The Ranchman — Part 21

“I ain’t mentionin’ it, boss—not at all! I ain’t givin’ you them duds till you ast for them. You done took me by s’prise, boss—you shuah did. I might’ near caved when you shoved that gun under ma nose—I shuah did, boss. I don’t want to have nothin’ to do with your gun, boss—I shuah don’t. She’d go ‘pop,’ an’ I wouldn’t be heah no more!

“I didn’t reco’nize you in them heathen clo’s you had on yesterday, boss; but I minds you with them duds on. I knows you; you’re ‘Squint’ Taylor, of Dawes. I’ve seen you on that big black hoss of yourn, a prancin’ an’ a prancin’ through town—more’n once I’ve seen you. But I didn’t know you in them heathen clo’s yesterday, boss—’deed I didn’t!”

Later the porter slipped into the compartment. For a minute or two he fussed around the room, setting things to order, meanwhile chuckling to himself. Occasionally he would cease his activities long enough to slap a knee with the palm of a hand, with which movement he would seem to be convulsed with merriment, and then he would resume work, chuckling audibly.

For a time Taylor took no notice of his antics, but they assailed his consciousness presently, and finally he asked:

The query was evidently just what “George” had been waiting for. For now he turned and looked at Taylor, his face solemn, but a white gleam of mirth in his eyes belying the solemnity.

“Tips is comin’ easy for George this mornin’,” he said; “they shuah is. No trouble at all. If a man wants to get tips all he has to be is a dictionary—he, he, he!”

“So you’re a dictionary, eh? Well, explain the meaning of this.” And he tossed a silver dollar to the other.

The dollar in hand, George tilted his head sidewise at Taylor.

“How on earth you know I got somethin’ to tell you?”

“Well, that’s how I know you’ve got something to tell me—by looking at you.”

The porter chuckled. “I reckon it’s worth a dollar to have a young lady interested in you,” he told himself in a confidential voice, without looking at Taylor; “yassir, it’s sure worth a dollar.” He slapped his knee delightedly. “That young lady a heap interested in you, ’pears like. While ago she pens me in a corner of the platform. ‘Porter, who’s that man in the smoking-compartment—that cowboy? What’s his name, an’ where does he live?’ I hesitates, ’cause I didn’t want to betray no secrets—an’ scratch my haid. Then she pop half a dollar in my hand, an’ I tole her you are Squint Taylor, an’ that you own the Arrow ranch, not far from Dawes. An’ she thank me an’ go away, grinnin’.”