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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..438e658 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #67118 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67118) diff --git a/old/67118-0.txt b/old/67118-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 91b605b..0000000 --- a/old/67118-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1890 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Playing Safe in Piperock, by W. C. Tuttle - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Playing Safe in Piperock - -Author: W. C. Tuttle - -Release Date: January 7, 2022 [eBook #67118] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Roger Frank and Sue Clark - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLAYING SAFE IN PIPEROCK *** - - - - - Playing Safe in Piperock - - by W. C. Tuttle - -Author of “Alias Whispering White,” “When Civic Pride Hits Piperock,” etc. - - - “I have been in lots of places, - Fair as lilies in the dell. - Some of ’em I kinda favor, - Others I don’t like so well. - There is one that’s ever calling, - Come on back and hang your hat, - Tough old, rough old town of Piperock, - You’re a danged good town, at that.” - -“‘Magpie,’” says I, “if my corns wasn’t hurting —— out of me I’d have -tears in my eyes from such sentiment. I’m all choked up—with alkali.” - -“You’ve got to admit that she rhymes,” says Magpie Simpkins, spitting -out a mouthful of dust and lifting his canteen to his lips. “I done -figured ’em all out of my own head, Ike.” - -“You better leave off taking things out of your own head,” says I. -“First thing you know, old-timer, you’ll be taking out what prompts -you to chaw your grub, and I’ll have to feed you with a -stummick-pump.” - -Then we pokes off the mountain and hits the trail toward Piperock. For -you who ain’t never heard of Piperock, I’ll say this much: Piperock -was the place the feller was thinking about when he wrote “Let -sleeping dogs lie.” - -Piperock looks like a siesta settlement, but she sure is deceiving. -Few folks ever get killed in the town. The good old village usually -invigorates ’em to a mile-a-minute clip, and we makes it a point never -to shoot anybody in the back. - -She ain’t the birthplace of nobody, and nothing much except -horse-thieves are buried there. When it comes to law and order, we’ve -got old Judge Steele. He’s got two law books and a copy of the -Congressional Record for 1885, which about covers all the crimes that -mankind is heir to, I reckon. Piperock ain’t on no map nor railroad -and she ain’t never been sung in song or story, but if you don’t think -she’s there, just get off the train at Paradise, ride north on Art -Miller’s stage to where he unhitches his team, and then start -something. - -She’s there like sixty per cent dynamite and no questions answered. Me -and that long-mustached, brainless, asinine arguer of a—well, me and -Magpie have been away for two months doing assessment work on some -mining claims that nobody would jump if we moved ’em down to the -railroad and offered to develop ’em free of charge. We sort of hankers -for the bright lights of Piperock. Even kerosene dazzles after using -candles for two months. - -Magpie stops, sudden-like, and appears to be looking down at a little -flat below us. I adds my gaze to his and gets astonished right away. -There is “Half-Mile” Smith and “Yuma” Yates: Half-Mile is one of our -own home folks, but Yuma is sort of _e pluribus unum_ with me and -Magpie. - -Half-Mile has got his boots and vest off and is standing a little ways -from Yuma, who is arguing with a gun in his hand. - -“I don’t _sabe_ this play,” says Magpie, wondering-like. “Appears to -be a one-sided proposition with Half-Mile on the weak end, Ike.” - -Just then we sees Half-Mile make a break for liberty, and Yuma’s gun -whangs out loud and clear. If he hit Half-Mile he didn’t get him in a -vital place, ’cause he sure is hitting the high spots. - -Magpie unhooks with his gun and I sees Yuma’s hat spin off his head. -By the time I gets into action Yuma is hived up behind a tree, and his -first shot cuts three shells out of my belt. Magpie was a danged fool -to miss his first shot, ’cause cover is mighty scarce on the side of -that hill. - -“Danged assassin!” yelps Magpie and spins lead past that tree so fast -that Yuma don’t dare to look out. “Shoot a unarmed man, will you?” And -then his gun clicks on a empty shell. - -“Give him ——, Ike!” yelps Magpie, but I wasn’t giving anything away -right then. I was trying to get my head down behind a rock which only -stuck three inches out of the ground. - -Yuma must ’a’ got excited, ’cause his shots were all going high, and -as soon as he shoots six times I breathes a sigh of relief. Just then -a hunk of lead comes from another direction and knocks the plug of -tobacco out of my hip pocket. - -Then I hears Yuma yell: - -“Get above ’em, Half-Mile! They need to be teached a lesson.” - -“Half-Mile, are you all right?” yelps Magpie. - -“If you don’t think I am, hang on to yourself for a minute!” replies -Half-Mile from above us. - -“King’s X!” I whoops. “Mistake here!” - -“Two mistakes,” yells Yuma. “Who in thunder are you fellers?” - -“Magpie and Ike.” - -“Oh!” says Yuma. “Sorry I missed.” - -Then the four of us stands up and looks at each other. - -“Howdy, Magpie. Howdy, Ike,” says Half-Mile. “Nice day today.” - -“Great,” agrees Magpie. “Howdy, Yuma. How’s your folks?” - -“If I had any they’d be tolable,” says Yuma. “Thanks just the same.” - -“You spoiled the best start I ever had,” complains Half-Mile. - -“No, he didn’t,” argues Yuma. “You beat the gun, Half-Mile.” - -“Not understanding the event and wishful to be wiser,” says Magpie, “I -asks would you elucidate the