“You see!” cackled the old lady, “he’s thunderstruck to think that
intelligent men would think of such a thing.”
“It—er—has been done,” states the professor, and the doctor nods and
pats himself on the chest.
“It can be done again, too,” states he.
“For me it will remove superfluous adipose tissue, and for the professor
it will be the means of bringing back the vigor of youth, and perhaps a
little flesh. What do you think, Mr. Harper?”
“Think? I don’t never attempt it, Doctor—especially in the presence of
learned men. I’m a darn fool, and I’m proud of it. I just know enough to
keep my clothes on and eat off a table. When do you fellers intend to go
back to the Cave Age?”
“Tomorrow,” says the professor. “We are both anxious to try out the
theory. Today we will fix things so the ladies will be comfortable—if
you don’t mind having them around here for a while—and tomorrow we will
enter the forest in quest of adventure and health.”
What could I do? They say that lightning don’t hit twice in the same
place, but this bolt did. I gives the ladies the cabin, and moves my
blankets out under a tree. Tellurium comes shuffling along a little
later, and stops to look the outfit over. The professor is setting there
on the steps, and Tellurium sizes him up.
“Ike,” says he, “what in —— is that?”
“Not so loud!” I cautions him. “That person which you designate as a
‘thing’ is Magpie’s father.”
“Magpie’s father! My gosh, I never knew—well, huh! Magpie favors him a
heap, Ike.”
Tellurium walks over to the professor and holds out his hand.
“Pleased to meet you,” says he. “Surprised and pleased. I’ve knowed the
boy for a long time, and while he’s a bit long on arguments and fool
ideas, I welcome his ancestor. He’s got your nose and legs. I reckon
you’re proud of him.”
“Yeaus,” drawls the professor, squinting up at Tellurium. “Yeaus. Just
who do you refer to?”
“Magpie.”
“Ah! Yeaus, too bad. I feel sorry for him.”
“Well,” says Tellurium, hitching up his belt, “after taking a
comprehensive look I agree that he’s to be pitied. He’s too old to
outgrow it now.”
Tellurium grins at me, and pilgrims away.
“That—er—party must be a bit off his mind,” remarks the professor. “Do
people outgrow deaths from grizzly bears?”
“Not this summer,” says I. “That’s one of Magpie’s closest friends, and
when Magpie passed out it affected his brain.”
“He must have been a close friend,” agrees the old pelican.
“Close?” says I. “Say, he’s so close that one day he let a train run
over a nickel so he could pass it on Wick Smith for two-bits’ worth of
beans.”
“Exactly,” agrees the professor. “He was Damon to Magpie’s Pythias.”
What can you do with a person like that? There ain’t no open season, and
they don’t class as varmints, so you just got to suffer them to live.
The professor has loads of brains and no sense. The doctor grins at me,
and tried to wink. It must be awful to have a face so fat that you have
to register extreme pain in order to wink.
* * * * *
The next day them two hombres turns themselves loose. I takes them way
over into the heavy timber, and brings their clothes back with me. They
has quite a heated argument as to whether the professor shall or shall
not retain his shoes, but they finally decides that on account of his
bunions he shall be permitted to wear them, and the cloth things he
covers them with. The doctor insists that so long as the professor
concedes himself a pair of shoes, he’ll allow himself to retain a few
feet of twine string and a bent pin to catch trout with. I sets there
and suffers internal troubles until they gets things settled, and
pilgrims off into the jungle.
Man, it was a sight! Nothing on earth was ever funnier than to see a fat
man, minus his clothes, picking his steps into the timber, with one hand
held out in front of him, dangling a twine string, while behind him
comes an animated hat-rack, the upper part of his body clothed in
crêpe-rimmed specs, and the lower half in a pair of shoes with gray
cloth blankets over same.
The old lady sure read the riot act to me when I got back. She seemed to
think that I ought to have talked them out of it. Fine chance, after
they comes a thousand miles to try it out.
“Grizzly bears will get them!” she wails.
“Yes’m,” says I, “I wouldn’t put it past a grizzly. Cheer up, though,
’cause the wolves may beat the bear to it.”
“Wolves!” she whoops. “Is there wolves here, too?”
“Flocks of them, ma’am. Highbehinds, suspender snakes and
wild-trout-hounds. This country is overwhelmed with animal life.”
Them two ladies gets real worked up over it, and are arguing about
calling for the police, when in comes “Mighty” Jones and his coyote
pack. Mighty is one of these alleged human beings who get a hobby and
ride it to death.
His last obsession was wolf-hounds, and he sure acquires some pack.
There’s everything in it from a water spaniel to a St. Bernard. Seven
alleged fox-hounds furnishes the trailing, and the rest just sort of
form a mob. He rides up and admires the ladies, and then I introduce
him.
“I never knew that fox hunting had advanced this far West,” says Miss
Angeline, trying to keep a spaniel from gnawing her shoelace and a
greyhound from licking her ear at the same time.
“Yes’m,” says Mighty. “Foxes ain’t so much beside what I’ve been after
today. Ike, did you ever see a wild man?”
“Not lately. I never did see them as a regular thing. Why, Mighty?”
“I been chasing one for three hours. Honest to gosh! Wore out my horse
and all my dogs. Where is Magpie?”
“Wild man!” I snorts. “You better quit drinking.”
“Ain’t had a drink for a week. Where’s Magpie?”
“There ain’t no wild man,” I argues. “Must have been a bear.”
“Don’t you reckon I know a bear from a man? Magpie at home?”
“He—he’s dead. Didn’t you hear about it?” informs and inquires the old
lady.
“Dead? Magpie ain’t dead.”
“Yes, he is,” insists the old lady. “Ate up by a grizzly.”
I’ll bet that old lady was some gossip pedler in her own town, ’cause
she seemed to get a lot of pleasure out of telling the bad news to
Mighty.
“Aw!” says Mighty. “Aw. Is that right, Ike?”
“You’re questioning the lady’s veracity, Mighty,” says I.
“Did you see the bear kill him, Ike?” he asks.