“Leggo my wife! Leggo my wife! Dang you, Ike--leggo her!”
“Tell it to her!” I yelps back at him. “You ---- fool, I ain’t doin’ the
holdin’.”
The rear wheels of that equipage hits the sidewalk, lifts up real
sudden, and we begins to shove that whole works plumb through Buck’s
saloon front. It was then that I managed to get loose from another man’s
wife, and proceeds to fall backward off that elephant.
I dunno what in ---- Sahara was doin’ right behind Gunga Din, unless he
was supposed to be there; but I do know that I lit kinda folded up
across his long neck, and he starts to run with me. We went around in a
circle three times before I fell off, and that ---- camel walked all
over me.
Then I sets up in that dusty street and tries to see what is goin’ on.
Horses are runnin’ around like they was in a circus ring, and some of
’em are draggin’ wagons and buggies behind ’em, which makes the street a
dangerous place for to be. One wagon circled the street twice before I
notices that Dirty Shirt is standin’ up in the wagon, kinda balancin’
himself, with his arms spread out wide.
Then the wagon hit the sidewalk and Dirty turned over twice before
landed sittin’ down on the sidewalk. I managed to limp and crawl over to
him. His good eye is plumb closed, and the bad one won’t keep still.
He’s singin’ soft and low, and kinda beatin’ time with that jiggly eye.
I has to listen real close, but above the roar of destruction I hears
his singin’--
“Littul birdie in the tree, in the tree, in the tree;
Littul birdie in the tree-e-e-e-e, sing a song for me-e-e-e-e.”
“There ain’t no tree, Dirty,” says I.
“Ain’t there?” he asks soft-like. “There ort to be--there’s so ---- many
birds.”
Over around Buck’s place there’s folks yellin’ to beat four of a kind,
and some misguided jigger starts shootin’. I can see that there ain’t no
regular doorway left in Buck’s saloon--just an openin’ about ten feet
wide.
Just about that time Gunga Din comes around the corner. He ain’t got
nobody on his back now, but he’s got a chair hooked around one hind leg.
He runs into the hitch-rack, tried to go under it, and lifts it plumb
out of the ground. This kinda makes him sore; so he wraps his trunk
around one of the posts and starts for us, packin’ and draggin’ it along
with him, while on the far end of it is tied a piebald bronc from
Paradise.
The most of the crowd stampeded for the Mint Hall, Wick’s store and
other places of safety, and it sure don’t take long to clear the street
of spectators. I _sabe_ that Gunga Din is on a regular bust; so I picks
Dirty Shirt up in my arms and staggers toward Buck’s place.
I ain’t in no shape to pack anybody, ’cause my right leg acts too short,
which makes me circle a little to the right and I’m close to Gunga Din
before I realize it.
There’s just a _whap_ and a _rip_, and outside of Dirty’s headgear he’s
as naked as the day he was born. Gunga Din shucked him like an ear of
corn. But Dirty don’t know it, and I don’t care; so we staggers on
through the haze.
We fell into Buck’s place, and it don’t take a normal man to see that
everythin’ ain’t right in there.
Old Testament Tilton is settin’ up on what used to be the back-bar,
squattin’ there like a wise old owl, lookin’ over the world; settin’
there like a statue, sayin’ nothin’. Piled up against the bar is what is
left of the float. Buck is flat on his back, with his feet up over the
pool-table, which has been moved over against the wall.
All to once that mass which used to be the float begins to heave upward,
and from among the busted two-by-fours, twisted wires and colored cloth,
cometh Sahara. How in ---- that camel got mixed up in that float, I
don’t know, but there he is.
He comes out of there, plumb decorated, and hanging to his tail like
grim death comes Magpie Simpkins, the president of Piperock’s Chamber of
Commerce.
Magpie has still got on one boot, a suit of red underwear and the crown
of his hat, and in his eyes is a stern resolve. And behind him, pawin’
out of the wreck, comes Wick Smith. They all gets clear of the wreck and
Sahara stops. Wick has a two-foot piece of two-by-four in his hands, and
he braces his feet far apart.
