Hoover Bows to Hymen

Unknown to Bud Lane and Buck McKee, who were rioting in Florence, Jack Payson had hurried up the wedding. Colonel Jim had wheedled Josephine into consenting that it should take place two months ahead of the time that had been fixed. “April is the month fer showers, Josie, an’ we’ll let you weep all you please.”

Two weeks’ notice, however, gave scant time for preparation for the important ceremony that Mrs. Allen deemed necessary. During this period the busiest spot in Arizona was the kitchen of Allen hacienda. An immense cake, big as a cheese, was the crowning effort of Josephine, who wept copiously at the thought of losing her daughter as she measured and mixed the ingredients. A layer of frosting an inch in thickness encrusted this masterpiece of the art of pastry-making. Topping the creation were manikins of a bride and bridegroom.

This climax of the bridal cake had been brought up by wagon from Tucson with more caution than if it were a month’s clean-up of a paying mine. Mrs. Allen allowed no one to go near the artistic achievement. Others might look at it from afar, but at the slightest movement to get close to it, she would push the observer back, with the warning: “Keep yer dirty fingers off’n it.

“‘Tain’t common icin’; that’s confectionary.”

Enough chickens to feed a darky camp-meeting were killed for the feast. Fried, roasted, cold or minced as tamales, the dishes filled ovens and tables, and overflowed into the spring-house. Favorite recipes carried across the plains by the wives of the Argonauts met in rivalry with the dishes of the cooks of old Mexico.

Colonel Allen wandered aimlessly about the ranch, while the preparations for the feast were in progress. The women folk drove him from one favorite loafing-place to another. His advice was scorned and his wishes made a subject for jests.

Defiantly he had taken full charge of the liquid refreshments. A friendly barkeeper in Tucson, acting under his orders, had shipped him cases of champagne, a barrel of beer, and a siphon of seltzer. Why the seltzer he never could explain. Later the unlucky bottle marred the supper and nearly caused a tragedy. A guest picked it up and peered into the metal tube to see “how the durned thing worked.”

As he gazed and pondered, shaking the bottle in effort to solve the mystery, he pressed the handle. The stream struck him fairly between the eyes. Shocked, surprised, and half-blinded, he pulled his gun and declared immediate war on the “sheep-herder who had put up the job on him.” Allen’s other supplies were of the kind taken straight in the Southwest, and were downed with a hasty gulp.

Driven from the house on the day of the wedding he took refuge on the piazza. From behind the hacienda floated dreamily on the sun-drenched air the music of guitars and mandolins played by Mexicans, practising for the dance which would follow the ceremony.

The Colonel dozed and dreamed.

Suddenly the peace of the afternoon was shattered by the wild “yip-yips” of a band of cowboys, riding up the trail. Revolver-shots punctuated their shrill cries.

Allen bounded from his chair, shaking himself like a terrier. This riotous sound was the music he longed to hear.

When the staccato beats of the ponies’ hoofs ceased, he shouted: “Come on, boys, make this your home. Everything goes, and the Sweetwater outfit is always welcome.”

The foreman was the first to pull up in front of the house. “Hullo, Uncle Jim!” he cried.

“Hello, Sage-brush,” answered the Colonel, a broad smile illuminating his face. Holding his pipe in one hand, he licked his lips at the thought of “lickering up” without the invention of an excuse for his wife.

Then he joined in a hearty laugh with the men about the corral as he heard the grunts and stamping of a plunging mustang. A cow-pony had entered into the spirit of the occasion and was trying to toss his rider over his head.

Fresno was the victim of the horse’s deviltry.

His predicament aroused wild shouts of mirth and sallies of the wit of the corral.

“Hunt leather, Fresno, or he’ll buck you clean over the wall,” shouted Sage-brush.

“Grab his tail,” yelled Show Low, with a whoop.

“All over,” was the chorus, as Fresno, with a vicious jab of his spurs and a jerk of the head, brought the animal into subjection.

“Come right in, boys!” called Allen. “Let the Greasers take the hosses.”

With shrill shouts, whoops, and much laughter the guests crowded about the ranchman.

Each wore his holiday clothes; new handkerchiefs were knotted about their necks. Fresno had stuck little American flags in the band of his hat, the crown of which he had removed. “I want head-room for the morning after,” he had said.

Show Low’s chaps were conspicuously new, and his movements were heralded by the creaking of unsoftened leather.

Last of the band was Parenthesis, short, bow-legged, with a face tanned and seamed by exposure.

The cowboys ran stiffly, toeing slightly inward. Long hours in the saddle made them apparently awkward and really ungraceful when on the ground.

