into coops, and druv over to the railroad to make our first sale. I
couldn't fold them chickens up into them coops at first, but then I
stuck the coops up on aidge and they worked all right, though I will
admit they was a comical sight. At the railroad one of them towerist
trains had just slowed down to a halt as I come up, and the towerists
was paradin' up and down allowin' they was particular enjoyin' of the
warm Californy sunshine. One old terrapin with gray chin whiskers,
projected over, with his wife, and took a peek through the slats of my
coop. He straightened up like some one had touched him off with a
red-hot poker.
"Stranger," said he, in a scared kind of whisper, "what's them?"
"Them's chickens," says I.
He took another long look.
"Marthy," says he to the old woman, "this will be about all! We come out
from Ioway to see the Wonders of Californy, but I can't go nothin'
stronger than this. If these is chickens, I don't want to see no Big
Trees."
Well, I sold them chickens all right for a dollar and two bits, which
was better than I expected, and got an order for more. About ten days
later I got a letter from the commission house.
"We are returnin' a sample of your Arts and Crafts chickens with the
lovin' marks of the teeth still onto him," says they. "Don't send any
more till they stops pursuin' of the nimble grasshopper. Dentist bill
will foller."
With the letter came the remains of one of the chickens. Tusky and I,
very indignant, cooked her for supper. She was tough, all right. We
thought she might do better biled, so we put her in the pot over night.
Nary bit. Well, then we got interested. Tusky kep' the fire goin' and I
rustled greasewood. We cooked her three days and three nights. At the
end of that time she was sort of pale and frazzled, but still givin'
points to three-year-old jerky on cohesion and other uncompromisin'
forces of Nature. We buried her then, and went out back to recuperate.
There we could gaze on the smilin' landscape, dotted by about four
hundred long-laigged chickens swoopin' here and there after
grasshoppers.
"We got to stop that," says I.
"We can't," murmured Tusky, inspired. "We can't. It's born in 'em; it's
primal instinct, like the love of a mother for her young, and it can't
be eradicated! Them chickens is constructed by a divine providence for
the express purpose of chasin' grasshoppers, just as the beaver is made
for building dams, and the cow-puncher is made for whisky and
faro-games. We can't keep 'em from it. If we was to shut 'em in a dark
cellar, they'd flop after imaginary grasshoppers in their dreams, and
die emaciated in the midst of plenty. Jimmy, we're up agin the Cosmos,
the oversoul----" Oh, he had the medicine tongue, Tusky had, and risin'
on the wings of eloquence that way, he had me faded in ten minutes. In
fifteen I was wedded solid to the notion that the bottom had dropped out
of the chicken business. I think now that if we'd shut them hens up, we
might have--still, I don't know; they was a good deal in what Tusky
said.
"Tuscarora Maxillary," says I, "did you ever stop to entertain that
beautiful thought that if all the dumfoolishness possessed now by the
human race could be gathered together, and lined up alongside of us,
the first feller to come along would say to it, 'Why, hello, Solomon!'"
We quit the notion of chickens for profit right then and there, but we
couldn't quit the place. We hadn't much money, for one thing, and then
we kind of liked loafin' around and raisin' a little garden truck,
and--oh, well, I might as well say so, we had a notion about placers in
the dry wash back of the house--you know how it is. So we stayed on, and
kept a-raisin' these long-laigs for the fun of it. I used to like to
watch 'em projectin' around, and I fed 'em twict a day about as usual.
So Tusky and I lived alone there together, happy as ducks in Arizona.
About onc't in a month somebody'd pike along the road. She wasn't much
of a road, generally more chuck-holes than bumps, though sometimes it
was the other way around. Unless it happened to be a man horseback or
maybe a freighter without the fear of God in his soul, we didn't have no
words with them; they was too busy cussin' the highways and generally
too mad for social discourses.
One day early in the year, when the 'dobe mud made ruts to add to the
bumps, one of these automobeels went past. It was the first Tusky and me
had seen in them parts, so we run out to view her.
"Which them folks don't seem to be enjoyin' of the scenery," says I to
Tusky. "Do you reckon that there blue trail is smoke from the machine or
remarks from the inhabitants thereof?"
Tusky raised his head and sniffed long and inquirin'.
"It's langwidge," says he. "Did you ever stop to think that all the
words in the dictionary hitched end to end would reach----"
But at that minute I catched sight of somethin' brass lyin' in the road.
It proved to be a curled-up sort of horn with a rubber bulb on the end.
