“I can lick the ---- fool who hit me!”
“There he goes again, pup-paw,” wails Bettina. “He’s meaning mum-maw.”
“Is she the ---- fool?” I asks.
“She is my wife,” says Aloysius.
“That’s a sensible answer,” says I. “Why did she hit me?”
“Women,” says Tip, “never need no reason. Them female contraptions is
a heap like dynamite, because they bust without provocation at times.
I reckon she was aiming to land a court-card and drew a deuce. Lord
What-yuh-call’m haw-hawed at the wrong time.”
“Then Lord What-yuh-call’m better lay off on that haw-haw stuff,” says
I. “I ain’t going to have no ---- females banging me on the head just
because some snake-hunter of a lord opines to haw-haw at the wrong time.
What you haw-hawing about anyway?”
“Joke,” says he. “Good joke. Aloysius says, ‘She’s getting too cocky,
don’t you know?’ and I replied, ‘I’d say she was--er--rather henny.’
Haw, Haw, Haw!”
It was five minutes before the lord woke up. I whanged him on the head
with a lid off the Dutch oven, and he just sets right down and stares
into space.
“That was a dastardly deed,” says Bettina, trying to take the lord’s
head in her lap; but he acts like one of them toy things what you
can’t make lay down. Every time she tips him over he flops right up
again.
“You plumb knocked his gyroscope out of kilter,” says Magpie. “Want me
to set on his neck, ma’am?”
The lord begins whistling through his teeth and pretty soon he gets red
in the face and looks around.
“What happened to me, I’d awsk?” says he.
“You got in the road of that pot-cover,” says Magpie.
“Pot-cover?” he asks. “I beg your pardon.”
“You’re welcome,” says Magpie. “The old lady hit Ike with it ’cause
you haw-hawed at the wrong time, and then Ike tried to hit the old
lady ’cause you haw-hawed at the wrong time again.”
“Did you try to hit mum-maw?” asks Bettina. “Did you actually
contemplate that? Why?”
“You can draw your own conclusions,” says I.
“She can’t draw anything,” declares Aloysius. “She spent a year in Paris
and ten thousand dollars tryin’ to learn how to draw, and--and----”
“Pup-paw, that is very unkind of you to air our family affairs before
strangers.”
“Don’t mind me,” squeaks Tip. “Fight if yuh feel like it--I’m
hard-boiled.”
“I’d venture to say that I am misunderstood,” states the lord, rubbing
his head. “What had art to do with the present situation, I’d awsk?
There has been altogether too much coarse badinage and exchanging
of--er----”
“Pot-covers?” asks Magpie.
“Exactly. I hope we will succeed in our mission, but I am of the
opinion it will require unprecedented good fortune to repay us for the
discomforts of the environment in which we are placed.”
“My gosh!” snorts Tip. “You don’t need a guide--you need a e-metic.
I wish I had a almanac so I could see if he was chidin’ us, or just
runnin’ over with wisdom.”
* * * * *
Some folks will naturally say that we’re all wrong in talking and acting
like we’ve been doing. They’ll orate that Western chivalry is extinct
like the dodo or Free Silver, but such is not a fact. Western chivalry
is all there like it is in the East.
This bunch of misfits comes on a forlorn mission. They picks us out to
be servants unto their wishes, whangs us with pot-covers et cettery,
and nobody, unless they’re of the same kind, color, and complexion, can
expect us to kiss, humor, and coddle said conglomeration of misguided
humanity.
Magpie is just through being sheriff of Yaller Rock County, and I’m
willing to help Aloysius all I can, being as he’s a cripple--mentally;
but the rest of the scientific herd--nothin’ doing in sympathy or
helpfulness. I’m plumb neutral and non-committal.
The old lady gets to fussing around and pretty soon she says:
“Aloysius, I really must have food. It will soon be dinner-time and no
preparations are under way. Attend to this please.”
“Yes’m,” says Aloysius, foolish-like. “Yes’m. Where do we dine?”
