life."
We went to bed about eleven o'clock. We spread down some wide blankets
and quilts and put Red Chief between us. We weren't afraid he'd run
away. He kept us awake for three hours, jumping up and reaching for his
rifle and screeching: "Hist! pard," in mine and Bill's ears, as the
fancied crackle of a twig or the rustle of a leaf revealed to his young
imagination the stealthy approach of the outlaw band. At last, I fell
into a troubled sleep, and dreamed that I had been kidnaped and chained
to a tree by a ferocious pirate with red hair.
Just at daybreak, I was awakened by a series of awful screams from Bill.
They weren't yells, or howls, or shouts, or whoops, or yawps, such as
you'd expect from a manly set of vocal organs--they were simply
indecent, terrifying, humiliating screams, such as women emit when they
see ghosts or caterpillars. It's an awful thing to hear a strong,
desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a cave at daybreak.
I jumped up to see what the matter was. Red Chief was sitting on Bill's
chest, with one hand twined in Bill's hair. In the other he had the
sharp case-knife we used for slicing bacon; and he was industriously
and realistically trying to take Bill's scalp, according to the sentence
that had been pronounced upon him the evening before.
I got the knife away from the kid and made him lie down again. But, from
that moment, Bill's spirit was broken. He laid down on his side of the
bed, but he never closed an eye again in sleep as long as that boy was
with us. I dozed off for a while, but along toward sun-up I remembered
that Red Chief had said I was to be burned at the stake at the rising of
the sun. I wasn't nervous or afraid; but I sat up and lit my pipe and
leaned against a rock.
"What you getting up so soon for, Sam?" asked Bill.
"Me?" says I. "Oh, I got a kind of a pain in my shoulder. I thought
sitting up would rest it."
"You're a liar!" says Bill. "You're afraid. You was to be burned at
sunrise, and you was afraid he'd do it. And he would, too, if he could
find a match. Ain't it awful, Sam? Do you think anybody will pay out
money to get a little imp like that back home?"
"Sure," said I. "A rowdy kid like that is just the kind that parents
dote on. Now, you and the Chief get up and cook breakfast, while I go up
on the top of this mountain and reconnoiter."
I went up on the peak of the little mountain and ran my eye over the
contiguous vicinity. Over toward Summit I expected to see the sturdy
yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforks beating the
countryside for the dastardly kidnapers. But what I saw was a peaceful
landscape dotted with one man ploughing with a dun mule. Nobody was
dragging the creek; no couriers dashed hither and yon, bringing tidings
of no news to the distracted parents. There was a sylvan attitude of
somnolent sleepiness pervading that section of the external outward
surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view. "Perhaps," says I to
myself, "it has not yet been discovered that the wolves have borne away
the tender lambkin from the fold. Heaven help the wolves!" says I, and I
went down the mountain to breakfast.
When I got to the cave I found Bill backed up against the side of it,
breathing hard, and the boy threatening to smash him with a rock half as
big as a cocoanut.
"He put a red-hot boiled potato down my back," explained Bill, "and then
mashed it with his foot; and I boxed his ears. Have you got a gun about
you, Sam?"
I took the rock away from the boy and kind of patched up the argument.
"I'll fix you," says the kid to Bill. "No man ever yet struck the Red
Chief but what he got paid for it. You better beware!"
After breakfast the kid takes a piece of leather with strings wrapped
around it out of his pocket and goes outside the cave unwinding it.
"What's he up to now?" says Bill anxiously. "You don't think he'll run
away, do you, Sam?"
"No fear of it," says I. "He don't seem to be much of a home body. But
we've got to fix up some plan about the ransom. There don't seem to be
much excitement around Summit on account of his disappearance; but maybe
they haven't realized yet that he's gone. His folks may think he's
spending the night with Aunt Jane or one of the neighbors. Anyhow, he'll
be missed to-day. To-night we must get a message to his father demanding
the two thousand dollars for his return."
Just then we heard a kind of war-whoop, such as David might have emitted
when he knocked out the champion Goliath. It was a sling that Red Chief
had pulled out of his pocket, and he was whirling it around his head.
I dodged, and heard a heavy thud and a kind of a sigh from Bill, like a
horse gives out when you take his saddle off. A niggerhead rock the size
of an egg had caught Bill just behind his left ear. He loosened himself
all over and fell in the fire across the frying pan of hot water for
washing the dishes. I dragged him out and poured cold water on his head
for half an hour.
