The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-04-10
an EASTER BONNET.



Prct Willis started it. and Pref Willis
was not duly sober, 80 II the whole per-
Torrance appeared somewhat tipsy, it is
scant wonder
lie had. as he deposed. met Miss Eula
riding out near the X windmill camp,
and she told him that she couldn't be az
church the following Sunday If the milliner
didn't send over her Easter bonnet from
Drake City. or because she didn't nave an
Easter bonnet, or something Of the sort
Pref wasn't clear about it; hut he was
clear about one thing-he was going to ride
+he thirty miles to Drake City, bring home
mat bonnet. alive dead and so earn -
least Miss EuIa's undying gratitude, if not
Miss Eula herself
You are!' snorted Snap Davis; ''wel1,
like that! I like you and your castiron
brass, Pret Willis! Where do we 3ome in?''
Come in where you ean," retorted Pref.
you've been coming in little too often to
suit me. I'm tired of having seven fellows
tramping on my toes every time / step in
the direction of the Quarter Circle G.. If
you know anywhere to get any bonnets for
Miss Eula, you go and get en- This is my
play"
by gosh, Wen do it. yelled Frosty.
''TV III go with you, Pret."
Not much you WON'T growled Pref; Il
didn't agree to that" But he might as well
have offered verbal remonstrance to
stampede.
The six cowboys gathered in the bar of
the Roundup rose as one cowboy; they
whooped for stirrup cups and the filling OF
TASKS. and with much badinage of an ex-
tremely personal nature, and heartsome
jingling of accoutrements, they streamed
out and mounted their ponies, who had been
patiently waiting them since shutdown.
It was now Ii o'clock of rare white
rnoonlit night-the night before Easter. BY
hard riding they might reach Drake CITY
early Sunday morning: then, getting fresh
ponies there, they ought to be able to make
the Quarter Circle ranch in time for Miss
Eula to wear her bonnet (or bonnets) to the
little church at Broken Arrow.
Willis had. at the first word which
threatened him with serious competition IN
his enterprise, slipped out and mounted.
He was rs the cavalcaoe set out. some
distance ahead; but they soon overhauled
him. and
Wen keep together l guess sus
eested Bush Thompson, rather sternly'
there's no use in anybody maxim
monkey of himself tryin' to turn this INTO
d derned handicap.
ant and out. the best ponies holding the
front, and those who fell behind soiacihs
themselves with an occasional burst Oh
sneed or an application to their freshly
filled TASKS.
The habit of rivalry. where Miss Eula
Pendleton was concerned, was too hrmly
fixed in all of them to permit any one 10
give way in the least to another. MISS
TcuIa was indeed, from many points or view
well worth striving for. She was not only,
according to her admirers, the prettlest
girl in Texas, but she was, beSldes, the
only daughter of old Scotty Pendleton, VINO
lived on a hundred-thousand-dolla ranch
and owned several others. That she was
also a girl of brains and had been sent to
one of the smaller east Texas cities for
such education as a young ladies' boarding
school there could give her, may or may
not have added to her popularity with the
bachelorhood of Ojo Frio county; that she
could ride with the best of them, rope ana
shoot we'll enough to carry off prizes at
fairs and tournaments, certainly did,
The one thing, however. which assured
her supremacy, and which would have
made belle of her anywhere, had she
been homeiy and poor, was that unclassable
faculty for the management of men which
all who aspire to bellehood must, possess.
If her suitors took more time circum-
venting one another than singly further
ing each his own suit, you may be sure II
was because Miss Eula chose to have 1t SO.
She found diversion in their riva1ries- and
feuds and she used each to stave off the
undesired lovemaking of the other.
There had once been wild rumor that
Miss Eula favored her neighbor on the
Scotia, a big sheep ranch south of the
Quarter Circle G.
Alan MacGregor had come to the Panhan-
Ole of Texas just twelve months before this
Easter, had bought and improved the Scotia
till it was the finest ranch in the section OF
late however, he had been having lumber
hauled from Drake City, and brick shipped
from Denver, along with all sorts of fine
fittings and furnishings from the east. and,
had made the ranch house at the Scotia
thing unmatched in the Panhandle.
The close mouthed young Scotchman, be-
ing interrogated as to the reason of these
changes. replied that he was getting the
house ready for his wife.
To community in which, if an unsus-
pected wife did not make her entrance on
the scene with flock of small children,
and barely in time to Illustrate a second
matrimonial venture upon the part of her
spouse she was held to have made her eX-
istence quietly known, it appeared regular
enough that he should be sending to Scot
land for heretofore unmentioned better
half.
This avowal. however, stopped the talk
about young MacGregor and Miss Pendle-
ton, and left her band of suitors once more
ON an equal footing, and actively quarreling
among themselves.
The party reached Drake City at o'clock.
positively weary comparatively drunk, and
superlatively thirsty. The one small mil
lnery store was not, of course, open at that
hour, nor would it be legitimately so later
IN the day, for the awful rose of dawn"
which was blosssoming over the eastern
levels, was herading in another Easter Sun
day.
I'm agoin' TO knock at every door in
town till 1 find the milliner'' announced
Pref.
But the htful whining of a tired fiddle in
keg Harpers all-night dancehouse and bar
caught Bush Thompson's ear mo. YOU
won't" he answered, with solemn drunken
obstinacy. You're coming in here and
liquor. We're all goin' to liquor. When it's
daylight, Wei ger each of us bonnet and