“Man in the next car gave it to him,” says I, “but we don’t want it.
Time ain’t no object to us.”
He looks at the watch, looks at us kinda queer-like, and went away.
“If Telescope hadn’t shoved me—” complains Polecat.
“Where do we stop tonight?”
“We don’t stop,” says Chuck. “We keep right on goin’.”
“At night? On this rickety-bang thing? Not me. I’m goin’ to make camp
the first time she slows up. _Sabe?_ I’m gettin’ hungry.”
“We’ve got a chuck-car right on this train,” says Chuck.
“Don’t lie to me,” warns Polecat, “I’m older ’n you.”
“First call fo’ dinnah!” yells a colored feller.
“Whoa,” says Chuck, grabbing him by the sleeve. “Where is the feed-car?”
“Three cars to’ards the reah, boss. We picked up the dinah at Belmore.”
We has one awful time making Polecat understand, but after while he
announces that he’s willing to prove us liars. We got back to the car
and looks her over. Polecat says to a feller who acts like he owned the
place—
“Where’s the pump?”
“What kind of a pump?”
“Water-pump,” says Polecat. “I want to wash my face.”
“Don’t be a danged dude,” says Telescope, and makes Polecat set down
beside him.
The owner puts a slip of paper and a pencil in front of each of us. We
looks at the layout, and the feller says—
“Write your orders, please.”
“Waiter deaf?” asks Muley.
The feller grins, and then offers to write ’em for us. Polecat said
“yes” to everything the feller said, and he had to get a extra slip of
paper before Polecat got through agreeing with him. The rest of us
confined our wants to one slip. It was good to eat, I’d tell a man. When
we got through we gave the waiter two bits per each, and went back to
our car to have a smoke. We aint no more than got to rolling our smokes,
when that owner of the feed-car shows up and hands us them little slips
of paper.
“You forgot to pay for your meal,” says he. “You tipped the waiter, but
forgot to pay me.”
“I never ordered no bill of goods like this,” says Polecat. “Six
dollars? You made a mistake, pardner.”
Mine was four dollars and eighty cents.
“You ate six dollars’ worth,” says the feller.
“Not me,” declares Polecat. “I’d die if I et that much.”
“The total of the five checks is $23.50,” says the man.
We paid. Then we all shook hands with Jesse James, and told him we hoped
to be a posse on his trail some day.
“Next time,” says Polecat, “I’m goin’ to take my hat in one hand and my
gun in the other. Maybe I can pay expenses.”
“You ain’t goin’ up there no more,” declares Muley. “As far as I’m
concerned, you’re hibernated like a bear.”
“Archibald eats or Archibald quits,” proclaims Polecat.
“Listen, for the sake of your future, Polecat,” says Chuck. “The next
time you talks about quittin’ I’m goin’ to hit you so hard that you’ll
be grub-shy the rest of your days. Quit us? You little, blink-eyed
buzzard, you try it.”
“Let’s throw him off the train and go back home,” suggests Muley. “All
in favor of——”
“Wait a minute,” begs Polecat. “You can’t expect to git somethin’ fer
nothin’, can yuh? You ain’t doin’ much to earn twenty thousand dollars.”
“Twenty thousand and twenty-three dollars and four bits,” corrects
Muley.
“Danged burglars! Next thing you’ll want me to pay fer them three baths,
I suppose.”
* * * * *
That night we slept settin’ up in a seat, and I woke up the next morning
with curvature of the spine and a broken neck. We got off at a station
and rustled grub enough for the day, and had to listen all day to
Polecat’s wails about a sandwich which had the bread all warped.
Polecat tried to spread his blankets in the aisle the next night, but
the brakeman comes along and raises his voice in objections.
“There must be a place on the train,” wails Polecat. “It must be that
there is room to bed down. Let’s see if we can’t locate a roost.”
We took our blankets and went ahead through a couple of cars, and then
we gets into a car where there ain’t no seats. There’s a lot of trunks,
et cettery, but plenty of room to lay down.
