t not only was the Smith boy not injured but seemed to be used to it and bore no malice. The guests shook hands with the boys and congratulated them; they examined the War Cross that Pinkey produced reluctantly from the bottom of the flour-sack in which he carried his clothing, and finally Mr. Appel presented the purse in a speech to which nobody listened--and the Smith boy shocked everybody by his extravagance when he gave five of it to the driver of the laundry wagon. "I was shore pinin' to step in the middle of a horse," was Pinkey's explanation of their eccentric arrival. "It kinda rests me." While all this was happening Wallie stood holding his lemonade tray. When he could get close, he welcomed the Smith boy and was introduced to Pinkey, and stood around long enough to learn that the latter and Helene Spenceley knew each other. Nobody, however, was interested in seeing his roses. Even Miss Mattie Gaskett, who always clung like a burr to woollen clothing with the least encouragement, said carelessly when he showed her the lemonade tray: "As good as your best, Wallie," and edged over to hear what Pinkey was saying. There was nothing to do but withdraw unobtrusively, though Wallie realized with chagrin that he could have gone upstairs on his hands and knees without attracting the least attention. For the first time he regretted deeply that his eyesight had kept him out of the army, for he, too, might have been winning war crosses in the trenches instead of rolling bandages and knitting socks and sweaters. Wallie almost hated the lemonade tray as he slammed it on the table, for in his utter disgust with everything and everybody the design seemed to look more like cabbages than roses. CHAPTER IV THE BRAND OF CAIN There never was a nose so completely out of joint as Wallie's nor an owner more thoroughly humiliated and embittered by the fickleness and ingratitude of human nature. The sacrifices he had made in escorting dull ladies to duller movies were wasted. The unfailing courtesy with which he had retrieved their yarn and handkerchiefs, the sympathy and attention with which he had listened to their symptoms, his solicitude when they were ailing--all were forgotten now that Pinkey was in the vicinity. The ladies swarmed around that person, quoted his sayings delightedly, and declared a million times in Wallie's hearing that "he was a character!" And the worst of it was that Helene Spenceley did not seem sufficiently aware of Wallie's existence even to laugh at him. As the displaced cynosure sat brooding in his room the third morning after Pinkey's arrival he wished that he could think of some perfectly well-bred way to attract attention. He believed in the psychology of clothes. Perhaps if he appeared on the veranda in something to emphasize his personality, something suggesting strength and virility, like tennis flannels, he could regain his hold on his audience. With this thought in mind Wallie opened his capacious closet filled with wearing apparel, and the moment his eyes fell upon his riding breeches he had his inspiration. If "the girl from Wyoming" thought her friend Pinkey was the only person who could ride a horse, he would show her! It took Wallie only so long to order a horse as it required to get the Riding Academy on the telephone. "I want a good-looking mount--something spirited," he instructed the person who answered. "We've just bought some new horses," the voice replied. "I'll send you the pick of them." Wallie hung up the receiver, fairly trembling with eagerness to dress himself and get down on the veranda. He looked well in riding togs--everyone mentioned it--and if he could walk out swinging his crop nonchalantly, well, they would at least _notice_ him! And when he would spring lightly into the saddle and gallop away--he saw it as plainly as if it were happening. Although Wallie actually broke his record he seemed to himself an unconscionable time in dressing, but when he gave himself a final survey in the mirror, he had every reason to feel satisfied with the result. He was correct in every detail and he thought complacently that he could not but contrast favourably with the appearance of that "roughneck" from Montana--or was it Wyoming? "What you taking such a hot day to ride for?" Mrs. Appel called when she caught sight of Wallie. The question jarred on him and he replied coolly: "I had not observed that it was warmer than usual, Mrs. Appel." "It's ninety, with the humidity goodness knows how much!" she retorted. Without seeming to look, Wallie could see that both Miss Spenceley and Pinkey