“I can,” says he. “I’ll do anything for my wife.”
“All right,” says I. “It’s your machine and your wife.”
I don’t know how he done it, but he did. He went over rocks, stumps or
anything in front of him. Half the time he wasn’t in the seat at all,
’cause that machine pitched and bucked like a bronco, but he pulled
leather and stayed with her.
He made as complete a circle as anybody would want to see, and stopped
right in front of the cabin again--pointed the same way he was before
he circled.
“Didn’t I do it?” he crows. “Told you I----”
Then he looks ahead and behind.
He looks at Tip’s grinning face, and right there Aloysius gets sore.
“I hired you to guide me!” he wails. “The fellow in Silver Bend was
right.”
“What did he say about Tip?” I asks.
“He told me to get a guide,” explains Aloysius. “He told me I’d get
completely turned around in this country, and he’s right-- I did.”
“Do it again,” says Tip. “By the whiskers on a waumpus, I ain’t never
been so amused before in my life. Do it again. I’ll show you one stump
you missed.”
I walks over and peers into the body of that machine. There’s enough
stuff in there to start a trading-store with.
“What’s that rigging in there?” I asks, and Aloysius seems to get over
his peeve.
“That is my picture machine. Ain’t I told you about that yet? Well,
well!”
“He’s going to photygraft animiles,” shrills Tip, grinning. “Goin’ to
get them on the move, too. Danged nigh impossible, I reckon, but the
blame fool thinks he can. Says he’s going to photygraft grizzlies and
mountain lions. Haw! Haw! Haw! Interests of eddication. Be of benefit
to the people. Daw-gone! I reckon the undertaker will get his, and
that’s about all.”
“My dear sir,” says Aloysius, “you seem remarkably able to get facts
twisted. I hired you as a cook--not to prophesy.”
“You did like ----! I’m the guide.”
“Well, guide me then! I want to go----”
Aloysius wrinkles up his brow and scowls at Tip.
“Where were we going?”
“I refuses to advance a prophecy,” says Tip, expectorating at a lizard.
“I’m your guide and that’s all. You tell where you want to go and I’ll
take you there, y’betcha.”
“I want you to take me to my family,” says Aloysius, deliberate-like.
“If you are of any value as a guide you can do that!”
“I ain’t--not thataway. I’m here to----”
“You said you could guide me, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I said that--shore; but I ain’t no wife-restorer. Daw-gone it,
why don’t you put hopples or a bell on her before you loses her for
keeps?”
“There’s Lord Washburn, too,” says Aloysius, as the threads of memory
begins to tickle his brain, “and Bettina. Yes, there’s three of us
missing. What do you suppose they think?”
“Same kind of folks as you?” I asks. “Same kind? Why, they’re my
people.”
“Don’t worry then,” says I. “They likely ain’t missed you yet.”
“But I absolutely need them,” says he. “Lord Washburn is----”
“Here comes a wagon,” says Tip. “Maybe somebody is bringing ’em up
here.”
* * * * *
Around a turn in the road comes our wagon. Magpie Simpkins is perched
up on the seat, herding our two pinto broncs, and beside him sets a
female who only needs four more pounds of lard and an ambition to get
into a sideshow.
Setting on a pile of plunder in the back is what I’d designate as
Bettina and Lord Washburn. Bettina might ’a’ been good-looking--it’s
all a matter of opinion, but Lord Washburn--oh, man!
He’s got one of them walrus mustaches, a one-eyed spectacle and knee
panties. From his collar in the back to the crown of his head he is
one succession of rolls, the same of which makes a fellow wishful to
puncture one with a pin and let the air out.
Magpie skids them shy pintos up alongside of that machine and slams on
the brake.