a corkscrew ringlet. The Countess stopped, with her dishcloth dangling from one red, bony hand, while she looked. “You boys couldn’t sleep nights if you didn’t pester the life outa somebody,” she scolded. “Seems to me I’d friz them diamonds, if I was goin’ to be mean enough to do anything.”

      “You would, eh?” Pink glanced up at her and dimpled. “I’ll find you a rich husband to pay for that.” He straightway proceeded to friz the diamonds of white.

      “Why don’t you have a strip of ringlets down each leg, with tight little curls between?” suggested the Little Doctor, not to be outdone by any other woman.

      “Correct you are,” praised Irish.

      “And, remember, you’re not heating branding-irons, mister man,” she added. “You’ll burn all the hair off, if you let the tongs get red-hot. Just so they’ll sizzle; I’ve told you five times already.” She picked up the Kid, kissed many times the finger he held up for sympathy—the finger with which he had touched the tongs as Pink was putting them back into the grate of the kitchen stove, and spoke again to ease her conscience. “I think it’s awfully mean of you to do it. Miguel ought to thrash you both.”

      “We’re dead willing to let him try, Mrs. Chip. We know it’s mean. We’re real ashamed of ourselves.” Irish tested his tongs as he had been told to do. “But we’d rather be ashamed than good, any old time.”

      The Little Doctor giggled behind the Kid’s tousled curls, and reached out a slim hand once more to give Pink’s tongs the expert twist he was trying awkwardly to learn. “I’m sorry for Miguel; he’s got lovely eyes, anyway.”

      “Yes, ain’t he?” Pink looked up briefly from his task. “How’s your leg, Irish? Mine’s done.”

      “Seems to me I’d make a deep border of them corkscrew curls all around the bottoms, if I was doin’ it,” said the Countess peevishly, from the kitchen sink. “If I was that dago I’d murder the hull outfit; I never did see a body so hectored in my life—and him not ever ketchin’ on. He must be plumb simple-minded.”

      When the curling was done to the hilarious satisfaction of Irish and Pink, and, while Pink was dancing in them to show them off, another entered with mail from town. And, because the mail-bearer was Andy Green himself, back from a winter’s journeyings, Cal, Happy Jack and Slim followed close behind, talking all at once, in their joy at beholding the man they loved well and hated occasionally also. Andy delivered the mail into the hands of the Little Doctor, pinched the Kid’s cheek, and said how he had grown good-looking as his mother, almost, spoke a cheerful howdy to the Countess, and turned to shake hands with Pink. It was then that the honest, gray eyes of him widened with amazement.

      “Well, by golly!” gasped Slim, goggling at the chaps of Miguel.

      “That there Natiff Son’ll just about kill yuh for that,” warned Happy Jack, as mournfully as he might with laughing. “He’ll knife yuh, sure.”

      Andy, demanding the meaning of it all, learned all about Miguel Rapponi—from the viewpoint of the Happy Family. At least, he learned as much as it was politic to tell in the presence of the Little Doctor; and afterward, while Pink was putting the chaps back upon the willow, where Miguel had left them, he was told that they looked to him, Andy Green, for assistance.

      “Oh, gosh! You don’t want to depend on me, Pink,” Andy expostulated modestly. “I can’t think of anything—and, besides, I’ve reformed. I don’t know as it’s any compliment to me, by gracious—being told soon as I land that I’m expected to lie to a perfect stranger.”

      “You come on down to the stable and take a look at his saddle and bridle,” urged Cal. “And wait till you see him smoking and looking past you, as if you was an ornery little peak that didn’t do nothing but obstruct the scenery. I’ve seen mean cusses—lots of ‘em; and I’ve seen men that was stuck on themselves. But I never—”

      “Come outa that ‘doby,” Pink interrupted, “mud to his eyebrows, just about. And he knew darned well we headed him in there deliberate. And when I remarks it’s soft going, he says: ‘It is, kinda,’—just like that.” Pink managed to imitate the languid tone of Miguel very well. “Not another word outa him. Didn’t even make him mad! He—”

      “Tell

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