“Are you here?”
“Yes’m,” squeaks Scenery, blowing his nose like a trumpet. “Get right
out and bury it. We’ve got a preacher.”
_Yar-o-o-o-o! Woof! Yip! Kyoodle! Yar-o-o-o-o!_
Maybe that don’t give much of an idea of the noise, but it’s as near as
a human being can come to the noise them dogs make, as they string into
the place, and right at their head comes a human being advertising the
fact that he wears red underclothes and a desire to hit a tall place.
The fact that there’s ladies present don’t bother him at first, but when
he gets nearer he shies around in front of that team of calico broncs
with that bunch of howling mongrels at his heels. It don’t take them
calicoes long to find out that they’re scared, and they immediate and
soon forgets that they’re hitched to a sacred sedan.
It’s about six jumps to where two stumps stand about three feet apart,
and it looks like them broncs have been used to going through gates,
’cause they hits square between them stumps. The hearse don’t go with
them—not all of it. Runs-With-a-Wolf ain’t no mechanic, and his family
equipage ain’t in the best of repair, so when she hits them stumps, the
coupling pole breaks and the top and the hind wheels turn over once and
stay put.
Them dogs are howling around and around the cabin, so I looks up and
sees Mighty Jones’ face sticking over the edge.
“The murderer!” he yelps. “Sneaked up and hauled me off my bronc! Says:
‘Come to me, Sweet Marie!’ and then he swiped my clothes, and set my
dogs on me!”
“My gosh!” explodes Bill. “This country don’t need a sheriff! It——”
“My darling, will you get my trousers?” asks a squeaky voice, and there
is the professor’s head sticking out of the top of that hearse, where
the plume used to be.
Sudden-like another board loosens up and the doctor’s face, like a
rising moon, comes up. He stares all around at the ruin, and then up
behind him appears the features of Runs-With-a-Wolf.
“_Hyas cultus!_” proclaims the old buck. “Wah! Haulum wild man no good!
He-e-e-e-eap loco! Gettum fi’ dolla, losum hack! No good!”
“And in our trouser pocket you will find some money which you will
please hand this noble red man as recompense for his services and
damage,” continues the professor in his sing-song voice.
“Wallie-e-e-e! Are you all there?” shrieks Mrs. Professor.
“He is not!” snaps the doctor. “If he was all there he wouldn’t be in
this predicament, madam. You women go in the house and hand out all the
clothes in sight. If there’s an overcoat—hand it to me, ’cause I’m going
to play safe. I can use gloves and some ear muffs, too.”
“The theory was sound,” sings the professor, “but the practise was
insufferable. I’m going to take the lecture platform against hunting
with hounds. I’m——”
But just then Ricky Henderson gallops in and pulls up beside Bill McFee.
He sort of gawps at the busted hearse, and then says to Bill:
“They caught the wild man, Bill. The bunch borrowed Doughgod Smith’s
bear dogs, and treed him over at the head of Sillman Gulch. It was
Tellurium Woods!”
“My ——!” gasps Bill. “I’m going home! This is driving me wild, too. I
came up here to find the body of Magpie Simpkins, and—well, what do you
know about that!”
Here comes Magpie leading them calico broncs, and he’s grinning like he
was a heap pleased. He grins at the busted hearse and at the three heads
sticking out, and then turns to McFee—
“What kind of a circus are you trying to pull off in my yard, Bill?”
“Search me,” says Bill, weak-like. “You’re supposed to have been
murdered, the woods are full of wild men who turns out to be Tellurium
Woods; these here Jaspers goes riding in a hearse and bust up on a
stump, and Mighty’s dogs tries to bite the hand what feeds them. It’s
too much for one day, and—I’m going home.”
“Arrest him, Bill!” whoops Mighty, hopping up and down on the roof, “I
demands his arrest for stealing my clothes! Make him take ’em off!”
“What clothes?” asks Magpie, grinning. “These ain’t your clothes.”