They greeted Allen with hearty enthusiasm, slapping him on the back, poking him in the ribs, and swinging him from one to the other, with cries of: “Howdy, Uncle Jim!”

“Howdy, Sage-brush? Hello, Fresno! Waltz right in, Show Low. Glad to see you all!” cried Allen, as he, in turn, brought his hand down with ringing slaps upon shoulder and back. Meantime Parenthesis hopped about the outer edge of the ring, seeking an entrance. Failing to reach his host, he crowed: “How de doddle do,” to attract his attention.

Allen broke from the ring. Grasping Parenthesis by the hand, he said: “I’m tolerable, thankee, Parenthesis. Where’s Jack? didn’t he come over with you?”

“What! the boss? Ain’t he got here yet?” asked the foreman. Tall and lean, with hardened muscles, Sage-brush Charley was as lithe as a panther on horseback. His first toy had been a rope with which, as a toddler, he had practised on the dogs and chickens about the ranch-yard. He could not remember when he could not ride. Days on the round-up, hours of watching the sleeping herd in the night-watch, had made him quiet and self-contained in his dealings with men. His eyes looked out fearlessly on the world. All of his life he had handled cattle. Daily facing dangers on the long drives or in the corral, he schooled himself to face emergencies. Acquiring self-control, he was trusted and admired. When Lyman, the old foreman of the Sweetwater resigned, Jack Payson promoted Sage-brush, although next to Bud Lane he was at the time the youngest man in the outfit. He made his employer’s interests his own. At the mention of Payson’s name he always became attentive. With a shade of anxiety he awaited Allen’s answer.

“No,” replied the ranchman, looking from one of his guests to the other.

“Why, he started three hours ahead of us!” explained Parenthesis.

With a challenging note in his tones, as if his word was disputed, the host answered: “Well, he ain’t showed up.”

The little group had become silent. Arizona was in a period of unrest. Rumors of another Apache uprising were growing stronger each day. Then Payson was successful, and, therefore, despised by less fortunate men ever eager for a quarrel.

After a moment’s thought Sage-brush brushed aside his fears and brightened up his comrades with the remark: “Mebbe he rid over to Florence station to get a present for Miss Echo. He said somethin’ about gettin’ an artickle from Kansas City.”

“Mebbe so,” agreed Allen, eager to cast out any forebodings. “It’s time,” he continued, “he wuz turnin’ up, if this weddin’s to be pulled off by the clock.”

“Has the Sky Pilot got here yet?” asked Sage-brush.

“No,” replied Allen. “He’s started, though. There’s one thing sartin, we can’t tighten up the cinches till the bridegroom gits here.”

The absence of Jack Payson and the failure of the minister to arrive aroused the suspicions of Sage-brush. Coming closer to Allen, he smiled knowingly, and, speaking in a confidential tone, asked:

“Say, Jim, they ain’t figgerin’ on gittin’ away on the sly-like, are they?”

Show Low interrupted with the explanation: “You see, we’re goin’ to decorate the wagon some.”

The suggestion that any one connected with Allen Hacienda would ride in anything on wheels, except the driver of the chuck-wagon out on round-up, aroused the indignation of the old cattleman. For him the only use to which a wheeled vehicle drawn by a horse should be put was to haul materials that could not be packed on a horse.

“They ain’t using any wagon!” he fairly shouted; “they’re goin’ away in the leather.”

The idea of carrying out the traditions of the horse in Pinal County even to a wedding-journey tickled the boys immensely.

Slapping one another on the back and nodding their heads in approbation, they shouted: “That’s the ticket. Hooray!”

“This ain’t no New York idea, where the bride and groom hits the life-trail in a hired hack,” cried Fresno.

Allen’s feelings apparently were not yet fully soothed. Turning to Sage-brush, he said: “Wheels don’t go in my family. Why, her ma and me were married on hossback. The preacher had to make a hurry job of it, but it took.”

“Hush, now,” was Parenthesis’ awed comment.

“For her pop was a-chasin’ us, and kept it up for twenty miles after the parson said ‘Amen.’”

“Did he ketch you?” asked Fresno, with great seriousness.

“He sure did,” answered Allen, with a twinkle in his eye, “an’ thanked me for takin’ Josephine off his hands.”

The boys laughed. The joke was upon themselves, as they had expected to hear a romantic story of earlier days.

When the laughter had subsided, Show Low suggested: “If we can’t decorate the wagon, let’s put some fixin’s on the ponies.”

The proposal was received with more whoops, shouting, and yipping. They waltzed about the smiling rancher.

“That’s what!” cried Sage-brush enthusiastically.

Allen grew sarcastic, remarking: “I reckon you-all must have stopped some time at the water-tank.”

