The B.M. Bower MEGAPACK ®. B.M. Bower
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right, all right. I hollered my head off with the rest of ’em when you played merry hell in that bull-ring, last Christmas. Also, I was part of your bodyguard when them greasers were trying to tickle you in the ribs with their knives in that dark alley. Shake, old-timer! You done yourself proud, and I’m glad to know yuh!”
Miguel, for the first time in two weeks, permitted himself the luxury of an expressive countenance. He gave Andy Green one quick, grateful look—and a smile, the like of which made the Happy Family quiver inwardly with instinctive sympathy.
“So you were there, too, eh?” Miguel exclaimed softly, and rose to greet him. “And that scrap in the alley—we sure had a hell of a time there for a few minutes, didn’t we? Are you that tall fellow who kicked that squint-eyed greaser in the stomach? Muchos gracios, senor! They were piling on me three deep, right then, and I always believed they’d have got me, only for a tall vaquero I couldn’t locate afterward.” He smiled again that wonderful smile, which lighted the darkness of his eyes as with a flame, and murmured a sentence or two in Spanish.
“Did you get the spurs me and my friends sent you afterward?” asked Andy eagerly. “We heard about the Arizona boys giving you the saddle—and we raked high and low for them spurs. And, by gracious, they were beauts, too—did yuh get ’em?”
“I wear them every day I ride,” answered Miguel, a peculiar, caressing note in his voice.
“I didn’t know—we heard you had disappeared off the earth. Why—”
Miguel laughed outright. “To fight a bull with bare hands is one thing, amigo,” he said. “To take a chance on getting a knife stuck in your back is another. Those Mexicans—they don’t love the man who crosses the river and makes of their bull-fights a plaything.”
“That’s right; only I thought, you being a—”
“Not a Mexican.” Miguel’s voice sharpened a trifle. “My father was Spanish, yes. My mother”—his eyes flashed briefly at the faces of the gaping Happy Family—“my mother was born in Ireland.”
“And that sure makes a hard combination to beat,” cried Andy heartily. He looked at the others—at all, that is, save Pink and Irish, who had disappeared. “Well, boys, I never thought I’d come home and find—”
“Miguel Rapponi,” supplied the Native Son quickly. “As well forget that other name. And,” he added with the shrug which the Happy Family had come to hate, “as well forget the story, also. I am not hungry for the feel of a knife in my back.” He smiled again engagingly at Andy Green. It was astonishing how readily that smile had sprung to life with the warmth of a little friendship, and how pleasant it was, withal.
“Just as you say,” Andy agreed, not trying to hide his admiration. “I guess nobody’s got a better right to holler for silence. But—say, you sure delivered the goods, old boy! You musta read about it, you fellows; about the American puncher that went over the line and rode one of their crack bulls all round the ring, and then—” He stopped and looked apologetically at Miguel, in whose dark eyes there flashed a warning light. “I clean forgot,” he confessed impulsively. “This meeting you here unexpectedly, like this, has kinda got me rattled, I guess. But—I never saw yuh before in my life,” he declared emphatically. “I don’t know a darn thing about—anything that ever happened in an alley in the city of—oh, come on, old-timer; let’s talk about the weather, or something safe!”
After that the boys of the Flying U behaved very much as do children who have quarreled foolishly and are trying shamefacedly to re-establish friendly relations without the preliminary indignity of open repentance. They avoided meeting the velvet-eyed glances of Miguel, and at the same time they were plainly anxious to include him in their talk as if that had been their habit from the first. A difficult situation to meet, even with the fine aplomb of the Happy Family to ease the awkwardness.
Later Miguel went unobtrusively down to the creek after his chaps; he did not get them, just then, but he stood for a long time hidden behind the willow-fringe, watching Pink and Irish feverishly combing out certain corkscrew ringlets, and dampening their combs in the creek to facilitate the process of straightening certain patches of rebellious frizzes. Miguel did not laugh aloud, as Big Medicine had done. He stood until he wearied of the sight, then lifted his shoulders in the gesture which may mean anything, smiled and went his way.
Not until dusk did Andy get a private word with him. When he did find him alone, he pumped Miguel’s hand up and down and afterward clutched at the manger for support, and came near strangling. Miguel leaned beside him and smiled to himself.
“Good team work, old boy,” Andy gasped at length, in a whisper. “Best I ever saw in m’life, impromptu on the spot, like that. I saw you had the makings in you, soon as I caught your eye. And the whole, blame bunch fell for it—woo-oof!” He laid his face down again upon his folded arms and shook in all the long length of him.
“They had it coming,” said Miguel softly, with a peculiar relish. “Two whole weeks, and never a friendly word from one of them—oh, hell!”
“I know—I heard it all, soon as I hit the ranch,” Andy replied weakly, standing up and wiping his eyes. “I just thought I’d learn ’em a lesson—and the way you played up—say, my hat’s off to you, all right!”
“One learns to seize opportunities without stuttering,” Miguel observed calmly—and a queer look came into his eyes as they rested upon the face of Andy. “And, if the chance comes, I’ll do as much for you. By the way, did you see the saddle those Arizona boys sent me? It’s over here. It’s a pip-pin—almost as fine as the spurs, which I keep in the bunk-house when they’re not on my heels. And, if I didn’t say so before, I’m sure glad to meet the man that helped me through that alley. That big, fat devil would have landed me, sure, if you hadn’t—”
“Ah—what?” Andy leaned and peered into the face of Miguel, his jaw hanging slack. “You don’t mean to tell me—it’s true?”
“True? Why, I thought you were the fellow—” Miguel faced him steadily. His eyes were frankly puzzled.
“I’ll tell you the truth, so help me,” Andy said heavily. “I don’t know a darned thing about it, only what I read in the papers. I spent the whole winter in Colorado and Wyoming. I was just joshing the boys.”
“Oh,” said Miguel.
They stood there in the dusk and silence for a space, after which Andy went forth into the night to meditate upon this thing. Miguel stood and looked after him.
“He’s the real goods when it comes to lying—but there are others,” he said aloud, and smiled a peculiar smile. But for all that he felt that he was going to like Andy very much indeed. And, since the Happy Family had shown a disposition to make him one of themselves, he knew that he was going to become quite as foolishly attached to the Flying U as was even Slim, confessedly the most rabid of partisans.
In this wise did Miguel Rapponi, then, become a member of Jim Whitmore’s Happy Family, and play his part in the events which followed his adoption.
CHAPTER III
Bad News
Andy Green, that honest-eyed young man whom everyone loved, but whom not a man believed save when he was indulging his love for more or less fantastic flights of the imagination, pulled up on the brow of Flying U coulee and stared somberly at the picture spread below him. On the porch of the White House the hammock swung gently under the weight of the Little Doctor, who pushed her shipper-toe mechanically against a post support at regular intervals while she read.
On the steps the Kid was crawling laboriously upward, only to descend again quite as laboriously when he attained the top. One of the boys was just emerging from the blacksmith shop; from the build of him Andy knew it must be either Weary or Irish, though it would take a much closer observation, and some familiarity with the two to identify the man more exactly. In the corral were a swirl of horses and an overhanging cloud of dust, with two or three figures discernible in the midst, and away in the little