why and the wherefor of this peculiar -conduct, Yuma?” - -“Feet racin’,” says Half-Mile. “I’m practising. Getting pretty fast.” - -“Uh-huh,” says Magpie. “You having any success in racing with a -bullet?” - -“Racing with ——!” He stares at Magpie. “Think I’m a danged fool?” - -“All depends on your answer, Half-Mile.” - -“Aw ——! When Yuma shoots the gun I runs as fast as I can, _sabe_?” - -“How many times have you done it today?” I asks. - -“Six, wasn’t it, Yuma?” - -“Seven.” - -“And you ain’t hit him yet? Let me try just once, Yuma.” - -“Half-Mile,” says Yuma, “these shepherds don’t know nothing. Let’s go -home.” - - * * * * * - -We didn’t try to stop ’em. We punched our burros into line and at the -main road we meets “Scenery” Sims. Scenery beat Magpie for the -sheriff’s office, and this is the first time we’ve met him in his -official capacity. He’s my idea of nothing to see nor hear, being as -he never growed to man’s estate and his voice sounds like rubbing a -tin can over a rock. - -“He, he, he! Was afraid maybe you hadn’t heard about it,” he squeaks. - -“Fill our ears, Scenery,” says Magpie, rolling a smoke. - -“Biggest thing you ever heard about, Magpie. Believe me, I’m the party -responsible for it all. Piperock needs you fellers.” - -“That’s plenty for me,” says I. “I’m going back the other way. I’ve -been butchered to make a Piperock holiday, and any old time that -Piperock needs me, I’m absent.” - -“Hear about it anyway, Ike,” urges Magpie. “Go ahead, Scenery.” - -“Old Home Week,” grins Scenery. “What do you think?” - -“Go ahead—we’ll bite,” says I. - -“Whatever it is it won’t last no week” says Magpie, prophetic-like. - -“The big celebration is all in one day. All the old-timers will be -there; _sabe_? This is going to be a _hyiu_ time, if you asks me, and -she’s going to be full of brotherly love and peace on earth, good will -to all menkind.” - -“In Piperock?” I asks, and he nods. - -“Brotherly love?” asks Magpie, and he nods again. - -“Well,” says I, “if you was a big man, Scenery, or could pull a gun -real fast, I’d say you’re mistaken, but being whom you are I’ll say -you are either a danged fool or a liar.” - -“Quit that now!” he squeaks. “Quit it! Dog-gone you, Ike, I’ve got a -lot of power I didn’t used to have.” - -“All the old-timers?” inquires Magpie. - -“You heard me say it, didn’t you?” - -“Hoss-thieves, et cettery?” - -“Immune for a week, Magpie. I has issued my proclamation.” - -Magpie looks at me sort of sad-like. - -“What do you think, Ike?” - -“When does the battle begin?” - -“The celebration will be on Tuesday.” - -“This is Sunday,” says I, “which gives one whole day to dig ourselves -in and two whole nights to spend in prayer. Go ahead, Magpie, and may -the Lord have mercy on the children ’cause there won’t be no old folks -next year.” - -Piperock ain’t changed none to speak about. As we pilgrims into the -main street we sees “Tellurium” Woods gallop out of Buck’s place, and -just as he skids into Pete Gonyer’s blacksmith shop we hears the bang -of a gun. Then out of the saloon comes “Tombstone” Todd. He peers all -around. - -“Whyfor the salute, Tombstone?” asks Magpie. - -“Salute ——! Think I’m shooting blanks? Tellurium argued that I ain’t -eligible to stay here for Old Home Week. Said the only time I ever was -here a delegation comes from Paradise, decorates me plentiful with tar -and feathers and rides me off on a rail. Dang Tellurium’s hide!” - -“Don’t you remember the incident, Tombstone?” asks Magpie. - -“Don’t I? Sufferin’ snakes, I didn’t moult for two months! Scenery -said I could stay here as long as I dwelt in harmony and brotherly -love, and, by cripes, I’m going to foller the recipe if I has to -decimate the whole danged village.” - -Me and Magpie nods and pilgrims on to our shack. - -“Brotherly love seems to have come upon them,” says Magpie. “This town -appears mild and full of loving thoughts. Next thing we know, Ike, -these snake-hunters will be carrying autygraph albums and wish us to -write— - - If you love me as I love you - No knife can cut our love in two. - -“And the bunk-house walls will be decorated with ‘Let Us Love Each -Other’ mottoes. I wouldn’t be surprized to see ‘Hassayampa’ Harris -kissing ‘Doughgod’ Smith.” - -“That’s a fact,” I agrees. “She sure is a sweet-cider atmosphere. Next -thing ye know they’ll be decorating horse-thieves’ graves. Do I seem -to hear joy bells ringing, Magpie?” - -“That’s ‘Dirty Shirt’ Jones, I’ll bet a dobie dollar,” says Magpie. -“One, two, three! Nope, he ain’t drunk yet, Ike.” - -Magpie was counting the clangs of a bell. Dirty Shirt uses that bell -as a barometer. It hangs on the corner of the Mint Hall, about sixty -yards from the door of Buck’s place, and the bell is a little bigger -than a cow-bell. Any time Dirty misses one out of three shots with his -Colt he’s drunk enough to quit. As long as he can ring her three times -in a row he keeps on until he can’t. - -Me and Magpie don’t no more than get settled when here comes old Judge -Steele. The old pelican is full of enthusiasm mixed with a certain -percentage of alcohol and he welcomes us home again. - -“You gents sure came back for the crowning e-vent of our lives,” says -he. “We welcome you home and likely we can use you.” - -“Use Magpie,” says I. “I’m out of order.” - -“Huh!” snorts the judge. “Ornery as ever, eh, Ike? You ain’t got as -much civic pride as a cat!” - -“Maybe not,” says I, “and I’ve got eight less lives. I may die when my -time comes but I ain’t rushing the e-vent. Piperock is always starting -something that they can’t finish without bloodshed and horror.” - -“We’re progressive,” explains the judge. “We sure are—to a startling -degree, and the eyes of the world will e-ventually turn to Piperock.” - -“They will,” says I, “and