were on the veranda and regarding him with interest. His pose became a little theatrical while he waited for his mount, striking his riding boot smartly with his crop as he stood in full view of them. Everyone was interested when they saw the horse coming, and a few sauntered over to have a look at him, Miss Spenceley and Pinkey among the others. "Is that the horse you always ride, Wallie?" inquired Miss Gaskett. "No; it's a new one I'm going to try out for them," Wallie replied, indifferently. "Wallie, _do_ be careful!" his aunt admonished him. "I don't like you to ride strange horses." Wallie laughed lightly, and as he went down to meet the groom who was now at the foot of the steps with the horses he assured her that there was not the least cause for anxiety. "Why, that's a Western horse!" Miss Spenceley exclaimed. "Isn't that a brand on the shoulder?" "It looks like it," Pinkey answered, ruffing the hair then smoothing it. "Shore it's a brand." He stepped off a pace to look at it. "Pardon me, but I think you're mistaken," Wallie said, politely but positively. "The Academy buys only thoroughbreds." "If that ain't a bronc, I'll eat it," Pinkey declared, bluntly. "Can you make out the brand?" asked Miss Spenceley. Pinkey ruffed the hair again and stepped back and squinted. Then his cracked lips stretched in a grin that threatened to start them bleeding: "'88' is the way I read it." She nodded: "The brand of Cain." Then they both laughed immoderately. Wallie could see no occasion for merriment and it nettled him. "Nevertheless, I maintain that you are in error," he declared, obstinately. "I doubt if I could set one of them hen-skin saddles," observed Pinkey, changing the subject. Wallie replied airily: "Oh, it's very easy if you've been taught properly." "Taught? You mean," wonderingly, "that somebody _learnt_ you to ride horseback?" Wallie smiled patronizingly: "How else would I know?" "I was jest throwed on a horse and told to stay there." "Which accounts for the fact that you Western riders have no 'form,' if you'll excuse my frankness." "Don't mention it," replied Pinkey, not to be outdone in politeness. "Maybe, before I go, you'll give me some p'inters?" "I shall be most happy," Wallie responded, putting his foot in the stirrup. He mounted creditably and settled himself in the saddle. "Thumb him," said Miss Spenceley, "and we'll soon settle the argument." "How--thumb him? The term is not familiar." "Show him, Pinkey." Her eyes were sparkling, for Wallie's tone implied that the expression was slang and also rather vulgar. "He'll unload his pack as shore as shootin'." Pinkey hesitated. "No time like the present to learn a lesson," she replied, ambiguously. "Certainly--if there's anything you can teach me," Wallie's smile said as plain as words that he doubted it. "Mr. Fripp--er--'thumb' him." "You're the doctor," said Pinkey, grimly, and "thumbed" him. The effect was instantaneous. The old horse ducked his head, arched his back, and went at it. It was over in less time than it requires to tell and Wallie was convinced beyond the question of a doubt that the horse had not been bred in Kentucky. As he described an aërial circle Wallie had a whimsical notion that his teeth had bitten into his brain and his spine was projected through the crown of his derby hat. Darkness and oblivion came upon him for a moment, and then he found himself being lifted tenderly from a bed of petunias and dusted off by the groom from the Riding Academy. The ladies were screaming, but a swift glance showed Wallie not only Mr. Appel but Mr. Cone and Mr. Budlong with their hands over their mouths and their teeth gleaming between their spreading fingers. "Coward!" he cried to Pinkey. "_You_ don't dare get on him!" "Can you ride him 'slick,' Pinkey?" asked Miss Spenceley. "I'll do it er bust somethin'." Pinkey's mouth had a funny quirk at the corners. "Maybe it'll take the kinks out of me from travellin'." He looked at Mr. Cone doubtfully: "I'm liable to rip up the sod in your front yard a little." "Go to it!" cried Mr. Cone, whose sporting blood was up. "There's nothin' here that won't grow again. Ride him!" Everybody was trembling, and when Miss Eyester looked at her lips they were white as alabaster, but she meant to see the riding, if she had one of her sinking spells immediately it was over. When Pinkey swung into the saddle, the horse turned its head around slowly and looked at the leg that gripped him. Pinkey leaned down, unbuckled the throat-latch, and slipped off the bridle. Then, as he touched the horse in the flank with his heels, he