“Pull for the shore!” yelps Magpie and just then the crowd splits.
* * * * *
I looks up and for the first and last time in my life my eyes feast upon
the Paradise Mounted Band.
They rides right up to our landing place and spreads out about five
feet apart. The crowd has forgotten us. Here is something new. They
crowds around and gawps up at the musicians. I seen “Coyote” Calkins
slide out his slip-horn, place it to his lips, wiggle it a couple of
times and then music cometh from the four of them at once. Just
once.
_Ta-a-a-a, ra-a-a-a-a, dum!_
The feller who said that music hath charms to soothe the savage beast
never tried to play a horn from the deck of a half-broke bronc. Our
boat just drifted to the bank below them as the music broke forth, and
we never had a chance to back up.
The crowd never had any chance to go back either. The bank was about
three feet high at that spot, and St. Patrick never made a cleaner job
of them Irish snakes than those four broncs of the merry-makers. I seen
Rain-in-the-Face hop high to get away from Three Star’s roan, but the
bronc beat him to it, and Rain-in-the-Face got kicked half-way across
the Delaware.
It ain’t human nature to run up-hill to get out of trouble, so they all
follers the lines of least resistance, which in this case led to water,
and Washington wasn’t the only one to cross the river.
I seen Coyote’s bronc hurdle some of the crowd and go into the air
right over our craft, and believe me I didn’t wait for the crash. Ike
Harper ain’t no mermaid, but he sure did take to the water. I got my
eyes and ears full of the unaccustomed fluid and then something seems
to come down and crown me.
A weight seems to press down upon my mind and, like all drowning men, I
grasps at a straw--and got a handful of hair. I hung on and I sure took
a ride down the river. I remember I made a noise like a hardware store
every time I hit a rock. After what seemed an hour I feels terry firma
under my carcass. I looks up in time to see that I’ve got hold of--a
bronc’s tail--and then comes one awful clank.
It is sundown when I awake. I’m sore in every joint and I feels that
all of my bones have been busted and are sticking out of my skin. My
collar-bone is sticking me in the chin and every time I move it grates
on the gravel.
After a while I gets nerve enough to open my eyes. Sitting there on that
gravel bar beside me is Judge Steele, Old Testament and Hassayampa. They
hears me rattle to a sitting position and they stares at me sort of
pessimistic-like.
I nods at them and nearly unjoints my remaining bones in trying to get
loose from the hoarse-voiced horn which encircles my frame.
“We’ll open with a pup-prayer,” states Old Testament hoarse-like.
“Speech,” argues the judge, in a far-away voice.
“You let our preacher alone!” wails Hassayampa in a croaking whisper.
“Doggone you, judge, I’ll run you ragged again. I’m getting peeved.”
I’m peeved, too. I got up on my feet and crowned Hassayampa with that
horn. He sort of shudders deeper into the sand and murmurs--
“Hurrah for Custer!”
Then I tried to get back on the other side of the river. I’m bow-legged
enough to let most of the river through, but I must ’a’ slipped on a
rock, ’cause I soon found that I’m drifting. I never knew before that I
could swim. Man, I tried to stop. I knowed that a few thousand miles
away this river reaches the ocean, and I don’t like oceans.
Every time I got my feet on a rock the water comes along and turns me a
flip-flop and I drifts regardless. The last time I went under I got mad
and said to myself--
“Well, stay under then!”
Just about then I feels myself bump into something and I gets hauled
high and dry. I spat out a gallon of alkali water and looks around.
I’m in the boat. There sets Magpie, Mike Pelly and Sad Samuels, and I
ain’t got nothing on them for looks. The boat is half-full of water,
and they’re setting in it like a bunch of hell-divers. They looks me
over and then Magpie says:
“We might let him decide. He never had an opinion in his life, but this
is a mooted question.”
“Kinda mooted,” nods Sad, woful-like, “kinda mooted.”
“Kinda ----!” whines Mike and I notices that he’s still wearing the brim
of that high hat.
“Will you decide to the best of your ability, Ike?” asks Magpie,
wringing water out of his mustache. “Without fear or favor will you
speak from your heart?”
“I’ll speak but I won’t act,” says I. “Ask me what thou wilt.”
“The question is this, Ike: Paradise says Lincoln, Curlew says Custer
and Piperock says Washington is the party responsible for this glorious
day and date. Being a disinterested party we asks your opinion. Who do
you think started it?”