“There’s still the Yaller Chuck.”
“Yes,” agrees Whispering. “There is still my property.”
Just then in comes Magpie and Ike. They sets ’em up to us, and talks of
leaving soon.
“I might interest yuh if you’re looking for uh real mine,” states
Whispering. “Yuh see I ain’t in good shape physically, and I got to get
out uh this climate pretty soon. Now, I got uh claim, the Yaller Chuck,
which lies east uh here about uh mile. She’s new, gents, but she’s uh
hummer. I’m waiting for assays right now, and likely when I gets ’em
I’ll be so danged enthusiastic over ’em that I’ll stick here and ruin my
health.”
“Gold?” asks Magpie, and Whispering nods.
“You know it. Runs about eighteen per ounce, too. I’d admire to show it
to you tomorrow, if yuh ain’t got nothing else to do.”
“Well,” nods Magpie, “I reckon we might as well, Ike. Just because we
had our trip today for nothing don’t dampen our ardor. Some day we hopes
to be mining kings.”
“You gents be ready to go over tomorrow, and maybe I can show something
mighty good to look at,” says Whispering.
They pilgrims back home after uh while, and we thinks it over. Lonesome
sort uh limps behind the bar, and takes out that poke.
“How much do you want, Whispering?”
“I ain’t going to pike,” announces Whispering. “You can see how Forty
fell down with uh small amount, Lonesome. Give me about eight ounces,
Lonesome.”
Lonesome figures for uh minute and gets tears in his eyes.
“Uh hundred and forty-four dollars!” he wails. “My gosh!”
He weighs out the gold and shoves it across to Whispering.
“Please shoot straight,” he implores. “Get up close and don’t shut your
eyes, Whispering.”
“Don’t worry. When we pans my rock there ain’t going to be no argument.
That gold will all be there. I’m going to make an early sneak and be
back before nine o’clock.”
The next morning Whispering comes in, rubbing his shoulder, and accepts
uh jolt.
“Look at my shoulder!” he wails. “Both barrels uh that thing! I put
seventy-two dollars in that thing, in each barrel, and she kicked like
uh million. I’ll bet we’ll open their eyes.”
When Magpie and Ike shows up, Lonesome treats ’em to some
microbe-killer, and they seems anxious to investigate that mine.
“You sure do hunt early, old-timer,” states Harper. “Are the fool-hens
so wild around here that yuh has to sneak up on ’em in the dark?”
“Why—uh—yes, they—huh—are,” stutters Whispering. “Yuh sure got to get
out early to have any luck.”
* * * * *
We pilgrims to the Yaller Chuck, which looks on uh par with the Golden
Glow, and Whispering immediate and soon proceeds to show Magpie the pay
streak. He lets Magpie dig out uh pan uh dirt, which we puts in uh
canvas sack. There ain’t water enough around there to pan it in, so we
has to pack it back to uh stream near Painted Post. It sure was some
pe-rade. One burro packing uh rocking-chair, and another with uh little
sack uh salted dirt. Harper sets down in his rocking-chair, while we
sets down at the water’s edge.
“If that ain’t the richest pan uh dirt you ever seen I hope I never have
another drink uh liquor in my life,” orates Whispering. “I know what the
Yaller Chuck contains.”
We squats there on the bank and watches Magpie slosh that pan around,
while Ike sets up there on the bank, rocking back and forth, admiring
the clouds.
Pretty soon we sees Magpie shake his head, slow-like, and then we
clusters around him. Down in the bottom uh that pan is one single piece
uh gold that will weigh about ten cents—nothing more.
Whispering heaves uh sigh plumb from his heels, and the next minute him
and Lonesome are tangled up in the crick. It takes all of us to pry
Lonesome loose, and then explanations seems in order.
“What for kind of uh way is this to act?” asks Magpie, staring at them
two dripping critters.
“I’m mad!” snaps Lonesome. “After I lets him——”
“Hold on!” yelps Whispering. “He’s just sore at me ’cause—’cause—well,
he expected to see more than he has seen. Sabe? He’s excitable that way.
Doggone yuh, Lonesome! Keep your wet paws off me! We can’t afford to
fight when we got company. Ain’t you got no ettiket in your make-up,
Lonesome?”