By and by, Bill sits up and feels behind his ear and says: "Sam, do you
know who my favorite Biblical character is?"
"Take it easy," says I. "You'll come to your senses presently."
"King Herod," says he. "You won't go away and leave me here alone, will
you, Sam?"
I went out and caught that boy and shook him until his freckles rattled.
"If you don't behave," says I, "I'll take you straight home. Now, are
you going to be good, or not?"
"I was only funning," says he sullenly. "I didn't mean to hurt Old Hank.
But what did he hit me for? I'll behave, Snake-eye, if you won't send me
home, and if you'll let me play the Black Scout to-day."
"I don't know the game," says I. "That's for you and Mr. Bill to decide.
He's your playmate for the day. I'm going away for a while, on business.
Now, you come in and make friends with him and say you are sorry for
hurting him, or home you go, at once."
I made him and Bill shake hands, and then I took Bill aside and told him
I was going to Poplar Cove, a little village three miles from the cave,
and find out what I could about how the kidnaping had been regarded in
Summit. Also, I thought it best to send a peremptory letter to old man
Dorset that day, demanding the ransom and dictating how it should be
paid.
"You know, Sam," says Bill, "I've stood by you without batting an eye in
earthquakes, fire, and flood--in poker games, dynamite outrages, police
raids, train robberies, and cyclones. I never lost my nerve yet till we
kidnaped that two-legged skyrocket of a kid. He's got me going. You
won't leave me long with him, will you, Sam?"
"I'll be back some time this afternoon," says I. "You must keep the boy
amused and quiet till I return. And now we'll write the letter to old
Dorset."
Bill and I got paper and pencil and worked on the letter while Red
Chief, with a blanket wrapped around him, strutted up and down, guarding
the mouth of the cave. Bill begged me tearfully to make the ransom
fifteen hundred dollars instead of two thousand. "I ain't attempting,"
says he, "to decry the celebrated moral aspect of parental affection,
but we're dealing with humans, and it ain't human for anybody to give up
two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat. I'm
willing to take a chance at fifteen hundred dollars. You can charge the
difference up to me."
So, to relieve Bill, I acceded, and we collaborated a letter that ran
this way:
"_Ebenezer Dorset, Esq._:
"We have your boy concealed in a place far from
Summit. It is useless for you or the most skillful
detectives to attempt to find him. Absolutely, the
only terms on which you can have him restored to
you are these: We demand fifteen hundred dollars
in large bills for his return; the money to be
left at midnight to-night at the same spot and in
the same box as your reply--as hereinafter
described. If you agree to these terms, send your
answer in writing by a solitary messenger to-night
at half-past eight o'clock. After crossing Owl
Creek, on the road to Poplar Cove, there are three
large trees about a hundred yards apart, close to
the fence of the wheat field on the right-hand
side. At the bottom of the fence-post, opposite
the third tree, will be found a small paste-board
box.
"The messenger will place the answer in this box
and return immediately to Summit.
"If you attempt any treachery or fail to comply
with our demand as stated, you will never see your
boy again.
"If you pay the money as demanded, he will be
returned to you safe and well within three hours.
These terms are final, and if you do not accede to
them no further communication will be attempted.
"TWO DESPERATE MEN."
I addressed this letter to Dorset, and put it in my pocket. As I was
about to start, the kid comes up to me and says:
"Aw, Snake-eye, you said I could play the Black Scout while you was
gone."
"Play it, of course," says I. "Mr. Bill will play with you. What kind of
a game is it?"
"I'm the Black Scout," says Red Chief, "and I have to ride to the
stockade to warn the settlers that the Indians are coming. I'm tired of
playing Indian myself. I want to be the Black Scout."
"All right," says I. "It sounds harmless to me. I guess Mr. Bill will
help you foil the pesky savages."
"What am I to do?" asks Bill, looking at the kid suspiciously.
"You are the hoss," says Black Scout. "Get down on your hands and knees.
How can I ride to the stockade without a hoss?"
"You'd better keep him interested," said I, "till we get the scheme
going. Loosen up."
Bill gets down on his all fours, and a look comes in his eye like a
rabbit's when you catch it in a trap.
"How far is it to the stockade, kid?" he asks, in a husky manner of
voice.
"Ninety miles," says the Black Scout. "And you have to hump yourself to
get there on time. Whoa, now!"
