CHAPTER IX

TOM WINGER'S SOCIAL CRAVINGS

LL through that early spring, more thousands of Texas cattle poured into the Indian country.

A

At nearly every switch on the railroad, trainloads of longhorns were shunted to side-tracks, unloading ramps were set against car doors and their gaunted occupants crowded down and out and were headed towards their new ranges. By quarantine date, the herds were spreading far and wide in search of grass, mingling with, and leading astray overnight, steers of half a dozen adjoining ranges.

Horner and other Texas owners came up to consult their Indian partners and consider the plight of the owners of the small, native herds that had thus been swept into the huge restless mass and scattered far and wide. They decided that it was hopeless to attempt to keep each herd on its chosen range while the grass was young, and agreed to establish certain rough limits to be guarded by line riders. In May, when the grass would be prime, they proposed a general round-up and a redistribution of the cattle to fatten on their proper grazing grounds.

Relieved for the time of the arduous work of fol

lowing restive longhorns, Tom Winger and "Shorty" succumbed to social cravings. On the first morning of their new freedom, while they sat in their sun-warmed sleeping quarters in Engel's barn loft, overhauling their warbags, "Shorty" proposed:

"Tom, let's take in that foot social over at Walnut Creek schoolhouse to-night. 'Twon't be no hair-raisin' jamboree, the way Ruby figures it, but we'll meet the folks an' sort of get acquainted."

"Foot social?" Winger queried. "What's that?”

"It was a new one on me, too," the cowboy replied, "but you wait an' see." He gave his attention to inexpert manipulation of needle and thread on his best checked pants. Tom watched him for a minute, then asked:

"Why don't you get that Ruby gal to do your sewin'?"

"Shorty" held up the garment and pointed to a ripped seam in its rear. "Look where they've busted." Cowboy delicacy forbade further comment.

"To-day's Friday," mused "Shorty," squinting at the young foreman. "Wonder if you couldn't get Nan Forest to side you to that social?"

"Nan?" Tom considered the suggestion a moment. "Why, she's only a kid." But this time he said it without conviction.

"Ruby tells me she'll be sixteen next month," said "Shorty," "an' she's old for her age, too. I've seen plenty married younger than what she is. . . . Say,

Tom, I understand her dad's the feller that shot Dick Brothers, down there near Tyler, last summer." There was no response from Winger. "I reckon he's still in jail, ain't he?”

"Don't Ruby Engel know?" Tom's question provoked an appreciative grin.

"Ruby sure is talkative, ain't she! . . . I understand Kearns has already been down to Tyler twice on the case ?"

"Yeh. I reckon that's right.

Well, Shorty, if

you'll lend me them pants when you get 'em mended— if they ain't too bow-legged for me to wear-maybe I'll ride over after supper an' see if Nan wants

When Winger delivered his invitation, Nan laughed. "You don't know what a foot social is, Tom? The idea!" Then doubtfully: "I'd like to go, though I ought to study this evening."

"I brought my Baldy horse for you to ride," Tom tempted.

"Wait," Nan smiled eagerly. "I'll go ask Aunt Susan."

As she ran to the kitchen for an earnest conference with the old woman, Tom remembered with a thrill "Shorty's" parting shot:

"She don't know it, but Nan's got a case on you, Tom."

Susan Dines smiled at Nan's eager face.

"You go, Nancy," she said, “an' have a good time!"

and when Nan had run upstairs to change her dress, she went out to ask Tom inside and confide to him: "I ain't much in favor of young girls gaddin' around, but I know you'll take good care of Nancy."

The old woman stood in the kitchen doorway as they rode off, waving her hand to them. "The child ain't had much fun this year," she thought; "an' she sure deserves some."

At the door of Walnut Creek schoolhouse, they were met by Amanda Bird, who taught there, and Paul Dunkin. The young teacher took Nan in hand, while Paul barred Tom's entrance.

"How'll you measure, boot on or off?" he demanded Tom looked puzzled, and the boy explained:

"The fellow with the biggest foot gets in free; the rest pays a cent for every inch-see?" Tom submitted to measurement, then went inside to meet Nan, who held a slip of paper towards him.

"Here's what you owe for me," she cried gayly. "How much did you have to pay?" He told her, and she lamented: "Only a cent more than mine!"

Inspired by Nan's spontaneous and unselfconscious gayety, Tom entered with spirit into the charades, played "Going to Jerusalem," joined in singing "Nellie Gray," the old Abolitionist slave song, and was induced to render "Sam Bass." Nan was so obviously pleased with his response, so genuinely happy to be romping through the games with him that Ruby Engel, sparing

occasional wide-eyed glances from the public exhibition of her control over "Shorty," rehearsed to herself the determination that had been forming in the iron hard core of her mind:

"No green kid like her can get away with what I want!"

Ruby wanted Winger "on her string," and was quite willing to drop "Shorty" the moment she hooked the young foreman. Tom was proving popular at the party; and, besides, he was getting sixty dollars a month as compared to "Shorty's" forty, and could afford to "give a girl a good time." He was one of the best dancers that ever came out of Texas-so "Shorty" had said-and Ruby began to wonder if she could not land him for the dance at Henry Bear's two-roomed log house down in the timber of Little Walnut Creek a week from Saturday.

"There'll be high old doin's," she pondered, "plenty for the boys to drink; me an' him could sure shine!" Perhaps she liked him, too—a little-but that didn't matter. No man she wanted to win could be allowed to ignore her charms as Winger had done.

To further her purpose, when the ten o'clock supper was spread, Ruby maneuvered "Shorty" to a bench facing Nan and Tom.

"Say, Nan," she began across steaming bowls of canned oysters, plates of crackers and assorted pies, "have you got your corn planted yet?"

Her glance traveled to Winger's face, rested there