Bannister and
his kind drive their sheep over you?"
"Do we, Soapy?" grinned Texas. Yet it seemed to her his smile was
not quite carefree.
"I'm not a cowman myself," explained Soapy to the girl. "Nor do I
run sheep. I--"
"Tell Miss Messiter what yore business is, Soapy," advised Yorky
from the end of the table, with a mouthful of biscuit swelling
his cheeks.
Soapy crushed the irrepressible Yorky with a look, but that young
man hit back smilingly.
"Soapy, he sells soap, ma'am. He's a sorter city salesman, I
reckon."
"I should never have guessed it. Mr. Sothern does not LOOK like a
salesman," said the girl, with a glance at his shrewd, hard,
expressionless face.
"Yes, ma'am, he's a first-class seller of soap, is Mr. Sothern,"
chuckled the cow-puncher, kicking his friends gayly under the
table.
"You can see I never sold HIM any, Miss Messiter," came back
Soapy, sorrowfully.
All this was Greek to the young lady from Kalamazoo. How was she
to know that Mr. Sothern had vended his soap in small cubes on
street corners, and that he wrapped bank notes of various
denominations in the bars, which same were retailed to eager
customers for the small sum of fifty cents, after a guarantee
that the soap was good? His customers rarely patronized him
twice; and frequently they used bad language because the soap
wrapping was not as valuable as they had expected.
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