“How’s chances for local option to lose?”
“Same as mine to win—now.” And he goes on spelling words.
“Must figure us to be Joners,” opines Dirty sad-like.
“Joner was swallered by a whale,” says I.
“That’s the —— of it,” says Magpie; “we ain’t got no whales.”
“Want me to tell you what I think?” asks Dirty. “Do you?”
“Nope.” Magpie shakes his head. “Our thoughts has got yours beat sixteen
ways from the jack if you thought steady all your life; so you might as
well save your teeth, tongue and wind.”
“Does them sentiments cover me?” I asks.
“I spoke collectively,” says he. “You don’t need to close the door.”
We went out and sat on the sidewalk for a while. Then we happens to
notice Ricky Henderson.
“By cripes, I’m going to get a shave and hair-cut,” says Dirty.
So we both went over. Ricky yawns and looks at us.
“How’s the old razor working, Ricky?” I asks.
“All right, I reckon,” says he indifferent-like.
“We’ll stand a few slices,” grins Dirty. “Set us out two shaves and a
couple of hair-cuts.”
“Not today,” says Ricky. “Come around Friday.”
“Why Friday?” I asks.
“Closed on account of election.”
“Today ain’t election day.”
“No,” says he, “but Friday is.”
* * * * *
Me and Dirty lets this soak in for a while, and then we walks across to
Sam Holt’s hotel. We ain’t had no dinner, and we hankers for a lot of
ham and eggs. Old Sam meets us in the dining-room, but he don’t grin
like he used to.
“Howdy, Samuel,” says I. “Can the Chink rustle us some ham and eggs?”
Old Sam shakes his head.
“Nope. Far as you fellers are concerned, that pig ain’t been killed yet,
and the chickens are all setting.”
We walks out of there and perches on a hitch-rack like a pair of hairy
old buzzards which have been cheated out of a feed.
“Ike,” says Dirty, “did you ever hear the story about the feller who
went into a dance-hall? He was full of hooch. Well, the manager took him
by the arm and led him outside, but the feller went back again. The
manager throwed him out the next time, but he went back. This time the
manager kicked him out and kicked him plumb across the street. Somebody
says, ‘Going in again?’
“‘Again?’ says he. ‘Me? Think I’m a danged fool? I know when I ain’t
wanted.’”
“They ain’t kicked us out yet, Dirty,” says I.
“No,” agrees Dirty. “But the manager didn’t kick the feller out the
first time either, Ike.”
Then cometh Mrs. Wick Smith. She waddles, talks hoarse and has a lot of
trouble keeping her waist buttoned in the back. She toddles up and looks
us over.
“Back again, eh?” says she. “Going to help us again? We need help.”
“So do we,” nods Dirty.
“We’re going to give a sociable in the Mint Hall tonight and have a big
time. Political temperance speech and charades—you like charades?”
“I don’t,” says Dirty, “although I’m hungry enough to eat mostly any of
them Mexican dishes. For why is the sociable?”
“Campaign fund. We hired the Honorable Fitzhugh Peleg Alexander to make
our big temperance speech. Sent clear to Deer Lodge for him. Fine
talker. Was sent to the Legislature from Sagebrush County in 1899.
Remember him, don’t you? He tried to pass a bill making sheepherding a
misdemeanor.”
“Anything new in the political field?” asks Dirty.
“Well,” says she hoarse-like, “it has been hot in spots. Scenery Sims
and ‘Hassayampa’ Harris has been stumping the county together.”
“And lived?” I asks. “Nobody kill ’em?”
“Not exactly. Nobody is sure whether it was intentional or not. Down at
Paradise Scenery was making a speech, when Chuck Warner’s six-shooter
exploded and cut Scenery’s handkerchief right off his neck. Chuck said
that Scenery’s oration made him feel so melancholy that he tried to
commit suicide, but the gun went off accidental.
“Curlew applauded Hassayampa by hammering on the seats with their guns,
and, when Hassayampa recovered, he found the remains of a bullet
imbedded in his watch and the top of his ear burnt off. Outside of that
there ain’t been no prominent folks shot at.”
“Ike,” says Dirty as Mrs. Smith waddles away, “this country ain’t lost
yet. There is still a slumbering spirit left, and maybe we can fan her
into flame. We’re outlaws—me and you. We’ve soured on them Republican
stummicks, and they don’t hanker for us no more.
