“Well, folks, here we are.”
“Haw!” says Lord Washburn. “Haw! Joke. Heard it before. Where had we
ought to be?”
“---- only knows,” says Magpie, sad-like. “Any old place except in the
hills, I reckon.”
“Aloysius Van Fleet,” says the old lady, glaring at the lion-hunter,
“what do you mean by leaving us down there? If this gentleman hadn’t
come along--well, I shudder to think what might have happened. Can’t
you never remember anything?”
“Shucks,” says Tip. “You’d ’a’ been all right.”
“Who asked your opinion?” asks the old lady. “Who are you anyway?”
“I’m the--the--what am I?” Tip looks at Aloysius, who shakes his head.
“Well,” says Washburn, “I’d say we might as well dismount. After this I
shall keep my eye on the car. The roads in this vicinity are beastly,
don’t you know?”
The lord and Bettina climbs down and we all sets around. Magpie looks at
me and shakes his head.
“How’d you happen to come along?” I asks Lord Washburn.
“Really.” He screws his glass into his eye and stares at me. “I have
proffered my services to Doctor Van Fleet as nimrod extraordinary.
We are here, as I understand it, in the interest of natural history,
to photograph the wild beast in its own environment, and I am acting
as a sort of body-guard to the doctor in case any of the animals
should--er--annoy him.”
“Ever done much shooting?” asks Magpie.
“I’ve shot with kings.”
“What did the other fellow have?” asks Tip. “Aces?”
Then I hears Aloysius’ voice raised in a high key:
“My dear, I was so interested in our new guide that I never noticed you
getting out of the car. He’s a jewel. Wonderful memory.”
“Well,” says his wife, “I’m glad you had sense enough to hire a good
one. Bettina, my love, are you standing the trip?”
“I think so, mamma,” squeaks Bettina, and then she says to Tip, “I beg
your pardon, but can you tell me how long we will be here?”
“Ma’am,” says Tip, “I am a guide, not a prophet. I was hired to find
animals, not to make time-tables.”
“Oh,” says Bettina. “Why are we stopping here?”
“Ask your pa,” advised Tip. “He put on the brakes.”
“Papa, did you put on the brakes?” she asks.
Aloysius scratches his head and looks around.
“I really can’t remember, my dear. Where did we have them last?”
“----’s delight!” grunts Magpie. “Reckon I’ll unhitch that team so as to
keep my mind off the painful things of life. Better take them two boxes
of dynamite and put ’em where that bunch can’t fall over ’em, Ike.”
I unloads two fifty-pound boxes of powder and the bunch of grub Magpie
had been to Piperock after, while Aloysius, Lord Washburn and Tip seems
to hold a conference. Then they comes over to me.
“Can we go any farther with the car?” asks Aloysius.
“Well,” says I, “after seeing you hop the rocks and stumps out there,
I’d hate to say.”
“Mister Seeley tells me that your two spotted horses are suitable to
carry luggage,” says Washburn. “We would like to rent them, if we
may--in the event that we can go no farther with the car.”
“I’ve got four saddle-hosses at my ranch,” says Tip. “Women can ride
’em.”
“Women can ride ’em, Tip?” I asks.
“Women can ride as well as men, can’t they?”
Just then Magpie comes back, and I puts it up to him about the pintos.
“To pack?” says he. “Sure you can have the horses. Won’t guarantee ’em
though.”
“Oh, that’s perfectly all right,” says Aloysius. “I assure you we will
take a chance on them wearing out.”
Magpie looks at me and I look at Magpie, but we don’t say a word.
Neither of them broncs has ever had anything on their backs, except a
harness.
* * * * *
Well, that whole danged bunch sets right down and makes themselves to
home. Lord Washburn is an English setter and the rest is blooded stock
in which the setter instinct predominates. Magpie goes over to Tip, and
says--
“Well, why don’t you pitch camp, Tip?”
“I ain’t running the show. Ask the lord. He, he, he! Sounds like a
prayer.”
“A prayer might be in order,” nods Magpie. “After looking the bunch
over, I reckon we better ask for divine protection.”
Then cometh mamma. Mamma sizes me up, like she was looking at a dogy,
and says:
“Will you prepare a dinner menu so I may consider it?”
“Will I prepare a dinner me and you?” I asks. “That’s a ---- of a way to
use United States language, ma’am. Why don’t you say, ‘Will you prepare
a dinner for me and you, so we may eat?’ Up here we don’t consider
nothing but our stummicks, ma’am.”
Mamma rears up and almost falls over backwards. She adjusts her glasses
and glares at me.
“Of all things!” she snaps, which covers everything a mule-skinner could
say in five minutes’ straight cussing.
“Such insolence!” Then she whirls and yelps, “Aloysius!”
Aloysius’ backbone settles about seven inches when he hears that yelp,
but he toddles over beside her. She grabs him by the arm and points at
me.
“You selected him,” she snaps. “Him!”
“Did I?” squeaks Aloysius. “All right, dearie.”
“Now discharge him!” she whoops.
“But--but, my dear,” pleads Aloysius, “I--I must have a guide.”
“Guide? Didn’t you hire him as a chef?”
“Chef? Perhaps I did, dearie.”
“I demand his discharge--at once!”
“Well,” says Aloysius, sad-like, and mamma shakes him, “well--get
out--out of the kitchen. Now, my dear, I have discharged him--who will
get dinner?”
Mamma sets her jaw and looks all around. Her eyes light on Magpie and
she decides quick.
“I employ that man in the late chef’s place. Prepare a menu--at once!”
Magpie’s mouth forms a real smart reply, beginning with profanity, but
he manages to choke it back. Then he stares at me and then at her.
“Yes’m. I got all my education at night the same of which spoils me for
writing in the day-time, but I’ll orate a bill of fare.”
“Very well!” she snaps. “I am listening.”
Magpie smooths his mustache and chants:
“Bean soup, hot enough to burn a burro’s belly,
Fried bronc’s ears and Gila-monster jelly.
Horse-hoof salad and some jerked rawhide,
Baked turkey buzzard with some loco fried,
Sidewinder gravy and a sunburned spud,
Saddle-blanket pie and a cup of mud.”
“And,” says Magpie, looking up at the awed face of mamma, “that is a
---- of a good feed for a he-man, if anybody should ask yuh.”
Mamma swallers hard and flops her arms like she was going to fly, but
her voice won’t seem to work. She sort of puffs up full of words and
all at once she explodes:
“Of all things!”
“Yes’m,” agrees Magpie. “Such as they are.”
Mamma takes two deep breaths and walks away stiff-legged like a peeved
bear. Aloysius cocks one eye at mamma, and then squints at Magpie.
“Pup-paw,” says Bettina, “I’m ashamed that you would let a man say such
things to mummaw.”
Aloysius looks at Magpie and then back at Bettina.
“My dear, one must use diplomacy. I find that cooks are very scarce,
and--and besides, your mother is too--er--cocky. Isn’t that the right
word to use, Lord Washburn?”
“I--er--” Lord Washburn screws the one-eyed spectacle into his eye and
squints hard--“I would--er--rawther say--er--speaking in the feminine
gender regarding fowl, I would say she was--er--a bit henny. Haw! Haw!
Haw!”
_Bung!_
Anyway I think it “bunged.” I didn’t hear it, ’cause I was the one it
bunged upon. I know I woke up and found them all grouped around me, and
old Tip says--
“Aw, you can’t kill him that easy, but I’ll bet that pot-cover will
never fit again.”