The Black Scout jumps on Bill's back and digs his heels in his side.
"For Heaven's sake," says Bill, "hurry back, Sam, as soon as you can. I
wish we hadn't made the ransom more than a thousand. Say, you quit
kicking me or I'll get up and warm you good."
I walked over to Poplar Cove and sat around the post-office and store,
talking with the chawbacons that came in to trade. One whiskerando says
that he hears Summit is all upset on account of Elder Ebenezer Dorset's
boy having been lost or stolen. That was all I wanted to know. I bought
some smoking tobacco, referred casually to the price of black-eyed peas,
posted my letter surreptitiously, and came away. The postmaster said the
mail-carrier would come by in an hour to take the mail on to Summit.
When I got back to the cave Bill and the boy were not to be found. I
explored the vicinity of the cave, and risked a yodel or two, but there
was no response.
[Illustration: THE BLACK SCOUT JUMPS ON BILL'S BACK AND DIGS HIS HEELS
IN HIS SIDE]
So I lighted my pipe and sat down on a mossy bank to await developments.
In about half an hour I heard the bushes rustle, and Bill wabbled out
into the little glade in front of the cave. Behind him was the kid,
stepping softly like a scout, with a broad grin on his face. Bill
stopped, took off his hat, and wiped his face with a red handkerchief.
The kid stopped about eight feet behind him.
"Sam," says Bill, "I suppose you'll think I'm a renegade, but I couldn't
help it. I'm a grown person with masculine proclivities and habits of
self-defense, but there is a time when all systems of egotism and
predominance fail. The boy is gone. I have sent him home. All is off.
There was martyrs in old times," goes on Bill, "that suffered death
rather than give up the particular graft they enjoyed. None of 'em ever
was subjugated to such supernatural tortures as I have been. I tried to
be faithful to our articles of depredation; but there came a limit."
"What's the trouble, Bill?" I asks him.
"I was rode," says Bill, "the ninety miles to the stockade, not barring
an inch. Then, when the settlers was rescued, I was given oats. Sand
ain't a palatable substitute. And then, for an hour I had to try to
explain to him why there was nothin' in holes, how a road can run both
ways, and what makes the grass green. I tell you, Sam, a human can only
stand so much. I takes him by the neck of his clothes and drags him
down the mountain. On the way he kicks my legs black-and-blue from the
knees down; and I've got to have two or three bites on my thumb and hand
cauterized.
"But he's gone"--continues Bill--"gone home. I showed him the road to
Summit and kicked him about eight feet nearer there at one kick. I'm
sorry we lose the ransom; but it was either that or Bill Driscoll to the
madhouse."
Bill is puffing and blowing, but there is a look of ineffable peace and
growing content on his rose-pink features.
"Bill," says I, "there isn't any heart disease in your family, is
there?"
"No," says Bill, "nothing chronic except malaria and accidents. Why?"
"Then you might turn around," says I, "and have a look behind you."
Bill turns and sees the boy, and loses his complexion and sits down
plump on the ground and begins to pluck aimlessly at grass and little
sticks. For an hour I was afraid for his mind. And then I told him that
my scheme was to put the whole job through immediately and that we would
get the ransom and be off with it by midnight if old Dorset fell in with
our proposition. So Bill braced up enough to give the kid a weak sort of
a smile and a promise to play the Russian in a Japanese war with him as
soon as he felt a little better.
I had a scheme for collecting that ransom without danger of being caught
by counterplots that ought to commend itself to professional kidnapers.
The tree under which the answer was to be left--and the money later
on--was close to the road fence with big, bare fields on all sides. If a
gang of constables should be watching for any one to come for the note,
they could see him a long way off crossing the fields or in the road.
But no, siree! At half-past eight I was up in that tree as well hidden
as a tree toad, waiting for the messenger to arrive.
Exactly on time, a half-grown boy rides up the road on a bicycle,
locates the pasteboard box at the foot of the fence-post, slips a folded
piece of paper into it, and pedals away again back toward Summit.
I waited an hour and then concluded the thing was square. I slid down
the tree, got the note, slipped along the fence till I struck the woods,
and was back at the cave in another half an hour. I opened the note, got
near the lantern, and read it to Bill. It was written with a pen in a
crabbed hand, and the sum and substance of it was this:
"_Two Desperate Men_.