this is what they’ll be saying: ‘The words -on that tombstone are appropriate: They Couldn’t Let Well Enough -Alone.’” - -“This here celebration amounts to what?” asks Magpie. - -“Mostly everything, Magpie. On Tuesday we has the celebration proper. -There will be feet races, tugs-of-war, shooting matches, et cettery. -Lot of the fellers are practising for the events and she bids fair to -be a humdinger. - -“We aims to put Piperock on the map, Magpie. Always our inhabitants -has to go to Silver Bend to see the sights, such as a circus or a -opery. If we can advertise Piperock sufficient-like we can get said -attractions and keep our money and young men to home. You was pretty -good as a ordinary sheriff, Magpie, but you ain’t got the get-up that -our new sheriff has. Me and him got together on this and we deserves a -lot of credit.” - -“You’re welcome, judge,” says I, “and all that goes with it.” - - * * * * * - -Just then here comes old “Jay-Bird” Whittaker, who owns the Cross J -cow outfit and two-thirds of the banks in Yaller Rock county. The -judge ain’t partial to Jay-Bird, so he lopes off down-town. - -Jay-Bird gets off his bronc and sets down with us. - -“Look upon me,” says he sad-like. “Take a good look. Good! Do I look -changed? Do I look haggard around the gills? Yeah? I deserve to—gol -dingle danged if I don’t! Me and ‘Chuck’ Warner went to Silver Bend to -see the sights. _Sabe?_ We seen ’em. That gol-danged, horse-faced, -prevaricating son-of-a-sea-cook and me got stewed! I don’t remember -all of what passed but I seem to hear talk about Buffalo Bill, -Antelope Doc, P. T. Barnum and Frontpaws. - -“Well, I woke up with my feet sticking out over the top of a manger, -and in my checkbook is a stub which shows that I, J. B. Whittaker, who -ought to have at least enough sense to make me half-witted, had paid -five hundred dollars for the sole ownership of Oswald’s Dog and Pony -Show!” - -“Bought it?” asks Magpie foolish-like. - -“You hard of hearing, Magpie?” asks Jay-Bird. - -“Is she a good show?” - -“I never looked—gol dang it! Chuck said I ought to be thankful that I -didn’t buy the Mastadon Carnival Company too, which has been showing -there a couple of days. Maybe I’d a bought it if I’d a been seen by -the owners. Dog and pony show! ——’s bells!” - -We all rolls smokes and just about that time here comes Hassayampa -Harris of Curlew, who owns the banks that Jay-Bird don’t. Him and -Jay-Bird is what you’d call business rivals. Hassayampa squints down -at Jay-Bird and shoves his hat off a heated forehead. - -“Think you’re smart, eh?” he grunts sarcastic-like. “Buying things, -eh? Going to put yourself up as another Buffaler Bill, eh? Going to -start a Wild West Show, eh? Well, I spiked one of your wheels, -old-timer.” - -“Yeah?” says Jay-Bird. “Who told you?” - -“Chuck.” Hassayampa grinned from ear to ear. “I got him loaded and he -spilled it all to me. Don’t blame Chuck, Jay-Bird, ’cause he was too -full to think what he was doing. _Sabe?_ He told me all about what you -bought and why you came home after more money.” - -“Oh!” grunts Jay-Bird. “He told you, did he? What did he say I came -here after more money for, Hassayampa Harris?” - -“Haw! Haw! Haw! For why, eh? Haw! Haw! Haw! I beat you to it, J. B. I -bought the Mastadon Carnival outfit myself.” - -Jay-Bird looks at Hassayampa for a moment, and then falls right off -the steps. - -“Some shock, eh?” grins Hassayampa. “Maybe I should have told him more -easy-like.” - -We turned Jay-Bird over on his back and he’s laughing so danged hard -that his jaws are almost locked. He ain’t able to talk for some time. -After a while he shuts off the tears and looks at Hassayampa. - -“Chuck told you that? Haw! Haw! Haw!” - -Hassayampa sets there, fooling with his six-shooter and staring at -Jay-Bird’s tears; then he swings his bronc around, abrupt-like. - -“Where you—Haw! Haw! Haw!—going?” asks Jay-Bird. - -“I’m going to kill Chuck Warner. He lied to me!” - -“Kill him a few times for me, Hassayampa,” yells Jay-Bird. “He never -told me the truth in his life.” - -_Clang!_ goes a bell. _Bang! Bang!_ - -“Dirty Shirt is drunk,” opines Magpie. - -“As usual,” nods Jay-Bird. “Are you going to be active in the -celebration Tuesday, Magpie?” - -“Ain’t decided yet. I’m going to let Ike help ’em out. Feel it’s my -patriotic duty to let ’em have a little assistance.” - -“Magpie Simpkins,” says I, “me and you are pardners in material -things, but when it comes to my soul you don’t own a share of stock. -You ain’t going to loan me and I ain’t going to have no hand in -anything. _Sabe?_ I’m going down-town right now, and if you hear my -old .41 talking out loud you’ll know that brotherly love has snuck up -on me and I’m playing safe. Good-by!” - -If we had a newspaper in Piperock, you’d likely see something like -this: - -The follering guests registered at Holt’s hotel today: - -“Piegan” Peters, “Tombstone” Todd, “Ace-High” Anderson, “Dynamite” -Davidson, “Calamity” Calkins, “Sad” Samuels, “Windy” Wilson, “Shiner” -Seeley, “Slow-Elk” Sloan, “Ornery” Olsen, “Hip-Shot” Harris and others -too ornery to mention. - -Every danged one of them are practising horse-thieves. Brotherly love -don’t mean nothing to that bunch, unless the brother owns some -middling good stock. - -Then I meets Dirty Shirt. He’s about six and seven-eighths drunk and -he greets me more with his eyes than his tongue. He squints one eye at -me and then holds out his six-shooter for me to shake hands with. - -“Comp’ments of the sheason to the Harper twins,” says he serious-like. -“By cripes, Ike, your brother looks more like you than you do. Fact.” - -“Which one, Dirty?” I asks and he rubs his eyes. - -“Ex-coosh me! My mishtake, I’m sure. You folks goin’ to shelebrashun? -If so—why not? All three nods together. Good!” - -“Anything going on up-town, Dirty?” - -“Naw! Pete Gonyer and ‘Slim’ Hawkins are up in Holt’s hay-mow nursing -a pair of Winchesters, while they makes out schpecifications for -tug-of-war. - -“‘Mush be amachoor,’ says Slim. ‘Stric’ly amachoor.’ - -“‘Amachoor what?’ asks Calamity. ‘Horsh-thieves,’ says Slim. - -“Now everybody’s sore, Ike, ’cause they’re all professionals. Why, -there ain’t ’nough amachoor horsh-thieves around here to tug the hat -off your head.” - -Just then Magpie shows up with two saddle-broncs and a hurry-up -expression on his face. - -“Get on, Ike,” says he. “Hurry up!” - -I gets on that horse and follers him. That’s the trouble with me; I’m -a born follerer and no questions asked. We thunders through Paradise -like Paul Revere advertising a flood, and I don’t overhaul Magpie -until his bronc begins to miss a step here and there. - -“Magpie,” says I, “let’s stop and fight.” - -He yanks up his tired bronc and stares at me. - -“Stop and fight?” - -“Uh-huh. I’m just as big a coward as you are, Magpie, but I won’t run -no further.” - -“There ain’t nothing to fight, Ike.” - -“You didn’t think I’d stop if I thought there was, did you? What in -the devil are we killing our broncs for, I’d lower myself to ask?” - -Magpie rolls a smoke and loops one long leg around the horn of his -saddle. When Magpie appears to get confidential I feels that life is -but a fleeting flower. - - * * * * * - -“Ike, me and you has scrabbled mighty hard for existence, ain’t we? -We’ve punched cows for forty a month, prospected everywhere and found -nothing much, and we run the sheriff’s office with a gun in one hand -and our life in the other, ain’t we? What have we got? I asks you as -man to man, what have we got?” - -“We’ve got between five and six hundred dollars in the Silver Bend -bank,” I replies. - -“We did have, Ike. We did have a measly amount like that. How far will -a amount like that go, I asks you? As old age sneaks upon us, Ike, and -our hands lose their cunning we need to be upholstered in worldly -goods or go to the bone-yard.” - -“Has somebody robbed that danged bank?” I gasps. - -“I hope not, Ike. I wrote a check for five hundred and gave it to -Jay-Bird, so I ain’t worrying.” - -“The —— you did! What for, Magpie?” - -“For the complete and entire ownership of Oswald’s Dog and Pony Show, -which will be knowed in the future as Simpkins’ Stupendous Shows -Combined.” - -“Combined with what?” I whispers. - -“I don’t know yet.” - -I don’t say nothing more. I look at him—that’s all. I hope to die if I -didn’t want to kill my pardner. I swallers hard and scratches the butt -of my six-gun. - -“I knowed you’d choke up with e-motion, Ike,” says he, reaching over -to pat me on the back. “It’s a thing that only comes once in a man’s -life, and I knowed it would make you happy. Opportunity knocked and I -sure let her in. Come on, Ike, and we’ll make P. T. Barnum’s outfit -look like a medicine show. Why, dog-gone it, Ike, we can run that -outfit one season and clean up enough to let us loaf the rest of our -lives.” - -“Barnum was right,” I whispers. “He sure was.” - -“You danged know he was,” nods Magpie. “He knew.” - -“One every minute, Magpie, and no stop-watches on earth.” - -I don’t know nothing about circuses. My folks got all their money -honestly, and I don’t know a blood-sweating Behemoth from a ant-eater, -but it don’t need zoological wisdom to see that me and Magpie owns a -lot of undesirables. - -First on the list cometh Cleopatra. Magpie has a book which I read -once, and it says that Cleopatra showed up on the Egyptian range about -one hundred and seventeen years before Christ, but after I looks her -over I comes to the conclusion she ain’t that young. - -Cleopatra is a man-eating tiger, but from the looks of her ribs I’d -say that she ain’t mixed with men folks for a long, long time. Her -teeth look like she’d been trying to get sustenance from stones. She -might pinch but I’ll be danged if she could bite. - -Then comes Allah. He looks like a antique rug that the moths had been -living in. They say a camel can go eight days without drinking, but -I’m betting Allah can go longer than that without eating. He’s what -I’d call a shipwreck of the desert. - -Then comes Alcibiades. This critter might ’a’ been a elephant years -ago, but right now he ain’t much but a mass of rubber wrinkles and a -pair of mean little eyes. Alcibiades sure needed washing and ironing. - -The pony end of the outfit consists of four little pinto ponies, and -the dogs tally about six mongrels, one mixed breed and one just dog. -There’s two monkeys which scratch like lumberjacks. There’s a dirty -tent, two painted wagons, a bass drum, a bale of hay and a set of -harness. - -With these few words I have proclaimed what we own for five hundred -dollars. Oh, I forgot to mention a water-bucket minus the bail. I’m -looking over our loss when Magpie comes back, grinning like a fool. - -“Eighty dollars, Ike!” he whoops. “We own the whole layout now. The -Simpkins’ Stupendous Shows United.” - -“Eighty dollars for what, Magpie?” I asks. - -“Mastadon Carnival Company, Ike. Hassayampa knowed there was no use -bucking me. We own everything now.” - -“Except brains,” says I. “What does the Mastadon consist of?” - -“Why—” Magpie scratches his head—“I’ll be danged if I know. Must be -worth eighty dollars. It ain’t reasonable to suppose——” - -“Figuring comparative prices, Magpie, you must have got an extra -water-bucket for the eighty. What is a carnival, Magpie?” - -We ain’t far from Judge Mulligan’s office, so we went over and -borrowed his dictionary. It said that a carnival was a time of riotous -excess. - -“My gosh! We’ve bought a riot, Ike!” exclaims Magpie. - -“Not me,” says I. “Don’t blame