CHAPTER V
“MR. PETER BURLEY, BLACKWATER, COL.”

Hal Smiths dropped in after dinner that evening and Allan brought the conversation around to the subject of Burley, whose performance during practise had been the chief topic at the dinner-table.

“Why, Poor was awfully pleased at my suggestion,” said Hal, “after I found him. It was after twelve then, and I’d chased half over college looking for him. He said he wasn’t very good at persuasion and thought Burley would require lots of it; so he asked me to see him. Poor’s a pretty good little chap, so I went. Burley was awfully decent. Said he had never played and had never even seen the game until he came here; said he hadn’t been able to find out what it was all about, but that if we wanted him to try it, why, of course, he would. Said he thought it looked like pretty good fun, and got me to sort of explain it a bit. One thing he wanted to know,” laughed Hal, “was whether you could hit a man if he didn’t have the ball.”

“Well, he played it for all it was worth this afternoon,” said Allan, smiling. “You heard about it, didn’t you?”

“No; what was it? I sat on the side line all afternoon, and waited to get a whack at State University. What did Burley do?”

So Allan told him, and Hal laughed until the tears came.

“Oh, he’s a genius, he is!” he said.

After a minute of chuckling, he went on:

“Look here, Allan, I think you’d rather like him if you got to know him. He’s – he’s rather a decent sort, after all. I didn’t take to him at first, of course, but – and I don’t say now that he’s the sort of chap you’d want to ask home and introduce to your people; he’s kind of free and easy, and you couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t drink the catsup out of the bottle or slap your governor on the back – but he’s – well, there’s something about him you can’t help liking,” he ended, with an apologetic tone.

“Maybe I would,” answered Allan, pleasantly. Hal looked surprised.

“He’s given up the class secretaryship, you know,” he announced.

“Why?”

“I don’t know for sure, but Poor says he told him it was because he didn’t think he’d be here much after the holidays.”

“Where’s he going?” asked Allan.

“Don’t know. Funny idea, to come to college for half a year. Maybe – ”

There were footsteps on the porch, the front portal opened with a crash, and an imperative knock sounded on the room door. Allan jumped to his feet. Could it be fire? he wondered, shooting a bewildered glance at Hal. He hurried to the door just as the hammering began again, more violently than before. Hal raised himself uneasily from the Morris chair, prepared for the worst. Allan called, “Come in!” and the door was flung open.

Entered Tommy Sweet!

“You thundering idiot!” bawled Hal. “I thought it was at least the Dean! You can make more – Hello, Burley! Glad to see you.”

“This is Mr. Burley, Allan,” Tommy was saying. “Brought him around ’cause I wanted you to know each other. Mr. Ware – Mr. Burley.”

Allan felt his hand enveloped in something large and warm and vise-like. He felt his fingers crushed together, thought he could hear the bones breaking – and still managed to smile painfully, but politely, the while. Then Burley had dropped his hand and was saying:

“I’ve wanted to know you ever since I saw you win that running race the other day. Came around here and left a card on you, but I guess you didn’t find it.”

Allan murmured his appreciation, but remained silent as to the “card.”

“I told Sweet here that you’d win that race. Offered to bet him anything he liked. He wouldn’t bet, though.” Peter Burley took the chair proffered by Hal and carefully lowered himself into it.

“They told me you carried me over to the tent,” said Allan. “Much obliged, I’m sure.”

“Welcome,” answered the other, heartily. “You didn’t weigh anything to mention.”

“Not as heavy as the freshman team, eh?” asked Tommy. Burley looked apologetically around the circle.

“I suppose every one’s heard of that fool thing?” he asked.

“Just about every one, I guess,” laughed Tommy.

“That comes of trying to do something you don’t know how to do. This fellow Smiths here came around to my shack the other day and said the class wanted me to play football because I weigh some. Well, ginger! I didn’t know anything about the thing, and I told him so. But he would have it that I must play. And look what happens! I make a measly show of myself right out there on the range in front of the whole outfit!”

