He stares at me, and then says: “My gosh! Me and you are going to make a
lot of money. You know it will cure anything, don’t you?”
“It says it will cure in from ten minutes to ten hours,” says I, “but
where do I get rich on it?”
“You get a royalty on each bottle I sell. For every bottle I sell, you
get five cents, and all you’ve got to do is sing a Injun song, do a
war-dance and act like you was in a trance. Maybe you’ll have to make a
speech in your own tongue. You’ve got a cinch.”
Well, Hank, I hired out to him, and then we went up to his room at the
hotel. We sat down and then he says to me: “You had me fooled for a
while but I know you ain’t a Injun. Why do you wear those clothes?”
I says to him, “Now that me and you are pardners, I’ll tell you. I’m a
detective.”
Hank, it takes all kinds of folks to make a world, and some of them has
queer notions. This feller tells me later on that he was born with a
hatred for the name of detective, and when he hears it he busts loose
and hurts somebody. I’m sorry I spoke so quick, but it’s all in a
lifetime.
Old Man Sellers comes up to see what the noise was all about, and the
professor paid him for the busted furniture, and told him that the chief
was in a trance and wasn’t responsible. McGillcuddy is French, and the
French think quick like I do. He painted my face with horse liniment, so
it won’t show so much, but the feeling is there.
Hank, I’ll say again that I think something must be wrong with you. If
you need any advice you can write me at Miles City and address me as
Howling Wolf, the wonderful medicine-man from Alaska. If you’re sick,
Hank, I’ll see if I can get you a price on a bottle of Alleviator.
Yours for suffering humanity,
CHIEF HOWLING WOLF, Dogrib.
Mesquite, Aug. 16.
P. S. We are only going to show here one night instead of two. The
professor is going to slip one over on the city marshal. He tells me
that the marshal made him contract to show here two nights, and he’ll
arrest us if we don’t hold to it, but we got it all fixed. It’s all
right, Hank, because he ain’t got no moral right to hold us, and anyway,
Bill Jackson is the marshal and he used to be just a ordinary puncher
like you, and you’d look well trying to make us show two nights,
wouldn’t you, Hank?