“Them _hombres_ proclaim us to be fourteen carats of Democracy. Ain’t
they outcast us? Ain’t they barred us from the flesh-pots? Ain’t they?”
“I won’t argue against it, Dirty.”
“I’m going to turn mean, Ike. In my eyes comes the look of a killer.”
“Make it four eyes and I’ll wear two, Dirty. But we still stand good
with prohibition, don’t we?”
“How so?” squeaks a voice behind us, and we turns to see Scenery Sims.
Me and Dirty gazes upon that little shrimp in chaparejos.
“How so?” parrots Dirty. “Ain’t we helped you a lot?”
“Helped?” he squeaks. “You can’t pull no wool over my eyes—you two. Them
crooked Republicans got you back here for a purpose. Judge Steele just
the same as admitted it, and, when I accused Magpie of the same thing,
he just grins and tells me that I’m hard to fool. You can’t fool
Lindhardt Cadwallader Sims, y’betcha you can’t! I’m going to put them
local optionists wise. _Sabe?_”
And he goes tod’ling across the street, hunching up his shoulders and
elbows like he was riding a trotting horse.
“Home, ho-o-o-o-ome, sweet, sweet ho-o-o-o-ome,” sings Dirty sad and
low. “Ike, it’s like dodging a sidewinder and stepping on a Gila
monster.”
Then “Polecat” Perkins ties his bronc and comes over to us.
“You saved me a trip out to your place, Polecat,” says Dirty, stepping
around until Polecat is down-wind from him.
“Whyfor, Dirty?”
“Ain’t you heard? Ain’t you heard that if Hassayampa Harris is elected
to the Legislature he’s going to pass a bill making skunks a nuisance?”
“Is, eh?” Polecat masticates at top speed for a while. “Is, eh? Well,
well! Let’s all have a little drink.”
“Not in there,” says Dirty. “Buck is in favor of Hassayampa.”
“His touch ain’t contaminated sealed goods,” says Polecat. “I’ll buy a
bottle, and we’ll drink it out here.”
He comes back with a quart in his hand and a grin on his face. He holds
up the bottle, squints through it at the sun and says:
“We’ll drink to——”
_Crash! Bang!_ We gets plentiful sprinkled with liquor and busted glass,
and from the door of the saloon comes the whang of a gun. Polecat stands
there, hanging on to the neck of that bottle.
“——!” says Polecat.
“Under the circumstances that’s as good a toast as any,” says Dirty.
“I ain’t got no gun with me,” complains Polecat as he forks his bronc,
“but, when I come again to this village, I’m coming heeled and in the
proper frame of mind to resent all such maneuvers.”
He rides away, shaking his head and still hanging on to the neck of that
bottle. Me and Dirty humps up on that rack again and smokes to keep from
getting too dry.
“Beg pardon, but I can’t seem to place you two,” says a voice behind us,
and we crooks our necks to look at the Honorable Fitzhugh Peleg
Alexander.
He’s looking at us over a big pair of specs, one hand inside his vest
like he’d been sleeping in a sheep camp and brought away something.
“You don’t need to worry about placing us,” says Dirty. “We’re here.”
“Who have I the honor of addressing?” he asks, and Dirty snorts:
“Honor, ——! Tell that to the natives and get lynched.”
“Where did you get them clothes?” I asks, looking him over.
“There was an honest wheel in Paradise, and I bought ’em from the
undertaker. Glad I ran across you, ’cause I need money.”
“For what?” asks Dirty.
“Running expenses. I’m staying with ‘Old Testament’ Tilton, and he plays
a danged stiff game of seven-up.”
“Reckon we’re going to stake you?” I asks.
“Have to,” says he. “Otherwise I’ll have to go.”
“Feller like you hadn’t ought to hock his gun,” observes Dirty. “How was
Jesse James when you left the gang?”
“Fifty dollars,” says the feller absent-like, “was the price. Maybe you
can find another man to take my place. Remember I’ve got to have enough
to get awful drunk on to make the play right.”
“Me and Ike ain’t been treated right by our friends since we came,” says
Dirty. “We’re outcasts of society, but I reckon we’re strong enough to
suffer for our principle. They’ll make heroes out of us when they finds
out the truth, Ike.”
“Yes,” says I, “but dead men don’t appreciate applause.”
“Wait, and I’ll see what I can do,” says Dirty.
* * * * *
He drops off the rack and trots across the street to Wick Smith’s store.
