They have visitors now and then, Paw and Maw, at their camp. The local
old-timers seem to gravitate toward them. One evening I found old man
Stanley sitting on a log and talking to them in reminiscent mood about
himself, his deeds and his dentition.
"It looks to me like a fellow could work hard enough in three months to
last him the hull year," said old man Stanley. "Just last week the camp
folks wanted me to go to work for them. I told them I wouldn't work for
nobody but the Gover'ment, and only three months in the year at that.
But they persuaded me to go to work for night watchman. I said all
right, only I had to go down to Gardiner and get my teeth fixed. They
asked me why I didn't go to Livingston. I told them some of my friends
down to Gardiner had been pulling my teeth for me for six or eight
years, them having a good pair of forceps. Of course they break some,
but take it one way with the other, them uppers of mine get along right
well. So I goes down to them friends last week, and had some more teeth
pulled. They mostly get nearly all the pieces out. I've got four teeth
left now, and that's enough for anybody. I sort of wish they'd track a
little better; but still, four teeth is enough for any reasonable man."
Maw spoke to me in an aside: "I wisht I could believe everything I see
and hear," said she, _sotto voce_. "Now, here, this man and old Tom
Newcomb, they both tell me that them and old John Yancey, which is dead
now, was here so long ago they saw the water turned into Yellowstone
River. Of course it may be true; but then again, sometimes I doubt the
things I hear."
"The safest thing you could do is to doubt them geysers," interrupted
her husband, who overheard her. "I was walking round on them just the
other day, right where signs said 'Dangerous.' It didn't seem to me
there was no danger at all, for nothing was happening. But one of them
rangers come up to me and asked if I didn't see the sign. 'That's all
right, brother,' says I. 'I've tried this place and it's all right.' And
right then she went off."
"And you should have seen Paw come down off from there," commented his
spouse. "I didn't know he could run that fast, his time of life."
"If they let me have my gun," said Paw, uncrossing one leg from the
other, "I could mighty soon get me a pair of elk horns for myself. But
what can a fellow do when they tie his gun up, time he comes in the
park?"
"You ain't maybe noticed that hole in the back end of our car,"
explained Maw to me, pointing to an aperture in the curtain which looked
as though a cat had been thrown through it with claws extended. "Tell
him about it Paw."