“Mister, do you know where we can raise the price of uh piece uh grub?”
“Nope, I don’t. Yuh might go over and tackle old man Swigert at the
bank. He’s got plenty uh money, but if you can pry him loose from any of
it you sure can pan gold out of uh haystack.”
“Stingy?” I asks.
“Stingy!” he snorts. “Stingy? Say, that old hombre is so danged stingy
he sleeps with his boots on to save the wear and tear on his socks. If I
had the money handy I’d stake yuh myself.”
“Well, what are we going to do?” I asks, and when Hair-Trigger
telescopes back to normal, after uh convulsive yawn, he replies:
“We’ll go over—ho, hum-m-m-m-m!—and make this stingy person hand us the
price of some bacon and beans. The Hollibaughs are great when it comes
to borrowing things. I borrowed uh quart uh alcohol from uh thirsty
Injun once, and I’d uh drank it, too, but danged if I didn’t go to
sleep, and he stole it back. Ho, hum-m-m-m-m!”
“Now, you—you—you—” begins the spluttering one, but Hair-Trigger holds
up one long freckled hand, and bids him desist.
“Pardner,” says he, “don’t! Wait till yuh make uh stake and then yuh can
hire an interpreter. Right now yuh resembles uh scratched phonygraft
record.”
We takes another shot uh hooch all around, and Hair-Trigger cocks his
hat on top of his sad face, and sings in uh voice that sounds like
filing uh saw in uh loose vise:
“Old man Swigert, was uh generous jigger, and he bought uh grubstake for
little Hair-Trigger. With uh hi-yi and uh hi-yi and uh hi-yi, yippi
aye.”
Hair-Trigger over-shot when he sings of Swigert’s generosity. That bank
uh Blue Nose wasn’t what you’d call uh palace uh finance, but the
proprietor sure qualified as uh warden for wayward dollars. Every cent
that old hombre had in his bank was kept in solitary confinement, and
I’ll bet that every check had to prove an alibi before he pardoned the
cash. He glares at me and Hair-Trigger, from where he’s bending over uh
desk, writing the obituary of the last ten cents he spent for chewing
tobacco, and snarls—
“Well, what do yuh want now?”
Hair-Trigger sizes up the layout, and yawns wide.
“Ho, hum-m-m-m-m! What yuh say?”
“I said what I said, and you heard me!” snaps the old turtle. “What do
you want now? Hear that?”
“Let me see,” grins Hair-Trigger. “What did I ask for the last time?”
The old sidewinder gets up from his table and peers close-like at us.
“Was you ever here before?” he demands.
“Ho, hum-m-m-m-m-m! Danged if I know,” states Hair-Trigger. “You spoke
just like I’d been here before. Do you believe in reincarnation?”
“I don’t believe nothing I can’t see!” snorts Swigert.
“Good system,” replies Hair-Trigger. “Ho, hum-m-m-m-m! Must be the
climatic conditions. Uh feller done told me about you, but I couldn’t
believe it until I saw yuh. Dog—my—cats! He sure was right.”
“What did he say?” demands the old pelican. “What’d he say, eh? Said I
was stingy, eh? Said I was, didn’t he?”
“Nope,” yawns Hair-Trigger, tugging at his dilapidated whiskers. “Said
he wouldn’t say uh word against yuh, Mister Swigert. Said he didn’t have
to, ’cause you’re uh mind-reader, and you know what folks think. He said
he thought you was stingy as ——. He didn’t come right out and say that
yuh was—he just thought yuh was. Sabe? Ho, hum-m-m-m!”
“Well, I ain’t!” howls Swigert, pounding on uh table. “I ain’t stingy.
I’m careful—that’s all. What you fellers want, anyway?”
Hair-Trigger yawns and pats himself on the chest.
“I’m Hair-Trigger Hollibaugh—me. Ever hear of the Hollibaughs? Mining
engineers—whole fambly. Born with second sight. Invented seventeen ways
uh saving gold. Honest as uh hot day is long, and honorable from the
cradle to the grave. This person with me is Comanche Cal, expert on
amalgamation. What I can’t save he can. Sabe? Ho, hum-m-m-m! Must be
something in the climate.”
“Well!” yelps the old rooster. “What do yuh think this is—uh prospect?
