by W. C. Tuttle
Author of “Local Option in Loco Land,” “Evidently Not,” etc.
Me and Dirty Shirt Jones prods our three burros across the border of
Yaller Rock County, points north through the country where God dumped
the leavings after He made the Bad Lands, and has visions of the old
home town.
Me and Dirty has abandoned the idea of finding gold where she ain’t,
and right now we’re herding our sore-footed jassacks towards the
flesh-pots of Piperock town.
We’re cutting around the side of a hill, when all to once we discerns
the figure of a man setting on a rock ahead of us.
He looks a heap like he was figuring out the why and whatfor of all
things. He humps there in the sun, a long, lean, pathetic-looking
figure, despondency showing even in the curves of his cartridge-belt.
I feels sorry for him long before our lead burro halts before him and
lets us arrive.
The figure raises its head, peers at that gray burro, and when we stop
he gets to his feet, turns to us and snaps:
“Hold up your hands! Both of you!”
Me and Dirty jerks our hands above our heads, and this fretful-looking
hombre with the good-by forever mustache and weary eyes squints at us
and says—
“You both solemnly swear to uphold the law vested in you as deputy
sheriffs of Yaller Rock County, so help you Gawd?”
Me and Dirty nods and puts down our hands.
“Now,” says Magpie Simpkins, sheriff of Yaller Rock County, “I feel a
danged sight better.”
We nods again, sets down beside him, and rolls smokes. After while
Magpie scratches his nose and pinches out the light of his cigaret.
“What you doing here—hunting snakes?” asks Dirty.
Magpie shakes his head and digs into the dirt with his heels.
“Of course it ain’t none of our business,” says I, “but I would like
to know why you inoculates us with sheriffitis without warning.”
“Sheep,” says he, soft-like. “Just sheep, Ike.”
“Which there never was nor never will be,” states Dirty. “You mean
just plain sheep, don’t you, Magpie?”
“That is as may be, Dirty.”
Magpie fingers his mustache, and nods.
“Well,” says I, “me and Dirty hankers for home, so I reckon we might
as well drift along, Magpie.”
“No,” says he, sad-like. “You ain’t going no place, Ike. You’re
arrived. Do you reckon I deputized you for fun?”
“Sheep,” pronounces Dirty, “don’t mean nothing at all to me. I sure am
contemptuous of all things pertaining to wool.”
“Me, I votes against anything that blats,” says I.
“I don’t love ’em!” snaps Magpie. “Don’t see me packing no sheep-dip
to alleviate their sufferings, do you?”
We don’t seem to, so we all sets there, humped over in the sun. After
while Magpie clears his throat.
“‘Alphabetical’ Allen and ‘Scenery’ Sims own three thousand woollies,”
says he. “Scenery was a silent pardner, being as he’s a cow-man, which
hates sheep. Alphy gets Scenery to unhook a thousand dollars to buy
some fancy stock. _Sabe?_ Well, Alphy bought ’em—red, white and blue
ones, in stacks, the same of which ain’t productive none to speak
about.
“Scenery chides Alphy to the extent that Alphy gets disgruntled and
wishes to separate the herd, fifty-fifty, without considering the
thousand he lost over the green cloth. Alphy contends that him and
Scenery has agreed to suffer gains and losses together, and
furthermore that he lost a lot of his own money at the same sitting,
the same of which makes them feller sufferers.
“Such a open declaration causes some smoke and a little noise in
Piperock, but neither of them gets shot up enough for us to declare a
holiday. Scenery plasters a attachment on the herd, and then Alphy
limps to Judge Steele’s wickiup and prays for a receiver.
“Being as I’m the sheriff I has to serve said attachment, and also
being as I’m a danged fool I’m appointed as the receiver. The county
didn’t elect me to herd sheep, gents. Over on the other side of that
hill is the sheep. Somewhere over there is the tent. All very simple.”
Magpie fusses with his mustache for a moment and then gets to his
feet. He slaps our lead burro with his hat, and hitches up his belt.
“Come on, mules! Hump yourselves!”
