The Cape Girardeau Democrat. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909, 1898-04-02
Bill Riggles' Romance.
=. By Montezuma. :.
=. By MonteZuma. -.

A + FIRST blush it would have been
n difficult for anyone not Familiarity
acquainted with Bill Riggles to have
associated with him any such an ethe-
real and effeminate folly as a
Superlatively tall, angular, awkward
and diffident, l nave never known a
more reticent man, and, except in n
thing, a less emotional one. Comely
enough after a rough fashion, with hon
est, deep-set gray eyes, firm but pleas
ant mouth and bread forehead; with
exaggerated mustache just a shade less
brown than his ruddy cheeks, he was
simply a type of the commonplace cow
puncher, remarkable in no one particu-
lar among his fellows. Not exactly
what one would call a ladies man."
andyet no woman looked at him the Sec
ond time-and they all did-without u
;trustful smile on her lips, and children
had n confident way of approaching
him and making much of him from the
start.
Men liked him, too, when they got
well acquainted with him-which gen
orally took time, as he was as slow in
forming friendships as he was in break
ing them-and their liking grew with
the ears.
That Bill should have had a romance
was one of those ineNplicable freaks OF
fate that are always Undertaking. for
our mystification. l rave never ceased
wondering why fortune singled him out
for that high distinction or how the ca
PRECIOUS dame could have dared expert
ment with such unpromising material.
l say this in no derogation of my old
comrade. He was u"nprOmising only III
thai he was a ~clear-headed, cool, SEN
sihle and eminently practical man, not
given usually to any romantic hallucl-
nations or other acuou foolishness OF
that sort. OF course he had the charac-
teristic cowboy reverence for the sex
and had exaggerated notions of the
courteous chivalry and Difference due
all ~womankind, but he was a fool only
in regard to N woman
For that matter, l guess that is a
common failing with us all. Our atfec-
tions center on n woman alone as n
rule. and we generally are as foolish as
the law allows in that respect, but his
folly was purely of an hal~lucinatory
kind and would have been ~laughable if
it had not been so sincere. In short,
Bill was in love, not with a woman in
the flesh, but with the picture of one!
1t was a cigarette picture. at that. l
mean one of those idealized, highly-col-
ored photographic wonders given as an
artistic inducement to purchasers of
those innocent-looking rolls of drugged
tobacco which are alike the beatitude
and the bane of dude and cowboy Bills
inamorata was one of n series of six
that were packed with a box of papelitos
that Tex won in a bronco race over
at Laramie on the Fourth of July and
had thoughtfully sent back with the
mess wagon for our delectation.
They were all bicycle beauties. Radi-
ant goddesses in abbreviated tunics.
There were six of us, and we drew
straws for the choice. With my usual
fool Iuck I got the last pick and drew
the poorest girl in the lOt-an indiffer-
ent blonde in a green skirt with no red
on her cheeks. while Riggles got first
grab and the peach of the layout, a raw
fishing brunette with a rosebud mouth
and eyes that fairly winked at you.
Her wheel. too, wasn't none of those
swey-backed things with 10 spine in it.
but a regular gce-hoss with backbone
clear from his neck to his tail. 1t was a
dark sorrel and she straddled it just
like a man. You could tell at a look
she could ride and had the top cayuse
of the whole string.
We tried to swap Riggles out o. his
girl. but he wouldn't have it. He nailed
it up over his bunk and hung his rope
around it to sort of let us know he mad
his string on her. He hung his spare