“This must be the warehouse,” opines Muley, “but I don’t mind.
I’ll drink my own Bourbon,
I’ll drink my own rye.
If a trunk don’t fall on me,
I’ll live ’till I die.”
“Don’t hang your gun on that trunk, Polecat,” says Chuck. “It might fall
off on your head.”
Polecat is standing there in the aisle with his gun in his hand, when
all to once a feller rises up from behind a pile of stuff. He’s got a
bunch of papers in his hand and a pencil behind his ear. He stares at us
for a second, and then ducks like a rabbit. Then the lights go out.
“Turn on that glim!” yelps Polecat.
_Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!_
Six times that car roared with mighty explosions, and death and
destruction seems to be among us. After the last explosion I ducked for
the door, and me and Polecat fought for first place out of there.
“My ——!” wails Polecat, “Ran into a bunch of blasts!” We untangles
ourselves and went hippety-hop back to our own car, and finds Telescope,
Muley and Chuck ahead of us.
We’ve got the car to ourselves, being as everybody has gone home to bed,
I reckon.
“What was it?” I asks.
“—— poor shootin’,” croaks Muley. “Did he think we was tryin’ to swipe a
trunk, I wonder?”
“I’m goin’ to sleep in the aisle,” declares Polecat. “I’m goin’ to take
off my boots, and—uh—say, where can I hang these boots where the
pack-rats won’t eat the tops off?”
“Hang ’em over that clothes-line,” says Telescope, pointing at the cord
which runs the length of the car.
Polecat fastens the tops together and tosses ’em over the line.
_Bow!_
I was standing in the aisle, with my right boot-heel hooked over the arm
of a seat, trying to pull the boot off, and I never quit going until I
hit the front seat of the car, where I turned over and shoved both feet
out of a window. I unhooked myself and got up. I notices that Polecat’s
boots have left the line, which shows that there must ’a’ been some
shock. Then I sees Muley’s face come up from behind a seat, and he’s got
a lot of excelsior in his hair, and his face looks like it had shoved
something awful hard.
Then Polecat comes creeping out from under a seat, looking like he had
lost everything except his eyesight.
“Where’s Telescope?” I asks.
“Comin’ back,” says Telescope, behind me. “I went plumb into the next
car. What did we do—hit a cow?”
Just then the conductor comes busting in.
“Who pulled the air?” he yells. “Who done that?”
“Locoed as a loon,” says Muley. “How could anybody pull air?”
“Held up!” squeaks a voice, and here comes the feller who yanked the
lights out in the storeroom. He’s waving one arm and rubbing his
shoulder with the other.
“Tried to rob the express car!” he yelps. “I shot ’em six times, and
then they pulled the air to make a getaway.”
Him and the conductor beats it out of there, and we all sets down and
looks at each other.
“Set still,” advises Telescope. “Act indifferent.”
Pretty soon the conductor comes back through the car.
“Did he kill any of ’em?” asks Muley.
“Not unless they was on the roof. He shot the roof out of his car with
six loads of buckshot.”
“I thought he was holdin’ high,” observes Polecat.
“You—uh—eh?”
The conductor stares at Polecat.
“He means that the man must ’a’ held high,” explains Muley. “If he’d ’a’
held low the shot would have went into the floor, don’t yuh see?”
“Oh, yes. Any danged fool would know that.”
“I wasn’t sure,” says Muley.
“You —— fool!” hisses Muley, after the conductor leaves. “You thought he
was holdin’ high, eh? You’ll have us all in jail pretty soon.”
“They can’t jail a man fer just thinkin’, can they?”
“I hope not, Polecat,” says Muley, “’cause if they could I’d be hung for
what I’m thinkin’ right now.”
A little while after that a feller comes in and sets down with us.
“Just to find out what you know about the attempted robbery of the
express car,” says he.
“He, he, he!” cackles Polecat. “What you want to know?”
“Ask me,” says Muley.