took off his cap and slapped him over the head with it. The horse recognized the familiar challenge and accepted it. What he had done to Wallie was only the gambolling of a frisky colt as compared with his efforts to rid his back of Pinkey. Even Helene Spenceley sobered as she watched the battle that followed. The horse sprang into the air, twisted, and came down stiff-legged--squealing. Now with his head between his forelegs he shot up his hind hoofs and at an angle to require all the grip in his rider's knees to stay in the saddle. Then he brought down his heels again, violently, to bite at Pinkey--who kicked him. He "weaved," he "sunfished"--with every trick known to an old outlaw he tried to throw his rider, rearing finally to fall backward and mash to a pulp a bed of Mr. Cone's choicest tulips. But when the horse rose Pinkey was with him, while the spectators, choking with excitement, forgetting themselves and each other, yelled like Apaches. With nostrils blood-red and distended, his eyes the eyes of a wild animal, now writhing, now crouching, now lying back on his haunches and springing forward with a violence to snap any ordinary vertebra, the horse pitched as if there was no limit to its ingenuity and endurance. Pinkey's breath was coming in gasps and his colour had faded with the terrible jar of it all. Even the uninitiated could see that Pinkey was weakening, and the result was doubtful, when, suddenly, the horse gave up and stampeded. He crashed through the trellis over which Mr. Cone had carefully trained his crimson ramblers, tore through a neat border of mignonette and sweet alyssum that edged the driveway, jumped through "snowballs," lilacs, syringas, and rhododendrons to come to a halt finally conquered and chastened. The "88" brand has produced a strain famous throughout Wyoming for its buckers, and this venerable outlaw lived up to every tradition of his youth and breeding. There never was worse bucking nor better riding in a Wild West Show or out of it, and Mr. Appel declared that he had not been so stirred since the occasion when walking in the woods at Harvey's Lake in the early '90's he had acted upon the unsound presumption that all are kittens that look like kittens and disputed the path with a black-and-white animal which proved not to be. Mrs. C. D. Budlong was shedding tears like a crocodile, without moving a feature. Mr. Budlong put the lighted end of a cigar in his mouth and burned his tongue to a blister, while Miss Eyester dropped into a chair and had her sinking spell and recovered without any one remarking it. In an abandonment that was like the delirium of madness Mr. Cone went in and lifted Miss Gaskett's cat "Cutie" out of the plush rocker, where she was leaving hairs on the cushion, and surreptitiously kicked her. Altogether it was an unforgettable occasion, and only Pinkey seemed unthrilled by it--he dismounted in a businesslike, matter-of-fact manner that had in it neither malice toward the horse nor elation at having ridden him. He felt admiration, if anything, for he said as he rubbed the horse's forehead: "You shore made me ride, Old Timer! You got all the old curves and some new ones. If I had a hat I'd take it off to you. I ain't had such a churnin' sence I set 'Steamboat' fer fifteen seconds. Oh, hullo----" as Wallie advanced with his hand out. "I congratulate you," said Wallie, feeling himself magnanimous in view of the way his neck was hurting. "You needn't," replied Pinkey, good-naturedly. "He durned near 'got' me." "It was a very creditable ride indeed," insisted Wallie, in his most patronizing and priggish manner. He found it very hard to be generous, with Helene Spenceley listening. "It seemed so, after _your_ performance, 'Gentle Annie'!" snapped Miss Spenceley. Actually the woman seemed to spit like a cat at him! She had the tongue of a serpent and a vicious temper. He hated her! Wallie removed his hat with exaggerated politeness and decided never to have anything more to say to Miss Spenceley. CHAPTER V "GENTLE ANNIE" Wallie had told himself emphatically that he would never speak again to Helene Spenceley. That would be an easy matter since she had glared at him, when they had passed as she was going in for breakfast, in a way that would have made him afraid to speak even if he had intended to. To refrain from thinking of her was something different. He sat on a rustic bench on The Colonial lawn watching the silly robins and wondering why she had called him "Gentle Annie." It was clear enough that nothing flattering was intended, but what did she mean by