me. I’ve had a riot wished upon me.” - -We didn’t get paralysis of the eyelids looking at our purchase. If the -dog and pony show was small, the carnival was the sharp end of nothing -whittled to a point. There’s three small tents badly in need of canvas -to hide the bare poles. One of ’em has a sign proclaiming it to be— - - SONG BIRDS FROM THE SUNNY SOUTH - -Inside is a platform and some benches. - -“Them birdies has gone south, Magpie,” says I. - -The next tent proclaims to be the abode of— - - THE PEARL OF EGYPT, THE POETESS OF MUSCULAR - MOTION, DIRECT FROM THE SULTAN’S HAREM - -It’s as empty as a last year’s coyote den and smells like a muskrat -burrow. - -At the next tent we meets the last survivor. It sets there gnawing on -a hunk of bread and don’t pay much attention to us. I never seen such -outright hair on any human being. His head looks the same from front -and back, and all he’s got on is the collar and sleeve of a dirty -shirt and a skirt of swamp-grass. The words “water” and “bath” sure -was a dead language to that _hombre_. - -“Just about who in —— are you?” asks Magpie. - -The feller looks up at us, masticates a few times and then points at a -dirty sign on the tent. - - BOSCO THE WILD MAN. HE EATS ’EM ALIVE - -“Run out of snakes?” I asks and he nods. - -“Where’s the rest of the layout?” asks Magpie. - -Bosco stuffs the rest of the bread in his face and swallers hard. - -“Well, the boss said he was going home; the niggers said they was -going back to making beds in Pullman cars, and I heard that the Pearl -of Egypt left here with a sheep-herder.” - -“You the sole survivor?” I asks and he nods. - -“Yep! Know where I can get a job?” - -“Job!” snorts Magpie. “I bought you, feller. Cost me eighty dollars.” - -“You got stung,” states Bosco. “I ain’t got a snake left.” - -“You really a wild man?” I asks. - -“Well,” says Bosco sad-like, “I ain’t been paid for two weeks, and -they left me stranded here without no clothes, so you can draw your -own conclusions.” - - * * * * * - -Never since the Lord dumped the leavings of the Bad Lands and wrote in -the big book, “They will call this Piperock,” has the old moon looked -down upon the like. Into the old cow-town, at five A.M., drags the -darndest conglomeration a human ever conceived. The Simpkins’ -Stupendous Shows Combined drifted into Piperock. It was Magpie’s idea. -I wanted to take the things the other way, but Magpie wanted to give -the old-timers the treat of their lives and Magpie usually has his -way. - -Magpie drove the team, which hauled dogs, monkeys, tent-poles and so -forth. Then came Bosco on Alcibiades, leading Allah, and behind them -cometh Ike Harper driving four calico ponies hitched to a tiger’s -cage, inside of which Cleopatra yowled and complained against alkali, -rheumatism and lack of sleep. We led our broncs and left ’em at our -own shack as we came past. - -We pulled around behind the city, unhitched, unloaded and then laid -down on a part of the Pearl of Egypt’s tent and went to sleep. When we -wakes up we observes Scenery Sims looking over our outfit. - -“What is this here mess and what you fellers aiming to do?” he asks. - -“This?” asks Magpie surprized-like. “This is Simpkins’ Stupendous -Shows Combined.” - -“Yes? What you aiming to do with it?” - -“Show her off in Piperock tomorrow. She’s some attraction, Scenery.” - -“Belong to you, Magpie?” - -“Feathers and everything!” - -“Then,” says Scenery, “you better hire somebody to haul it away and -bury it.” - -“Think you’re funny, don’t you?” asks Magpie. “Get this inside your -barren skull, little one: This is a cross between a circus and a -carnival and tomorrow she helps to entertain the old-timers. _Sabe?_” - -“Smells like a cross between a pole-cat and ancient eggs,” says -Scenery. “Remove it from our fair city to once!” - -“Away from here? What do you mean, feller?” - -“I’m running this celebration.” Scenery pats himself on the chest. “Me -and Judge Steele inaugurates same and we has the say-so. _Sabe?_ We -adjudicates against anything that ain’t our own doings. In the first -place, you ain’t got nothing that attracts us, and in the second -place, as the sheriff, I rules against what you have got. You can’t -show in the city of Piperock while——” - -I saw Alcibiades working closer and closer to Scenery, but I didn’t -think it was any business of mine to warn the law. It was nice -team-work between Alcibiades and Cleopatra, if anybody asks you. The -elephant just wrapped its trunk around Scenery, slammed him up against -the cage and he don’t no more than hit the bars when a pair of paws -come out and shucks the lower half of Scenery plumb to his birthday -suit. - -Then Alcibiades cracked the whip with the sheriff, and when he lit -twenty feet away he still retains his boots, shirt and an idea of the -general direction home. - -“Good work!” applauds Bosco, sticking his head out from under the -canvas. “Things like that never happen in a carnival.” - -“You hang around here very long, Bosco, and you’ll see a lot of things -what never happen any place else,” says Magpie. - -We’ve just got one tent up when here comes Judge Steele. He hauls out -a sheet of paper, balances his glasses on his nose and reads: - - “To whom it may concern or annoy: - - “Be it knowed this day and date that the city of Piperock, - according to the laws of the State of Montana and the - rights of humanity, does here and hereby announce to all - and sundry, that on the fifth day of August, being - tomorrow, there will not be tolerated within our sacred - precincts anything of the circus nature. Be it further - knowed that the city of Piperock does not hanker for - anything of like nature and will not tolerate same. This - aforementioned city is aiming to play safe for once, and - no