Chapter 44

TENISON SERVES BREAKFAST

"I'm telling you, Sawdy," expostulated McAlpin, in the manner of an ultimatum, "I'm a patient man. But you've got to get out of that room."

Sawdy stood a statue of dignity and defiance: "And I'm telling you, Hop Scotch, I'll get out of that room when I get good and ready."

"A big piece of ceiling came down last night," thundered McAlpin.

Belle was listening; these sparks were flying at her gate: "Whatever you do," she interjected contemptuously, "don't get a quarrel going over that room."

McAlpin, inextinguishable, turned to Belle: "Look at this: Henry Sawdy gets into that bathtub. He turns on the water. He goes to sleep. Every few weeks the ceiling falls on my new pool tables. First and last, I've had a ton of mortar on 'em. If there was any pressure, I'd be ruined."

"If there was any pressure," interposed Sawdy, "I wouldn't go to sleep. Do you know how long it takes to fill your blamed tub?"

McAlpin in violent protest, scratched the gravel with his hobnailed shoes: "I'll ask you: Am I responsible for the pressure, or the water company?" Sawdy undisturbed, continued to stroke his heavy mustache. "The water it takes to cover you, Henry," sputtered McAlpin, "would run a locomotive from here to Medicine Bend."

"I have to wait till everybody in town goes to bed before I can get a dew started on the faucet," averred Sawdy. "Sometimes I have to set up all night to take a bath. Look at the unreasonableness of it, Belle," he went on indignantly. "I'm paying this Shylock a dollar and a half a week for my room--and most of the time, no water."

McAlpin ground his teeth: "No water!" was all he could echo, doggedly.

"Do you know what this row is about, Belle?" demanded Sawdy. "He's trying to screw me up to a dollar seventy-five for the room. And everybody on the second floor using my bathtub," continued Sawdy, calmly.

"_Your_ bathtub," gasped McAlpin. "Well, if you could get title to it by sleeping in it, it surely would be your tub, Sawdy."

"I don't want your blamed room any longer, anyway," declared Sawdy. "I'm going to get married."

McAlpin started: "Henry, don't make a blamed fool o' yoursel'."

"I said it," retorted Sawdy, waving him away. "Move on."

"I've had no notice," announced McAlpin, raising his hand. "You'll pay me my rent to the first of the year. You rented for the full year, Henry, remember that!" With this indignant warning, McAlpin started for the barn.

Sawdy followed Belle into the house. He threw his hat on the living-room table: "Sit down, Belle," he said recklessly. "I want to talk."

Belle was suspicious. "What about?" she demanded. "You can't room here, I'll tell you that."

"Now hold your horses a minute--just a minute. Sit down. I know when a thing needs sugar, don't I? You know when it needs salt, don't you? Why pay rent in two places? That's what I want to know. Let's hitch up."

"Stop your foolishness."

"My foolishness has got me stopped."

"If you expect to eat supper here tonight, stop your noise."

"Honor bright!" persisted Sawdy, "what do you say?"

Belle took it up with Kate: "With him and John Lefever both nagging at me what can I do?" she demanded, greatly vexed. "I've got to marry a fat man anyway I fix it."

When Lefever learned Belle's choice had fallen on his running mate he was naturally incensed: "I've been jobbed all 'round," he declared at Tenison's. "First, Jim sends me up to the Reservation on a wild-goose chase after his two birds and bags 'em both himself within gunshot of town. Then my own partner beats me home by a day and cops off Belle. Blast a widower, anyway. He'll beat out an honest man, every time. Anyway, boys, this town is dead. Everything's getting settled up around here. I'm sending my resignation in to Farrell Kennedy today and I'm going to strike out for new country."

"Not till I get married, John," said Laramie, when John repeated the dire threat. "And Kate wants a new foreman up at the ranch. You know her father's turned everything over to her."

"What'll she pay?"

"More than you're worth, John. Don't worry about that!"

Some diplomacy was needed to restore general good feeling, but all was managed. From the men, John got no sympathy. The women were more considerate; and when Kate and Belle threatened there would be no double wedding unless John stood up with the party, he bade them go ahead with the "fixings."

The breakfast at the Mountain House, Harry Tenison's personal compliment to the wedding party, restored John Lefever quite to his bubbling humor. It was a brave company that sat down. And a democratic one, for despite feminine protests it numbered at the different tables pretty much every friend of Laramie's, in the high country, including John Frying Pan--only the blanket men from the Reservation were excluded. Lefever acted as toastmaster.

"Jim," he demanded, addressing Laramie in genial tones, when everything was moving well, "just what in your eventful career do you most pride yourself on?"

Laramie answered in like humor. "Keeping out of jail," he retorted laconically.

"Been some job, I imagine," suggested Lefever cheerily.

"At times, a man's job."

"But you're not dead yet," persisted Lefever.

"I'm married--that's just as good."

"Why, Jim!" protested his bride with spirit.

"I mean," explained Laramie, looking unabashed at Kate, "I'm looking to you now to keep me out."

The boisterous features of similar Sleepy Cat celebrations were omitted in deference to Kate's feelings and the too recent tragedies: her father still lay in the hospital.

But her guests were agreed that she looked very happy over her new husband. The tell-tale glow not wholly to be suppressed in her frank eyes; the unmanageable pink that rose even to her temples and played defiantly under her brown hair curling over them; the self-conscious restraint of her voice and the sense of guilt bubbling up, every time she laughed--these were all "sign," plain as print to married men, like McAlpin and Carpy, and grounds for suspicion even to confirmed bachelors like John Lefever and the old priest that came down from the Reservation to perform the ceremony; and in everyone of them the observing read the trails that led to Kate's heart.

Laramie, on the other hand, disgusted those that expected a stern and heroic showing. Towards the close of the breakfast he was laughing deliriously at every remark, and looking dazed when an intelligent question was put at him; Harry Tenison pronounced it disedifying.

But when the young couple swung into their saddles for the wedding trip--their destination, naturally, a secret--criticism ceased. Laramie again looked his part; and those who had heard him pledge his life to cherish and protect Kate, felt sure, as the two melted away into the glow of the sunset, that his word was good.