We drifts back to Painted Post and invades Lonesome’s place. Magpie and
Ike accepts uh drink and goes back to their cabin. Lonesome sets out uh
glass for me and one for Forty, and fills one for himself.
“Another glass, Lonesome,” suggests Whispering, in uh low tone.
“Nope. You’re going to get your wish, Whispering.”
“What wish?”
“Uh hope is the same as uh wish, ain’t it? Well, you hoped you’d never
get another drink uh liquor if that wasn’t the richest pan uh dirt he
ever seen. Beat me out uh all that gold and then have the nerve to stand
up here and drink up my hooch.”
“Dang your heart, Lonesome!” explodes Whispering. “Do you mean to
insinuate that I stole your gold? Do yuh?”
“Where is it? Where is Forty-Dollar’s gold?”
“Well,” says Whispering, “all I got to say is this: I don’t know what
Forty-Dollar done with his, but you can’t stand there and accuse me——”
“Peace,” says I. “Let’s not lower the census. Quit quarreling and do uh
little figuring. Them Jaspers have got money, and we got to get some of
it. How?”
“I got an idea,” suggests Forty-Dollar. “Maybe you fellers don’t like
violence, but it ain’t no more of uh sin to take uh man’s money at the
point of uh gun than it is to get him happy over salted rock and take it
that away.”
“You keep on talking,” says Whispering. “Your oration seems to be
leading up to something except words. Go ahead.”
“I’m meek and mild and I got quarts of the milk uh human kindness in my
veins,” continues Forty-Dollar. “I’m an apostle uh brotherly love and
sisterly affection, and the sufferings uh mankind makes my heart bleed.
But in uh case like this, gentlemen, uh man has to steel his
heartstrings and blunt his affections.”
“Hymn number five hundred and six,” announces Whispering. “Let us all
arise.”
“Hang on to yourself,” advises Forty-Dollar. “I’m excusing my plan as I
goes along, so yuh won’t see me in the wrong light. Now, them hombres
has got money, ain’t they? Didn’t they mention uh sizable check? Don’t
they seem to have uh sprinkling of the needful in their pockets? Does
human beings dress as them are dressed without having financial backing?
“Do plain, ordinary, burro-busting prospectors carry rocking-chairs,
bath-tubs, wash-tubs and kerosene lamps with them? There is but one
answer—they don’t. I don’t aim to hurt uh hair uh their heads.
“Suppose we goes over to their cabin this night: suppose we takes what
they got at the point of uh gun: suppose we takes and confiscates their
burros and holds them two in fear of destruction until they presents us
with uh piece uh paper, which calls for all their worldly goods and
chattels. Nobody ever comes to Painted Post. We’re supreme, ain’t we?
Ain’t that uh hiyu scheme, brothers?”
“The ravens fed Elijah,” proclaims Lonesome. “The buzzards must uh sent
them unto us.”
“Amen,” says Whispering.
We plans it out right there, and has numerous and sundry jolts to
increase our wisdom. There’s two windows and one door to this cabin. The
windows are the sliding kind and there ain’t no lock on the door. We
hunts around and finds two flour sacks to put over our heads, so we
won’t be recognized in case we fails.
Me and Lonesome is to go in the door, while Whispering and Forty are to
go in the windows. ’Long about ten o’clock we has one last jolt, takes
our guns in our hands and starts on our dastardly mission. The cabin is
in darkness and so is the whole world. No better night could be picked
for the purpose. We sneaks up to the door and listens.
“Sound asleep,” whispers Forty. “When we’re ready I’ll make uh noise
like uh bird. Listen to them dude prospectors snore.”
Me and Lonesome stands there at the door until we hears Forty whistle,
and then we opens the door and slips inside. The door closes behind us,
and we’re in darkness. We hears Forty and Whispering slide through the
windows, and then all of us advances through the gloom.
I’m trusting to luck and instinct that I don’t fall over anything, when
all to once I runs into something that moves quick, and then my
belt-buckle takes uh half-hitch around my spine. Nobody will ever know
how hard I got hit. All I know is that I slammed against the side of the
cabin right under uh window, but I ain’t got ambition enough left to get
up and go outside.