Renewed laughter greeted this sally.

“This is my first wedding,” explained Sage-brush, rather apologetically.

“I want to know!” exclaimed Allen, in surprise.

“I’m tellin’ you. I never seed a weddin’ in all my life,” replied Sage-brush, as seriously as if he was denying a false accusation of a serious crime. “Mother used to tell me about her’n, an’ I often wisht I had been there.”

Fresno shouted with amusement. He had Sage-brush rattled. The coolest man on the ranch was flustered by the mere thought of attending a wedding-ceremony.

“He’s plum locoed over this one. Ain’t you, Sage-brush?” he drawled tauntingly.

Sage-brush took his jibing in the best of humor. It was a holiday, and they were with people of their own kind. Had a stranger been present the remarks would have been resented bitterly. On this point cowboys are particularly sensitive. In the presence of outsiders they are silent, answering only in monosyllables, never leading in any conversation, and if any comment is necessary they make it indirectly.

“Well, I ain’t no society-bud like you are,” laughed Sage-brush. The others joined with him in his merriment over Fresno’s discomfiture. “Weddin’s ain’t so frequent where I come from as they is in Californy.”

“It’s the climate,” answered Fresno, with a broad grin.

“So you ain’t never been at a weddin’?” asked Allen, who was looking for another opening to have more fun with Sage-brush.

Again the cowboy became serious and confessed: “Nope; I’ve officiated at several plain killin’s, an’ been chief usher at a lynchin’, but this yere’s my first weddin’, an’ I’m goin’ to turn loose some and enjoy it.”

Sage-brush grinned in anticipation of the good times that he knew lay in store for him at the dance.

“You’re fixed up as if you was the main attraction at this event,” said Allen, looking Sage-brush over carefully and spinning him around on his heel.

“Ain’t I mussed up fine?” answered Sage-brush.

“You’re the sure big turkey,” interrupted Parenthesis.

“Served up fine, with all the trimmin’s,” laughed Fresno, taking another jab at his friend.

Their sport was broken up for the time being by the appearance of Polly at the door of the ranch-house. “Hello, boys,” she shouted, with the fascinating cordiality of the Western girl, wherein the breath of the plains, the purity of the air, and the wholesomeness of life is embraced in a simple greeting and the clasp of a hand.

The cowboys took off their hats, and made elaborate bows to the young woman. “Howdy, Miss Polly!” they cried.

“You sure do look pert,” added Sage-brush, with what he considered his most winning smile. Fresno snickered and hastily brushed back the hair from his forehead.

“Where’s Jack?” she asked the two men, who at once ranged themselves one on each side of her.

“He did not start with the boys,” explained Allen. “He’ll be along soon, Polly.”

“Well, now when it comes to lookers, what’s the matter with Polly Hope?” exclaimed Sage-brush slyly.

Glances of admiration were cast at the girl, who was dressed simply and plainly in a little white gown which Mrs. Allen had made for her for the wedding. Polly’s youth, good nature, and ability to take care of herself made her a favorite on the ranch.

She had no need of defenders, but if an occasion should arise that Polly required a knight, there were a score of guns at her service at an hour’s notice.

“Looks like a picture from a book,” said Fresno, hoping to win back the ground he had lost by Sage-brush’s openly expressed admiration.

Polly was flattered by the comments and the glances of the boys, which expressed their approval of her appearance more loudly than spoken words. She pretended, however, to be annoyed. “Go ’long,” she said. “Where’s Bud Lane? Didn’t you give him his invite?”

The boys turned from one to the other with feigned glances of disgust at being slighted by Polly for an absent one. The one-sided courtship of Bud and Polly was known up and down the valley, and indefinite postponement of their wedding-day was one of the jests of the two ranches.

“Oh, we sent it on to him at Florence. He’ll git it in time, if he ain’t gone to the Lazy K with Buck McKee,” said Sage-brush; then, turning to the other cowboys, he added in an aggrieved tone: “Polly ain’t got no eyes for no one excep’ Bud.”

Polly stepped to Allen’s side, and, laying her head on his shoulder, said: “Ain’t I?” Allen patted the girl’s head. He was very fond of her, looking upon her as another daughter.

Polly smiled back into his face, and then, with a glance at the cowboys, said: “Say, Uncle Jim, there’s some bottles to be opened.”

The invitation was an indirect one, but all knew what it meant, and started for the house.

“Root-beer,” added Polly mischievously; “the corks pull awful hard.”

Allen glanced at her in feigned alarm.

“What do you want to do stampede the bunch?”

Before she could answer, the approach of a horse attracted the attention of the group.