“No harm done,” said Hal. “You did what you tried to.”

“No, I didn’t. There was a little cuss there in a Derby hat wouldn’t let me. I was going to take that half-backed fellow down to the other end and throw him over the line. That’s what I was going to do. They didn’t tell me I had to slap him on the chest and butt him with my head.”

“But, you see,” explained Allan, “he called ‘Down’ just when you began to lug him off.”

“That’s what they said. I was supposed to let go of him when he said that, but I just thought he was throwing up the sponge and wanted me to let him down. If I’d known he could have spoiled it by yelling ‘Down,’ I’d have held his mouth shut.”

This summoned laughter, and Burley glanced around at the others in wide surprise. Allan felt surprise, too. Was Burley really quite so unsophisticated as he seemed, he wondered, or – His glance met Burley’s. The big fellow’s right eyelid dropped slowly in a portentous wink. Allan smiled. His question was answered. While the others entered into an explanation and discussion of the rules and ethics of football, Allan studied the Westerner.

Peter Burley looked to be, and was, twenty years of age. In form he was remarkably large; he was an inch over six feet tall, and weighed 203 pounds. Nowhere about him was there evidence of unnecessary fat, but he was deep of chest and wide of shoulder and hips. His hands and feet were large, and the latter were encased in enormously heavy shoes.

When it came to features, Burley was undeniably good-looking in a certain breezy, unconventional way. (Allan soon found that Burley’s breeziness and absence of convention were not confined to his looks.) Burley’s hair was brown, of no particular shade, and his eyes matched his hair. His nose was big and straight and his mouth well shaped. His cheeks were deeply tanned, but showed little color beneath. His usual expression was one of careless, whimsical good nature, but there was an earnest and kindly gleam in the brown eyes that lent character to the face. He talked with a drawl, and pronounced many words in a way quite novel to Allan. But – and this Allan discovered later – when occasion required, he was capable of delivering his remarks in a sharp, incisive way that made the words sound like rifle-shots. At the present moment he was talking with almost exaggerated deliberateness.

“Sweet says you and he went to a preparatory school together,” he said, turning to Allan. “I wish my old man had sent me to one of those things. What was your school like?”

Allan told him of Hillton, and Tommy and Hal chimed in from time to time and helped him along. It was a large subject and one they liked, and half an hour passed before they had finished. Burley listened with evident interest, and only interrupted occasionally to ask a question.

“How’d you happen to come to Erskine?” asked Tommy, when the subject had been exhausted. Burley took one big knee into his hands and considered the question for a moment in silence.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” he said at last. “You see, I had a go at the university over in Boulder; that’s near Denver,” he explained, parenthetically. “But we didn’t get on very well together, the faculty and me, and I was always turning up at the ranch. Well, the old man got tired of seeing me around so much; said he’d paid for my keep at the university, and I’d ought to stay there and get even with the game. But, ginger! the corral wasn’t big enough. Every time I’d try to be good, something would come along and happen, and – first thing I knew, I’d be roaming at large again. So the old man said he guessed what I needed was to get far enough away from home so I wouldn’t back-trail so often; said there wasn’t much doing when I went to college Monday morning and showed up for feed Thursday night. First he tried taking my railroad pass away; but when I couldn’t scare up the money, I rode home on a freight. I got to know the train crews on the D. & R. G. pretty well long toward spring. When vacation came, we all agreed to call it off – the faculty and the old man and me. So I went up to Rico and fooled around a mine there all summer. When – ”

“What was the name of the mine?” asked Allan, eagerly.

“This one was the Indian Girl. There’s lots of ’em thereabouts. The old man – ”

“Say, is the ‘old man’ your father?” asked Tommy.

“Yes; why?”

“Nothing, only I should think he’d lick you if he heard you calling him that.”

