what amount that crowd could spare, but I'll bet high on one thing. If
you'd strong-armed the gang, you wouldn't start a bank with the
proceeds after the collection was taken. There wasn't a nickel in the
outfit. "I'm glad I didn't bring any more with me," says Burton,
strapping himself.
Of course, I was appointed to break the news to the prisoner. He
busted then; put his head on his arm and cried like a baby. But he
braced quick and stepped up to the lads. "There ain't nothing I can
say except thank you," says he. "I want to get each man's name so's I
can pay him back. Now, if anybody here knows of a job of work I can
get--well, you know what it would mean to me. Sporty life is done for
me, friends; I'll work hard for any man that'll take me."
"I got you," I says. "Come along with me and I'll explain."
Then we said by-by to the boys. I played the grand with 'em still, and
I'll just tell you why, me and you bein' such old friends. Although it
may sound queer, coming from my mouth, yet it was because I thought I
might give them boys the proper steer, sometime. You can't talk
Sunday-school to young fellers like that! They don't pay no attention
to what a gent in black clothes and a choker tells 'em; but suppose
Chantay Seeche Red--rippin', roarin' Red Saunders, that fears the face
of no man, nor the hoof of no jackass--lays his hand on a boy's
shoulder, and says, "Son, I wouldn't twist it just like that." Is he
goin' to get listened to? I reckon yes. So I played straight for
their young imaginations, and I had 'em cinched to the last hole. And
after the last one had pulled my flipper, and hoped he'd meet me soon
again, me and Burton and the new hired man took out after sheep.
"But," says Burton, still sort of dazed, "God only knows what we'll
meet before we find them. Even sheep aren't so peaceful in this
country."
He was right, too. However, when I start for sheep, I get 'em. You
can see by the deep-laid plan I set to catch help for the ranch, how
there's nothing for fortune to do but lay down and holler when I make
up my mind.
Agamemnon and the Fall of Troy
Me and Aggy were snuggled up against the sandpaper edge as cute as
anything, said Hy Smith. Even our consciences had gone back on
us--they didn't have nothing to work on. The town looked like it had
been deserted and then found by a party of citizens worse off than the
first.
The only respectable thing in the hull darn shack-heap was Aggy's black
long-tailed coat and black-brimmed hat. And they made the rest of the
place look so miserable that Ag wouldn't have wore 'em if he'd had
another hat and a shirt. We was a pair of twin twisters that had
busted our proud and graceful forms on a scrap-iron heap.
I s'pose it was the turible depression of bein' stuck in such a hole,
or some sudden weakenin' of the brain; but anyhow, in that same town of
Lost Dog, Agamemnon G. Jones and Hy Smith ran hollerin' into a faint
away game.
We paid ten dollars for a map showin' the location of the Lost Injun
mine, from a paralytic partially roomin' at the Inter-Cosmopolitan
Hotel. The Inter-Cosmopolitan had got pretty near finished, when the
boom exploded with a loud sigh.
One-half the roof was missin', and the clapboardin' didn't come quite
to the top, but that paralytic took it good-natured, sayin' that as he
wasn't more'n half a man, half a hotel was plenty good enough for him.
But ah! he allus wound up, if he could get the proper motion in his
hind legs, he'd be up and find his Lost Injun mine, and after that no
dull care for him.
I ain't goin' to describe that gentleman any more. When I say he
unloaded a map of that Lost Injun mine, with the very spot marked with
a red cross, anybody'll understand that the paralysis hadn't affected
his head none.
You see, he was so quiet and patient under his afflictions, and he
talked it off so smooth, that the flyest gent that ever lived could be
excused for slippin' up and gettin' stuck in the discourse before he
knew that gravitation was workin' at the same old stand.
Now, for a straight-away dream-builder give me Aggy. He could talk the
horns off a steer, and that steer would beller with happiness to think
he was rid of a nuisance.
