If you wrote to me at Miles City I never got it, and it will likely go
to the dead-letter office and neither of us will ever see it again, but
if you ain’t wrote yet, Hank, don’t do it, because I ain’t there. This
old town always did have a hold on me, which is natural, being as my
darling wife and son and heir lives here. They are both well and send
you their regards, as far as I know.
Well, Hank, I’ve been a actor. What do you think the boys of the old
outfit will say when you say, “Boys, my old bunkie is a actor?” It’s a
fact, Hank. The show was free, gratis for nothing, and almost every seat
was taken. Me and the professor piles all the bottles on a big table,
and gets everything ready.
Hank, did I tell you we had two hired men with us? Well, we’ve got two
niggers, who ain’t niggers, but white men. One of them sings and the
other sings and plays the banjo. We use them to sing sad songs so folks
will feel sick and buy more Alleviator.
I sets on a blanket in the middle of the stage, with the professor back
of the table and a nigger on each corner of the stage. The professor has
diamonds as big as marbles, Hank, and he’s some moneyed man, believe me.
Well, the curtain goes up and the feller with the banjo thumps away
until he gets tired, and then the professor steps up and says:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to gaze upon the last living member of
the famous Dogrib tribe of the wilds of Alaska, which I brought at
enormous expense to compound herbs and barks which will cure any and all
the ills of mankind.
“Before me sits Chief Howling Wolf, medicine-man of the Dogribs, who
brought his entire tribe of twenty thousand souls through pestilence,
flood and blizzard without losing a single soul, and all he used was the
marvelous Alleviator. Without losing a single soul—a single soul, mind
you! Upon that table is enough of this wonderful mixture to cure every
ill in your city.
“Ladies and gents, the Alleviator is beyond price. It should only be
within the grasp of the most wealthy, but the chief refused to compound
the mixture until I signed an agreement to sell it within the reach of
all. Now, before I have my gifted Tennessee minstrels pass among you,
selling the Alleviator at the unheard-of price of one dollar per bottle,
I will prove my assertions by having the chief do the Dance of the
Blizzard, only danced by the Dogribs.”
Hank, of course my uncle by marriage has to stand up in the audience and
say: “One moment, professor. You state that the chief is the last of his
tribe, and again you say he saved the whole tribe of twenty thousand.
What happened to them?”
Hank, that sucker makes me mad, so I stands right up and says, “They all
died since I left, you —— fool!”
Naturally everybody applauds. They appreciated it a lot, but the
professor and them two minstrels hopped upon me, sat upon me and so
forth. I hears the professor saying:
“Ladies and gents, I apologize for the chief’s remarks, although it
ain’t necessary after I explains to you that the chief is mostly always
in a trance, and while he can’t speak a word of English, he will speak
some one else’s thoughts. He’s a mental telegrapher.”
Wasn’t it cute, Hank? He sure lied quick, and they believed him.
“You can’t speak a word of English, can you, chief?” asks the professor
and I shakes my head, which wasn’t any lie, being as one of them alleged
niggers had kicked me in the mouth.
Hank, I danced that Blizzard thing, and it was good, too. The crowd
whooped for more. One feller cried tears. It was kind of sad, at that,
Hank. Seemed like everybody bought a bottle of the Alleviator.
There was a lot of ordinary punchers there, Hank, and they acted just
like they usually do. I wonder that you stick at the punching job, Hank,
but I guess it’s about all you’re fit for.
I was singing my Injun song, and it was a darn good song, even if I did
make it up as I went along, and all to once something squashed right
into my face. Another hit me lower down and I seen it’s eggs. The next
one must have been tossed high, because I caught it as it came down.
Hank, I’m all out of practise, but at that I hit my uncle by marriage in
the face.
Just then somebody took a shot at the banjo, and it made me mad. To
think that a lot of low-down punchers would so far forget themselves as
to do that. I steps over to the table, picks up a bottle of Alleviator
and I sure crowned somebody.
The professor yelped at me to quit, but I told him to go to ——, because
I can’t understand English, and went on bombarding. The audience got
into the spirit of the thing, and our Alleviator began to come back to
us. I sure would have had that bunch stampeded, but them low-down
punchers began to shoot the bottles off the table, and when the enemy
shoots into your ammunition supply you’ve got to quit.