“Where to, feller?” asks Dirty. “Them is our burros, Magpie.”
“You won’t need ’em,” says he, weary-like, “so I’ll take ’em home for
you. All I ask is this: Take care of the sheep.”
“Sheep?” I yells.
“S-h-e-e-p,” he spells, counting the letters on the fingers of his
left hand with the barrel of the gun in his right. “Just sheep, Ike.
Keep—your—hands—off—that—gun!”
“Yea-a-a-a-a-h!” blats Dirty, excited-like. “Explain yourself,
feller.”
“You—” Magpie points at Dirty— “are the receiver. _Sabe?_ I hereby
makes you deputy receiver of them sheep, and I honors Ike by making
him deputy attacher. Ike always was attached to sheep. May the Lord
have a little mercy on your souls, and—don’t lose any sheep. Come on,
canaries.”
Me and Dirty sets there like a pair of mummies and watches that
forlorn-looking hombre herd our long-eared rolling-stock across the
hills. Dirty jerks a rock at a sand-lizard, and yanks his hat down
over his ears. We glares at each other for a moment.
“Shepherd!” hisses Dirty. “You sheep-attacher!”
“Ditto!” I hisses back at him. “You sheep-receptacle!”
* * * * *
If there ever was an age when jackrabbits spoke with tin-whistle
voices Scenery Sims was a throwback to that period. Him and
Alphabetical Allen are two things, the same of which the dictionary
designates as inanimate objects. If you can imagine a pair of ciphers
with the rims rubbed out—you’ve got my opinion of them two _hombres_
to a gnat’s eyebrow.
“I’m going to kill Magpie Simpkins some day,” says Dirty, mean-like.
“Uh-huh,” says I. “That sounds like you, Dirty. You’re always going to
kill somebody the day after. You think too slow.” We sets there a
while longer, and then Dirty yawns.
“Might as well find ’em, I reckon. You attach ’em and I’ll do the
receiving, Ike.” We pokes over the ridge, and after going about a mile
we hears the voices of lamblets, and then we sees the teepee, which we
deciphers to be the sheep-camp. In her callow youth she might have
been a tent, but the wear and tear of sheeping existence has put her
in the sere and yaller leaf, with a touch of color, where somebody’s
red-flannel shirt has patched up a hole in one side.
“Well,” says Dirty, “she ain’t much, but it’s home, Ike.”
“It is ever so humble,” I agrees, and we slid down to it.
As we walks up to the front the flap opens, and out comes the head of
an inhuman being. This face is so classified, ’cause no human being
could have so much hair on its face and still breathe—not without
gills.
“Holee henhawks!” gasps Dirty. “Who have we here?”
“Aye am de ship-hoorder,” comes from a hole in the hair.
“Bale of hay from Sweden!” gasps Dirty, and the hair opens again.
“Aye am de ship-hoorder.”
“What a dugout for dandruff!” says I.
“Yah! Who are you fallers?”
“Your successors,” says I. “You can tie up your war-sack and pilgrim.”
“Haw?” He seems to think it over, and shakes his head.
“Aye tank Aye stay. Das iss my yob. Aye am de ship-hoorder.”
“You don’t need to classify yourself,” grins Dirty. “Nature tagged
you. Us two are going to dry-nurse this bunch of animated socks and
underwear, so you might as well kiss ’em a fond fare-thee-well.”
The hairy one shakes his head, and peers at us out of a pair of little
eyes.
“He say to me, ‘O-o-o-laf, I gif you twanty dollar month.’ He say dat
an’ Aye stay for one month. Fifteen day Aye stay today.”
“This has been a long day for you, Olaf,” agrees Dirty. “Ike, do you
get that jargon?”
“Sure. Alphabetical or Scenery promised him twenty a month, and today
makes fifteen days he has reigned.”
“No rain,” says Olaf. “Dry as ——! Aye stay.”
He ducked back under the tent, and a second later he sticks his head
out again, and beside that bunch of hair is the muzzle of a rifle.