Ag stood six-foot-two by two-foot-six, and when he had the long-tailed
coat, the plug hat, and his general-in-the-army whiskers working right,
he only had to stick one hand in his vest and begin, "Fellow-Citizens
and Gentlemen," and he could start anything from a general war to a
barber-shop expedition to gather North Poles.
Give him a good, honest, upright gang of men that would weigh two
hundred a head, and Aggy could romp with their money or them, so the
worst used monkey in the cage would go home pleased.
Ag was built to play with huskies, not paralytics; so one day when he
stooped and turned sideways to get into the paralytic's room, treadin'
soft on the boards so's not to land the outfit in the cellar, the sight
of the poor sick man lyin' there--everlastingly lyin'--his helpless
hands turned palm up on the covers, why, old Ag's heart was touched.
He was that kind of grass-hopper, Ag, to whipsaw you out of a hundred
and then lend you five hundred, even if he had to rip the pelt off
somebody else to get it. I asked him about that trait onct.
"Why, Hy, my boy," says he, with his thumb in his vest, and his
twenty-five cent cigar in his teeth--we was livin' at the risk of a
high-roller hotel at the time--"in the first place, I'm a gentleman in
disguise, and carelessness allows me to drop the disguise now and then;
besides that," says he, "I hate these here conventions. Because I
touch Mr. Jones for his wad, must I therefor scramble Mr. Ferguson?
And if I stake Ferguson, must I open a free lunch for the country?
Now, God forbid!" says Ag. "I started out being pleased by doing the
things that pleased me, regardless of the vulgar habits of the mob.
The mob can select its destination at any or all times it pleases, but
I'm going to be Agamemnon G. Jones," says he. "The unexpected always
happens, and I'm the unexpected," he says.
You wouldn't ask for a man to keep his statements clearer than that. I
was the only person had a line on him. I'd figger out every
possibility for him and then sleep peaceful, knowing that it had come
off different.
So while nobody'd figger on Ag's gettin' stuck by a paralytic, darned
if he didn't come away with a map in his hands. "Here is our fortune,
Henry," says he.
Well, now, I jumped sideways. "Look here, Aggy Jones, do you mean to
say that legless wonder has stuck you?"
"Mr. Troy conveyed all rights in the property to me for $10, paid in
hand, including this method of findin' out where it is," says he.
"Where'd you get the $10, and me not know it?" says I.
"Trivial, trivial," says Ag.
"And do you expect to follow that dotted line until you stub your toe
over a half-ton nuggets?"
"Frivolous, frivolous," says Ag.
"Yes," I says, "yes. Trivial--frivolous--all right--but what's that
red cross?"
"Shows the location plainly," says he, shiftin' his cigar. "Where the
arms of that cross intersect, we double it, or turn nurses in the army."
Well, I stared at him. Too much thinkin' goes to a man's head
sometimes.
"You feel anything strange about you anywheres?" says I.
"Yes," says he, tapping it. "This map-- Accordin' to the scale of
miles these here arms on the cross are somethin' like fifty miles long.
Ah, what a merry, merry time we shall have, Hy, chasin' up and down
glass mountains, eatin' prickly pear, drinking rarely, and cullin' a
rattlesnake here and there to twine in our locks. It will seem like
old times, dropping a rock in your boots in the mornin' to quell the
quivering centipede and the upstanding and high-jumping tarantula."
"Say," says I, "do you think there's a mine here at all?"
"Mine!" says he, like I'd asked a most unexpected question. "Mine?
Have we lived out of eyeshot of the most remarkable mine in the United
States and Canada at any time we smoked the trail?"
"No," says I, "that's so; but, Ag, you ain't goin' to push for that red
cross out in the middle of hell's ash-heap, are you?"
"Only a little ways," says he; "it's time we left this anti-money trust
behind us, and I always like to leave dramatically, if it's only to
give the sheriff a run."
"More fast-footin' in this?"