I never seen hide nor hair of them minstrels after the first shot. Well,
Hank, being a actor has its joys and sorrows the same as plumbing or
milking cows, but it’s care-free just the same.
Me and the professor crawled out of the back door, and gets met by my
uncle by marriage. I don’t know who he is until he gets through hanging
the professor over a hitch-rack, and then he says, “I’ll learn you to
hit me with an egg!”
See the funny side of it, Hank? I sure had to laugh, and I busts right
out. He says, “What are you laughing about?” and I says, “You —— fool,
it was me who hit you.”
Well, Hank, when I woke up I was doubled up in an old plaster barrel,
and the professor was crawling around on his hands and knees. I says to
him, “Did you lose something?” and he says, “No, I’m just looking for
the hole which the dynamite made when it exploded.”
I fell out of the barrel and shook myself together. The professor leans
against the hitch-rack and groans a few times, and says, “You sure put
that show on the rocks, feller.”
I says, “We won’t argue the right or wrong of it, but let’s get us both
a dose of the Alleviator and pull our freight.”
He says, “You poor darned fool,” which shows that he felt sorry for me,
and then he says, “Well, it’s a cinch we won’t show here no more,” and I
says: “They’ll have to beg a lot on bended knee to buy a drop of
Alleviator from me. Are we going to do what we planned?”
He says, “Yes; you get hold of the marshal and hang on to him until I
yell for you, and then we’ll show this town what is what.”
The idea was for me to kidnap the marshal until the professor can get
ready to leave.
Well, Hank, my fingers are getting tired from holding this pen, and
there ain’t no news worth writing about. I suppose you are still
polishing a saddle and going without a shave like all punchers do. Funny
that you stay there, but it ain’t so funny when you consider that you
couldn’t do anything else. Hank, if you was put up against the things
which have confronted me, you’d fall flat and throw up your hands.
It takes brains to be a detective or a actor, and you’d never be either.
I don’t like to ask anybody for a dollar, Hank, and I’m too proud to do
it, but right now a dollar would look bigger than Dancing Prairie. I was
to get five cents for every bottle that was sold, but I never got a
cent, and I never heard the professor yell.
If you need any advice, Hank, you could send a five-dollar bill in the
letter along with them questions, and I’d answer them for nothing, but I
know you ain’t the kind of a pelican to ask for something for nothing;
so I’d keep the bill without hurting your feelings.
If you went to any other detective, Hank, he’d charge you that much for
one question, while I give personal attention to each and every one.
Hoping to get your questions very soon, I remain as ever,
Yours resp’y and truly,
DOBIE DALTON,
Mesquite, Aug. 20.
P. S. I’m using my own name again, being as I’m no longer Howling Wolf,
and I ain’t got no Injun clothes for a disguise nor anything else worth
wearing. I suppose the professor is sore as a boil to lose his main
actor, but I ain’t to blame as you can see. I never throw nobody down,
Hank, and I’m strictly upright.
I found the marshal standing in front of the Jewel Saloon. I rushes up
to him and says, “Officer, there’s a dead man down the street.”
He says, “What’s the matter with him?” and I says, “Cramps, I guess.”
The marshal grabs hold of me and tries to yank me around into the light
to see who I am; so I pats him on the head with my six-shooter. It won’t
do for him to see me or they’ll hold the show for another night; so I
caresses him once and then packed him down the street, where I put him
under the sidewalk. Then I got to yelling and shooting, just like the
professor told me to do, to attract attention down that way, and believe
me, it sure did start things moving.
The whole town comes down there, and they wants to know what it’s all
about. I’m listening for the professor’s yell when somebody says, “It’s
that fake Injun who threw them bottles!”
Hank, I got a string of about twenty punchers around my neck in a
second. I measure six feet in my socks, but when I woke up I’m so short
I don’t know whether I’ve got bunions or a headache. They sure roosted
upon me.
Well, Hank, there ain’t a thing they can do to me. A lawyer came in to
see me today, and the sheriff let him stay five minutes.
I said to him, “It’s a shame and a disgrace to do this to me, and I
don’t know anything about anything,” and he says: “You talk too much. If
you don’t keep your mouth shut you won’t have a foot to stand upon.”