Part 2
“Got no man. My sister’s man send me mooney to bring baby. Now I lost my mooney. I teenk baby hungry. No breakfast.”
“Gee!” Laramie commiserated. “How long you been here?”
“Five hour. I not know what to do.” Her wondrous eyes swam.
“Gosh!” quoth Laramie. “I’m yore man. You throw in with me. Gimme the kid. I’ve wrestled calves.”
He took the child; he brazenly dragged her up; and to her alarmed expostulations forced her on--
Mr. Bunyan, picking his teeth, crossed the trail.
“Oho, my man! Already at ‘work,’ are you? Didn’t look far, eh? Tut, tut! You can do better than that!”
“You--get--out o’ my way!” Laramie growled, suffused with wrath at the indictment from this satisfied, plethoric slanderer who alleged to have caught him at something or other, to no credit.
* * * * *
Laramie proceeded. He swept his hat from the stool.
“Set there, now.” The waitress was just bearing in the platter. “I got the chuck done already ordered. Here she comes. And say!” Laramie burst out. “If ’taint enough, you order more. Then you buy some sort o’ ticket. I haint but twenty-five dollars, odd; here ’tis.” He had fumbled in his hip pocket, and he plumped his buckskin sack into her unwilling lap.
“No, no!” protested the young woman in perplexity.
“Yes, yes,” rebuked Laramie. “Shucks! There’s plenty more where that come from. Fust you see it, and then you don’t.”
He beat retreat, lest the incident be noticed. Now he was vastly relieved. Had had his fill of city life, anyhow. He strolled the length of the counter and paused to point.
“How much are them sinkers?” he demanded.
“Doughnuts? Two for a nickel.”
“Gimme a dozen and keep the change,” directed Laramie. And he parted with his remaining fifty cents.
Toting away the sack, at last he felt like himself--busted. He swaggered through the station outskirts and into the yards; and at a string of empty stock-cars finally found a brakeman whom he knew.
* * * * *
The 77 was at the tail-end of loading when he appeared, tousled and redeyed from journey by freight, at the camp near town--he having hopped off, convenient.
“It’s Laramie! Whoopee! Thought you were in Kansas City.”
“So I was,” said Laramie; and he took mental note of the ravages of time in that period of his absence. All the outfit had not come to yet. “Howdy, Tex? Need a hand?”
Tex faced him.
“By jiminy! Out by passenger, back by freight! Or did you _walk_! Busted, I’ll bet.”
“You win,” granted Laramie.
“What was it this time special? Liquor, cards or women?”
“Well, this time it was women,” Laramie confessed, shamed.
“I knowed it!” Tex vowed disgustedly. “I wont ask you where you’ve been or what you’ve done. No use. Shore, you’ve a job. Your stuff is just as you left it. Oh, heck!” groaned Tex, lapsing into the lingo. “You fellers never l’arn nothin’. Easy come, easy go. You ought to wear that for your brand.”
“Yep,” said Laramie, humble and crimson. “I never did have no sense. I’m a shore brute. What hawss do I ride ag’in, fust?”
[Transcriber's Note: This story appeared in the June 1924 edition of The Blue Book Magazine.]