He’s in there about five minutes. Then he comes back and hands Honorable
Alexander some bills. The feller looks at it, counts it over and walks
on.
“Well, that’s all over and settled, Ike,” says Dirty relieved-like. “I
was afraid that Wick might hate us too much to do business with me, but
it was a bargain at fifty dollars.”
“What did you sell, Dirty?” I asks.
“Them four burros.”
“Our——”
I sets there and stares at Dirty Shirt, and then I looks over at the
burros.
Lodestone and Pin Ear belongs to me body and soul, if a burro has any
soul. I’ve had them two canaries ever since Sitting Bull sat down. Why,
Lodestone is the champion kicker of the State, and Pin Ear is his pupil.
I looks down at Dirty Shirt, but my tongue won’t speak. My temperature
goes up to one hundred and thirty-five in the shade, and I drops off and
takes Dirty Shirt Jones to my bosom. Right there in the main street of
my old home town I clasps him unto me.
Man, I sure combed that _hombre_ all the way, and he reciprocates to the
best of his ability. We hugs each other laying down, standing up and
spinning on our heads. Being as I can’t see much, I don’t know how the
battle stands, but all to once I hears Magpie’s voice:
“That’s plenty! Don’t kill him!”
“Good thing you spoke,” says I. “I plumb forgot myself.”
“I wasn’t speaking to you, Ike,” says Magpie, and I sets up.
Dirty is standing there, trying to put on two halves of his vest and
hold on a pant-leg at the same time. Wick Smith is standing there at the
hitch-rack beside the burros, grinning like a fool.
“Haw! Haw! Haw!” he whoops and slaps Lodestone on the rump.
I could kiss that burro for what he done. Wick lands about ten feet
away, gets up, walks into the rack and falls on his face.
“Haw! Haw! Haw!” I whoops. “Me and that mule can whip the town.”
“Whip ——!” yelps Dirty, picking up a rock. “You couldn’t whip nobody!”
He hits Magpie right in the neck with that rock. Magpie sets down on the
ground and begins to whistle something I’ve never heard before. Dirty
looks foolish-like at him and weaves off across the street. I’m right
behind him.
“Dirty,” says I. “I apologize for licking you. That was a good shot.”
“Like thunder!” he wails. “I aimed at you—dang your hide! Now I’ll get
arrested.”
“And put in jail,” says I, “and then your brother outcast will have to
get some dynamite and blow you out.”
“You let up on that dynamite talk!” he wails. “Where’d I be?”
“You wouldn’t have any jail around you, Dirty.”
“You let me be in jail,” he howls. “Dog-gone you, don’t you dynamite no
jails what I’m in. Maybe I won’t be in.”
“Yes, you will,” says I. “I’m going to have you arrested for selling
burros what don’t belong to you. _Sabe?_”
“If you do, I’ll swear that you hired that _hombre_ to speak for
prohibition.”
“That ain’t nothing to jail a feller for,” says I.
“Nope. Under the present administration you wouldn’t live to get to a
good, safe jail, Ike.”
“That’s them,” squeaks a voice behind us, and we turns to see Scenery
and Old Testament Tilton standing there looking at us. “Them are
Republican spies and disturbers, Testament. They publically pulls off a
fight to try and fool us.”
“A wrath cometh that will cause the wicked to flee,” says Old Testament
pious-like. “They will talk in many tongues, and their temples will
fall.”
“I talk two now,” says I, “United States and profane. I ain’t got no
temple, and I licked Dirty Shirt in public ’cause I didn’t have time to
take him out of sight.”
“You licked me?” asks Dirty.
“Well, why argue about it,” says I. “Everybody has a right to their own
opinion.”
“When I’m sheriff, I’m going to clean up!” squeaks Scenery.
“Good!” applauds Dirty. “I’d admire to see how you’d look, feller. If
you get beat, you’ll stay filthy, eh?”
“Far be it from me to ask anybody to go away,” says Old Testament, “but
it would be an act of kindness if you two would leave. Your game is
knowed full well, and you ain’t here for no good.”
“We don’t look like we was here for our health; that’s a cinch,” admits
Dirty. “We don’t ask for no fatted calves, but—ain’t you got no hearts?”
“Hearts!” squeaks Scenery. “Why, dang your spying——”
Scenery got that far when Dirty kicked his feet out from under him, and
he bit his tongue when he hit the dirt. He sets there nursing his tongue
and shaking his head.