"'Nary, but we shall meet some of our fellow-townsmen on the river
to-morrow--all men who haven't done us a bit of good--and then we'll
flap our gliders to a gladder land."
"But that ten dollars----"
"Look here. Let's _again_ settle this money question once for all. Am
I the financial expert for this party?"
"You be."
"Selah," says Ag. "And unlike the corporations in the effete East,
where a high collar marks the gentleman, we mix amusement with our
lives?"
"Sure," says I.
"Well, then," says Aggy, speaking with the frankness and affection of
one or more friends to another, "I ask you to swallow your tongue and
watch events."
"Keno," says I. "Produce your events."
So the next day we hooted it out toward the southeast, packin' grub
only, and I never says a word.
Bimeby we see a lot of people comin' a horseback, on board waggons, and
runnin' afoot.
"Each man with a map," says Ag. "Look at 'em dodge, Hy. They go out
of sight for seconds at the time--'Shall we gather by the river, the
beautiful, the beautiful Squaw River?'--I reckon."
We did. Everybody seemed surprised at seein' everybody else.
"Just come out for a picnic, friends?" says Ag.
"Oh, yes," says everybody. "Great old day and nice spot here--tired of
town--thought we'd make a holiday."
"Good, good," says Aggy, his honest face gleamin' with joy. "Let's all
eat now and swop maps afterward."
Things kind of stopped for a minute. If a man was unhitchin' a mule,
he waited till you could count 1, 2, 3, and then continnered.
"What d'ye mean by 'map'?" says one lad, bent under a horse to hide his
face.
"What do I mean?" says Ag, offended. "Why, I mean just what Noah
Webster meant when the dove came back bringin' the definition to his
ark. I mean map--m-a-p, map--a drawin' that shows you the way to get
to a red cross that doesn't exist on the face of nature. I like green
crosses as a matter of taste, but all our paralysed friend had left was
a red one, so I took that, not to be unsociable."
I've been at pleasanter lookin' picnics.
Finally the feller under the horse did some deep thinkin' and come out.
"Have you honest got a map?" says he.
"To the Lost Injun mine? 'Heigh-o, the Lost Injun!'" sings Aggy.
"Here she is, my friend, with all dips, angles, and variations; one
million feet on the main lode; his heirs, assigns, orphans. _E
pluribus unum_, forever and forever!"
"Yours ain't just the same as mine," says the feller, grimly spittin'.
"No," says Ag, "I reckon he spread it around. He didn't know this was
the nearest ford on Squaw Creek, and we might likely come together."
And then arose a cussin', not loud, but with a full head of steam--it
would make ordinary loud seem like the insides of a whisper--and a rush
for horses.
"Peace, friends, peace!" says Aggy, standin' up his hull height and
with his noble chest fillin' his black coat; his black whiskers
expandin' in pride--a hootin', tootin' son-of-a-gun to look at. And
when he said "peace," the earth shook.
The crowd stopped. "Think!" says Aggy. "Attempt the impossible!
Think! Remember that paralytic is on a parlour car, flying swiftly
toward the setting sun. I see the picture of that lonely railroad
train whooping ties across the prairie. What is the use of throwing
yourselves into a violent perspiration in a mad chase of a thing that
no longer exists? The paralytic is no more; thy Faith Hath Made Him
Whole." Aggy sank his voice to a beautiful whisper.
"Well, you got stuck yourself," pipes up old Grandpa Hope. "He, he,
he, he shelled you too!"
"I admit it," says Ag, "and yet it is not quite what it seems. I
borrowed Slit-Eyed Jenkins's two gilded nickels to get in this game. I
further admit that the Government never should have left the word
'cents' off these nickels, to tempt poor but not bigoted men; further,
I'll say that if Jenkins had brightened them up he might have passed
them for $3.89. But Jenkins puts a thief within his stomach that
steals away his business ability, so that when I asked for them nickels
he merely replied: 'Take the damned Yankee skin-tricks away, with my
thanks.'