questions asked. - - “Signed by Lindhardt Cadwallader Sims, sheriff, and wrote - out by Judge Steele, notary public. Amen.” - -“Is there anything else that Scenery wants?” asks Magpie. - -“He said something about a pair of pants, I believe.” - -Just then cometh Tombstone, Ace-High, Slow-Elk and Hip-Shot. They -stops and considers Alcibiades and then wanders over to us. - -“That ultimatum ain’t hardly square, judge,” complains Magpie. “Me and -Ike has expended a enormous amount of time and capital on this -stupendous aggregation of wonders and we’ve done it all that you might -have a enjoyable day. It has cost us a e-normous amount of wasted -energy, and in the event that we can’t exhibit here we are broke, -busted and worn to the bone.” - -“Who says you-all can’t show off here?” asks Hip-Shot. - -“It has been so adjudicated by the sheriff,” states the judge. “I -wrote her out and I know there ain’t no loop-holes in same. Scenery -has decreed that this circus ain’t going to show here, and I -represents his feelings.” - -“No circus, eh?” says Hip-Shot. “I pines for a circus. How about you -fellers?” - -“Like a calf for its maw,” agrees Slow-Elk. “I ain’t never seen no -circurious, Hip-Shot, but since you spoke I’ve begun to hanker awful -for one. Let’s have one.” - -“It must be so,” nods Hip-Shot. “We’ll have her.” - -“You might talk to the sheriff,” says the judge. - -“Talk ——!” grunts Hip-Shot. “Come on, Slow-Elk.” - -They pilgrimed away and the rest of us sets down and rolls smokes. - -“I just wants to know,” says Ace-High nervous-like, “I just wants to -know if there is anybody here except me and Tombstone and the judge -and Magpie and Ike? Five is maybe all that is here, but I feels that -I’d like to be sure.” - -“Much obliged, Ace-High,” says Tombstone. “You’ve got more nerve than -I have. Is it or ain’t it?” - -“Gents,” says Magpie, “meet Bosco, the wild man. Eats snakes.” - -“I could love you, feller,” says Ace-High, “love you for being flesh -and blood. Danged if I didn’t think my sins had began to react upon -me.” - -“Feeling so good I ain’t got the heart to chide you,” says Tombstone, -“but if I was you—well, this is a he-man’s town, Bosco, and all that, -but we’ve still got some of the finer feelings left, so I’d advise you -to get some pants.” - -When Slow-Elk and Hip-Shot shows up again, Hip-Shot bows low to us. - -“Proceed with your circus,” says he. “All is well and good.” - -“You saw Scenery?” asks Magpie joyful-like. “What’d he say?” - -“Not much,” grins Slow-Elk. “He said to hang on to them keys, ’cause -there ain’t no more like ’em, but he spoke too late.” - -“I throwed ’em down that hole where Wick Smith bored for water,” said -Hip-Shot. - -“Keys to what?” I asks. - -“Cell door and the jail,” grins Slow-Elk. “Scenery is bottled up.” - -The old judge gets up and shakes out his coat-tails. - -“Do you mean to say that our estimable sheriff is locked in his own -jail?” - -“I pass on the ’steamable part, judge,” grins Slow-Elk, “but you sure -guessed the last of it to a gnat’s eyelash. Let’s all have a drink on -the sheriff’s impossibilities.” - - * * * * * - -Then we enters Buck’s place. The rest of the surrounding country is in -there and they’re enjoying the fulness of the world. Wick Smith is -standing on the bar orating, and we listens to his wau-wau. Wick has -been dallying with the weaving water, and his voice is full of silv’ry -bells: - -“—And friends of old, I says to thee all, there may be cities of gold -and silver and palaces of paradise personified, but when a feller -hankers for a pat on the back and the grasp of a honest hand and——” - -Wick happens to glance down at Bosco and seems to run short on vocal -power. He stares at Bosco for a moment, lets his glance wander to the -ceiling, shuts his eyes tight and proceeds— - -“As I said before, when a feller hankers for a hat on the back and the -hasp of a—a——” - -Then he glances down again. - -“Judge,” says he, sliding off the bar, “you talk a while. I—I reckon -my innards are ailing, I reckon.” - -He weaves out of the door with his eyes shut. - -Bosco looks around at that assemblage and then walks out the back -door. Wild men has feelings the same as regular folks, I reckon, but -to everybody outside of about six of us Bosco is the limit in hooch -hallucinations. - -“I’d—I’d set ’em up,” says Buck weak-like. - -Six of us faced the barrier but the rest shook their heads. Dirty -Shirt took his under advisement. He walked to the door, rung the bell -three times, and joined us. - -“It may get me e-ventually,” he announces, “but I’m still firm in my -left hand, folks.” - -All to once Wick stumbles back inside and flops in a chair. - -“Send for Doc Milliken!” he yells. - -“Ailin’, Wicksie?” asks the judge. - -“Terrible!” Wick looks around, wild-like. “Ain’t nobody going to send -for a doctor?” - -“Will a little liquor take out the hurt?” asks Slow-Elk. - -“Liquor ——! I need a antydote! First I see a cannyball and then I see -a danged woolly dog!” - -Wick’s voice hits a high note, and he stares at us wild-like. - -“He seen a dog!” gasps Dirty Shirt. “Wick Smith has seen a dog! My -gosh, this is terrible!” - -“Woolly dog,” says Wick, like he was talking to himself. “It had a -stick in its hands and was walking like a man. When it seen me it -hopped up in the air and turned over and lit on its hind feet and——” - -“Snakes!” gasps Yuma. “Smitty has got crippled crawlers!” - -“You’re a liar!” howls Wick. “Don’t I know a dog from a snake?” - -“Grab him before he gets violent!” yells Big-Foot and makes a dive for -Wick. Wick might have been sick in the head, but it hadn’t affected -his legs. He beat Big-Foot to the door and neither of ’em hit the -sidewalk on their way out. - -“Haw! Haw! Haw!” whoops Judge Steele. “Them darned