“Violence,” says Testament, “don’t figure in our program, but you
bug-headed sheep in wolves’ clothing are——”
Testament is a preacher of the Gospel. I’ve got lots of respect for a
preaching preacher, but, when he steps out and calls me a sheep, I sort
of classes him with human beings. Me and Dirty looks back when we’ve got
to the corner, and Dirty says chiding-like:
“Suppose you should die tonight, Ike, and needed a Christian burial
tomorrow. What do you reckon Old Testament would say over you?”
“He’d have to say something different than he said when he sat down on
the ground just now, Dirty, ’cause them words ain’t in no burial service
I ever heard.”
* * * * *
From force of habit we wanders over to Buck’s place and sets down. Buck
is building a solitaire layout and don’t give us a second look. Pretty
soon Dirty Shirt says—
“Buck, I know something you ought to hear.”
“Yeah?” says Buck. “You’re talking.”
“Them prohibitionists has handed us a raw deal, Buck, and I don’t figure
me and Ike owes them any loyalty. They feeds the hand what bites ’em.
Tomorrow there’s going to be rough stuff pulled in Curlew. A bunch from
Custer County is going to vote Dry. _Sabe?_”
“Illegal voters?” asks Buck interested-like.
“You heard enough, Buck. If you tell on me, I’ll assassinate you.”
“I’m wise,” nods Buck. “Hassayampa’s doings—dang him!”
Me and Dirty walks out and runs into Hassayampa. Dirty takes him to one
side and whispers in his ear. Hassayampa gets interested a heap.
“Right here?” asks Hassayampa. “The gall of them jaspers! I’ll go over
to Wick’s and get you fellers something to eat. Barred you from the
hotel, eh?”
Mike Pelly rides in from Paradise, and me and Dirty goes over to see
him. He ain’t friendly, but his ears are open to talk.
“You can take it or leave it—suit yourself,” says Dirty, “but between
the hours of 8 A. M. and 8 P. M. there’s going to be crooked work pulled
off right here, Mike. None of my business what you do. _Sabe?_”
Mike nods and goes over to Buck’s. Hassayampa brings us over some canned
food, and we enjoys a big feed.
“Dirty,” says I, “you’re a awful, awful liar.”
“Nobody believes the truth, Ike; so we might as well lie.”
“What will it get for us?” I asks.
“Well, there’s more belligerent votes among the Dries than there is
among the Wets. When a man is looking for trouble, he ain’t got time to
vote, and—you ain’t got brains enough to see six feet ahead.”
“Go ahead and lie if it brings happiness to your penny-ante soul.”
“I’ve been looking for you two,” says Magpie Simpkins, and we turns to
see him and Judge Steele beside us. “I arrests you both for assaulting a
officer of the law.”
Magpie is wearing his head cocked to one side like a startled fool hen.
“I tried to hit Ike with that rock,” says Dirty.
“He’s lying,” says I. “He threw it right at you.”
“Think I didn’t know that?” snaps Magpie. “I just wanted to know which
one of you it was. I’ll take Dirty.”
“Dead—maybe,” nods Dirty. “Not alive, Magpie. That bow-legged Harper
honyock says he’ll dynamite the jail if I’m put in there.”
“Dinnymiter, eh?” crows the judge. “Dinnymiter at heart, Magpie. Put him
in.”
“I’ve only got one cell, Judge. They’ll fight.”
“Let ’em,” grins the old pelican. “We’ll watch.”
“Coming peaceful?” asks Magpie, and we nods.
He herds us across in front of Wick’s store. Out comes Hassayampa,
Scenery, and Wick.
“Get out of the way of the law!” yelps the old judge.
“Wait!” yells Hassayampa. “What is the arrest for, Magpie?”
“’Cause we’re Dry,” yells Dirty. “They wants to kill our votes.”
“Starting their skulduggery already, eh?” grunts Wick. “Trying to
cripple a worthy cause on the eve of its victory, eh?”
“We stands by our compatriots!” squeaks Scenery, and I know that
Hassayampa has told ’em what Dirty told him.
Pete Gonyer has rode up beside us, and I sees Wick signal him something.
Pete rides a few steps away, but I ain’t got time to wonder about him.
“I arrests them two, and they’re going to jail!” declares Magpie. “None
of you drouthers are going to hinder me in the performance of my sworn
duty, believe me.”
