Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/216

 Frog Lewis, a tall, earnest chap with a long, thin face, and a gulping look about his mouth and throat from which his nickname had come. He finished the tune with a look of great satisfaction, plainly believing himself the winner, in which opinion Dr. Hall enthusiastically concurred. If he hadn't struck a fence or something, he would have been half a mile in the lead if the tune had continued three minutes longer.

The band was warming up to its work in fine style, although in the next piece Frog Lewis appeared to have lost step. He lagged, he labored, he laid on in the wrong place, out of all time or reason apparent to anybody but himself. Dr. Hall retreated, having got an earful that would last him a month. As he turned up the road toward Cottrell's, the piece came to an end, Frog Lewis giving a prodigious single and a quick double beat to close it, in his accustomed triumphant style. It seemed as if he had been lagging on purpose this time for his happy finale, which gave the impression that he had driven the tune into the barn and slammed the door.

Major Cottrell was sitting by the open window, listening to the distant band, Mrs. Cottrell near at hand reading a Leavenworth paper which featured army news. Elizabeth had gone for a ride. The house was insufficient without her. It seemed an old place to-day, dreary in spite of the blue eagerness of the spring afternoon.

Major Cottrell said he was gaining every day. That was due to home-cured dried beef, he declared, which he placed second only to the skill of Dr. Hall. But that skill had been expended in the beginning; science had done all it could do in the first few days. Now it was the turn of dried beef, which the major kept by him at all