I squoze the bulb and jumped twenty foot over the remark she made.
"Jarred off the machine," says Tusky.
"Oh, did it?" says I, my nerves still wrong. "I thought maybe it had
growed up from the soil like a toadstool."
About this time we abolished the wire chicken corrals, because we needed
some of the wire. Them long-laigs thereupon scattered all over the flat
searchin' out their prey. When feed time come I had to screech my lungs
out gettin' of 'em in, and then sometimes they didn't all hear. It was
plumb discouragin', and I mighty nigh made up my mind to quit 'em, but
they had come to be sort of pets, and I hated to turn 'em down. It used
to tickle Tusky almost to death to see me out there hollerin' away like
an old bull-frog. He used to come out reg'la, with his pipe lit, just to
enjoy me. Finally I got mad and opened up on him.
"Oh," he explains, "it just plumb amuses me to see the dumfool at his
childish work. Why don't you teach 'em to come to that brass horn, and
save your voice?"
"Tusky," says I, with feelin', "sometimes you do seem to get a glimmer
of real sense."
Well, first off them chickens used to throw back-summersets over that
horn. You have no idee how slow chickens is to learn things. I could
tell you things about chickens--say, this yere bluff about roosters
bein' gallant is all wrong. I've watched 'em. When one finds a nice feed
he gobbles it so fast that the pieces foller down his throat like
yearlin's through a hole in the fence. It's only when he scratches up a
measly one-grain quick-lunch that he calls up the hens and stands noble
and self-sacrificin' to one side. That ain't the point, which is, that
after two months I had them long-laigs so they'd drop everythin' and
come kitin' at the honk-honk of that horn. It was a purty sight to see
'em, sailin' in from all directions twenty foot at a stride. I was proud
of 'em, and named 'em the Honk-honk Breed. We didn't have no others, for
by now the coyotes and bob-cats had nailed the straight-breds. There
wasn't no wild cat or coyote could catch one of my Honk-honks, no, sir!
We made a little on our placer--just enough to keep interested. Then the
supervisors decided to fix our road, and what's more, _they done it!_
That's the only part in this yarn that's hard to believe, but, boys,
you'll have to take it on faith. They plowed her, and crowned her, and
scraped her, and rolled her, and when they moved on we had the fanciest
highway in the State of Californy.
That noon--the day they called her a job--Tusky and I sat smokin' our
pipes as per usual, when way over the foothills we seen a cloud of dust
and faint to our ears was bore a whizzin' sound. The chickens was
gathered under the cottonwood for the heat of the day, but they didn't
pay no attention. Then faint, but clear, we heard another of them brass
horns:
"Honk! honk!" says it, and every one of them chickens woke up, and stood
at attention.
"Honk! honk!" it hollered clearer and nearer. Then over the hill come an
automobeel, blowin' vigorous at every jump.
"Stop 'em! Stop 'em!" I yells to Tusky, kickin' over my chair, as I
springs to my feet.
But it was too late. Out the gate sprinted them poor devoted chickens,
and up the road they trailed in vain pursuit. The last we seen of 'em
was a minglin' of dust and dim figgers goin' thirty mile an hour after a
disappearin' automobeel.
That was all we seen for the moment. About three o'clock the first
straggler came limpin' in, his wings hangin', his mouth open, his eyes
glazed with the heat. By sundown fourteen had returned. All the rest had
disappeared utter; we never seen 'em again. I reckon they just naturally
run themselves into a sunstroke and died on the road.
It takes a long time to learn a chicken a thing, but a heap longer to
unlearn him. After that two or three of these yere automobeels went by
every day, all a-blowin' of their horns. And every time them fourteen
Honk-honks of mine took along after 'em, just as I'd taught 'em to do,
layin' to get to their corn when they caught up. No more of 'em died,
but that fourteen did get into elegant trainin'. After a while they got
plumb to enjoyin' it. When you come right down to it, a chicken don't
have many amusements and relaxations in this life. Searchin' for worms,
chasin' grasshoppers, and wallerin' in the dust is about the limits of
joys for chickens.
It was sure a fine sight to see 'em after they got well into the game.
About nine o'clock every mornin' they would saunter down to the rise of
the road where they would wait patient until a machine came along. Then
it would warm your heart to see the enthusiasm of them. With exultant
cackles of joy they'd trail in, reachin' out like quarter-horses, their
wings half spread out, their eyes beamin' with delight. At the lower
turn they'd quit. Then, after talkin' it over excited-like for a few
minutes, they'd calm down and wait for another.