I reckon Pete had the right idea. The play must ’a’ been to get Magpie,
but the loop was too big. I felt it rasp across my neck, I collides with
Magpie, and we both left the ground. Then we lands on my back. I gets a
fleeting look at things, and I sees that Pete is still in the saddle,
but that rope has got around the bronc’s hind legs and tail, the same of
which aggravates it a heap.
Magpie seems to have got all my left ear in his teeth and is breathing
hard through his nose. I starts in to address him on the evils of
cannibalism, but I feels a tug at my heart-strings and we’re off again.
This time the bronc seems to have a definite object in view. Pete may be
a local optionist, but that bronc didn’t draw no liquor line, ’cause it
bucked right through Buck’s front door and across the corner of the
pool-table, leaving me and Magpie half-way across the bar, with the
saddle and all the slack rope tied around the stove.
I wiggles loose and falls behind the bar, the same of which deposits
Magpie in front of the bar. I lit on something soft, which appears to be
Buck Masterson, but I don’t worry about him.
I’ve been shocked to such an extent that I hankers for courage. My neck
ain’t no-ways in line with my heels, but I decides to drink, anyway, and
let it cut the curves. I grabs a bottle off the back-bar and deluges my
throat with the contents. I took the first bottle I got hold of, and I
found out right then that it pays to be particular. I never swallered so
hard in all my life. I lifts up that bottle to see what I’ve absorbed.
Then there comes a crash and that bottle seems to dissolve like a bad
dream.
“I comes heeled this time,” states a voice, and there is Polecat in the
doorway with a gun in his hand. “Charge me a dollar a bottle and then
shoot it out of my hand, will you!”
Polecat comes sneaking in and peers at me.
“——!” says he. “Wrong again.”
“Polecat,” says I, “will you look on the floor and see if you can find
the label that was on that bottle?”
He looks around and finally picks up a sticky piece of paper and lays it
on the bar.
“Is that what you drink?” asks Polecat wondering-like.
“That’s what I drank,” I admits.
“My ——!” says he. “You don’t care if the country does go dry, do you?
You can always get kerosene, Ike.”
We hears a noise over by the pool-table. A pair of boots comes up, rests
on top of the table, like the owner of them boots was trying to stand on
his head. Buck has got to his feet and is leaning against me, making
funny faces when he tries to talk. From the looks of Buck he must ’a’
tried to keep that bronc out by main strength. He peers at them two feet
on his table, and then he whispers hoarse-like:
“Can’t you—you read? Keep one foot on the floor!”
The boots slid off the table, clumped when they hit the floor, and over
the edge of the table comes Pete’s face. He blinks at us like an owl.
“You—you ——” says Magpie’s voice, and we turns to see him swaying just
inside the door, trying to cock a gun. “You danged arid jassack!” he
wails.
Pete nods his head and slides just below the table level as the gun
explodes. Magpie made a good shot. He ain’t no Buffalo Bill with a
six-gun, and maybe he couldn’t do it again, but that bullet busted right
into the nail that holds the ball-rack, and that piece of furniture and
sixteen pool balls comes down on top of Pete with a crash.
“_Sic semper tyrannis!_” grunts Magpie.
“My gosh!” grunts Polecat. “What a name for a dog! Magpie thinks he’s
herding sheep.”
We sees Pete get up from behind that table, get up like he didn’t have a
care in the world. He’s got lumps on his head until that member ain’t
no-ways shaped to hold a hat, and his clothes wouldn’t bring a nickel in
a rag house.
He pokes around the corner of the table and weaves straight past us and
out of the door, and you can call me a liar if he ain’t trying to take a
bite out of a red pool ball.
“I—I ain’t had a apple for ages,” says Magpie peevish-like. “Not for
ages and ages.”
“Well,” says Buck, “you might foller Pete; he won’t eat it all.”
Magpie nods and limps out of the door.
“Ike drank your kerosene, Buck,” states Polecat.
“Kerosene?” Buck looks at Polecat and then at the back-bar.
“That bottle what was there?” he asks, and Polecat nods.
“Dang it!” snorts Buck. “I was trying a experiment, and now she’s
spoiled! I wanted to see if I could preserve a little snake in oil the
same as you can in alcohol.”
“Could you?” asks Polecat.
“I don’t know,” says Buck sad-like. “It’s only been in there two weeks.”