it? There was no reason that he could see for her to fly at him--quite the contrary. He had been very generous and gentlemanly, it seemed to him, in congratulating Pinkey when it was due to them that he, Wallie, was thrown into the petunias. His neck was still stiff from the fall and no one had remembered to inquire about it--that was another reason for the disgruntled mood in which the moment found him. The women were making perfect _fools_ of themselves over that Pinkey--they were at it now, he could hear them cackling on the veranda. What he could not understand was why they should act as if there was something _amusing_ about a woman who came from west of Buffalo and then make a hero of a man from the Wild and Woolly. Yet they always did it, he had noticed. Why, that Pinkey could not speak a grammatical sentence and they hung on his every word, breathless. It was disgusting! Wallie picked up a pebble and pelted a robin. He wished the undertow would catch that Spenceley girl. If he should reach her when she was going down for the third time she would _have_ to thank him for saving her and that would about kill her. He decided that he would make a point of bathing when she did, on the very remote chance that it might happen. "Gentle Annie! Gentle Annie! Gentle Annie!" The name rankled. Wallie pitched a pebble at another robin and accidentally hit it. Stunned for an instant, it keeled over, and Wallie glanced guiltily toward the hotel to see if by any chance Mr. Cone, who encouraged robins, was looking. Pinkey was crossing the lawn with the obvious intention of joining him. "Gee!" he exclaimed, sinking down beside Wallie, "I've nearly sprained my tongue answerin' questions. 'Is it true that snakes shed their skin, and do the hot pools in the Yellowstone Park freeze in winter?' I'm goin' to drift pretty pronto--I can't stand visitin'." "Do you like the East, Mr. Fripp?" inquired Wallie, formally. "I'm glad they's a West," Pinkey replied, cryptically. "You and Miss Spenceley are from the same section, I take it?" "Yep--Wyomin'." "Er--by the way"--Wallie's tone was elaborately casual--"what did she mean yesterday when she called me 'Gentle Annie'?" Pinkey moved uneasily. "Could you give me the precise significance?" persisted Wallie. "I could, but I wouldn't like to," Pinkey replied, drily "Oh, don't spare my feelings," said Wallie, loftily, "there's nothing _she_ could say would hurt them." "If that's the way you feel--she meant you were 'harmless'." "I trust so," Wallie responded with dignity. "I'd ruther be called a--er--a Mormon," Pinkey observed. Shocked at the language, Wallie demanded: "It is, then, an epithet of opprobrium?" "I can't say as to that," replied Pinkey, judicially, "but she meant you were a 'perfect lady'." "It's more than I can say of her!" Wallie retorted, reddening. Pinkey merely grinned and shrugged a shoulder. He arose a moment later as if the conversation and company alike bored him. "Well--I'm goin' to pack my war-bag and ramble. Why don't you come West and git civilized? With your figger you ought to be good fer somethin'. S'long, feller!" Naturally, Wallie was not comforted by his conversation with Pinkey. Now he knew himself to have been insulted, and resented it, but along with his indignation was such a feeling of dissatisfaction with his life as he had never known. His brow contracted while he thought of the monotony of it. Just as this summer would be a duplicate of every other summer so the winter would be a repetition of the many winters he had spent in Florida with Aunt Mary. After a few months at home they would migrate with the robins. He would meet the same people he had seen all summer. They would complain of the Southern cooking and knit and tat while they babbled amiably of themselves and the members of their family and their doings. The men would smoke and compare business experiences when they had finished flaying the Administration. Discontent grew within him as he reviewed it. Why couldn't he and Aunt Mary do something different for the winter? By George! he would suggest it to her! He got up with alacrity, cheerful immediately. She was not on the veranda and Miss Eyester was of the opinion that she had gone to her room to take her tonic. "I have turned the shoulder, Wallie." Mrs. Appel held up the sweater triumphantly. "That's good," said Wallie, feeling uncomfortable with Miss Spenceley within hearing. "Wallie," Mrs. Stott called to him, "will you give me the address of that milliner whose hats you said you liked particularly? Somewhere on Walnut, wasn't it?" "Sixteenth and Walnut," Wallie replied, shortly. "What do you think I'm doing, Wallie?" "I can't imagine, Mrs. Budlong." "I'm rolling!" "Rolling?" "To reduce. C. D. says I look like a cement-mixer in action." Wallie was annoyed by the confidence. Miss Gaskett beckoned him. "Have you seen Cutie, Wallie?" "No," curtly. "When I called her this morning she looked at me with eyes like saucers and simply _tore_ into the bushes. Do you suppose anybody has abused her?" Mr. Cone, who was standing in the doorway, went back to his desk hastily. "I'm not in her confidence," said Wallie with so much sarcasm that they all looked at him. Miss Spenceley was talking to Mr. Appel, who was listening so attentively that Wallie wondered what she was saying. They were sitting close to the window of the reception room and it occurred to Wallie that there would be no harm in stepping inside and gratifying his curiosity. The conversation was not of a private nature and in other circumstances he would have joined them, so, on his way to the elevator to find his aunt, he paused a moment to hear what the girl was saying. Since she was speaking emphatically and a lace curtain was the only barrier, Wallie found out without difficulty: "I have no use for a squaw-man." "You mean," Mr. Appel interrogated, "a white man who marries an Indian woman?" "Not necessarily. I mean a man who permits a woman to support him without making any effort on his part to do a man's work. He may be an Adonis and gifted to the point of genius, but I have no respect for him. He----" Wallie did not linger. He remembered the ancient adage, and while he did not consider himself an eavesdropper or believe that Miss Spenceley meant anything personal, nevertheless the shoe fit to such a nicety that he hurried to the elevator, his step accelerated by the same sense of guilt that had sent Mr. Cone scuttling to his refuge behind the counter. "Squaw-man"--the term was as new to him as "Gentle Annie." As Miss Eyester had opined, Miss Macpherson was taking her tonic, or about to. "I've come to make a suggestion, Auntie," Wallie began, with a little diffidence. "What is it?" Miss Macpherson was shaking the bottle. "Let's not go South this winter." "Where then?" She smiled indulgently as she measured out the medicine. "Why not California or Arizona?" he suggested. "I don't believe this tonic helps me a particle." She made a wry face as she swallowed it. "That's it," he declared, eagerly. "You need a change--we both do." "I'm too set in my ways to enjoy new experiences, and I don't like strangers. We might catch contagious diseases, and there is no place where we could be so comfortable as in Florida. No," she shook her head kindly but firmly, "we will go South as usual." "Oh--_sugar!_" The vehemence with which Wallie uttered the expletive showed the extent of his disappointment. "Wallie! I'm surprised at you!" She regarded him with annoyance. "I'm tired of going to the same places year after year, doing the same thing, seeing the same old fossils!" "Wallie, you are speaking of my friends and yours," she reminded him. "They're all right, but I like to make new ones. I don't want to go, Aunt Mary." She said significantly: "Don't you think you are a little ungrateful--in the circumstances?" It was the first time she had ever reminded him of his dependency. "If you mean I am an ingrate, that is an unpleasant word, Aunt Mary." She shrugged her shoulder. "Place your own interpretation upon it, Wallace." "Perhaps you think I am not capable of earning my own living?" "I have not _said_ so." "But you mean it!" he cried, hotly. Miss Macpherson was nearly as amazed as Wallie to hear herself saying: "Possibly you had better try it." She had taken two cups of strong coffee that morning and her nerves were over-stimulated, and perhaps with the intuition of a jealous woman she half suspected that "the girl from Wyoming" had something to do with his restlessness and desire to go West. The time she most dreaded was the day when she would have to share her nephew with another woman. Wallie's eyes were blazing when he answered: "I shall! I shall never be beholden to you for another penny. When I wanted to do something for myself you wouldn't let me. You're not fair, Aunt Mary!" Pale and breathing heavily in their emotion, they looked at each other with hard, angry eyes--eyes in which there was not a trace of the affection which for years had existed between them. "Suit yourself," she said, finally, and turned her back on him. Wallie went to his room in a daze, too bewildered to realize immediately what had