"_Gentlemen:_ I received your letter to-day by
post, in regard to the ransom you ask for the
return of my son. I think you are a little high in
your demands, and I hereby make you a
counter-proposition, which I am inclined to
believe you will accept. You bring Johnny home and
pay me two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and
I agree to take him off your hands. You had better
come at night, for the neighbors believe he is
lost, and I couldn't be responsible for what they
would do to anybody they saw bringing him back.
"Very respectfully,
"EBENEZER DORSET."
"Great pirates of Penzance!" says I; "of all the impudent----"
But I glanced at Bill, and hesitated. He had the most appealing look in
his eyes I ever saw on the face of a dumb or a talking brute.
"Sam," says he, "what's two hundred and fifty dollars, after all? We've
got the money. One more night of this kid will send me to a bed in
Bedlam. Besides being a thorough gentleman, I think Mr. Dorset is a
spendthrift for making us such a liberal offer. You ain't going to let
the chance go, are you?"
"Tell you the truth, Bill," says I, "this little he ewe lamb has
somewhat got on my nerves too. We'll take him home, pay the ransom, and
make our getaway."
We took him home that night. We got him to go by telling him that his
father had bought a silver-mounted rifle and a pair of moccasins for
him, and we were going to hunt bears the next day.
It was just twelve o'clock when we knocked at Ebenezer's front door.
Just at the moment when I should have been abstracting the fifteen
hundred dollars from the box under the tree, according to the original
proposition, Bill was counting out two hundred and fifty dollars into
Dorset's hand.
When the kid found out we were going to leave him at home he started up
a howl like a calliope and fastened himself as tight as a leech to
Bill's leg. His father peeled him away gradually, like a porous plaster.
"How long can you hold him!" asks Bill.
"I'm not as strong as I used to be," says old Dorset, "but I think I can
promise you ten minutes."
"Enough," says Bill. "In ten minutes I shall cross the Central,
Southern, and Middle Western States, and be legging it trippingly for
the Canadian border."
And, as dark as it was, and as fat as Bill was, and as good a runner as
I am, he was a good mile and a half out of Summit before I could catch
up with him.
FOOTNOTE:
[E] Reprinted by special permission from "Whirligigs." Copyright, 1910,
by Doubleday, Page and Company.
[Illustration]
VI.--The Honk-Honk Breed[F]
_By Stewart Edward White_
IT was Sunday at the ranch. For a wonder the weather had been favorable;
the windmills were all working, the bogs had dried up, the beef had
lasted over, the remuda had not strayed--in short, there was nothing to
do. Sang had given us a baked bread-pudding with raisins in it. We
filled it in--a wash-basin full of it--on top of a few incidental pounds
of _chile con_, baked beans, soda biscuits, "air-tights," and other
delicacies. Then we adjourned with our pipes to the shady side of the
blacksmith's shop where we could watch the ravens on top the adobe wall
of the corral. Somebody told a story about ravens. This led to
road-runners. This suggested rattlesnakes. They started Windy Bill.
"Speakin' of snakes," said Windy, "I mind when they catched the
great-granddaddy of all the bullsnakes up at Lead in the Black Hills. I
was only a kid then. This wasn't no such tur'ble long a snake, but he
was more'n a foot thick. Looked just like a sahuaro stalk. Man name of
Terwilliger Smith catched it. He named this yere bull-snake Clarence,
and got it so plumb gentle it followed him everywhere. One day old P. T.
Barnum come along and wanted to buy this Clarence snake--offered
Terwilliger a thousand cold--but Smith wouldn't part with the snake
nohow. So finally they fixed up a deal so Smith could go along with the
show. They shoved Clarence in a box in the baggage car, but after a
while Mr. Snake gets so lonesome he gnaws out and starts to crawl back
to find his master. Just as he is half-way between the baggage car and
the smoker, the couplin' give way--right on that heavy grade between
Custer and Rocky Point. Well, sir, Clarence wound his head 'round one
brake wheel and his tail around the other, and held that train together
to the bottom of the grade. But it stretched him twenty-eight feet and
they had to advertise him as a boa-constrictor."
Windy Bill's history of the faithful bull-snake aroused to reminiscence
the grizzled stranger, who thereupon held forth as follows:
Wall, I've see things and I've heerd things, some of them ornery, and
some you'd love to believe, they was that gorgeous and improbable.