“Mum-Magpie,” says he kinda thin-like. “You has made me a widder man,
gol ding yuh.”
But Magpie don’t hear it. His mind is far behind that pageant of
progress. He bows and kinda smiles, as he says:
“The wheel of progress is turnin’, and wo unto him who gits under the
tire. The people of Piperock has risen in their might, unleashed their
bonds which has held them in darkness----”
_Tunk!_ Wick Smith’s two-by-four ended the speech.
“You didn’t have to blame him entirely, Wick,” says I.
He turns and looks at me, kinda weavin’ on his feet.
“You?” he whispers. “You come bub-back? Where’s my wife?”
“I dunno, Wick.”
“You had her, dang you! I seen you huggin’ her!”
I seen that piece of scantlin’ comin’, but didn’t have flexibility
enough to dodge. I distinctly heard it clank against my head, and then I
finds myself out in the street again. I can hear a lot of dogs wailin’,
and I wonders if I can hear this because I’ve gone to the dogs. Ain’t it
funny what a feller will think about in a case like that?
A lot of folks are yellin’ at somebody or somethin’; so I sets up and
concentrates on the present. A bullet digs into the dirt beside me, but
I don’t mind. I kinda wonders why they’re shootin’ at me, of course.
Then somethin’ hooks me off the ground and begins to give me a ride.
I managed to get one eye open and finds that I’m on one end of that
hitch-rack, and the motive power is furnished by Gunga Din. They’ve
picked me up in the angle between one post and the top-pole, and the
friction on that part of me which wasn’t on the pole was somethin’
awful.
Then Gunga Din let out another of them awful bugles, shucked the
hitch-rack and headed for Buck’s place again--and hangin’ to the slack
skin of Gunga Din’s rear end was Cleopatra. Behind them came Polecat
Perkins’ pack of hounds, run to a frazzle, but still able to stagger on
and wail plenty loud and long.
Them dogs has run that tiger all night, and it ain’t no wonder that the
tiger is huntin’ for somethin’ to climb on to. Right into the wreck of
Buck’s place they went, while the crowd, which is located in places of
safety, yelled, shot and generally decided that ---- was havin’ a
recess.
* * * * *
It’s only about five minutes since East met West, but there has been
several things come to pass. Gunga Din has gone back into Buck’s place,
tryin’ to get rid of Cleopatra, when here comes Chief Cod Liver Oil,
packin’ an old Sharps rifle. The old war-whoop sure must ’a’ been
fortified against fear by much flavorin’ extract, ’cause he heads
straight for Buck’s shattered entrance, soundin’ his tribal war-whoop
regular.
I got to my feet. I reckon they were my feet. There ain’t no feelin’ in
’em, but they hold me up; so they must be mine. An armless man could
count all the Harper heroes on the fingers of his hands, but just the
same I goes pawin’ toward Buck’s place to see what I can salvage from
Gunga Din, Cleopatra and Cod Liver Oil.
I don’t quite get there, when Cod Liver Oil comes out. He came out of
there, end over end, missed me about a foot, and stood on his head and
shoulders in the street. His Sharps lit just outside the doorway; so I
picked it up and went in.
Cleopatra is settin’ on what used to be the end of Buck’s mahogany bar,
her mouth wide open and her eyes shut. Gunga Din is standin’ in the
middle of the room, with one hind foot on Magpie’s pant-leg, and Sahara
is half-in and half-out of a rear window. And every time Gunga Din
weaves the whole building shakes.
Dirty Shirt has got to his feet, and there he stands, plumb out of
clothes, kinda rockin’ on his feet and grinnin’ foolish.
“Dud-do somethin’!” whispers Magpie. “Ain’t nobody goin’ to do
somethin’?”
“Call on the Chamber of Commerce,” says I.
From under a smashed card-table, Wick Smith shoves up his head. He’s got
the brim of his hat in his teeth, but manages to work it loose with his
tongue.
“I give up,” he wheezes. “I know when I’ve got enough.”
Old Testament is still settin’ on the back-bar, but now he shakes loose
and falls into Cleopatra. He kinda takes that big striped cat into a
lovin’ embrace, but Cleopatra yowled once, kicked Testament backward and
jumped straight at me.
I throwed up that old Sharps, took a wing-shot at Cleopatra and then a
great weight settled upon me. I ain’t no fighter. None of my family ever
won any diamond belts; but there never was a Harper that wouldn’t fight
to save his own life. And I sure went into a clinch with that tiger.
My eyes are too full of dust and pain for me to see just how the battle
is comin’. We just kept on fightin’, thassall. Once we got separated and
it takes us quite a while to get together again, but we did. I can’t see
a danged thing and I don’t reckon Cleopatra can either; so we locates
each other by sense of smell.
I dunno how long we fought. Scientists would probably differ as to how
long a man and a tiger can fight without one or both of ’em dyin’. I
ain’t got no feelin’ left within’ me. I reckon I’m kinda primitive just
now, and I fights with tooth and claw. I hears voices around me, kinda
cheerin’; so I puts up a supreme effort, as it were, and feels the tiger
go limp.
“My ----!” I hears Dirty gasp hoarse-like. “They’re still at it.”
“I licked him--her,” says I.
I ain’t got more than enough breath to say that. And then I kinda passed
out.
It seems like I heard somebody say:
“Let him alone, dang yuh! He done jist what I’ve wanted to see done for
a long time.”
It was probably quite a some time before I woke up again. For quite a
while I can’t figure out just where I am and what’s goin’ on. I seem to
be layin’ across somethin’ that heaves and surges a heap. I manages to
get one eye open and discovers that I’m on my stummick across a saddle.
Out in front of me and the horse is a queer-lookin’ figure. It’s got on
a pair of overalls, which won’t stay up, barefooted, bareheaded. It
looks back at me, and I recognize Dirty Shirt by his jiggly eye.
Then I slides off and sets down beside the trail.
“Where we goin’?” I asks.
Dirty comes back and sits down beside me.
“It don’t make no difference, does it?” he asks. “They said that we was
mostly to blame; so I took you away from ’em and went away. It wasn’t
our fault, Ike; but they have to blame somebody.”
“Magpie was mostly to blame,” says I. “We done the best we could. I
dunno what you done, Dirty, but I know I saved Piperock from a lot of
heartaches.”
“You sure did, Ike,” says Dirty.
“That critter would ’a’ been the ruination of Piperock.”
“That’s a cinch, Ike. But the worst of it is, you only stops the plague
temp’rarily.”
“Thasso?” says I. “I done my best, Dirty Shirt. I wish I had the hide
for a souvenir.”
Dirty looks queer-like at me.
“I dunno,” says he kinda sad-like. “A shock sometimes causes a feller to
jerk back to his cannibal ancestors.”
I dunno what he’s talkin’ about, but I’m too bunged up to care much, and
my face is beginnin’ to crack.
“How in ---- did it finish?” I asks.
“All right, Ike. The animals all hived up in the livery-stable, and Wick
Smith sold ’em to Paradise.”
“The ---- he did!” I exclaimed, or as much of an exclamation as I can
use in my condition. “And didn’t the Piperock Chamber of Commerce stop
him?”
“There was only one to vote agin’ it--and he was too danged near death
to even squawk. They never even give him credit for tryin’ to save the
tiger. I seen it all, Ike. When you lifted that old Sharps to shoot
Cleopatry, Magpie got loose from Gunga Din and fell into yuh.”
“Uh-uh-huh,” says I, feelin’ weak. “And then what did I do to the tiger,
Dirty.”
“Nothin’ a-tall. The wheels of progress got to turnin’, and Magpie got
under the tire, thasall. In the language of Magpie Simpkins, I wouldn’t
be surprized to see Piperock one of the big cities of the world.”
“Well,” says I, “in the language of Ike Harper, whose spirit, liver,
lights and gizzard has been busted to make a Piperock holiday, let’s get
to ---- out of here, before the place grows too big. I don’t want to
even be seen in the suburbs.”
But she hasn’t grown any since.
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the June 10, 1925 issue of
The Blue Book Magazine.]