“Aye tank Aye stay,” he announces, and ducks inside again.
“Defied by a barber-boycotter,” grunts Dirty. “Are we bluffed, Ike?”
“Not from my point of view,” says I. “You take one side and I’ll take
the other.” There was four guy-ropes on each side, and it just took
four kicks per each to make that tent unsupporting, and the poor old
thing comes down upon Olaf. Then me and Dirty assumes reclining
positions, while Olaf wastes a few cartridges, wild-like.
Then he emerges from a hole in the wreck, in time to be mounted by
Dirty Shirt, who rode that shepherd to the queen’s taste. Olaf pitched
considerable, but gave it up, and seemed receptive to civilized
argument.
“Still think you’ll stay?” asks Dirty.
“Val, Aye go pretty soon but Aye coom back now,” pants Olaf, pawing
the alkali out of his whiskers. “Aye boost some-t’ing.”
“You talk like you had,” admits Dirty.
“Aye coom back—yah! Aye get de law.”
“Yeah?” says Dirty. “Look at us, shepherd. We’re the law. _Sabe?_”
He looks at us, and his whiskers seem a heap agitated.
“You—are—de—law?” he asks, deliberate-like.
“You are looking at it,” grins Dirty. “How does she look?”
“Val—” he hitches up his rope belt, and picks up his war-sack—“val,
Aye can say dis mooch: Yorge Hokansen hay say to me, O-o-olaf, das
country has too mooch bum law and no yustice! Yorge iss smart—you
bet.”
And me and Dirty stood there and watched the Hairy One fade out over
the hills towards Silver Bend.
“I hope he forgets us before he loads up on alcohol,” says Dirty. “I
hate to chase even a shepherd off his job, but I reckon we’re sort of
shepherds-in-law, Ike, and we ain’t to blame. Let’s inventory the
grub.”
In the grub-box is one can of milk, one can of corn, a little coffee
and a quart of raw alcohol.
Dirty nods over the assortment.
“That shepherd was good for fifteen days more, Ike, but the law sure
is going to suffer internally. Let’s put up the tent.”
Olaf left too soon to enjoy the rain. She came down plentiful and
awful, and demonstrated to us that red flannel ain’t noways
water-proof. When the morning came we peers out into a wet world, and
tries to dry out enough tobacco to make a smoke. Then cometh a
interruption from without:
“Say, you lousy, slew-footed, blat-headed sheep-herder, come out
here!”
“Somebody calling you, Dirty,” says I.
“Not me, Ike. Somebody has been getting your mail.”
“Coming out?” yells the voice again.
“You sap-headed snake-hunter!”
“Talks like a cow-man,” opines Dirty.
“Maybe he’s making us a visit.”
* * * * *
Dirty throws the tent-flap open, and we gets a view of a feller on a
roan bronc.
“Say, you——” he begins, but he’s looking down the muzzle of Dirty’s
gun, and his voice fails him.
“Speaking to me?” asks Dirty, soft-like.
“You better put down that gun,” says he. “It might save you a lot of
trouble.”
“Yes,” says Dirty, “and if it went off and killed you, feller, it
would likely save you a lot of trouble, if this is the way you’re in
the habit of speaking to strangers. What seems to itch you?”
“Your sheep!” he yelps. “Half your danged woollies are over my line!
You agreed to keep them stinking sheep this side of the Mesquite, and
this morning I finds half of them across. “You get ’em out of there
pretty danged suddenlike or I’ll massacree the bunch. _Sabe?_”
“You don’t dare,” opines Dirty.
“The —— I don’t! Just about why?”
“Against the law. Them sheep are within the law, mister.”
“Yah? Well, let me tell you something, you lousy shepherd: I’ll get my
punchers and we’ll show you! We’ll chase ’em so far that——”
“Get off!” orders Dirty. “You’re up so high I can’t hear your voice.”
He had a gun, but I reckon he also had a weak heart, so he got off and
gave me his gun. I reckon he’d ’a’ given us his weak heart, too, if
we’d asked for it, ’cause Dirty has a nervous way of fingering a
trigger.