This is the bank uh Blue Nose—not uh mine!”
Hair-Trigger smothers uh yawn with his hand, glances cautiously around
and then whispers confidential-like to Swigert:
“Listen: me and Comanche has gone into pardnership with uh feller who
has uh claim up on Fool Hen Crick. We know what we’re talking about when
we say it’s richer than anything Alder Gulch ever showed. Want uh fourth
interest? All that will cost yuh will be enough to grubstake me and
Comanche for uh month or two—say uh hundred and fifty dollars.
You’ll—ho, hum-m-m-m-m! You’ll get rich. Sabe?”
The old ground-hog draws his lips so close together that his chin and
nose shakes hands with each other, and squints at us like uh badger full
uh cayenne pepper.
“I will, will I?” he howls. “You say I will, do yuh? Doggone your
panhandling souls, get out uh here! Stake yuh? Why, I’d sooner give it
to uh coyote. Gold-hunters ——! Grub-hunters is what you are. All you
wants is to live off somebody else. Prospecting parasites!”
That ain’t all he said, but it’s sufficient. Telling uh story in polite
society sort uh hampers direct quotations. Anyway, it ain’t going to
shock nobody to say that he called us uh lot uh unprintable names, while
I absorbs several cigarets.
After a while he seems to have run out of mean things to say, and is
panting hard from the exertion.
“Well,” says I, “I hates an argument. If you believe half the things
you’ve said about me and Hair-Trigger, I’d opine that we ain’t going to
get that grub. What do you think, Hair-Trigger?”
“Think!” howls Swigert. “Think? Say, that cross between uh string-bean
and uh shot uh morphine went to sleep ten minutes ago.”
Hair-Trigger yawns and pushes his hat back off his eyes.
“Ho, hum-m-m-m-m-m! Seems close in here. What did you say, Mister
Swigert? Do we get that stake?”
* * * * *
Do you know what uh riot gun is? Yuh take uh ten-gage
shotgun—muzzle-loader preferred—and saw off the barrels until she’s
about half the usual length. Uh riot gun ain’t so much in itself—it’s
all in knowing how to load it.
First yuh take uh quart uh powder and divide it into two parts—one part
for each barrel. Tamp it down tight, using uh crowbar and old
newspapers, felt hats or gunnysacks. Next yuh add uh couple uh
doorknobs, two or three feet uh heavy chain, add uh dash uh
horseshoe-nails and stove-lifters, and yuh might include the horseshoe
if you’re playing in hard luck.
Now, all yuh needs is caps on the nipples and supreme faith in your
ability to take punishment. It is fully guaranteed to annihilate
everything within half a mile and within uh hundred-yard radius. What uh
riot gun does at close range is awful to behold, ’cause it does
everything except write the obituary of the deceased.
I’ve beheld their gruesome execution, and I reckon Hair-Trigger had too,
’cause me and him hung in the doorway of that bank for uh second or two
before we can claw our way out, and I’m betting that nobody, no matter
how thirsty, ever entered that saloon with greater dispatch.
Blue Nose Blucher stops painting long enough to set out that bottle, and
our third-interest pardner heeds our loud call to irrigate.
“Get it?” asks Blucher.
“Nope,” replies Hair-Trigger. “We—ho, hum-m-m-m-m! Dang this climate! We
would if we’d uh stayed another minute.”
“You don’t mean to say that old Swigert offered to stake yuh?” exclaims
Blucher, spilling hooch all over the bar, in surprise.
“I don’t think so,” replies Hair-Trigger. “What did he offer us,
Comanche?”
“Ten feet head start,” says I.
“You—you—you——”
Our pardner starts his usual oration, but Blucher signals him to stop.
“Let me tell it, Lafayette,” says he. “You fellers ain’t been properly
introduced to your pardner, have yuh? Let me make yuh used to Lafayette
John Paul Jones. Lafe has an impediment in his speech.”
We shakes hands with him, and wishes him many happy birthdays, and he
manages to dig up enough to pay for uh round.
“Impediment?” says Hair-Trigger. “You got an impediment, Lafie?”
“I—I—I—I—” begins Lafe, but Hair-Trigger yells—
“Nod or shake, dad bust your hide!” and Lafayette John Paul Jones nods.