“There’s Jack, now!” cried Sage-brush, in tones which plainly showed his relief; “no, it ain’t,” he added reflectively, “he rode his pacin’ mare, and that’s a trottin’ horse.”

The cry of the rider was heard quieting his mount. Allen recognized the voice. “It’s Slim Hoover,” he cried.

Polly clapped her hands, and said mischievously to Sage-brush: “Now you’ll see me makin’ goo-goo eyes to somebody besides Bud Lane. I ain’t a-going to be the only girl in Pinal County Slim Hoover ain’t set up to.”

“An’ shied off from,” added Sage-brush, a little nettled by Polly’s overlooking him as a subject for flirtation. “But what’s Slim doin’ over this way?”

“Come to Jack’s weddin’, of course,” replied Polly, adding complacently: “And probably projectin’ a hitch-up of his own.”

Slim ran around the corner of the house directly into the crowd, who seized him before he could recover from his surprise, and proceeded to haze him, to their intense delight and the Sheriff’s embarrassment, for he knew that Polly was somewhere near, enjoying his discomfiture. Polly waited until her victim was fully ready for her particular form of torture. The reception of the cowboys was crude to her refined form of making the fat Sheriff uncomfortable.

With the velvety cruelty of a flirt she held out her hand, saying: “Hello, Slim.”

The Sheriff flushed under his tan. The red crept up the back of his neck to his ears. He awkwardly took off his hat. With a bow and a scrape he greeted her: “Howdy, Miss Polly, howdy.” Meantime he shook her hand until she winced from the heartiness of the grip.

“What’s the news?” she asked, as she slowly straightened out her fingers one by one.

“There’s been a killin’ over Florence way,” announced the Sheriff, putting on his hat and becoming an officer of the law with duty to perform.

“Who is the misfortunate?” asked Sage-brush, as they gathered about Hoover and listened intently.

Murder in Arizona was a serious matter, and punishment was meted out to the slayer or he was freed by his fellow citizens. Far from courts of justice and surrounded by men to whom death was often merely an incident in a career of crime, the settlers were forced to depend upon themselves to keep peace on the border. They acted quickly, but never hastily. Judgment followed quickly on conviction. Their views were broad, and rarely were their decisions wrong.

“‘Olé Man’ Terrill,” replied the Sheriff. “Happened about ten this mornin’. Some man caught him alone in the railroad-station and blowed his head half-off.”

“Do tell!” was Allen’s exclamation.

“Yep,” continued the Sheriff. “He must have pulled a gun on the fellow. He put up some sort of a fight, as the room is some mussed up.”

“Robbery?” queried Polly, with wide-open eyes.

“That’s what!” answered Slim, turning to her. “He had three thousan’ dollars pinned in his vest county money for salaries. You know how he toted his wad around with him, defyin’ man or the devil to get it ’way from him? Well, some one who was both man an’ devil was too much for him.”

“Who found him?”

“I did myself. Went over around noon after the money. Didn’t stop to go back to town fer a posse. Trail was already too cold. Could tell it was a man that rode a pacin’ horse.”

His auditors looked at each other, striving to remember who of their acquaintance rode a pacing horse. Sage-brush Charley shook his head. “Nobody down this way, ‘ceptin’, of course, the boss, rides a pacer. Must be one of the Lazy K outfit, I reckon.”

“Most likely,” said the Sheriff; “he struck out south, probably to throw me off scent. Then he fell in with two other men, and this balled me up. I lost one of the tracks, but follered the other two round Sweetwater Mesa, till I came where they rode into the river. Of course I couldn’t follow the trail any farther at that p’int, so, bein’ as I was near Uncle Jim’s, I rode over fer help to look along both banks an’ pick up the trail wherever it comes out of the river. Sorry I must break up yer fun, boys, but some o’ yuh must come along with me. Duty’s duty. I want Sage-brush, anyhow, as I s’pose I can’t ask fer Jack Payson.”

Sage-brush pulled a long face. At any other time he would have jumped at the chance of running to earth the dastardly murderers of his old friend Terrill. But in the matter of this, his first experience a wedding, he had tickled his palate so long with the sweets of anticipation that he could not bear to forgo the culminating swallow of realization.

“I don’t see why I shouldn’t be let off as well as Jack,” he grumbled; “our cases are similar. You see it’s my first weddin’,” explained the foreman to the sheriff.

The other cowboys howled with delight. The humor of the situation caught their fancy, and they yelled a chorus of protestation in Hoover’s ears. In this Colonel Allen joined.

“Don’t spile the weddin’,” he pleaded. “This event has already rounded up the Sweetwater outfit fer yuh, an’ saved yuh more time than you’ll lose by waitin’ till it’s over. Then we’ll all jine yuh.”