“Where?” asks mum-maw, looking down at poor little Aloysius. “Where?”
“Oh,” says Aloysius, and then goes to writing in his little book.
Mum-maw gets sore as a boil and sort of appeals to Lord Washburn. He
shakes his head and says:
“My dear Mrs. Van Fleet, I know nothing whatever of the culinary art. I
was under the impression that Mr. Van Fleet had engaged a chef.”
“He did,” says Tip, “and the old lady had him throwed out of the
kitchen. Women raiseth ---- with everything--seems to me. I comes
danged near getting married oncet, I----”
“Forgot to go to the church,” says I.
Tip nods and grins.
“Did I? Maybe I did--I forget. Anyway, I ain’t got no wife, for which I
raises my voice in a prayer each day.”
“Your domestic difficulties have no bearing on my dinner,” says mum-maw,
mean-like. “I want to eat!”
“Shucks, if that’s all you want, I can cook,” says Tip. “There’s two
things I sure can do, and one of them is cook.”
“What’s the other?” asks Magpie.
Tip scratches his head and thinks hard.
“Danged if I know right now, Magpie, but she’s a accomplishment, as I
remember it.”
Let me pass over that meal. I tried it and found it guilty of
everything. I ain’t no hand to fuss over the way my stuff is cooked;
but I’ll be danged if my stummick can stand for parboiled tea and a
mulligan thickened with baking-powder.
I reckon everybody except Aloysius and Tip felt the same about it.
Aloysius puffed up a little, but I can’t see much change in Tip.
“Mighty” Jones rides in and looks over the aggregation. He asks me and
Magpie about them, and we tells him all we know.
“Goin’ to photygraft animiles?” he asks. “On the run? Geemighty!”
“Oh, absolutely,” says Aloysius. “Interests of science. I want
pictures of wild animals in their native haunts. Would it be
possible for--er--us to get pictures of panthers, grizzly bear
and--er--wildcats--uh--er--going about their daily--er--pastimes, as
it were?”
“As it were,” nods Mighty. “Not as it is.”
“It can be done,” says Tip. “There ain’t nothin’ impossible, is there?
Just because a grizzly never did let anybody photygraft it as it is----”
“Exactly,” says Aloysius. “I am glad to find a man who does not insist
on precedent. We will secure the pictures we desire without any effort,
I assure you all.”
“Why does the grizzly object to being photographed?” asks Bettina.
“Superstition,” says Magpie. “A grizzly is superstitious about
photography. They figure that it’s unlucky to let a photographer cross
their trail.”
“We will--er--commence on the--er--inoffensive--er-- What is it, Mr.
Seeley?” asks Aloysius.
“Inoffensive?” asks Tip. “What you talkin’ about, senator?”
“The--er-- Now, I adjure you, I am not a senator. We spoke of some
animal, which we might try the machine on. Was it the--er--tom-cat?”
“Bob-cat,” says Tip. “We’ll find one at once. We ought to have some
dogs.”
“Domestic animals I do not wish for,” states Aloysius.
“You don’t have to wish,” says Tip. “Wishin’ never got nobody some
dogs.”
“I’ll rent my pack,” offers Mighty.
“There yuh are,” says Tip. “Mighty’s dogs will find animals if there is
any.”
“I hired you as my guide,” reminds Aloysius. “As long as I’ve got you I
have no use for a pack of dogs.”
“Ah-oo-o-oo-o-o!” howls one of Mighty’s dogs, and away went the whole
pack down the side of the mountain.
“What do yuh reckon they’re after?” asks Mighty.
“After?” grins Magpie. “Oh, nothing. They’re insulted, that’s all.”
One thing I can say for Mighty’s pack of dogs, they’re numerous. I
reckon that he figured that the more the merrier, and he sure picked
up everything of the dog kind which had four legs, a tail, and a
voice. They starts going just like a whip. For instance, the seven
greyhounds leave first, then four or five fox-hounds, then comes all
breeds and mixtures, the order of their going depending a heap on
their powers of smell.
