to loading up Shorty with little Gustavuses; but Boston didn't notice
nothing, and Shorty--who had wits as sharp as pin-points, and could be
counted on for what cards was needed in the kind of game the Hen was
playing--put down the ace she asked for and never turned a hair.
"Gustavus will be tickled out of his little boots, Miss," says Shorty,
"when I tell him how nice you've spoke about him; and I'm much obliged
myself. He give it to you straight, the kid did, about that lion. I
seen him, all right--and so close up it most scared the life out of
me! And you're right, Miss, in thinking I've ketched onto him
since--seeing I was a blame sight nearer to him than I wanted to be
less'n four hours ago. Yes, ma'am, as I was coming in home to-night
from the Cañada I struck that animal's tracks in the mud down by the
ford back of the deepo--he'd been down to the river for a drink, I
reckon--and they was so fresh he couldn't a-been more'n five minutes
gone. When I got to thinking what likely might a-happened if I'd come
along them five minutes sooner, Miss, I had cold creeps crawling all
up and down the spine of my back!"
Them statements of Shorty's set the boys to snickering some
more--there not being no ford on the Rio Grande this side of La
Chamita, and the wagon-bridge being down back of the deepo where he
said his ford was--but Shorty paid no attention, and went on as smooth
as if he was speaking a piece he'd got by heart.
"As you know, Miss, being such a hunter," says he--making up what
happened to be wanted about lions, same as he'd done about fords--"them
animals takes a drink every four hours in the night-time as regular
as if they looked at their watches. Likely that feller's bedded just a
little way back in the chaparral so's to be handy for his next one;
and I reckon if this sport here feels he needs lions"--Shorty give his
head a jerk over to Boston--"he'll get one by looking for it right now.
But for the Lord's sake, Miss, don't you think of taking a hand in
tackling him! He's a most a-terrible big one--the out and out biggest
I ever seen. The first thing you knowed about it, he'd a-gulped you
down whole!"
"How you do go on, Mr. Smith!" says the Hen, laughing pleasant. "Have
you so soon forgotten our hunt together last winter--when I came up
and shot the grizzly in the ear just as he had you down and was
beginning to claw you? And are you not ashamed of yourself, after
that, to say that any lion is too big for me?"
Without stopping for Shorty to strain himself trying to remember that
bear-hunt, round she cracked to Boston--giving Shorty and Santa Fé a
chance to get in a corner and talk quick in a whisper--and says to
him: "We just _are_ in luck! These big old ones are the real fighters,
you know. Only a year ago there was a gentleman from the East here on
a lion-hunt--it was his first, and he did not seem to know quite how
to manage matters--and one of these big fierce ones caught him and
finished him. It was very horrible! The dreadful creature sprang on
him in the dark and almost squeezed him to death, and then tore him to
pieces while he still was alive enough to feel it, and ended by eating
so much of him that only a few scraps of him were left to send East
to his friends. This one seems to be just that kind. Isn't it
splendid! What superb sport we shall have in getting him--you and I!"
What the Hen had to say about the way lions done business--'specially
their eating hunters like they was sandwiches on a free-lunch
counter--seemed to take some of the load off Boston, and as he got
soberer he wasn't so careless as he'd been. From his looks it was
judged he was thinking a lion some sizes smaller would be a better fit
for him; but he couldn't well say so--with the Hen going on about
wanting hers as big as they made 'em--so he took a brace, and sort of
swelled himself out, and said the bigger this one was the better he'd
be pleased.
"But I cannot permit you, my dear young lady," he says, "to share with
me the great danger incident to pursuing so ferocious a creature. I
alone must deal with it. To-morrow I shall familiarize myself with the
locality where Mr. Smith has found its tracks; and to-morrow night, or
the night after--as the weather may determine. Of course nothing can
be done in case of rain--I will seek the savage brute in its lair. And
then we shall find out"--Boston worked up as much as he could of a
grin, but it seemed to come hard and didn't fit well--"which of us
shall have the other's skin!"
