Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/81

 "Well," said Mrs. Cowgill, in meaningless, empty way. "I'll send Angus to clear away the dishes."

"Didn't she make a sight of herself!" Goosie said, shocked beyond all bounds.

"I spoke my mind to Cal Withers," her mother returned, with wide irrelevance. "It'll cost me money, but I can live without his business. And I spoke my mind."

When she sent Angus Valorous to help Goosie with the dishes, Mrs. Cowgill gave him that queer, baffled, questioning look again. She went outside to take the cool of the evening on the bench along with Banjo Gibson and the young man from Texas, whose fresh, honest, homely face made her think of a pink cosmos flower, it was so plain, and yet so good to see. She did her best to assure him that he was among friends at the Cottonwood Hotel, no matter what might wait for him out in the road.

Business was slack at that hour; cowhands did not begin to come in until much later in the night, after they had made the round of the town. Angus Valorous—commonly called by her Angus I'lor's, after his own pronunciation of the sonorous word—would take care of them, as always. She puzzled again over that unexpected showing of the man in him, thinking in her own strange way that he must have grown up in the night without her noticing it.

She looked in at the window to see if Angus Valorous had returned to his duty behind the desk. Angus was there. He had taken three cigar boxes from the