The last to leave is old “Whiskers,” a cross between everything doggish
from a St. Bernard to a pink poodle. Whiskers sniffles all the time and
smells nothing. He’s the popper on the whip, that’s the way they leaves.
That conglomeration of animiles is enough to put the fear of the devil
into anything wilder than a fool-hen.
We watches ’em go and then listens to their voices fade out.
“In Europe,” says Lord Washburn, screwing his one-eyed spectacle into
his eye, “I would say they were on a warm scent. Perhaps it is a fox.”
“Fox ----!” grunts Mighty. “Them pups won’t even look at a fox.”
“Ah-oo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!” comes the chorus, and we listens freely.
“Ah-oo-o-o-o-o-o-o!” she comes again, and this time she’s a lot closer.
Me and Magpie looks at each other. It appears to us that the chase is
coming down the trail, and knowing that trail like we does, it’s almost
a cinch that the procession is due to come past the cabin.
The trail swings around the side of the cañon, and the hill drops
straight off for a danged long ways, and the upper side is almost
unclimbable.
Lord Washburn walks past the automobile and appears to squint up the
trail, and Aloysius walks behind him. I steps over beside the cabin
and Magpie joins me. Bettina and mum-maw joins the lord and pup-paw.
All to once the dogs’ voices swells to a joyful chorus as they make the
curve above the cabin.
* * * * *
Then things begin to happen. I seen Lord Washburn seem to lift right
off the ground and come backwards towards us at an enormous rate of
speed. Aloysius gets hit, and goes past me and Magpie, spinning like
a pin-wheel. Something hits me a side-swipe and I goes down only to
come up amid a whooping, howling, snapping bunch of dogs which swamp
me, and I goes down again.
When I awoke, I feels some one kissing me, and I looks up into the face
of Whiskers. I shoves him away and sets up.
There is Magpie, with his back braced against the cabin door, digging
his heels into the dirt to keep upright. Mum-maw is sitting with her
back against a wheel of the automobile, while Bettina is sitting
straddle of the engine-end of the machine, clapping her hands like
she was encoring that bunch of dogs, et cettery, to make another
appearance.
From the body of the machine appears the head of Aloysius. He looks all
around, down at his better half and then at his daughter.
“Stop applauding, Bettina!” he says, hoarse-like, and she looks
foolish-like at him.
Then he looks all around again.
“I ask every one to cease cheering.”
From on top of the cabin comes a voice, and we looks up to see Tip,
with one arm hooked around the ridge-pole and both feet up on top of
the cabin. He’s hanging on tight.
“Animiles!” he squeaks. “Said you’d see ’em, didn’t I? Didn’t I say you
would?”
Aloysius squints at Tip and nods.
“I did--a fleeting glimpse.”
“Well, dang it, I didn’t agree to stop ’em, did I?”
“Heaven is my home!” gasps mum-maw. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” says Aloysius. “Nothing to get excited about.”
“Wh-where is Lord Washburn?” gasps Bettina, all out of breath.
“Ma’am,” says Magpie, “I ain’t making no definite statements; but if
he stuck on that silver-tip’s back, and if the silver-tip can keep up
his speed for ten minutes longer, Lord Washburn will be somewhere in
Canada.”
“Well,” says I, watching Magpie digging his heels into the dirt, “that
cabin won’t fall down if you leave go of it, Magpie.”
“No, but the door will come open, Ike.”
“Oh!” says I. “It likely will, but that won’t hurt nothing.”
“Like ---- it won’t.”
“Meaning what?”
“Both of them danged cougars went inside.”
“Both ---- cougars?” I gasps, and Magpie nods.
“Uh-huh. I reckon them dogs got after them two cougars, swung ’em on
to the trail where the silver-tip was pesticating along, and the whole
caboodle came to our party.”
“I--have--shot--with--kings,” states a voice, and we turns to look at
Lord Washburn.