"Danger for me!" says the Hen, giving him another of them looks of
hers. "Just as though I would not be as safe, with a brave man like
you to protect me, as I am teaching school! And to-morrow night,
indeed! Do you think lions are like dentists--only the other way round
about the teeth!" and the Hen laughed hearty--"and you can make
appointments with them a week ahead! Why, we must be off, you and I,
this very minute! I'll run right round home and get my rifle--and meet
you at your car as soon as you've got yours. To think of our having a
lion this way almost sitting on the front-door step! It's a chance
that won't come again in a thousand years!"
Away the Hen went a-kiting; and, there not being no hole he could see
to crawl out of, away went Boston--only the schedule he run on was
some miles less to the hour. To make sure he didn't try to side-track,
Shorty went with him--leaving Santa Fé to fix matters with the Hen,
and do what talking was needed to ring in the boys.
Shorty put through his part in good shape: helping Boston get as many
of his guns as he thought was wanted to hunt lions with--which was as
many as he could pack along with him--and managing sort of casual to
slip out the ca'tridges, so he wouldn't hurt nobody. It turned out
Shorty needn't a-been so extry-precautious--but of course he couldn't
tell. By the time Shorty had him ready, the Hen come a-hustling
up--having finished settling things with Santa Fé--and sung out to him
to get a move on, or likely the lion would a-had his drink and gone.
The move he got wasn't much of a one; but he did come a-creeping out
of the car at last, and having such a load of weepons on him as give
him some excuse for going slow.
"Good luck to you!" says Shorty, and off he skipped in a hurry to get
at the rest of his part of the ceremonies--not paying no attention to
Boston's most getting down on his knees to him begging him to come
along. Then Boston wanted the colored man to come--who was scared out
of his black skin at the notion, and wouldn't; and if the Hen hadn't
ended up by grabbing a-hold of him--saying as it was dark, and she
knowed the way and he didn't, she'd better lead him--likely she
wouldn't a-got him started at all. Pulling him was more like what she
did than leading him, the Hen said afterwards; but she didn't kick
about his going slow and wanting to stop every minute, she said,
because it give Santa Fé and Shorty more time.
The night was the kind that's usual in New Mexico, and just what was
wanted. There was no moon, and the starshine--all the stars looked to
be about the size of cheeses--give a hazy sort of light that made
everything seem twice as big as it really was, and shadows so black
and solid you'd think you could cut 'em in slices same as pies. And it
was so still you could a-heard a mouse sneezing half a mile off. The
rattling all over him of Boston's weepons sounded like there was
boilers getting rivetted close by.
The Hen yanked him along easy, but kept him a-moving--and passed the
time for him by telling all she could make up about what desprit
critters lions was. Starting from where his car was side-tracked, they
went round the deepo; and then down the wagon-road pretty near to the
bridge, but not so near he could see it; and then across through the
sage-brush and clumps of mesquite till they come to the river--where
there was a break in the bluff, and a flat place going on down into
the water that looked like it was the beginning of a ford. For a fact,
it was where the Mexican women come to do their clothes-washing, and
just back from the river was a little 'dobe house--flat-topped, and
the size and shape of a twelve-foot-square dry-goods box--the women
kept their washing things in. But them was particulars the Hen didn't
happen to mention to Boston at the time.
When they come to the 'dobe she give him a jerk, to show him he was to
stand still there; and then she grabbed him close up to her, so she
could whisper, and says: "It was here that Mr. Smith saw the ferocious
animal's foot-marks almost precisely four hours ago. The habits of
these creatures are so regular, as Mr. Smith mentioned, that this one
certainly will return for his next drink when the four hours are
ended--and so may be upon us at any moment. I hope that we may see him
coming. If he saw us before we saw him--well, it wouldn't be nice at
all!"
The Hen let that soak in a little; and then she snuggled up to Boston,
all sort of shivery, and says: "I wish that we had taken the
precaution to ask Mr. Smith from which direction the tracks came.
These lions, you know, have a dreadful way of stealing up close to you
and then springing! That was what happened to that poor young man. So
far as was known, his first notice of his peril was finding himself
crushed to the ground beneath the creature's weight--and the next
instant it was tearing him with its teeth and claws. I--I begin to
wish I hadn't come!" And the Hen snuggled up closer and shivered
bad.