* * * * *
That kind of talk makes me sick. I goes outside and runs into old Judge
Steele.
“You’re still under arrest, Ike,” says he positive-like. “The fact that
Pete interferes with his rope don’t lessen the fact that you’re due to
languish in durance vile. Too bad you snake-hunters——”
Thus ended the discourse. I’m from a peaceable family, and I hate a
rumpus of any kind, but any old time they connects my name with snakes I
forgets my breeding.
I’m mean when I gets mad, and I ain’t responsible for what I do. Maybe
it’s a good thing them local optionists pulled us apart. Wick Smith
chased the judge half-way home, while the rest of ’em led me inside the
store, where quite a crowd is congregated.
“This is going to be a big night,” states Hassayampa, who seems to be
making a speech. “Word has been sent to our committees in Curlew and
Paradise, and they will be on hand to figure out ways and means to
combat the evil which confronts us. The stage is set; on with the dance,
and let joy be unrefined.”
“We can thank Mr. Jones for his timely confession,” says Mrs. Smith.
“He has unmasked the liquor ring. Them snakes in the——”
I got up and limped right out of there. I’m only human. I limped all the
way up to our shack and went in. Magpie is setting there on a box,
oiling his gun, and he nods as I come in.
“Going to kill somebody?” I asks.
“Likely.”
“Local?”
“Foreign.”
“They’re slick.”
“Y’betcha, but we’re slicker, Ike. We’ll show them drouthers they can’t
fool with us. We’re going to picket Curlew and Paradise from 6 A. M. to
6 P. M. tomorrow, and they’ll do us no dirt. _Sabe?_”
“Can I lay me down to sleep, Magpie?” I asks. “I’m all in.”
“I ain’t never killed nobody in their sleep—yet,” says he.
Just then comes a knock at the door, and Scenery Sims enters our abode.
He squints at me and Magpie and squeaks:
“I just came to let you know that your nefarious schemes are known,
Magpie Simpkins. We’ll thwart you, dog-gone you; we will!”
“You’ll say something pretty soon,” says Magpie.
“Your spy system is played out and perished,” says Scenery, waving his
arms. “The machinery of the Republican party is full of monkey-wrenches
and its wheels are rusting. Right will prevail, gents and ladies, and
this land will be fairer than the lilies in the dell.”
“You won’t smell ’em,” says Magpie slow-like. “They’ll be over you, you
squeaky little cousin to a chickadee! I’ll give you ten seconds to get
out the window. Hit the glass, Lindhardt!”
“I came in the door,” says Scenery, “and I’m going——”
“Out of the window,” says Magpie, “six, seven, eight, nine——”
Scenery went. The first bullet went into the floor under his feet, and
he hopped four feet high and went through that window like a circus
rider going through a hoop. As his heels disappear, comes the whang of
Magpie’s second shot, and the world seems to rise up and smite me on
four sides at once.
I hears the gentle rain-drops pattering around me, and I sort of rises
my head to take a look at the storm. Two more rain-drops fall beside me,
and, when I claws the dirt out of my eyes so I can see, I finds that the
last two drops consisted of our cook-stove and Magpie’s chair. I looks
at our shack and wonders aloud at what I see. Things sure have changed a
lot around the old homestead.
Just then I sees a busted chair rise up and turn around several times
before the party under it can get loose. Then he shucks a picture-frame
off his neck and kicks the water-bucket off his right leg. Then he peers
at me and says—
“Ike, have you got any lilies—of—the—dell?”
Magpie’s mustache is all gone, and I wonder if his shirt eloped with his
boot.
“No lilies,” says I. “I’m about half out of flowers today. Would you
mind telling me what kind of ammunition you use in that gun?”
He looks at the ruined home and rubs his dirty face.
“In the corner of the shack was forty pounds of dynamite, Ike, and I—I
think maybe I hit it.”
“The evidence is all in your favor,” says I. “Where is Scenery?”
About thirty feet away from us lies the door of our shack, and as I asks
the question that door seems to rise up a little and fall back. Then it
rises up again, and somebody seems to get up behind it. Then it falls
toward us, and standing there in the light of day is a woful-looking
_hombre_. He looks like the breaking up of a hard Winter.
“I came visiting,” says he weak-like. “I came visiting.”
“Yes, yes,” says I. “Proceed.”
