Robert Welles Ritchie

“ The blood that flooded the boy's cheeks made headlights of each freckle. But a wonderfully comfortable glow was in his heart; he and Shinnery Luke understood each other—with a man's understanding.
Original saw Little Black-eyes but once before the wedding, with its crucial test of a best man's nerve. That was a week before the event, when he was riding back from Two Moons with a most portentous bundle—store clothes—tied to his cantel. The choice of the Little Poison trail for the return the rider noisily blamed upon Nigger Boy ”

“ She giggled, and one bare foot crossed to its fellow to search it with wiggling toes. Shyness grappled with the imp of adventure in her black eyes; it conquered her tongue even though it could not fetter the more unruly members.
"My name's Bill Blunt—Original Bill, of the Hashknife outfit, is the name I mostly trails under." He was tapping one boot-leg with his quirt, as a newly engaged finds precious employments for her ring finger. "An' I'm just up from Two Moons after a little business trip. ”

“ He and Original both were living the rules for weddings. "Original," he had commanded, during the ride through the clear morning, "remember your job is to ride herd on the groom until the parson gets the brand on him, fair and clean. The groom's supposed to get sort a rollicky an' show the whites of his eyes an' shy at a sage-bush 'long about the last hour of his freedom. When he does, you just h'ists your spurs an' creases him for fair."
However expectantly Shinnery Luke himself may have awaited any of these detached and untoward manifestations of panic, none came. ”

“ By way of answer he squeezed the clinging hand by pressure of his arm. Parson Holingshed was in full voice now—Original could just glimpse a patch of his wagging whisker between the shoulders of bride and groom—and what he said had a Biblical sound. It did not strike the best man as pertinent to the occasion, however, until this question suddenly was plumped at Luke: "Will you take this woman to be your wedded wife?" ”

“ Her free arm was covering her eyes now to hide tears; above it showed a little crescent of cheek—oh, so rose-red and desirable! At the boy's questions her head nodded slowly, A black curl slipped down to caress his hand.
"An'—say, Little Black-eyes, if that there preacher had th'owed that same question at you which I thought he was firin' at me, what would you have said?" Original drew her close to him with a pressure hesitant, reverential, and as he waited for her answer he looked down at the bent nest of curls so near his lips. He was boy no longer, but man, gently masterful. ”

“ She says I got to have a best man 'longside of a hair-cut an' b'ar's oil on my head, an' store shirt, an' such extrys counted fittin' for the occasion. So, there you are! You're best man." Luke fondly hoped he had been sufficiently obscure to defy probing, but the sly look he shot at the quizzical face near his shoulder carried warning of the inevitable. ”

“ Original, all this weddin' fixin's got me loco. You asks me what the best man does? Well, sir, as I get it from Lily—she's got all these practices concernin' the givin' and takin' in wedlock roped an' tied—the best man's sort of hoss-wrangler for the groom, which is what Lily says I am—a groom. Soon as he sees the preacher comin' down the trail with his brand-irons the best man just rounds up this here groom an' rides him into the corral on a short halter. ”