Boston seemed to be doing some shivers on his own account, judging
from the way his guns rattled; and his teeth was so chattery his
talking come queer. But he managed to get out that if they was inside
the house they'd have more chances--and he went to work trying to open
the door. When he found he couldn't--it being locked so good there was
no budging it--he got worse jolted, and his breath seemed to be coming
hard.
The Hen got a-hold of him again and done some more shivers, and then
she says: "It all will be over, one way or the other, in a very few
moments now. And oh, how thankful I am--since so needlessly and so
foolishly I have placed myself in this deadly peril--that I have for
my protector a brave man! If salvation is possible, you will save me I
am sure!"
Boston tried to say something, but he'd got so he was beyond talking
and only gagged; and while he was a-gagging there come a queer
noise--sounding like it was a critter crawling around in among the
bushes--that made him most jump out of his skin! Down went his guns on
the ground all in a clatter; and he was scared so limp he'd a-gone
down a-top of 'em if the Hen hadn't got a good grip on him with both
arms. They stood that way more'n a minute, with him a-shaking all over
and the Hen doing some shaking for company--and then she hiked him
round so he pointed right and says: "Look! Look! There by those little
bushes! Oh how horrible!" And the Hen give a groan.
What was wanted to be looked at was on hand, right enough--and I
reckon it showed to most advantage by about as much light as it got
from the stars. All they could make sure of was something alive,
moving sort of awkward and jumpy, coming out from a tangle of mesquite
bushes not more'n three rods off and heading straight for 'em; and
seeing it the way they did--just a black splotch all mixed in with the
shadows of the bushes--it looked to be most as big as a cow! Limp as
he was--so you'd a-thought there wasn't any yell in him--Boston let
off a yell that likely was heard clear across the mesa at San Juan!
"Shoot!" says the Hen. "I can't. I'm too frightened. Shoot quick--or
we are lost!" She let go of him, so he could reach down to where he'd
spilled his gun-shop and get a weepon; but Boston wasn't on the shoot,
and he hadn't no use for weepons just then. All he wanted to do was to
run; and if the Hen hadn't got a fresh grip on him and held him--she
was a strapping strong woman, the Hen was--he would a-made a bolt for
it certain sure.
"No! No! Don't attempt to run!" says the Hen, talking scared and
desprit. "In an instant, should we turn our backs on him, the terrible
creature would be upon us with one long cruel bound!"
From the way the terrible creature, as the Hen called him, was a-going
on--sort of hopping up and down, and not making much headway--it
didn't look as if long cruel bounds was what he was most used to. But
Boston wasn't studying the matter extra careful, and as the Hen found
he took pretty much what she give him she just cracked along.
"To run, I tell you," says the Hen, "is but to court the quicker
coming of the torturing death to which we are doomed. It will come
quick enough, anyway!"--and she handed out a fresh lot of shivers, and
throwed in sobs. Then she give a jump, as if the notion'd just struck
her, and says: "There is a chance for us! Up on the roof of this house
we may be safe. Lions can spring enormous distances horizontally, you
know; but, save in exceptional cases, their vertical jumping powers
are restricted to a marked degree. Quick! Put your foot in my hand and
let me start you. When you are up, you can pull me up after you. Now
then!"--and the Hen reached her hand down so she could get a-hold of
Boston's foot and give him a send.
Her using them long words about the way lions did their jumping--being
the kind of talk he was used to--seemed to sort of brace him.
Anyways--the lion helping hurry things by just then giving another
jump or two--he managed to have sense enough to put his foot in the
Hen's hand, same as she told him; and then she let out her muscle and
give him such an up-start he was landed on the roof of the 'dobe afore
he fairly knowed he'd begun to go! Being landed, he just sprawled out
flat--and getting the Hen up after him seemed to be about the last
thing he had on his mind.
"Help! Help!" sung out the Hen. "The lion is almost on me! Give me
your hand!" But Boston wasn't in no shape to give hands to nobody. All
he did was to kick his legs about and let off groans.
