Hank, I don’t know what a stool-pigeon is, and I don’t want to know, but
it must be something awful. That bartender hit me just like I’d done him
a lot of dirt. Some folks ain’t got sense enough to know when to quit.
I’ve licked a lot of fellers in my time, but I always mixed mercy with
my ferociousness, and quit when they had enough, but this bartender was
vulgar in his actions and only quit when he got tired.
Hank, you will say, “Why didn’t you go back and knock his head off?”
I’ll tell you why. A feller like me lowers himself when he licks
bartenders. Folks would say, “The poor bartender,” and so forth, and I’d
get no credit for my hard work. Anyway, a detective can’t mix with folks
like that and keep his dignity, and dignity is a asset with detectives.
Well, I told a feller about it—about me falling down on the job, and he
says, “That’s just a figure of speech,” and I says, “I don’t like them
kind of figures, because they mean trouble every time I hear one.”
Well, as I said before, Hank, there ain’t nothing worth writing. I got
up and went around to the shady side of Sellers’ Hotel, and set down to
plot a little and repair my shirt and war-bonnet.
Pretty soon a feller drifts out on the porch and looks at me. He’s a
political-looking person, with one of them tall hats and a fancy vest.
He comes over by me, looks me over and says, “You _sabe_ English?”
I shakes my head and he says, “What do you speak?” and I says,
“Kickapoo,” and he says, “Fluently?” and I says, “I can get along.”
He grins and sets down with me. He says: “Me and you are going to do
business. You ain’t busy, are you?”
I says, “Now, you keep your distance and talk, because I’ve been riled
and I’m liable to bust loose any old time,” and he says, “Bust loose if
you feel that way, because I used to be heavyweight champ of the Pacific
Coast,” and I says, “There ain’t no use of us having trouble right
away.”
There’s no use in starting things, Hank, when they can be avoided. He
tells me that we’re going to do some business, and we’re both going to
get rich. He takes me around to the street and shows me some
circus-poster things which orates that Chief Howling Wolf, of the Dogrib
tribe, the greatest medicine-man on earth, is to appear for two nights,
and will let suffering humanity buy some of his Alaskan Alleviator,
which will cure anything from Nome to New York. The chief is under the
direction of Professor Diogenes McGillcuddy, who discovered the
wonderful healer.
I looks it all over and then I says, “I need it all right, but I ain’t
got the price of a bottle of water.”
He says to me: “You’ve got it all wrong. You are to be Chief Howling
Wolf.”
Hank, I didn’t know what to say, so I says, “How do you make that out?”
“Well,” says he, “I had a half-breed Siwash playing the part, but he got
sick.”