CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“THE CHANCES IS SLIM AND GITTIN’ SLIMMER”

“Must be going to snow,” Weary observed with a sly twinkle, “’cause Paddy cat has got his tail brustled up bigger than a trapped coon.”

“Aw, that’s because Shunky Cheestely chased him all the way up from the corral a minute ago,” Happy Jack explained the phenomenon.  “I betcher he swaps ends some uh these times and gives that dog the s’prise of his life.  He come purty near makin’ a stand t’night.”

“We-ell, when he does turn on that thar mongrel purp, they’s goin’ to be some dawg scattered around over the premises—­now I’m tellin’ yuh!” Applehead cocked his eye toward Annie-Many-Ponies and nodded his head in solemn warning.  “He’s takin’ a mighty long chance, every time he turns that thar trick uh chasin’ Compadre all over the place; and them that thinks anything uh that thar dawg—­”

“I betcher it’s goin’ to snow, all right,” Happy Jack interrupted the warning.  “Chickydees was swarmin’ all over the place, t’day.”

“We-ell, now, yuh don’t want to go too much on them chickydees,” Applehead dissented.  “Change uh wind’ll set them flockin’ and chirpin’.  Ain’t ary flake uh snow in the wind t’day, fur’s I kin smell—­and I calc’late I kin smell snow fur’s the next one.”

“Oh, let’s not talk about snow; that’s getting to be a painful subject on this ranch,” Rosemary pleaded, while she placed twelve pairs of steel knives and forks on the long, white-oilcloth-covered table.

“‘Painful subject’ is right,” Luck stated grimly, glancing up from the endless figuring and scribbling which seemed to occupy all his time indoors that was not actually given over to eating and sleeping.  “If you don’t begin to smell snow pretty quick, Applehead, I can see where The Phantom Herd don’t have any phantom herd.”  The corners of his mouth quirked upward, though his smile was becoming almost a stranger to his face.

“We-ell, I dunno’s you can blame me because it don’t snow.  I can’t make it snow if it takes a notion not to snow—­”

“Oh, come and eat, and never mind the snow,” called Rosemary impatiently.

“We’ve got to mind the snow—­or we don’t eat much longer!” Luck laid aside his papers with the tired gesture which betrays heavy anxiety.  “The whole punch of the picture depends on that blizzard and what it leads up to.  It’s getting close to March,—­this is the twentieth of February,—­and the Texas Cattleman’s Convention meets the first of April.  I’ve got to have the picture done by then, so as to show it and get their endorsement as a body, in order to boost the sales up where they belong.”

“Mamma!” Weary looked up at him, open-eyed.  “How long have you had that notion in your head,—­showing the picture to the Cattlemen’s Convention?  I never heard of it.”

“I might say quite a few things you haven’t heard me say before,” Luck retorted, so harassed that he never knew how sharp a snub he had given.  “I’ve had that in mind from the start; ever since I read when and where the convention would meet this spring.  We’ve got to have that blizzard, and we’ve got to have it before many more days.”