happened. That he had quarrelled with his aunt, permanently, irrevocably, seemed incredible. But he would never eat her bread of charity again--he had said it. As for her, he knew her Scotch stubbornness too well to think that she would offer it. No, he was sure the break was final. A sense of freedom came to him gradually as it grew upon him that he was loose from the apron-strings that had led him since childhood. He need never again eat food he did not like because it was "good for him." He could sit in draughts if he wanted to and sneeze his head off. He could put on his woollen underwear when he got darned good and ready. He could swim when there were white caps in the harbour and choose his own clothing. A fine feeling of exultation swept over Wallie as he strode up and down with an eye to the way he looked in the mirror. He was free of petticoat domination. He was no longer a "squaw-man," and he would not be one again for a million dollars! He would "show" Aunt Mary--he would "show" Helene Spenceley--he would "show" _everybody!_ CHAPTER VI "BURNING HIS BRIDGES" Wallie opened his eyes one morning with the subconscious feeling that something portentous was impending though he was still too drowsy to remember it. He yawned and stretched languidly and luxuriously on a bed which was the last word in comfort, since Mr. Cone's pride in The Colonial beds was second only to that of his pride in the hotel's reputation for exclusiveness. With especially made mattresses and monogrammed linen, silken coverlets and imported blankets, his boasts were amply justified, and the beds perhaps accounted for the frequency with which the guests tried to get into the dining room when the breakfast hours were over. A bit of yellow paper on the chiffonier brought Wallie to his full sense as his eyes fell upon it. It was the answer to a telegram he had sent Pinkey Fripp, in Prouty, Wyoming, making inquiries as to the possibility of taking up a homestead. It read: They's a good piece of ground you can file on if you got the guts to hold it. PINKEY. Wallie grew warm every time he thought of such a message addressed to him coming over the wire. Though worse than inelegant, and partially unintelligible, it was plain enough that what he wanted was there if he went for it, and he had replied that Pinkey might look for him shortly in Prouty. And to-day he was leaving! He was saying good-bye forever to the hotel that was like home to him and the friends that were as his own relatives! He had $2,100 in real money--a legacy--and his clothing. In his new-born spirit of independence he wished that he might even leave his clothes behind him, but he had changed his mind when he had figured the cost of buying others. His aunt had taken no notice of Wallie's preparations for departure. The news of the rupture had spread quickly, and the sympathies of the guests were equally divided. All were agreed, however, that if Wallie went West he would soon have enough of it and be back in time to go South for the winter. Helene Spenceley had left unexpectedly upon the receipt of a telegram, and it was one of Wallie's favourite speculations as to what she would say when she heard he was a neighbour--something disagreeable, probably. With the solemnity which a person might feel who is planning his own funeral, Wallie arose and made a careful toilet. It would be the last in the room that he had occupied for so many summers. The hangings were handsome, the chairs luxurious, and his feet sunk deep in the nap of the velvet carpet. The equipment of the white, commodious bathroom was perfection, and no article of furniture was missing from his bedroom that could contribute to the comfort of a modish young man accustomed to every modern convenience. As Wallie took his shower and dusted himself with scented talcum and applied the various lotions and skin-foods recommended for the complexion, he wondered what the hotel accommodations would be like in Prouty, Wyoming. Not up to much, he imagined, but he decided that he would duplicate this bathroom in his own residence as soon as he had his homestead going. Wallie's knowledge of Wyoming was gathered chiefly from an atlas he had borrowed from Mr. Cone. The atlas stated briefly that it contained 97,890 square miles, mostly arid, and a population of 92,531. It gave the impression that the editors themselves were hazy on Wyoming, which very likely was the truth, since it had been published in Mr. Cone's childhood when the state was a territory. What the atlas omitted, however, was supplied by Wallie's imagination. When he closed