fools don’t know——” - -Big-Foot comes backing into the door, catches his spurs on the -threshold and falls flat on his back, where he lays with his eyes -shut. - -“Take it away!” he yelps. “Dang it all, take it away!” - -“You—you got ’em too, Big-Foot?” asks Buck. - -“Hawg tie me!” yells Big Foot. “I seen more than Wick did!” - -“Somebody has been monkeying with the circus, Ike,” whispers Magpie. - -We ducked out the back door. Bosco is setting there on the canvas. He -says a couple of the dogs got loose, but nothing else is gone. - -We sat down and smoked a while, when Magpie says— - -“Bosco, do you know anything about this circus of ours?” - -“You ain’t got no circus,” says Bosco. “I seen this aggregation when -she was at her best and she wasn’t worth a whoop.” - -Magpie nods and considers Alcibiades. - -“What good was that elephant? He didn’t travel on his looks, did he?” - -“Him? Naw! They used to give him soft rubber balls to throw into the -audience—if there was any audience. Oswald never played to capacity.” - -Magpie picked up a stone about as big as his fist and walked over to -the elephant. He held out the stone and Alcibiades took it. He seems -to sort of take a good hold with his trunk and then swings it back and -forth, like he was weighing it. Then he whirls his trunk up and -sideways, lets out a little grunt and away went that rock. - -_Crash!_ - -It bored right into the eaves of “Old Testament” Tilton’s shack about -fifty yards away. We hears the crash and a moment later here comes Old -Testament out of the door. - -He’s got his hands folded and we can see his lips moving. Over one ear -is a lump the size of a egg. - -“Howdy, parson,” says Magpie, but Old Testament don’t hear nor see us. -As he walks past us we hears him singing soft and low— - -“Rockavages clef’—rockavages cl’—Rockavages——” - -Then he shakes his head and starts all over again. - -“He can’t get over the rock!” says Magpie, awed-like, and we watches -the old preacher turn into the street out of our sight. - -“Magpie,” says I, “this here circus is getting in bad. You can do a -lot of things around here, but any time elephants start hitting -preachers with rocks, it’s going too far. I feel within me that -there’s going to be a reaction.” - - * * * * * - -We sets down to consider things, when here comes Yuma, Wick and -Big-Foot. They’re sneaking along like they was afraid we’d fly away. -Yuma has a sack in his hand, while the rest of ’em packs guns. They -stares down at Bosco and contemplates deep-like over our wild man. - -“You—you’re the snake-eater the judge told us about?” asks Yuma. - -“I am,” says Bosco. “Eat ’em alive! Greatest sensation of the age! -Scientists has pondered over my marvelous powers to withstand the bite -of poison reptiles. Yessir, I am Bosco! I eat ’em alive!” - -“You sure must be a awful handicap to the snakes,” opines Yuma. -“You’ve got St. Patrick beat, feller. All he done was chase ’em. You -eat pizen ones?” - -“Always! The flavor of poison is vanilly to me.” - -“Not rattlers?” says Big-Foot. “Not them spotted devils?” - -“Rattlers? Ha! Ha! Ha! I love ’em. I’m sorry I haven’t any left, -gents, but I ate the last one day before yesterday. I suppose I’ve got -to go back to eating ordinary food.” - -“Rise up and cheer!” says Yuma joyful-like, holding up the sack. “You -sure get banqueted, feller. In this sack is a ol’ diamond-back with -sixteen rattles and a button. Fat as a fool and you gets him free -gratis for nothing.” - -“A-a-a-alive?” gasps Bosco. - -“Betcha! Ain’t even bruised nor shy a button. Me and Big-Foot caught -him under the sidewalk. He’s a humdinger. We’ll watch you eat him.” - -“Wait!” yelps Magpie. “You fellers think I’m running a free show? This -layout costs me money and I only lets Bosco eat snakes after you has -paid one dollar per each to see the feeding. _Sabe?_” - -“If we furnishes the eatables?” asks Yuma. - -“You can’t noways furnish what you don’t own, Yuma,” states Magpie. -“That snake is part and parcel of nature, and you can’t own one unless -you raises same from your own stock. _Sabe?_ That snake don’t belong -to nobody, so you might as well give it to me.” - -“This snake?” asks Yuma, holding up the sack. “This belongs to ——” -Alcibiades has edged over close and when Yuma holds up the sack, he -just reaches over, wraps his trunk around it and yanks it away. -Alcibiades begins swinging that sack back and forth, playful-like. - -“Look out!” yelps Magpie. “He’s going to throw it at somebody!” - -Wick was wise enough to gallop straight away, but Yuma and Big-Foot -seemed to think that height was salvation. They bounces straight for -Cleopatra’s cage, being as that’s the highest thing at hand, and they -begins to claw their way right up the bars. - -That cage wasn’t built for no such a stunt, and when they’re about -halfway up the side Cleopatra lets out a woful wail and slams herself -up against the bars. The cage sways for a second and then over she -comes off the wagon, and two perfectly unreliable horse-thieves and a -antiquated tiger bite the dust together, with the horse-thieves -underneath. - -Allah was almost in the way of the crash and the next thing we know -our shipwreck of the desert gets the stampede fever, too, knocks me -and Magpie flat into a tangle of canvas and poles, and away he went -into the desert. His two humps weave in different directions as he -gades away, and it reminds me of two drunken punchers riding double. - -Bosco took a high-dive the other way, and I sees him setting there on -the ground, investigating some cactus he dove into. - -Me and Magpie gets our breath and sets there looking at each other, -when here comes Judge Steele, Pete Gonyer, Art Miller, Doughgod Smith -and Old Testament. They groups near us and the judge clears his -throat. - -“Magpie Simpkins, Ike Harper _et al._: We, the sober and industrious -citizens of Piperock, has gathered in serious conclave this day and -date and has adjudicated that we will not have the glorious morrow -sullied or marred by a circus or circuses. - -“In the name of the parties responsible for Old Home Week, I hereby -delivers this here ultimatum: Get your danged circus hence! We are not -empowered to arrest you and have no jail to lock you in if we were, -but we still got ropes and willing hands. We’ve got enough to cope -with tomorrow without dry nursing denizens of the jungles. For once in -its glorious existence Piperock is playing safe. _Sabe?