* * * * *
All seems silent for uh second or two, and then I hears uh grunt and uh
crash, and something whirls past me and crumples up in the corner. Uh
gun explodes as I gets up, and into me comes the world’s champion
rough-and-tumble fighter. We has it all over the place.
I runs into something else and gets uh wallop that would kill any
heavyweight in the world, but it only serves to crash me back into
another foul fighter. There’s audible brimstone enough turned loose to
blow up the shack, and all to once somebody kicks me when I’m down.
That makes me mad. I gets right up and limps into the thick of it, and
got uh punch that sent me spinning plumb out of the door, where I lights
into another fighter. We forgot all rules. I been beat up in such an
unfair manner that I forget my usual sense uh fair play, I gets my
opponent’s neck between my teeth, and tries to make him let loose of my
ear.
“Curse yuh!” he hisses, sinking his fingers deeper into my ear. “Yuh
will kick me in the face, will yuh!”
“Lonesome,” says I, letting go of his ear, “you better not curse me.”
“My ——!” says he, going limp-like. “Sad Sanderson, is that you?”
“Maybe. I won’t swear to it, Lonesome. Don’t hold it against me if it
ain’t. Hold on to your complaints until I hear from all the precincts.”
We sets there on the ground and braces against each other.
“I reckon they must uh killed Whispering and Forty-Dollar,” opines
Lonesome, solemn-like.
“I don’t know about Forty-Dollar, but they sure killed me,” states uh
weak voice in the darkness. “I must be dead! No mortal man could get
what I got and live. I’m all kicked to ——!”
“Look out!” hisses Lonesome. “Here comes somebody.”
We hears the crunch of boot-heels and discerns the bulk of uh man
between us and the cabin. He stands there and sighs so audible that it
would almost be uh whoop of uh ordinary man.
“Lost!” it wails, in uh thin voice. “I fought everything in the world
and in the waters under the world. I don’t want no wreath uh glory. I
don’t want nothing!”
Then he wilts like uh rag.
“You ain’t going to get nothing, Forty-Dollar,” consoles Lonesome. “You
don’t deserve nothing—dang yuh!”
Just then the moon peeps out from behind uh cloud, and we sees the
shadow of uh mighty pair uh ears on that cabin door.
_Hee-e-e-e-e haw-w-w-w-w-w!_
“Forty got what he deserved,” groans Whispering. “Yuh can’t intimidate
uh burro in the dark. Yuh simply can’t!”
“Nobody around here ever said yuh could, did they!” yelps Lonesome.
“Gosh A’mighty, man! Don’t argue about something what has been duly
demonstrated.”
We carries Forty-Dollar up to the saloon, lays him out on the table, and
then sets down to rest. We sure are uh sight. I feels that most uh my
upholstering has been kicked loose, and the rest of them look that way.
Pretty soon Forty-Dollar groans and sets up.
“When I whistle—we’ll—all—go—in,” he announces, with his eyes shut.
“I’m—an—apostle—uh—brotherly—love—and——”
Lonesome has removed his boot, and Forty gets it right in the butt of
his ear. He shudders and announces—
“I’m meek—and—mild.”
Then he lays down again.
“So am I,” I agrees. “Uh little child could lead me. I’m going home and
to bed. I’m going to take uh bath in hoss liniment, lay down on my
humble couch and let nature take her course. I’m naturally uh honest
man, and tonight’s underhanded work revolteth my soul. Uh reaction is
upon me. Good night.”
The next morning we manages to limp up to Lonesome’s place. We sure look
like the breaking up of uh hard Winter, and there ain’t much
conversation. After a while Forty-Dollar states, offhand-like:
“Them fellers slept in Kelly’s old cabin last night. They must uh
stabled their burros in Whispering’s shack.”
“Uh-huh,” agrees Whispering, running his hands over the lumps uh his
head. “Why say ‘must’ when it’s uh cinch?”
“It wouldn’t uh been uh bad scheme—if it worked,” opines Forty-Dollar,
thoughtful-like. “Can anybody suggest something?”
“I can,” says I. “I know where there’s uh rattlesnake. Let’s all go out
there and get bit.”
Just then Magpie and Ike comes in. They looks us over, and invites us to
have uh drink. We hobbles up to the bar.
“Did my burros bother you fellers any last night?” asks Magpie.