“This one tells the tale,” says somebody, excited like, as I pulls it
out and hands it to Chuck.
He unfolds it and squints hard at the number, turning it around and
around.
“Number—uh—say, Ike, what number is that?”
“Looks like uh sixteen to me,” says I, and Scenery whoops:
“That’s mi-i-i-i-ine! I got sixte-e-e-e-e-en! Whooe-e-e-e-e!”
“Wait uh minute!” howls Chuck. “Maybe I was wrong, Ike, but take uh
look at it the other way. If that ain’t uh nine——”
“That’s mine!” whoops Dirty Shirt. “Dog-gone, I knowed——”
“Looks like ninety-one,” says I.
“My number! My number,” whoops the judge. “Ninety-one wins!”
The judge comes clawing his way to the front, and the whole crowd
starts milling around me.
“Ouch!” yelps Ricky, above the noise. “Let loose! Wow! That danged
pelican bit me on the leg!”
“I claims that bird,” yells the judge. “Lead her out to me, Ricky.”
“Like —— he will!” howls Scenery, climbing up on the bar, and shaking
his number under the judge’s nose. “Just because you misrepresents the
law, Judge, it don’t give yuh no rights to take property away from
honest men.”
“Let’s live in peace and harmony,” states Buck Masterson, sliding his
double-barreled shotgun across the bar, and covering the crowd.
“Everybody shut up and listen to me! Look at the tickets in the hat
and maybe yuh can settle this argument.”
“Your wisdom is to be applauded, Buck,” says Chuck. “Sheath that
cemetery promoter, and we’ll rest easier and think clearer. Ricky,
give me that hat with the tickets in.”
“Where’s your danged hat?” asks Ricky, down on his hands and knees
under the table. “If it was down here—let loose, you cross between uh
Shanghai rooster and uh giraffe! Huh!”
Ricky’s hand comes up over the table-top, and produces one square of
white paper.
“Your hat’s still here, Chuck, but that danged bird has ate up all the
tickets except that number thirteen. I took that away from him
and—ouch! Yuh will, will yuh!”
“_Biff! Coo-oo-orlook._”
Ricky must uh kicked that bird for getting familiar, ’cause it comes
right up into our midst with dangerous intent written on its
countenance.
* * * * *
I love birds. Maw used to have uh canary, and I cried when it passed
out. I got uh lot uh feathered friends, and I never met uh bird before
that even attempted to kick me. I don’t think that thing was uh bird
in the first place. I’d call it uh cross between uh mean disposition
and uh piledriver, ’cause it kicked Ike Harper, Esq., right where he
wears his pancakes. Ike Harper immediate and soon skids across the
floor and plays uh billiard off Judge Steele and Buck Masterson, and
finishes up by holing out under uh chair.
I peeks out from my ambush and observes that alleged bird leave that
low grog shop with Scenery hanging on to its neck and Dirty Shirt hold
of its tail. Somebody must uh cut that rope. The rest of the audience,
except me and Buck and the judge, follers in the rear.
I must uh hit Buck and the judge pretty hard. Buck has got uh cut over
his eye where he bumped against the bar on his way down, and the judge
fell between the bar and the rail, with his feet under the rail.
I hauls the judge around so his back is against the bar, with the rail
across his lap, and folds his hands. Then I helps Buck into uh chair,
where he sets and makes funny little noises.
“Railami,” states the judge, without opening his eyes.
“_Z-z-z-zunkuff_,” says I.
“_Uf-uf-uf-fuf_,” says Buck.
It sure was an intelligible conversation. It was just about sensible
enough for uh gathering like that and we all enjoyed it. Sudden like
the noise starts percolating down the street again, and I starts for
the door. I said I “started,” and that’s as far as I got. Pete
Gonyer’s pet coyote pup must uh wanted uh railami, too, and it wasn’t
below its dignity to come right into uh saloon to get it either.