“What in —— are you going to do now?” he asks.
“Hoord ships,” grins Dirty. “I’m ship-hoorder.”
“Oh!” says he. “You’re the Swede herder that ‘Alcohol’ Adams spoke
about.”
“What did he say?”
“Said you didn’t have brains enough to wad a shotgun with.”
“What do you think?” I asks.
“Well—” he looks at Dirty’s gun, serious-like—“well, not to mean any
offense, but I’d say that Alcohol exaggerated a little, he meant a
twenty-two.”
Be it known that Alcohol Adams is so ornery that his own dog barks at
him. He’d steal money from his own kids, and then lick thunder out of
them for losing it. Mosquitoes, horse-flies and rattlesnakes turn him
down like a white chip in a no-limit stud game, and his soul is so
small and elusive that he has to drink straight alcohol in order to
exhilarate it.
Yaller Rock got so disgusted with him that they sent him to the
Legislature, where he collected all the loose money in sight, and
showed his appreciation of things by passing a few laws favoring
sheep. He orated his views in Piperock, the same of which was contrary
to our religion, and—let me admit that some poor shooting was done.
When he hit Paradise there was three hunks of lead in the cantle of
his saddle, which proved we held too low or the range was too great.
We held a mass meeting that night, and Magpie Simpkins chided us over
our lack of ability.
We agreed to set aside six practise shots per day, against the time
that Alcohol or any other lawmaker might appear in our midst. I hopes
you hereby _sabes_ something of Alcohol’s nature.
“You can’t run no blazer on me,” says this feller. “I’m ‘Sandy’
Sorensen. What you going to do?”
“Borrow your bronc,” says Dirty. “We’ll ride that roan double, Ike.”
“Won’t ride double,” says he.
“Maybe it never has,” corrects Dirty, taking his foot out of the
stirrup. “Come up, Ike.”
Sandy sure diagnosed that bronc right. I’d trail my bet with his when
he says it won’t ride double—not meek-like. A bronc can’t do its best
with two hundred and ninety pounds on its back, but I hope to gosh I
never ride that bronc single-handed when it’s riled.
Man, that animal done everything except fly, and at that the danged
thing went high enough to convince the most skeptical that all it
needed was a short pair of wings to make good in that respect. First
it gives a correct imitation of a post-hole digger, and then it goes
down that gully, changing ends like a whirligig. I’ve got my wish-bone
hooked over Dirty’s shoulder, and every hop I can feel my finger
slipping higher and higher up that cantle.
Sandy rides a double-rig saddle, and when we hits the first turn of
the gully I feels the rear cinch bust. From that on it’s like riding a
rocking-chair over sticks of dynamite.
The roan bucks along the edge of the washout, the bottom of which is
about ten feet below us, and I just starts to yelp, “Don’t get scared,
Dirty; she won’t buck down there,” when we hit the bottom, and I bit
my tongue over the first word.
My vertebræ comes together like a string of box-cars getting hit by a
wild engine, and then we yanked out of there and went angling up the
hill as fast as that bronc can run.
“Still alive?” I yelps.
“From my chin on up!” he yells. “Wonder what this fool wants to climb
the hill for, Ike?”
“Can’t you stop her?” I asks.
“Bridle’s gone, Ike. Ha-a-a-ang on!”
We found out why the roan wanted to get a down-hill pull on us, ’cause
as soon as we hit the grade the animal inagurates a new style of
bucking. Was it effective? Oh, man, I’d rise to remark it was. I just
hung on and prayed. I used up all the white man’s religion I ever
heard about, and I’m just beginning to make medicine to the totem of
the Alaskan Siwash when the cinch breaks.
I feels myself float into space, and then I goes out in a blaze of
bright lights. After while Old Man Misery seems to come along and runs
his fingers all over my carcass, and then I opens my eyes. I’m laying
on my back with my feet up the side of a rock, and a short distance
from me is Dirty, hanging by the back of his shirt to an old
mesquite-snag.