After a few months of this sort of trainin' they got purty good at it. I
had one two-year-old rooster that made fifty-four mile an hour behind
one of those sixty-horsepower Panhandles. When cars didn't come along
often enough, they'd all turn out and chase jack-rabbits. They wasn't
much fun at that. After a short, brief sprint the rabbit would crouch
down plumb terrified, while the Honk-honks pulled off triumphal dances
around his shrinkin' form.
Our ranch got to be purty well known them days among automobeelists. The
strength of their cars was horsepower, of course, but the speed of them
they got to ratin' by chickenpower. Some of them used to come way up
from Los Angeles just to try out a new car along our road with the
Honk-honks for pacemakers. We charged them a little somethin' and then,
too, we opened up the road-house and the bar, so we did purty well. It
wasn't necessary to work any longer at that bogus placer. Evenin's we
sat around outside and swapped yarns, and I bragged on my chickens. The
chickens would gather round close to listen. They liked to hear their
praises sung, all right. You bet they _sabe_! The only reason a chicken,
or any other critter, isn't intelligent is because he hasn't no chance
to expand.
Why, we used to run races with 'em. Some of us would hold two or more
chickens back of a chalk line, and the starter'd blow the horn from a
hundred yards to a mile away, dependin' on whether it was a sprint or
for distance. We had pools on the results, gave odds, made books, and
kept records. After the thing got knowed we made money hand over fist.
* * * * *
The stranger broke off abruptly and began to roll a cigarette.
"What did you quit it for, then?" ventured Charley, out of the hushed
silence.
"Pride," replied the stranger solemnly. "Haughtiness of spirit."
"How so?" urged Charley, after a pause.
"Them chickens," continued the stranger, after a moment, "stood around
listenin' to me a-braggin' of what superior fowls they was until they
got all puffed up. They wouldn't have nothin' whatever to do with the
ordinary chickens we brought in for eatin' purposes, but stood around
lookin' bored when there wasn't no sport doin'. They got to be just like
that Four Hundred you read about in the papers. It was one continual
round of grasshopper balls, race meets, and afternoon hen-parties. They
got idle and haughty, just like folks. They got to feelin' so
aristocratic the hens wouldn't have no eggs."
Nobody dared say a word.
"Windy Bill's snake----" began the narrator genially.
"Stranger," broke in Windy Bill, with great emphasis, "as to that snake,
I want you to understand this: yereafter in my estimation that snake is
nothin' but an ornery angle-worm!"
FOOTNOTE:
[F] Reprinted by special permission from "Arizona Nights." Copyright,
1907, by Doubleday, Page and Company.
[Illustration]
VII.--The Devil-Fish[G]
_By Norman Duncan_
WHEN the Minister of Justice for the colony of Newfoundland went away
from Ruddy Cove by the bay steamer, he chanced to leave an American
magazine at the home of Billy Topsail's father, where he had passed the
night. The magazine contained an illustrated article on the gigantic
species of cephalopods[1] popularly known as devil-fish.
[Illustration: "'TIS THE DEVIL-FISH!" SCREAMED BOBBY.]
Billy Topsail did not know what a cephalopod was; but he did know a
squid when he saw its picture, for Ruddy Cove is a fishing harbor, and
he had caught many a thousand for bait. So when he found that to the lay
mind a squid and a cephalopod were one and the same, save in size, he
read the long article from beginning to end, doing the best he could
with the strange, long words.
So interested was he that he read it again; and by that time he had
learned enough to surprise him, even to terrify him, notwithstanding the
writer's assurance that the power and ferocity of the creatures had
generally been exaggerated.
He was a lad of sound common sense. He had never wholly doubted the
tales of desperate encounters with devil-fish, told in the harbor these
many years; for the various descriptions of how the long slimy arms had
curled about the punts had rung too true to be quite disbelieved; but he
had considered them somewhat less credible than certain wild yarns of
shipwreck, and somewhat more credible than the bedtime stories of
mermaids which the grandmothers told the children of the place.
Here, however, in plain print, was described the capture of a giant
squid in a bay which lay beyond a point of land that Billy could see
from the window.
That afternoon Billy put out in his leaky old punt to "jig" squid for
bait. He was so disgusted with the punt--so ashamed of the squat,
weather-worn, rotten cast-off--that he wished heartily for a new one all
the way to the grounds. The loss of the _Never Give Up_ had brought him
to humiliating depths.
