Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/332

 those days it was considered a mark of affluence and high-handed liberality to hire a hack by the hour. McPacken's one vehicle of this sort was anything but a luxurious or costly coach. It had been working gradually westward from Kansas City for twenty years. From its decreasing activity in McPacken's streets it must go to the weed-plot beside the blacksmith shop, among the wrecks of irreparable wagons, old plows, old buggies.

Tonight, with its top turned back, the old hack looked unfamiliar and frivolous, like an elderly country belle who had thrown her sunbonnet off to take part in some unseemly revel. The man who stood in it, with a black coat coming to the joints of his knees, was tall and meagre. He looked like a member of the southern bar, his black hair long and glossy, combed back from a professorial forehead, held down by pomatum which streamed its scents upon the breeze.

This man had a severe and judicial appearance, with his white vest, his black coat held back by a hand thrust in his trousers pocket. From his close, severe scrutiny of the people before him, it seemed as if he had come to try McPacken on some serious charge. Banjo Gibson, in the background of this dignified presence, did not carry out the impression of austere and solemn purpose. Along with Banjo, it was rather a ludicrous combination, indeed, for the mustached little musician lifted up his voice and sang, in far-carrying, deep-throated baritone, this being the burden of his song: