GRAFTING.
One night while we were in Cheyenne we were going from the dispatcher's
office down to our way car, which was, as usual, about one mile from the
depot. The railroad company had quite a number of police on duty in the
yards to watch for strikers, there having been a machinists' strike on
for a long time. No strikers had ever come around the railroad yards
nights or even interfered with any one at any time, but a lot of fellows
who wanted soft jobs as watchmen made the officials of the road think
the strikers were going to do something, and these night watch men had,
it seems, been looking for a long time for some weak tramp to beat to
death and then claim the tramp was working in the interest of the
strikers and was about to injure railroad property when those awful
sleuths caught him in the act and put his light out. Thus they could get
a fresh hold on their jobs. However, they had been unable to catch a
tramp, and as they had to get somebody in order to hold their jobs, they
cornered Dillbery Ike, who had loitered behind the rest, and one of the
valiant watchmen swiping him over the head with a six-shooter, scalped
him as clean as a Sioux Injun would have done it with a scalping knife.
Hearing Dillbery Ike's cries for help, we went to his rescue, and none
too soon, as the watchman was still beating him. When we had got a
doctor for Dillbery, of course the first thing he asked for was
Dillbery's scalp, so he could sew it on again. But although we made a
long search for the scalp, we only found a few bloody hairs, and
undoubtedly some hungry canine prowling around had ate it up. However,
the railroad company, after some parleying, agreed to pay for having a
new one grafted on, and as grafting is the long suit of the Cheyenne
doctors, there was a general scramble for the job. 'Twas finally agreed
to divide the job amongst them, or rather divide the space and the
money. The doctors immediately advertised for contributions of pieces of
scalp to graft on Dillbery's head, but no one responding they offered to
buy some sections of scalp, and this ad was responded to in a mysterious
way by a midnight visitor at each of their offices, with a small piece
of very close shaven fresh scalp, which the visitor (who was a woman in
each case and so muffled up that her features couldn't be seen) claimed
she had cut off Billy's or Johnny's or Jimmy's head after putting them
under the influence of ether.
[Illustration: _Dillbery Ike as a Shipper._]
Each of the four doctors paid her $25 and hiked off to plaster the piece
of hide on Dillbery Ike's cranium. The scalped place had been carefully
laid off by a civil engineer, so each of the four doctors knew his
corner in the block, and without any courtesies to one another they each
trimmed down his $25 piece of hide to fit his corner and then fastened
it on. The grafting took at once and in a few days was healed over
nicely, despite the fact it turned out that the woman had taken a
different piece of scalp off from different pet animals which she kept.
One was a pet pig, another a pet goat, another a pet sheep and the
fourth a pet dog of the Newfoundland breed. When the hair, wool and
bristles all began to make a luxuriant growth on Dillbery's new scalp,
he seemed to be more or less affected by the dispositions of each animal
from which a part of the wonderful scalp was removed, and when the
different colored hair, wool and bristles had grown to a good length the
effect of this unique head covering was very striking to strangers.
However, Dillbery Ike was justly proud of it, as the doctors had charged
the Union Pacific $1,200 for this variegated scalp. Of course, no other
cowpuncher could boast of such a valuable head covering.
There was one little white bare spot in the center which was above
timber line, as it were, where the doctors, making these four corners,
had each been a little shy of material, and here was a little open, or
park, on the top of his head in which sheep ticks, hog lice, dog fleas
and goat vermin could have a common ground to assemble and sun
themselves in.