But when he had once joined the little fleet of boats, he cheerfully
threw his grapnel into Bobby Lot's punt and beckoned Bobby aboard. Then,
as together they drew the writhing-armed, squirting little squids from
the water, he told of the "big squids" which lurked in the deep water
beyond the harbor; and all the time Bobby opened his eyes wider and
wider.
"Is they just like squids?" Bobby asked.
"But bigger," answered Billy. "Their bodies is so big as hogsheads.
Their arms is thirty-five feet long."
Bobby picked a squid from the heap in the bottom of the boat. It had
instinctively turned from a reddish-brown to a livid green, the color of
sea-water; indeed, had it been in the water, its enemy would have had
hard work to see it.
He handled it gingerly; but the ugly little creature managed somehow to
twine its slender arms about his hand, and swiftly to take hold with a
dozen cup-like suckers. The boy uttered an exclamation of disgust, and
shook it off. Then he shuddered, laughed at himself, shuddered again. A
moment later he chose a dead squid for examination.
"Leave us look at it close," said he. "Then we'll know what a real
devil-fish is like. Sure, I've been wantin' to know that for a long,
long time."
They observed the long cylindrical body, flabby and cold, with the
broad, flap-like tail attached. The head was repulsively ugly--perhaps
because of the eyes, which were disproportionately large, brilliant,
and, in the live squid, ferocious.
A group of arms--two long, slender, tentacular arms, and eight shorter,
thicker ones--projected from the region of the mouth, which, indeed, was
set in the center of the ring they formed at the roots. They were
equipped with innumerable little suckers, were flexible and active, and
as long as the head, body and tail put together.
Closer examination revealed that there was a horny beak, like a
parrot's, in the mouth, and that on the under side of the head was a
curious tube-like structure.
"Oh, that's his squirter!" Billy explained. "When he wants to back up
he points that forward, and squirts out water so hard as he can; and
when he wants to go ahead he points it backward, and does the same
thing. That's where his ink comes from, too, when he wants to make the
water so dirty nobody can see him."
"What does he do with his beak?"
"When he gets his food in his arms he bites out pieces with his beak. He
hasn't any teeth; but he's got something just as good--a tongue like a
rasp."
"I wouldn't like to be cotched by a squid as big as a hogshead," Bobby
remarked, timidly.
"Huh!" said Billy, grimly. "He'd make short work o' _you_! Why, b'y,
they weighs half a tone apiece! I isn't much afraid, though," he added.
"They're only squid. Afore I read about them in the book I used to think
they was worse than they is--terrible ghostlike things. But they're no
worse than squids, only bigger, and----"
"They're bad enough for _me_," Bobby interrupted.
"And," Billy concluded, "they only comes up in the night or when they're
sore wounded and dyin'."
"I'm not goin' out at night, if I can help it," said Bobby, with a canny
shake of the head.
"If they was a big squid come up the harbor to your house," said Billy,
after a pause, "and got close to the rock, he could put one o' they two
long arms in your bedroom window, and----"
"'Tis in the attic!"
"Never mind that. He could put it in the window and feel around for your
bed, and twist that arm around you, and----"
"I'd cut it off!"
"Anyhow, that's how long they is. And if he knowed you was there, and
wanted you, he could get you. But I'm not so sure that he _would_ want
you. He couldn't see you, anyhow; and if he could, he'd rather have a
good fat salmon."
Bobby shuddered as he looked at the tiny squid in his hand, and thought
of the dreadful possibilities in one a thousand times as big.
"You leave them alone, and they'll leave you alone," Billy went on. "But
if you once make them mad, they can dart their arms out like lightning.
'Tis time to get, then!"
"I'm goin' to keep an ax in my punt after this," said Bobby, "and if I
sees an arm slippin' out of the water----"
"'Tis as big as your thigh!" cried Billy.
"Never mind. If I sees it I'll be able to cut it off."
"If I sees one," said Billy, "I'm goin' to cotch it. It said in the book
that they was worth a lot to some people. And if I can sell mine I'm
goin' to have a new punt."
But although Bobby Lot and Billy Topsail kept a sharp lookout for giant
squids wherever they went, they were not rewarded. There was not so much
as a sign of one. By and by, so bold did they become, they hunted for
one in the twilight of summer days, even daring to pry into the deepest
coves and holes in the Ruddy Cove rocks.
Notwithstanding the ridicule he had to meet, Bobby never ventured out in
the punt without a sharp ax. He could not tell what time he would need
it, he said; and thus he formed the habit of making sure that it was in
its place before casting off from the wharf.