He’s a mess. I reckon that silver-tip took him for a sightseeing trip
through a thorn thicket, and he sure got shucked. He’s got a half a
shirt left, and that ain’t connected with his pants, said pants
consisting of a waistband and a lot of streamers. His stockings are
pulled down over his shoes and drag out behind as he walks.
But he’s still hanging on to that one eyeglass. He weaves there in the
trail and repeats his statement--
“I--have--shot--with--kings.”
“He, he, he, he!” squeaks Tip. “’Pears to me that the king used a cross
between a shotgun and a rake.”
“Where is the bear?” asks Aloysius.
Washburn screws his eyeglass tighter and licks his lips.
“Bear?” he asks, dignified-like. “Really--er--I did not awsk it for an
address.”
“They’re hard to ride,” nods Tip. “Danged hard.”
“It enhances the difficulty if one is riding backwards,” agrees Lord
Washburn. “The--er--dogs----”
“Say, where is Mighty Jones?” I asks.
Magpie jerks his thumb behind him at the door.
“You don’t mean that he’s inside?” I gasps.
“He went in,” says Magpie, foolish-like, “and he ain’t never come
out--yet.”
“Wait a moment,” says Tip. “Lemme get this right. Two cougars went
inside and Mighty Jones went in after them? Mighty’s brave.”
“No-o-o-o,” drawls Magpie. “Mighty went in first; the cougars are
brave!”
“What might a cougar be?” asks mum-maw.
“A cougar?” parrots Tip. “A cougar is--a--a--naturalized African lion.”
“In the cabin?” asks Aloysius. “My chance has come! I will picturize
it. Lord Washburn, we will start our first film. This is a very good
opportunity.”
“Told yuh I’d find animiles for yuh,” grins Tip. “I sure can do guidin’,
can’t I?”
“Yes, I find you satisfactory,” grunts Aloysius, wrestling with his
photygraft apparatus.
He gets it out of the machine and sets it up. It’s a three-legged
dingus, and on top of it he fastens a box-like arrangement with a crank
on the side.
“Hey!” yells Mighty’s voice from the inside. “Hey, out there!”
“No hay,” yells Tip. “Whatcha want?”
“Magpie!” yelps Mighty. “You going to let me out?”
“Unattended,” admits Magpie.
Just then a cougar cut loose a yowl you could hear a mile. Aloysius
stops fussing with his camera.
“Got ’em both!” whoops Mighty. “Buck, dang yuh, buck!”
“Both what?” squeaks Tip.
“Got ’em roped!” whoops Mighty, and our ears gets assailed by a lot of
cat-talk which shows that them cats are sore.
“Where are you located, Mighty?” asks Magpie.
“On the bal-co-nee!” whoops Mighty.
We’ve got a little loft arrangement built at the rear of the cabin,
where we keep our extra supplies; but it sure wasn’t built for no
_Romeo and Juliet_ balcony scene.
“Got ’em roped on the same rope, too,” brags Mighty. “Come in and have a
look.”
Magpie opens the door slow-like and peers inside. Then he turns to
Aloysius.
“There’s your picture, mister.”
We all crowds into the doorway. Mighty is setting on the edge of the
loft. He’s got the rope snubbed to the cross-pole of the loft, and on
each end is a cougar, and if anybody asks me, I’ll orate aloud that
them cats are peeved.
“How did you get up there, Mighty?” asks Magpie.
“Up here? Say, this ain’t high to go--under them circumstances.”
“By Jove, that’s wonderful!” gasps Lord Washburn. “Cawn’t we get them as
they are, professor? It will be instructive in a way, don’t you think?”
“Um-m-m-m,” says Aloysius, and then he nods. “A still!” he exclaims.
“Wait until I set up the other camera.”
He comes back with a different outfit, and sets it up inside the
doorway. Them two cats just set there and spit. After Aloysius gets
through looking through the rigging, he gets awful excited.
“Wonderful opportunity,” he announces. “I will make several exposures. I
will have Bettina, Lord Washburn, Mrs. Van Fleet, the guide and the chef
in the picture with the lions. Immense!”