Hoover commanded silence, and, rolling a cigarette, gravely considered the proposition. He realized that the murderers should be followed up at once, but that if he forced the cowboys by the legal power exercised to forego the pleasure they had been anticipating so greatly, they would not be so keen in pursuit as if they had first “given the boss his send-off.” The considerations being equal, or, as he put it, “hoss an’ hoss,” it seemed to him wise to submit to Allen’s proposition, backed as it was by the justice of his plan that the occasion of the wedding had already saved valuable time in assembling the posse. He assented, therefore, but, to maintain the dignity of his office and control of the situation, with apparent reluctance.

“Well, hurry up the sacreements an’ ceremonies, then, an’ the minute the preacher ties the knot, every man uv yuh but Jack an’ the parson an’ Uncle Jim gits on his boss an’ folluhs me. I’ll wait out in the corral.”

At this there was another storm of expostulation, led this time by Allen. Of course Hoover was to come to the wedding, and be its guest of honor. “You shall be the first to wish Jack and Echo lucky,” said Allen. “That means you’ll be the next one to marry.”

The ruddy-faced Sheriff blushed to the roots of his auburn hair.

“Much obliged, but I ain’t fixed up fer a weddin’,” and he looked down at his travel-stained breeches tucked in riding-boots white with alkali-dust, and felt of his buttonless waistcoat and gingham shirt open at the throat, with the bandanna handkerchief his neck in lieu of both collar and tie.

Polly assured him that he would do very well as he was, that for her part she “wouldn’t want no better-dressed man than he to be present at her wedding, not even the feller she was goin’ to be hitched up to;” whereat Slim Hoover was greatly set at ease.

Polly was bounding up the piazza steps to tell Echo of the accession to her party, when Hoover held up his hand. A terrifying suggestion had flashed through his mind.

“Hold on a minute!” he exclaimed, and, turning to Allen, he asked anxiously: “Does this yere guest of honor haf to kiss the bride?”

The question was so foreign to the serious topic which had just been under discussion that everyone laughed in relief of the nervous tension.

Allen’s fun-loving nature at once bubbled to the surface. With an air of assumed anger he said to the Sheriff: “Of course; every guest has to do it.” Then, turning to the cowboys, he asked: “Is there any one as holds out strong objection to kissin’ my daughter?”

“Not me,” laughed Sage-brush, “I’m here to go the limit.”

“I’m an experienced kisser, I am,” said Parenthesis, “I don’t lose no chance at practise.”

“I’ll take two, please,” simpered Fresno.

Show Low interrupted the general sally which followed this remark, saying: “I strings my chips along with Fresno.”

“Slim’s afraid of females!” drawled Polly provokingly.

“Oh, thunder!” exclaimed Slim to Polly. “No, I ain’t, nothin’ of the sort. I’m a peaceful man, I am. I never likes to start no trouble.”

“Get out, what’s one kiss?” laughed Allen.

“I’ve seen a big jack-pot of trouble opened by chippin’ in just one kiss,” wisely remarked the Sheriff.

Sage-brush, at this point, announced decisively: “The bride has got to be kissed.”

Slim tried to break through the group and enter the house, thinking that by making such a move he would divert their attention, and that in the excitement of the wedding he could avoid kissing the bride, an ordeal which to him was more terrible than facing the worst gun-fighter in Arizona.

“I deputize you to do the kissin’ for me,” he said to Parenthesis, who had laid his hand shoulder to detain him.

“No, siree,” the cowboy replied. “Every man does his own kissin’ in this game.” Slim half-turned as if undecided. Suddenly he turned on his heel, started for the corral. “I’ll wait outside,” he shouted.

“No, you don’t!” cried his companions. He turned to face a semicircle of drawn revolvers. He looked from one man to another, as if puzzled what move to make next. Allen was annoyed by the sheriff’s actions, taking it as an insult that he would not kiss his daughter, although he had started to twit the Sheriff in the beginning.

“You ain’t goin’ to insult me and mine that way. No man sidesteps kissin’ one of my kids,” he said angrily.

Slim was plaintively apologetic: “I ain’t kissed a female since I was a yearlin’.”

“Time you started,” snapped Polly.

“You kiss the bride, or I take it pussenel,” said Allen, thoroughly aroused.

“Well, if you put it that way, I’ll do it,” gasped Slim, in desperation.

The agreement restored the boys to their good nature.

“You will have to put blinders on me, though, and back me up,” cautioned Hoover.

“We’ll hog-tie you and sit on your head,” laughed Sage-brush, as the guests entered the house.