In they comes, crowding each other for first place, and starts making
a three-ring circus out uh Buck’s place. I’d tell uh man that there
was something going on in there. That stilt-legged, overgrown fool-hen
sure can cut circles, and that pup ain’t no slouch either. All
outdoors seems to beckon that bird, but he don’t sabe mirrors. He cuts
his last lap about two feet in the lead of that pup, hops high, wide
and handsome to the top of the bar and meets itself in Buck’s
bar-mirror.
Bounce? Say, that bird simply turns over in the air and comes back
like uh rubber ball. The coyote is yelping its fool head off, trying
to climb the bar, when that mass uh feathers and legs hits him dead
center on the rebound.
Scenery Sims is just staggering in the door when that pup opines he
can hear his maw calling him, and he tangles with poor little Scenery
on his way out. Scenery loses his feet, so, as long as he ain’t got no
visible means of support, he sets down on the back of his neck, and
that demented thing that Magpie bought meets its original owner right
in the doorway and they goes into the street together.
“Six-te-e-e-e-en!” shrieks Scenery, clawing at his head, where it had
banged against uh chair-leg.
“Ninety-one,” croaks the judge, clawing at the bar-rail across his
lap.
“Pass,” declared Buck, vacant like, and just then “Doughgod” Smith
weaves in.
He looks us over, foolish like, squints hard at the judge, under the
rail, and then shakes his head and starts for the door.
“What’s the matter, Dud-Dud-Doughgod?” stutters Buck.
“De-de-de-delirium tut-tut-tut-tremens,” stutters Doughgod, right back
at him.
He flops his arms, and sighs deep.
“No use,” he states. “Must be uh lot uh lye in hooch that’ll make uh
feller see things like that. It was standing down the road with its
head under uh hard hat—uh yaller one!” He shrieked the last sentence,
and lopes out to his bronc, and away he goes.
“Head under uh hat!” whoops Scenery.
“My ——! Hid out like uh ostrich!” And then he lopes out of the door.
“I got uh claim to settle, too,” announces the judge.
He slides out from under that rail, hitches up his belt and gallops
after Scenery.
Magpie ambles in the door, snorts the dust out of his nose, and Chuck
Warner is right behind him. Chuck looks like he’d been through a
revolution. He weaves over to the pool-table, gets down on his knees
and searches the floor. He shakes his head, solemn-like, and searches
his pockets once more.
Pretty soon he gets back on his feet and wobbles up to the bar.
“Buck, you got any caster ile?” he asks. “I had all that raffle money
in my pocket, and I reckon that danged cross between uh greyhound and
uh duck must uh ate it up with them tickets. I can’t find nothing but
uh five-dollar bill in my pocket.”
“Let’s see the bill, Chuck,” says Buck, and Chuck hands it to him.
“Thanks,” says Buck. “It ain’t much but it will help to pay for that
glass.”
“Dog-gone yuh, Buck!” wails Chuck, leaning against the bar, “that bird
ain’t mine. It lays between Scenery Sims and Judge Steele.”
“The —— it does!” squeaks Scenery from the doorway. “That bird is too
active to lay.”
He walks over to Magpie, and slams that yaller hat down over his head
until his ears stand out like sails.
“Take your danged pot hat, Magpie!” he snaps. “Nobody ought to wear uh
hat like that. Will some strong unwounded man go out and bring in the
judge? He took that thousand-dollar bird, beast or reptile by the leg
while I takes the hat off its head. I’d uh carried him in but I ain’t
able to do much. I suppose I got to own that bird.”
“Don’t worry too much about it, Scenery,” advises Buck. “If the judge
opines that his number wins you got to fight it out among yourselves.
If the judge don’t survive I reckon he’s got an heir some place to
take it up.”
“Air ——!” squeaks Scenery. “He was trying to get some when I left.
That thing can give uh mule high, low and the game and win.”
Just then in comes the judge, with Tellurium, Half Mile and Dirty
Shirt helping to support him. They sets him in uh chair and he droops
like uh wilted lily.
“How do yuh feel, Judge?” I asks.
“Paralyzed from the belt-line both ways, Ike,” says he, painful like.