“I—I turned the knob,” says he, like he was trying to remember something
that happened long ago. “I turned the—” Then he stops. “My ——! I must be
strong! I—I yanked that door so hard that it came off the hinges and
lifted me plumb over here!”
“You hadn’t ought to yank a door thataway, Dirty Shirt,” chides Magpie.
“Look what you done to our home.”
Dirty looks at the remnants of the shack and then rubs his eyes.
“I can’t stay,” he whispers. “I—I just called—that’s all.”
And he weaves off toward town.
“Called ——!” grunts Magpie. “He never even seen my last raise, Ike.”
We pilgrims up and looks at our shack. One end and all of the roof is in
the discard. There’s a hole about six feet deep near where the window
used to be, and, as we peer down into it, a foolish face looks up at us
and a voice squeaks:
“Don’t shoot! Dog-gone you, don’t shoot again! I’ve got a headache.”
“Didn’t I give you ten seconds to get out?” asks Magpie. “What are you
doing in my house again?”
“Oh!” Scenery peers around and crawls out. He peers around and nods. “I
remember,” says he. “I lit on my hands and knees, didn’t I? And then the
world raised up behind me, and I fell into the hole that it came out
of.”
He peers all around and digs some gravel out of his ears.
“I see it all now!” he yelps. “You tried to assassinate me! You—What are
you looking for?”
“My gun,” says Magpie, poking into the wreck. “Remember now that I only
counted to nine. I beg your pardon, Mister Sims.”
Scenery stumbled over a log and fell down, but he got right up and went
toward town, talking to himself, and I went right behind him. Maybe I
talked a little, too. A feller can’t get blowed through the side of a
house without having something to talk about.
* * * * *
Then I meets Lodestone. Right in the middle of the road I meets that
lovable burro. We rubs noses, and then I climbs on his back and rides up
the road, where I runs into Dirty Shirt and Polecat. It is almost dark.
Polecat hands me a bottle, the same of which is investigated by all of
my senses before I imbibes.
“Me and Dirty has been appointed guards of honor, Ike,” says Polecat.
“We’ve been appointed to guard the ice cream.”
“Does she need guards?” I asks.
“Sure,” grins Polecat. “The local optionists have heard that the
Republicans are going to steal it, and I volunteers to guard it with my
life and Dirty’s.”
“Who told you they was going to steal it?” I asks.
“Dirty Shirt.”
“It must be true then,” says I.
Then I rode the burro over to Buck’s rack and went inside the saloon.
Curlew, Paradise and Piperock are well represented in there, and they
talks some about the sociable.
“You fellers won’t see none of it,” says I. “You won’t even be allowed
in the hall.”
“How do you know?” asks Mike Pelly.
“Dirty Shirt told me.”
Then I went out and sat on the sidewalk across the street. Lodestone is
the only friend I’ve got left, and he don’t belong to me. The hall is
lit up, and the local optionists are going in right along. Pretty soon
here comes Dirty Shirt and sets down with me.
“Through being warden to a hunk of frozen milk?” I asks.
“Uh-huh. By golly, if we could only be there to see it, Ike!
You’d—— Look at the fire! Buck’s saloon is on fire, Ike!”
From behind Buck’s place comes flame and sparks, which proclaims it to
be a regular honest-to-grandma house on fire.
Somebody runs out of the saloon, shoots into the air and yells at the
top of his voice:
“Fire! Fire! Fire!”
Somebody else joins in the chorus, and that fire sure got advertised
plenty.
It ain’t often that us folks get to enjoy a regular fire, and the local
optionists pour out of the hall like bees. The street is full of folks
doing everything they can to hinder anybody from putting out the fire.
Me and Dirty lopes to the pump and splashes water plentiful until they
begins to arrive with everything from a barrel to a hat. All to once
somebody comes galloping across the street, yelling:
“Brush-pile! Just a bonfire. Wasn’t within fifty feet of the saloon.”
“Gents—” Old Testament enters our midst. His hard hat has been drove
plumb down around his neck, and the brim sticks out from his chin like
he was trying to shade his neck. “Gents, it pains me to inform you that
the opposition has captured the Mint Hall, barred the door and are
proceeding to appease their insides with our provender.”
“How do you know?” yelps Hassayampa, dropping a pail of water on his
feet.
“I know,” says Testament, “because they dumped me out of the
second-story window.”
“My ——!” gurgles Dirty, taking me by the arm. “Come away, Ike.”