"I have noted in my travels that the person to pass immoral money on us
is the agent whose mind is absorbed in selling you a diamond ring, that
nothing but his desire to get rid of would drive him to sell; so in
this case I dropped them nickels into the grateful and quiverin' hand
of that paralytic, drew my man and--here we are," says Ag.
It was the first time I ever saw a gang of full-grown men blush at the
same time.
Nobody had nothin' to say except Ag, who threw the lapel of his coat
back and addressed the meeting.
"Gentlemen," says he, "as I have mentioned before, our paralysed friend
has fled, departed, skinned out, screwed his nut far, far from here.
Don't blaspheme in the very face of the Almighty by trying to be more
ridiculous than you already are. If you arrive warm and distracted,
the few remaining inhabitants of Lost Dog will hold the dead moral on
you the rest of your days. Cool off and wipe the word 'map' from your
minds; turn from the villainies of man to the stark forces of nature;
see where Squaw Creek has forced her remorseless and semi-fluid way
through the mighty rampart of these Gumbo hills."
"I wish you would hush," said a puncher. "Leggo, Ag!"
"Here's where you get the worth of your money," says Ag. "You wouldn't
play poker with _me_, would you? Of course not. I might get your
money. In fact, I think I should, myself. But you would turn over ten
fine large bones to a paralytic who made pencil sketches of a scene in
the Alps and put the sign of the price on 'em--one sawbuck, or ten
plunks? There is the sawbuck," says Aggy, tappin' his map. "But where
are the plunks? Go to! There are no plunks. We kick the dust of
Dog-town from our hind legs. Flee cheerily, one-time neighbours, to
where a red cross fifty miles in length lies exposed to the sunlight,
and then dig; dig for wealth beyond the dreams of avarice; dream of
scow-loads of gold floating on a canal of champagne. Don't forget to
dig, because that will give you a muscle like a Government mule. And
here's where we dig--out. Ta-ta, fellow-citizens, I never expected to
get you so foul!"
"I think you was working with that feller," says one man, excited.
"Dream on--dream on," says Ag, "but don't make any motions in your
sleep. I've heard that wakin' up somnambulists with a .44 Colt's is
bad for their nervous systems." The lad was quiet. "Gentlemen," says
Aggy, "if you have kicks, prepare to shed them now."
"No tickee--no kickee," says the cow-puncher. "But kindly don't bunch
me with these Foundered Dogs," pointing to the rest.
"Certainly not," says Ag. "Come with us, friend?"
"I sure ought not to," says the puncher, scratchin' his head. "The ole
man expects me to go down to Sweet Water and bring home a bunch of
calves; but, thunder! calves just loves to play, and the ole man's got
so quiet that Peace troubles his mind. Where you goin'?"
"Well," says Ag, sincerely, "you can search me."
"Fits me to half a pound," says the puncher; "ain't nothin' suits me
better than to fall against somethin' I don't know the name of. Darn
calves; if there's anything I don't like some more than other things,
calves is the party of the first part---- Yekhoo!" says he, "c'm round
here, Mary Jane." With that he waved his leg over the saddle and we
was off.
"You fellers got any money?" says the puncher. We told him we was
entirely innocent in that respect.
"Well, I got fifty of my own, and two hundred the ole man give me to
buy any likely stock I might see. He'll stand on one leg and talk
naughty to me when he finds I've spent it, but, Lord! there's no use
remembering things that ain't happened yet, and besides, _he_ was a
hopper grass that flew, when _he_ was a youngster. So that's all
right. Gosh! don't it feel good to be out in the real fresh air oncet
more!"
It sure was good. We made it, ride and tie, northeast by the compass.
There's one good thing about these United States--so long's you keep
movin' you're sure to run into a town somewheres.