“I don’t reckon the shadder uh death is afar off. I sure have had
particular —— kicked out uh me this day and date.”
“How about your claim to that bird now, Judge?” squeaks Scenery. “I’ll
fight it——”
“Go to it,” wheezes the judge. “I’ll pay half your funeral expenses. I
hereby waives all claim to said monstrosity, and grieves to think I
ever coveted such uh piece uh property.”
“I’ll take it!” whoops Scenery. “I’ll——”
“With certain formalities, Scenery,” states Tellurium, wise like,
producing uh piece uh paper and unfolding same. “This here
proclamation was picked up this day in the street of Piperock, and
unless I’ve forgot all the botany I ever learned in school we been
bidding on the wrong bird. You might pe-ruse it, Scenery.”
He looks at me and Magpie, and hands the letter to Scenery. I leans
close enough to see that it’s the letter that Magpie got announcing
the shipment from the Fur and Feathers Pet Shop. Scenery spells it
out, with uh squeak after each word.
“Cassowary,” he snorts at Tellurium, and then he turns appealing like
to Magpie: “You ain’t going to send for another one are you? Honest,
yuh ain’t, are yuh, Magpie?”
“_Ker-boom! Ker-bang!_”
* * * * *
The house shakes with the concussion and Buck drops uh glass he’s been
polishing for ten minutes. He looks under the bar, and gasps—
“My riot-gun!”
We sets there and looks at each other for uh minute, and then the
judge runs his fingers painful like through his hair, and orates in uh
peevish, wailing tone—
“Well, dang it all, send for uh doctor or uh coroner.”
Somebody starts to get both when the door flies open and in walks
Chuck. He ambles the length of the room and slams the shotgun down on
the bar.
“——!” he snorts, “I shot its crop all to ——!”
“Is—is it dead?” quavers the judge.
“I don’t know, Judge,” replies Chuck, weary like. “It was when I
left.”
“What’d yuh shoot it for?” asks Scenery.
“It ate up all that raffle money—dang its hide! Now, I shot the
treasury all to flinders.”
“Raffle money!” snorts Tellurium. “Did anybody pay yuh cash, Chuck? I
know danged well I didn’t. I just signed your paper for it.”
Chuck looks blank like for uh minute, feels of his head, and snorts:
“Cripes! I sure must uh been kicked hard. Where’s Ricky?”
“Right here,” chirps Ricky. “What yuh want?”
“Where’s that piece uh paper I gave yuh just before the raffle
started?”
“Piece uh—oh, that piece. Gosh! Was that worth anything, Chuck? I
remember you handing it to me, and telling me to put it in my pocket,
but I thought yuh was joshing. Well, I was standing over there by that
shotgun, after Buck puts it back on the bar, and unless I’m mistaken I
sort uh absent-minded like shoved it into the muzzle uh that gun. I’m
sorry——”
“You’re welcome,” states Chuck, offhand like. “It looks to me like I’d
shot the business all to —— with the profits. I lose eleven dollars
and four cents on the deal.”
“What I want to know is this: is that bird critter still in the land
of the living?” interrupts Scenery Sims.
“What I want to know is—has somebody got some liniment?” states the
judge, and then me and Magpie and Chuck goes outside.
“Ain’t it awful?” complains Chuck. “The goose that was going to lay
the golden aig is dead, and your two hundred is all shot to pieces.”
“Just because uh sixteen upside down is ninety-one,” agrees Magpie.
“How do yuh figure you’re out eleven dollars and four cents?”
“I gave uh five spot to Art for holding his tongue, and Buck took uh
five for the busted looking-glass. Sabe? That’s ten. The dollar I had
to pay uh feller in Great Falls for writing that scientific letter,
one dollar, and it cost me postage both ways. She totals up to eleven
dollars and four cents, Magpie.”
“Say, Chuck, where did yuh invent the name ‘Railami’ for that bird?”
“Spell it backward, Ike,” says he.
“You are,” states Magpie.
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the April 3, 1918 issue
of Adventure magazine.]