* * * * *
Standing there beside a pair of packed burros is the queerest-looking
pair of pelicans I ever seen. They’re both wearing hard hats and
black-rimmed specs, and what you might expect such persons to wear in
the line of shirts, collars and neckties, but from the waist on down
they’re clad in chaps and boots.
One of ’em is wearing a pair of Mexican spurs—the kind with rowels the
size of a dollar and eighty-five cents. One of them has a belt draped
around his waist, and in the holster is one of them single-shot
twenty-two pistols. The other is packing a pump shotgun.
One of ’em removes his specs and polishes ’em, careful-like.
“Quite remarkable, my friend!” says he. “Quite remarkable.
The—er—equine was no doubt desirous of removing its burden.”
“One would be led to accept such a theory,” nods the other. “We have
observed the effect, my dear Middleton, but of course we know nothing
of the cause. It really was quite remarkable.”
“Holee suffering scissorbills!” grunts Dirty, leaving half his shirt
on the snag and staggering to his feet. He stares at them and at me.
“Ike, do you see the same thing I do?” he whispers.
“I hope so,” says I, lowering my feet. “I hope I do, Dirty, otherwise
I’m a goner mentally. Is one of them apparitions wearing spurs?”
“Thank ——!” gasps Dirty. “We see the same little details, Ike.”
“You see, Pettingill?” crows one of ’em. “You objected to the boots
and spurs, but the customs of a country must be observed. It is well.”
“Perhaps they will enlighten us to the best of their ability,” says
Pettingill, adjusting his specs. “It will do no harm to inquire.”
“My dear gentlemen,” says the one called Middleton, “may we ask you a
question?”
“You can take a chance,” nods Dirty.
“Well—er—before I ask the question it might be well to introduce
ourselves. I am Professor Middleton of Boston, and the gentleman with
me is Professor Pettingill of Philadelphia.”
“We appreciates it considerable,” says Dirty, solemn-like. “I am of
the Jones tribe, from here or hereabouts, and called Dirty Shirt. The
person with me is a Harper offspring, called Ike. Where are you from,
Ike?”
“There or thereabouts,” says I.
“Exactly,” says Professor Middleton. “Now the question is this:
Pettingill and myself are dabbling in a few problems outside of our
regular work, and this one has come to our notice: Are sheepherders
really insane? Do they acquire insanity from their occupation? Is
there anything about a—er—sheep that would cause a normal man to lose
his mind, as it were?”
“Yes,” nods Dirty. “It is.”
“Exactly,” says Middleton. “You are following me?”
“I hope nobody sees me if I do,” grins Dirty.
“I contend that one’s information on such a problem must come from
personal observation and not from hearsay or opinions of others. We
refuse to take circumstantial evidence, as it were. It seems that some
of the natives are—well, a bit touchy on the subject. I asked a
gentleman for his opinion, and he—well he——”
“How so?” I asks.
“At your city of Silver Bend I approached a man who was clad in
leather trousers, and I asked him if I could get a little information
from him regarding sheep. I am sure my tones were not belligerent, and
I properly introduced myself before propounding the question.”
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He did not answer. He deliberately crushed my hat over my nose and
kicked my feet from under me.”
“It is very true,” nods the other one. “I—I thought perhaps we had met
up with just the character we were investigating—a mentally unbalanced
sheep person. I soothed him to the best of my ability, begging him to
curb his profanity. Thinking to humor him, I said—in kind tones:
“‘My dear fellow, there was no offense intended to you or your sheep.
We all love the little lambs.’”
“Then what?” asks Dirty.
“Well, it may have been a coarse way of describing it, but another
fellow came along after the mentally unbalanced one had stridden away,
and he said—
“‘My ——, what a mess!’”
“Who told you that shepherds were all crazy?” asks Dirty.
“It has been said,” replies Professor Middleton. “We are
investigating.”
“Just what does the word ‘crazy’ mean?” I asks.
“Crazy?” Professor Pettingill looks shocked at our ignorance. “Crazy
means decrepit; weak; feeble; of weakened or disordered intellect.”