We spent three nights out. Every camp, before rollin' in, Ag and me
and the cow-puncher made up a quartette and sang, "How dear to my heart
is the scenes of my chi-i-i-i-i-i-ldhood," "Old Black Joe," and so
forth, then laid down in faith no critter would trouble us that night.
And say! it was simply dead great when we was lyin' on top of old Baldy
Jones's Meza, the moonlight ketchin' the canyon lengthwise, and old
Aggy comin' down, down, down, "Rocked--in ther--cradle--of--the--deep."
Holy Smoke! he sounded fifty fathom. Honest, he made that slit in the
earth holler like an organ. We was that enthusiastic we oncored him,
leavin' our own pipes out. You talk about your theatres and truck!
Give me Agamemnon G., a white night, and several thousand square mile
of ghost-walk country--that's the music for me. He never waggled them
black whiskers--just naturally opened his mouth, and the hills on the
skyline pricked up their ears to listen. You could hear that big,
handsome roar go bouncin' along the crags and wakin' up the wildcats in
the cracks. Lord! what a stillness when the last echo stopped! Well,
that cow-puncher, he had a tear runnin' down the side of his nose, and
I never felt so happy miserable in my life.
The only words spoke was by Ag. "Mary and Martha!" says he, "I've
scart myself!" so we all rolled up.
Two days after we met a line of ore-wagons drug by mules. When we was
twenty foot away the cow-puncher and the first driver give a holler,
and in ten seconds they was shakin' hands and poundin' each other on
the back, sayin', "Why, you damned old this and that!" When a lull
come, the cow-puncher says, "Jack, let me present my friends!" so the
driver he shook hands with us and says, "Any friend of Billy's on your
meal ticket! Where you crowd of sand skinners headed for?" So, after
some talk, he understood. "You want a town," says he. "Well,"
p'inting with the butt of his whip, "eighteen miles over yonder you'll
find your place, if you're looking to make the sidewalks stand
perpendicular; and twenty mile over there, if you want to find some of
the nicest people outdoors. Pretty girls there, bet cher life. Chip
Jackson filled me full of lead two months ago to get his name
up--reg'lar kid trick; wanted to get a rep as the man that put out Jack
Hunter; he didn't put me out no more'n you see at present, but the folk
over at Cactus used me white. Nussed me. Gee! A dream, gents, a
dream! Real girls, with clothes that whispers like wind in the grass,
'Here I come! Here I come!'
"I got the prettiest, slimmest, black-eyed one marked down for me. I
wanted her right off, but she said she couldn't consider it, and cried
a little; so I cuddled her up and ca'med her down and said I'd do the
considerin'. That's a great place--you fellers have seen enough rough
house, why don't you shuck down that way?"
"I play her wide open," says Aggy, "from pretty little kittens in white
to chawin' the ear off my fellow-man; but, to speak honest and
straightforward, we ain't got the sinews of war to start a campaign in
such a town, as I'd like to."
"Broke!" hoots Hunter. "Well, that don't go a minute! Here!" says he,
"glue your optics to that." He chucked out a specimen peppered with
yaller. "That's my mine. I'm just thinkin' of taking a half interest
in the mint. You can pick her to go twenty thousand to the ton--help
yourselves, gents." He began sortin' rock. "Oh, here!" says he,
"wait!"
Then he called his men--Greasers--and spoke to 'em firm in Spanish,
that they was to bring their turkeys and empty their pockets. They
rolled their eyes and talked about saints. "G'wan," says Jack, "if you
fellers didn't know that I knew you were pinchin' me for at least two
hundred a trip you wouldn't respect me. Come, shake your jeans, or
I'll strip you clean when it comes you're between me and my friends."
So, mournin' and groanin', they unloaded about fifty pounds of the
loveliest rock you ever see. There was a piece shaped like a cross
that Ag picked out for himself, but the Greaser that owned it hollered
loud, and Ag give it back to him. "With that in his clothes," says
Aggy, "he can steal religiously--I wouldn't take that comfort from the
poor soul for anything."
