Until gasoline married into the skylark family, Bud did well enough to
keep him contented out of a stock saddle. (You may not know it, but
it is harder for an old cow-puncher to find content, now that the free
range is gone into history, than it is for a labor agitator to be happy
in a municipal boarding house.) Bud did well enough, which was very well indeed. Before the second
season closed with the first fall rains, he had paid for his big car
and got the insurance policy transferred to his name. He walked up
First Street with his hat pushed back and a cigarette dangling from the
quirkiest corner of his mouth, and his hands in his pockets. The glow of
prosperity warmed his manner toward the world. He had a little money in
the bank, he had his big car, he had the good will of a smiling world.
He could not walk half a block in any one of three or four towns but he
was hailed with a "Hello, Bud!" in a welcoming tone. More people knew
him than Bud remembered well enough to call by name--which is the final
proof of popularity the world over.
In that glowing mood he had met and married a girl who went into Big
Basin with her mother and camped for three weeks. The girl had taken
frequent trips to Boulder Creek, and twice had gone on to San Jose, and
she had made it a point to ride with the driver because she was crazy
about cars. So she said. Marie had all the effect of being a pretty
girl. She habitually wore white middies with blue collar and tie, which
went well with her clear, pink skin and her hair that just escaped being
red. She knew how to tilt her "beach" hat at the most provocative angle,
and she knew just when to let Bud catch a slow, sidelong glance--of the
kind that is supposed to set a man's heart to syncopatic behavior. She
did not do it too often. She did not powder too much, and she had the
latest slang at her pink tongue's tip and was yet moderate in her use of
it.
Bud did not notice Marie much on the first trip. She was demure, and Bud
had a girl in San Jose who had brought him to that interesting stage
of dalliance where he wondered if he dared kiss her good night the
next time he called. He was preoccupiedly reviewing the
she-said-and-then-I-said, and trying to make up his mind whether he
should kiss her and take a chance on her displeasure, or whether he had
better wait. To him Marie appeared hazily as another camper who helped
fill the car--and his pocket--and was not at all hard to look at. It
was not until the third trip that Bud thought her beautiful, and was
secretly glad that he had not kissed that San Jose girl.