As autumn drew near they found other things to think of; the big squids
passed out of mind altogether.
"Wonderful queer," Billy said, long afterwards, "how things happen when
you isn't expectin' them!"
* * * * *
One day late in September--it was near evening of a gray day--Billy
Topsail and Bobby Lot were returning in Bobby's punt from Birds' Nest
Islands, whither they had gone to hunt a group of seals, reported to
have taken up a temporary residence there. They had a mighty,
muzzle-loading, flintlock gun; and they were so delighted with the noise
it made that they had exhausted their scanty provision of powder and
lead long before the seals were in sight.
They had taken the shortest way home. It lay past Chain Hole, a small,
landlocked basin, very deep, with a narrow entrance, which was shallow
at low tide. The entrance opened into a broad bay, and was called Chain
Tickle.
"What's that in the tickle?" Billy exclaimed, as they were rowing past.
It was a black object, apparently floating quietly on the surface of the
water. The boys gazed at it for a long time, but could make nothing of
it. They were completely puzzled.
"'Tis a small bit o' wreck, I'm thinkin'," said Bobby. "Leave us row
close and see."
"Maybe 'tis a capsized punt."
When they were within about thirty yards of the object they lay on their
oars. For some unaccountable reason they did not care to venture nearer.
Twilight was then fast approaching. The light was already beginning to
fail.
"'Tis a wonderful queer thing!" Billy muttered, his curiosity getting
the better of him. "Row ahead, Bobby. We'll go alongside."
"They's something movin' on it!" Bobby whispered, as he let his oars
fall in the water. "Look! They's two queer, big, round spots on it--big
as plates."
Billy thought he saw the whole object move. He watched it closely. It
_did_ stir! It was some living thing, then. But what? A whale?
A long, snake-like arm was lifted out of the water. It swayed this way
and that, darted here and there, and fell back with a splash. The moving
spots, now plainly gigantic eyes, glittered.
"'Tis the devil-fish!" screamed Bobby.
Another arm was lifted up, then a third and a fourth and a fifth. The
monster began to lash the water--faster and yet more furiously--until
the tickle was heaving and frothy, and the whole neighborhood was in an
uproar.
"Pull! Pull!" cried Bobby.
Billy, too, was in a panic. They turned the head of the punt and pulled
with all their might. The water swirled in the wake of the boat.
Perceiving, however, that the squid made no effort to follow, they got
the better of their fright. Then they lay on their oars to watch the
monster.
They wondered why it still lay in the tickle, why it so furiously lashed
the water with its arms and great tail. It was Bobby who solved the
mystery.
"'Tis aground," said he.
That was evidently the situation. The squid had been caught in the
shallow tickle when the tide, which ran swiftly at that point, was on
the ebb. The boys took courage. Their curiosity still further emboldened
them. So once more they turned the punt about and pulled cautiously
towards the tickle.
There was less light than before, but still sufficient to disclose the
baleful eyes and writhing arms of the squid when the boat was yet a safe
distance away. One by one the arms fell back into the water, as if from
exhaustion; slowly the beating of the tail subsided. After a time all
sound and motion ceased. The boys waited for some further sign of life,
but none came. The squid was still, as if dead.
"Sure, he's dead now," said Billy. "Leave us pull close up."
"Oh, no, b'y! He's but makin' believe."
But Billy thought otherwise. "I wants that squid," he said, in a dogged
way, "and I'm goin' to have him. I'll sell him and get a new punt."
Bobby protested in vain. Nothing would content Billy Topsail but the
possession of the big squid's body. Bobby pointed out that if the long,
powerful arms were once laid on the boat there would be no escape. He
recalled to Billy the harbor story of the horrible death of Zachariah
North, who, as report said, had been pursued, captured, and pulled under
water by a devil-fish in Gander Bay.[2]
It was all to no purpose, however, for Billy obstinately declared that
he would make sure of the squid before the tide turned. He admitted a
slight risk, but he wanted a new punt, and he was willing to risk
something to obtain it.
He proposed to put Bobby ashore, and approach the squid alone; but Bobby
would not listen. Two hands might be needed in the boat, he said. What
if the squid were alive, after all? What if it laid hold of the punt? In
that event, two hands would surely be needed.
"I'll go," he said. "But leave us pull slow. And if we sees so much as
a wink of his eye we'll pull away."
They rowed nearer, with great caution. Billy was in the bow of the boat.
It was he who had the ax. Bobby, seated amidships, faced the bow. It was
he who did the rowing.