"These here Greasers get the best chunks," says Jackson, "because they
got more time to hunt. Now, don't look cross-eyed," says he to 'em; "I
pay you five a day, and you fish two hundred for yourselves." At which
the Greasers smiled a little again, feelin' that things weren't without
their cheerful side.
"Boys, I got to leave you," says Hunter. "The next time you come
through here, you'll see a log cabin built to hold two or more with
comfort, because I ain't such a blatting fool to build a house that's
going to take my wife's attention from me--log cabin's good enough.
Don't mention that to Miss Lorna Goodwin when you see her, because I
ain't took her in my confidence that far yet, but say a good word for
your uncle, and by-by! Get up, there, Mary! Straighten them traces,
Victoria! Oop! Oop! here we go clattering fresh! So-long, till
later!" and away he went, the dust a-flyin'.
We landed in Cactus, ready and anxious to be respectable. We first
took in the barber shop, had a bath and a trimmin' up.
"Fix these whiskers of mine," says Ag to the barber, "as though they
was inclined to be religious, and a few strokes from a nice, plump,
clean little widder's hand would make 'em fall. You can say what you
please about widders," says Aggy, "but a woman who's had one man and
wants another has holt of the proper sand. It's a compliment when a
widder shines up to a man. She's no amateur."
Then we bought clothes and played seven-up in the hotel till they was
fixed to fit us. We wanted to stroll through Cactus right. After this
was done we mashed our rocks, panned the result, and got $375 from the
bank--all told, we had pretty nigh six hundred between the three of us.
The sight of us, trimmed, wouldn't cramp you none. That cow-punch he
went an inch to the good over six foot. I came along about an eighth
below him, and Aggy loomed far in the night. We all had features on
our faces, and--well, Cactus sure was a pretty little town, with its
parks and irrigated gardens, and when we strolled, we noticed the girls
kind of let their sentences drag--probably because they didn't see us.
"Say, this is great!" said the cow-puncher. "That bug up there,"
p'inting to the electric light, "kinder exudes retail moonlight when he
sings. But my! Here's where you get your fine-looking girls! I
wonder how the old man 'ud take it if I said to him, 'Paw, dear, I'm
married.' I can lick him, though, even if I let him say sourcastic how
far from that point I be. Oh, my Christian Spirit!" he whispers, "do
you catch sight of that easy-mover in the white clothes! Holy Smokes!
Let's introduce ourselves!"
Ag got up and marched forward. "Is this Miss Lorna Goodwin?" says he.
"No, sir," says the girl, kinder awed by the sight of him.
"I'm very sorry," says Ag. "We are strangers here, and we only knew a
friend of Miss Goodwin's."
"Why," says the girl, "Lorna's right back of us. Shall I take you to
her?"
Aggy bowed. "With such a guide, I'll follow anywhere," says he, "and I
certainly would like to see Miss Goodwin."
"Excuse me a moment, Jim," says the girl, and off they went. I don't
think I ever noticed what a handsome big cuss Ag was till seein' him
walk beside that girl. Jim, the feller, wasn't so pleased.
Howsomever, there was old Aggy, all in a minute, shakin' hands with
many people and representing everything there was in sight, as usual.
Then he marched the crowd up and introduced us all. Say, I've lived a
sort of hasty life, full of high jumps, but I'll admit that strolling
around with all them nice girls and young fellers left a sore spot. I
enjoyed it, but-- Well, I had hold of something with hair as light as
the sun in a haze, and with big blue eyes that looked up at me, when
the head was bent down--and I can be as big a fool as any monkey in
these United States--and the first thing you know, there won't be
anything but girl in my conversation.
Anyhow, we stood well with the community and learned to our surprise
that Christmas was only four days off. I hadn't knowed what day it was
within a month.
The next day we found out somethin' still more surprisin'--at least Ag
did.