“Oh, he doesn’t mind. Besides, he isn’t really old; only about forty. He calls me Kid, too,” he added, smiling broadly. “Well, in the summer he wanted to know where I’d rather go to college – Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Pennsylvania; he said he didn’t care so long as it was far enough away to keep me from diggin’ out for home every week and presenting myself with vacations not down on the calendar. Well, there was a fellow up at the mine named Thompson; he was superintendent. I was helping him – or thought I was – and so we got to be pretty good friends. He was a nice little fellow, about as high as a sage-bush, and as plucky as a bulldog. Well, he went to college here about ten years ago, and he used to tell me a good deal about the place. So, when the old man said, ‘Which is it?’ I told him Erskine. He said he’d never heard tell of it, but so long as it was about two thousand miles from Blackwater he guessed it would do. And that’s how. Now you talk.”

“That’s the first time I ever heard of choosing a college because it was a long way from home,” laughed Hal. “I’d like to meet that father of yours.”

“Better go back with me Christmas,” said Burley. Hal stared at him doubtfully, undecided whether to laugh or not. “Of course,” continued Burley, carelessly, “we haven’t got much out there. It’s pretty much all alfalfa and sage-bush around Blackwater. But the hills aren’t far, and there’s good hunting up toward Routt. You fellows all better come; the old man would be pleased to have you.”

Hal stared wide-eyed.

“Aren’t you fooling?” he gasped.

“Fooling?” Burley echoed. “Why, no, I ain’t fooling. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing; but of course we couldn’t do it, you know; at least, I’m plumb sure I couldn’t.” Hal looked doubtfully at the others.

“Nor I,” said Allan. “I only wish I could.”

“Same here,” said Tommy, wistfully. “I’d give a heap to have the chance.”

“Sorry,” answered Burley. “Perhaps in the summer, or some other time, when you haven’t got anything better. I suppose your folks want you at home Christmas?”

“Y-yes,” replied Hal, “but it isn’t altogether that; there’s the expense, you see.”

“Oh, it wouldn’t cost you anything much,” said Burley. “It’s all on me. You’d better say you’ll come.”

Hal’s eyes opened wider than before.

“You mean you’d pay our fares – all our fares – out to Colorado and back?” he asked.

“Sure. We’d only have about a week out there, but we could do a lot of damage in a week.”

Hal was silent from amazement. Allan stammered his thanks. Tommy merely sat and stared at Burley, as though fascinated. The latter translated silence into assent.

“Well, we’ll call it fixed, eh?” he asked, heartily.

“Thunder, no!” exploded Hal. “We couldn’t do that, Burley. We’re awfully much obliged, but, of course, if we went out there to visit you, we’d pay our own way. And I don’t believe any of us could do that – this Christmas, at least.”

“Oh, be good!” said Burley. “Now, look here; I’d let you do that much for me.”

“But we couldn’t,” said Allan.

“Well, you would if you could, of course; wouldn’t you, now?”

“Why – er – I suppose we would,” Allan faltered.

“Well, there you are!” said Burley, triumphantly. “That settles it.”

It took the others some time to prove to him that it didn’t settle it, and Burley listened with polite, but disapproving, attention. When the argument was concluded, he shook his head sorrowfully.

“You’re a lot of Indians!” he said. “You’re not doing the square thing by me, and I’m going to pull my freight.” He drew himself out of the chair and rescued his big felt hat from beneath it. There was a general pushing back of chairs. “You and Mr. Ware must come around to my tepee some night soon,” Burley told Hal, “and we’ll have another pow-wow. Seems like I’d done all the chinning to-night.” He shook hands with Allan, who strove to bear the pain with fortitude and only grimaced once, and said in quite a matter-of-fact way, “I guess you and I are going to be partners. Good night.”

Allan muttered that he hoped so, and after the three visitors had taken their departures he examined his hand under the light to see if bruises or dislocations were visible.

“I wonder,” he asked himself, with a rueful smile, “if he shakes hands very often with his partners?”