“Come to think of it,” remarks Professor Middleton, “that party who
assaulted us was neither decrepit, weak nor feeble, Pettingill,”
“He was likely mad as —— opines Dirty.
“At least that is a good simile,” nods Pettingill.
“Just about where are you pelicans headed for?” asks Dirty.
“Headed for?” asks Pettingill. “Where are we going? We desire to
locate as near as possible to the habitat of the shepherd. We
purchased the mules from a person in Silver Bend, who assisted us in
selecting our provender. He tied it securely on the mules, and we
haven’t taken if off since because we are afraid we could not get it
on again.”
“How long have you been in the hills?” I asks.
“Since yesterday morning.”
“Suffering scissorbills!” snorts Dirty. “You left them burros packed
all night, ’cause you— Say, you fellers ought to get jobs herding
sheep. You sure qualify.”
“Ah!” says Middleton, pleased-like. “Do you—er—think it could be
arranged?”
“To herd sheep?”
“Exactly. It would put us closely in touch with the subject. We could
make a close study of the effects of the sheep animal upon the human
brain. My dear Pettingill, that would be wonderful! Could it be
arranged?”
“I’d rise and howl that it could,” says Dirty. “You get the job.”
“This is too good to be true!” exclaims Pettingill.
“The same to you and many of them,” says Dirty. “Hump yourselves,
mules; we’re going home.”
* * * * *
Them professors seemed a heap interested in our rag house. They makes
a lot of notes in their little books while Dirty lays a fire in the
little sheet-iron stove. Then they wants to know where the sheep are.
“You fellers want to be regular shepherds, don’t you?” asks Dirty.
“Oh, certainly,” says Pettingill. “We’re prepared for the worst. I am
anxious to get first-hand information on the subject. Professor
Middleton and myself are never content to take hearsay evidence for
any weighty subject.”
Being as we ain’t never seen the sheep ourselves, we has to trust to
luck. We leads them pelicans to the top of a tall butte, and from
there we gets a glimpse of the herd. Several hundred are feeding on
the other side of a little creek, which we deciphers to be Mesquite
Creek.
“Now, what—er—procedure do we adopt?” asks Pettingill.
“Say that again,” says Dirty. “I missed it a foot.”
“What are we supposed to do in a case of this kind?”
“Oh ——!” says Dirty, and then he cranes his neck. “Look what’s going
on down there!”
We sees four punchers riding toward them sheep, sort of swinging
around to get between them and the creek. They bunches the whole
works, and proceeds to drift ’em over the hill. I recognizes one of
’em as Sandy Sorensen, on the roan, so I reckon it got home all right.
“Exactly,” nods Pettingill, wiping his glasses. “No doubt everything
is all right, but just why are those men taking away our sheep?”
“Gents,” says Dirty, rolling a smoke, “you have witnessed the theft of
a few hundred sheep. With your own eyes you have seen part of your
herd swiped by outlaws. It is a common occurrence hereabouts.”
“Do you mean that we have been robbed in the broad light of day?” asks
Pettingill, shocked-like. “You do? Well, I am amazed!”
“Yes,” says Dirty. “It is such things that help to make us crazy.”
Maybe I could tell more of this tale; maybe not. Professor Pettingill
knows things that I don’t, so I’d let him tell the rest of the tale as
he told it to his friends. Folks, meet Professor Pettingill, who is
now going to talk.
* * * * *
Mr. Harper’s tale, up to the present, is partly true, or as Dirty
Shirt says, “Near the truth as Ike ever told anything.” I objected to
the word “pelican” as applied to Professor Middleton and myself, but
Ike assured me that it was a term of endearment, so I will let it
remain.
Many of their quaint phrases are in my note-book, but as yet I have
not had time to investigate their meaning. Their vocabulary of
profanity seemed unlimited, and at times very amusing. It seems that
they had little reverence for the finer things of life, and when we
gently remonstrated with them, the one called Dirty Shirt said:
“Oh, go to ——! What do you think this is—a ladies’ cemetery?”