"Oh, I understand, now," says the Hen in a minute. "You are crying out
in the hope of luring the creature into trying to reach you--as he
can, if he happens to be one of the exceptional jumpers--and so give
me a chance to get away. How noble that is of you! I shall take the
chance, my brave preserver, that your self-sacrifice gives me--and I
shall collect, and bedew with tears of gratitude, all that the savage
monster leaves me of your bones! Heaven bless you--and good-bye!" And
away the Hen cut--leaving Boston high and dry on the roof of the
'dobe, so scared he just lay there like a wet rag.
She didn't cut far, the Hen didn't. The rest of us was a-setting
around under the mesquite bushes, and she joined the party and set
down too--stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth, and holding both
hands jammed tight over it, to keep from yelling out with the laugh
that was pretty near cracking her sides.
Then we all waited till daylight--with Shorty, who had charge of the
lion, working that animal as seemed to be needed whenever Boston
quieted down with his groans. All hands really enjoyed theirselves,
and it was one of the shortest nights I think I ever knowed.
Daylight comes sudden in them parts. One minute it's so darkish you
can't see nothing--and the next minute the sun comes up with a bounce
from behind the mountains and things is all clear.
When the sun did his part of the work and give all the light was
needed, we done ours--which was coming out from among the mesquite
bushes and saying good-morning polite to Boston, up on the roof of the
'dobe, and then taking the hobbles off old man Gutierrez's jackass so
it could walk away home.
The Hen felt she needed to have one more shot, and she took it. "My
brave preserver!" says the Hen, speaking cheerful. "Come down to
me--that I may bedew with tears of gratitude your bones!"
VI
SHORTY SMITH'S HANGING
Some of them summer days in Palomitas was that hot they'd melt the
stuffing out of a lightning-rod, and you could cook eggs in the
pockets of your pants. When things was that way the town was apt to
get quieted down--most being satisfied to take enough drinks early to
make it pleasant spending the rest of the day sleeping 'em off
somewheres in the shade. Along late in the afternoon, though, the wind
always breezed down real cool and pleasant from the mountains--and
then the boys would wake up and get a brace on, and whatever was going
to happen would begin.
Being that sort of weather, nobody was paying no attention worth
speaking of to nothing: and when the Denver train come in--being
about three hours late, like it had a way of being, after a
wash-out--the place was in such a blister that pretty much all you
could hear to show anybody was alive in Palomitas was snores. Besides
Wood--who had to be awake to do his work when the train got there--and
the clump of Mexicans that always hung around the deepo at train-time,
there wasn't half a dozen folks with their eyes open in the whole
town.
Santa Fé Charley was one of the few that was awake and sober. He made
a point, Santa Fé did, of being on hand when the train come in because
there always was chances somebody might be aboard he could do business
with; and he had to keep sober, mostly, same as I've said, or he
couldn't a-done his work so it would pay. He used to square things
up--when he really couldn't stand the strain no longer--by knocking
off dealing and having a good one lasting about a week at a time. It
was while he was on one of them tears of his, going it worse'n usual,
he got cleaned out in Denver Jones's place--and him able, when he
hadn't a jag on, to wipe up the floor with Denver!--and then went
ahead the next day, being still jagged, and shot poor old Bill Hart.
But them is matters that happened a little later, and will be spoke of
further on.
* * * * *
When the train pulled in alongside the deepo platform it didn't seem
at first there was nobody on it but the usual raft of Mexicans with
bundles in the day-coach--who all come a-trooping out, cluttered up
with their queer duds, and went to hugging their aunts and uncles who
was waiting for 'em in real Mexican style. Charley looked the lot over
and seen there was nothing in it worth taking time to; and then he got
his Denver paper from the messenger in the express-car and started off
to go on back to his room in the Forest Queen.
Down he come along the platform--he was a-looking at his _Tribune_,
and not paying no attention--and just as he got alongside the Pullman
a man stepped off it and most plumped into him; and would a-plumped
if he hadn't been so beat out by the hot weather he was going slow.
He was a little round friendly looking feller, with a red face and
little gray side-whiskers; and he was dressed up in black same as
Charley was--only he'd a shorter-tailed coat, and hadn't a white tie
on, and was wearing a shiny plug hat that looked most extra unsuitable
in them parts on that sort of a day.