Nat'ral history was always my hobby and sportin' events my special
pleasure--and this yarn of Windy's reminds me of the only chanst I ever
had to ring in business and pleasure and hobby all in one grand
merry-go-round of joy. It come about like this:
One day, a few year back, I was sittin' on the beach at Santa Barbara
watchin' the sky stay up, and wonderin' what to do with my year's wages,
when a little squinch-eye round-face with big bow spectacles came and
plumped down beside me.
"Did you ever stop to think," says he, shovin' back his hat, "that if
the horse-power delivered by them waves on this beach in one single hour
could be concentrated behind washin' machines, it would be enough to
wash all the shirts for a city of four hundred and fifty-one thousand
one hundred and thirty-six people?"
"Can't say I ever did," says I, squintin' at him sideways.
"Fact," says he, "and did it ever occur to you that if all the food a
man eats in the course of a natural life could be gathered together at
one time, it would fill a wagon-train twelve miles long?"
"You make me hungry," says I.
"And ain't it interestin' to reflect," he goes on, "that if all the
finger-nail parin's of the human race for one year was to be collected
and subjected to hydraulic pressure it would equal in size the pyramid
of Cheops?"
"Look here," says I, sittin' up, "did you ever pause to excogitate that
if all the hot air you is dispensin' was to be collected together it
would fill a balloon big enough to waft you and me over that Bullyvard
of Palms to yonder gin mill on the corner?"
He didn't say nothin' to that--just yanked me to my feet, faced me
towards the gin mill above mentioned, and exerted considerable pressure
on my arm in urgin' of me forward.
"You ain't so much of a dreamer, after all," thinks I. "In important
matters you are plumb decisive."
We sat down at little tables, and my friend ordered a beer and a chicken
sandwich.
"Chickens," says he, gazin' at the sandwich, "is a dollar apiece in this
country, and plumb scarce. Did you ever pause to ponder over the returns
chickens would give on a small investment? Say you start with ten hens.
Each hatches out thirteen aigs, of which allow a loss of say six for
childish accidents. At the end of two years that flock has increased to
six hundred and twenty. At the end of the third year----"
He had the medicine tongue! Ten days later him and me was occupyin' of
an old ranch fifty mile from anywhere. When they run stage-coaches this
joint used to be a road-house. The outlook was on about a thousand
little brown foothills. A road two miles four rods two foot eleven
inches in sight run by in front of us. It come over one foothill and
disappeared over another. I know just how long it was, for later in the
game I measured it.
Out back was about a hundred little wire chicken corrals filled with
chickens. We had two kinds. That was the doin's of Tuscarora. My pardner
called himself Tuscarora Maxillary. I asked him once if that was his
real name.
"It's the realest little old name you ever heerd tell of," says he. "I
know, for I made it myself--liked the sound of her. Parents ain't got no
rights to name their children. Parents don't have to be called them
names."
Well, these chickens, as I said, was of two kinds. The first was these
low-set, heavy-weight propositions with feathers on their laigs, and not
much laigs at that, called Cochin Chinys. The other was a tall
ridiculous outfit made up entire of bulgin' breast and gangle laigs.
They stood about two foot and a half tall, and when they went to peck
the ground their tail feathers stuck straight up to the sky. Tusky
called 'em Japanese Games.
"Which the chief advantage of them chickens is," says he, "that in
weight about ninety per cent. of 'em is breast meat. Now my idee is,
that if we can cross 'em with these Cochin Chiny fowls we'll have a
low-hung, heavy-weight chicken runnin' strong on breast meat. These Jap
Games is too small, but if we can bring 'em up in size and shorten their
laigs, we'll shore have a winner."
That looked good to me, so we started in on that idee. The theery was
bully, but she didn't work out. The first broods we hatched growed up
with big husky Cochin Chiny bodies and little short necks, perched up
on laigs three foot long. Them chickens couldn't reach ground nohow. We
had to build a table for 'em to eat off, and when they went out rustlin'
for themselves they had to confine themselves to side-hills or flyin'
insects. Their breasts was all right, though--"And think of them
drumsticks for the boardin'-house trade!" says Tusky.
So far things wasn't so bad. We had a good grub-stake. Tusky and me used
to feed them chickens twict a day, and then used to set around watchin'
the playful critters chase grasshoppers up and down the wire corrals,
while Tusky figgered out what'd happen if somebody was dumfool enough to
gather up somethin' and fix it in baskets or wagons or such. That was
where we showed our ignorance of chickens.