"I beg your pardon, sir!" says the little man, as he pulled himself up
just in time to keep from bumping.
Charley bowed handsome--there was no ketching off Santa Fé when it
come to slinging good manners, his being that gentlemanly he could
a-give points to a New York bar-keep--and says back: "Sir, I beg
yours! Heedlessness is my besetting sin. The fault is mine!" And then
he said, keeping on talking the toney way he knowed how to: "I trust,
sir, that you are not incommoded by the heat. Even for New Mexico in
August, this is a phenomenally hot day."
[Illustration: "'IT'S HOTTER THAN SAHARA!' SAID THE ENGLISHMAN"]
"Incommoded is no name for it!" says the little man, taking off his
shiny hat and mopping away at himself with his pocket-handkerchief.
"I've never encountered such heat anywhere. It's hotter than Sahara!
In England we have nothing like it at all." Then he mopped himself
some more, and went ahead again--seeming glad to have somebody to let
out to: "My whole life long I've been finding fault with our August
weather in London. I'll never find fault with it again. I'd give fifty
pounds to be back there now, even in my office in the City--and I'd
give a hundred willingly if I could walk out of this frying-pan into
my own home in the Avenue Road! If you know London, sir, you know that
St. John's Wood is the coolest part of it, and that the coolest part
of St. John's Wood--up by the side of Primrose Hill--is the Avenue
Road; and so you can understand why thinking about coming out from the
Underground and walking homeward in the cool of the evening almost
gives me a pain!"
Santa Fé allowed he wasn't acquainted with that locality; but he said
he hadn't no doubt--since you couldn't get a worse one--it was a
better place in summer than Palomitas. And then he kind of chucked it
in casual that as the little man didn't seem to take much stock in
Palomitas maybe he'd a-done as well if he'd stuck at home.
Charley's talking that way brought out he wasn't there because he
wanted to be, but because he was sent: coming to look things over for
the English stockholders--who was about sick, he said, of dropping
assessments in the slot and nothing coming out when they pushed the
button--before they chipped in the fresh stake they was asked for to
help along with the building of the road. He said he about allowed,
though, the call was a square one, what he'd seen being in the road's
favor and as much as was claimed for it; but when it come to the
country and the people, he said, there was no denying they both was as
beastly as they could be. Then he turned round sudden on Santa Fé and
says: "I infer from your dress, sir, that you are in Orders; and I
therefore assume that you represent what little respectability this
town has. Will you kindly tell me if it is possible in this filthy
place to procure a brandy-and-soda, and a bath, and any sort of decent
food?"
It always sort of tickled Santa Fé, same as I've said, when a
tenderfoot took him for a fire-escape; and when it happened that way
he give it back to 'em in right-enough parson talk. So he says to the
little man, speaking benevolent: "In our poor way, sir, we can satisfy
your requirements. At the Forest Queen Hotel, over there, you can
procure the liquid refreshment that you name; and also food as good as
our little community affords. As for your bath, we can provide it on a
scale of truly American magnificence. We can offer you a tub, sir,
very nearly two thousand miles long!"
"A tub two thousand miles long?" says the little man. "Oh, come now,
you're chaffing me. There can't be a tub like that, you know. There
really can't!"
"I refer, sir," says Santa Fé, "to the Rio Grande."
The little man took his time getting there, but when he did ketch up
he laughed hearty. "How American that is!" says he. And then he says
over again: "How American that is!"--and he laughed some more. Then he
said he'd start 'em to getting his grub ready while he was bathing in
that two-thousand-mile bath-tub, and he'd have his brandy-and-soda
right away; and he asked Charley--speaking doubtful, and looking at
his white necktie--if he'd have one too?
Charley said he just would; and it was seeing how sort of surprised
the little man looked, he told the boys afterwards, set him to
thinking he might as well kill time that hot day trying how much
stuffing that sort of a tenderfoot would hold. He said at first he
only meant to play a short lone hand for the fun of the thing; and it
was the way the little man swallowed whatever was give him, he said,
that made the game keep on a-growing--till it ended up by roping in
the whole town. So off he went, explaining fatherly how it come that
preachers and brandys-and-sodas in Palomitas got along together first
class.