_ This here is -our final——” - -“My ——!” interrupts Pete. “Looky!” - -The tiger cage begins to rise up and them ultimatumers backs into a -compact body and pulls their guns. Then out comes the remains of -Big-Foot. His hat is smashed down over his eyes but he don’t care -where he goes. - -Then out comes Yuma. He don’t seem to see us. He tips his hat over one -eye, does a few fancy jig steps and then reaches in under that cage. -Then he straightens up and away he goes, dragging Cleopatra by the -skin of her neck. - -Cleo has had the shock of her old age but she’s still alive. She spits -and slaps, but Yuma goes merrily on his way ahead of a cloud of dust -made by a grandma tiger which is digging deep into her soul for sounds -to tell us how exasperated she is. - -This conclave of indignant citizens stands there and gawps at the free -show, until— - -_Swish!_ - -Alcibiades whales away with that sack and hits the old judge right in -the back of his neck. He lands on his hands and knees but skids back -to his feet. - -“Who hit me?” he wails. “Who threw that?” - -_Z-z-z-z-z-z-zee!_ - -The string had come off the sack and right at their feet coiled the -rattler, indignant as thunder over things in general. - -“Ah-h-h-h-h-h! Wow!” yelps Doughgod. - -The monkey cage must ’a’ got busted up in the fracas, ’cause just then -a mangy little member of the missing links hopped from a wagon-wheel -and lit on Doughgod’s shoulder. Doughgod stiffens like he was hanging -on to a electric battery and then lets out another whoop and tries to -buck the monk off. Doughgod collides with Old Testament and the two of -’em goes down in a heap. - -“Make it a good one,” says Magpie and kicks the staple out of the lock -on the dog cage. - -Doughgod and Old Testament got up just in time to trail the others and -lead that yelping bunch of mongrels away from us. Then we flops, -weary-like, down upon our canvas again. Magpie slips his gun loose and -shoots the head off that snake, which is hunting for a place to hive -up under our tents. - -“Five hundred and eighty dollars, Magpie,” says I. “She’s going fast.” - -“Yes,” he admits, “she’s fading out, Ike. The Simpkins’ Stupendous -Shows is about scattered. Nothing left but a snake-eater and a -elephant. Sorry you missed your meal, Bosco.” - -“My ——! Did you think—I—say, that snake still had its fangs!” - -“Oh!” says Magpie. “I see. You—you sort of commit suicide with a empty -gun, as it were, eh?” - -“As it were,” nods Bosco. “I’m going away from here pretty soon. I -ain’t got nothing to wear, no place to go and nothing to ride upon.” - -“There’s lots of places to go,” says Magpie, “and you can ride that -danged elephant if you want to.” - -“Like ——!” says I. “I’m going to have something out of this. I’m shy -two hundred and ninety dollars, Magpie.” - - * * * * * - -Then cometh old Judge Steele and Yuma. They’ve got a white rag on a -stick. Yuma is half out of clothes and they both seem chastened in -spirit. They halts fifty yards away. - -“We come more in sorrow than in anger,” states the judge. “Sorry we -didn’t kill you fellers early this morning. Which of you deplorable -jassacks is the tiger-trainer?” - -“I wash my hands of the tiger,” replies Magpie “I may have Yuma -arrested for stealing it but that’s all.” - -“It’s in the saloon,” says Yuma, bowing apologetic-like. “Buck is in -there and so is Old Testament, and we ain’t heard from them for quite -a while.” - -“Half-Mile’s bronc is in there, too,” adds the judge. “Half-Mile roped -it and then fell off his bronc as it went into the door.” - -“Gosh!” grunts Magpie. “I feel sorry for the bronc.” - -We walks down to the flag of truce and like a pair of danged fools we -let ’em get the drop on us. They takes our guns and throws away the -flag. Then they prods us down in front of the saloon, where all of -Piperock stands or mills around. They gives us three cheers—we already -had a tiger. - -“Now,” says Judge Steele, “we’ve got these hombres. Wick, you hold the -watch. Now we’re going to give you hombres just five minutes to get -your danged tiger out of our late friend Buck Masterson’s place of -business.” - -“Late?” asks Magpie. “Is Buck late?” - -“Well,” says the judge, taking off his hat, “maybe I was a bit hasty -in that statement but I will say this much: He’s danged tardy.” - -“Old Testament is tardy, too,” says somebody in the crowd. - -“One minute is passed,” states Wick. - -“The consequences is what?” I asks. - -“Your case is parallel with horse-stealing,” states the judge. - -Magpie looks at the crowd and grins. - -“You horse-thieves suffering any to speak of?” - -“Two minutes gone,” reminds Wick. “You know best.” - -“Can I have a gun?” asks Magpie, but the judge shakes his head. - -Magpie tightens up his belt and spits on his hands. - -“Come on, Ike!” - -I wonders at the time what Magpie spits on his hands for. He sure -wasn’t afraid the tiger would slip through his hands. Cleopatra was -awful old and old age naturally makes her childish and cross. Reminded -me of that poem about the woman who knew by heart from finish to start -the book of iniquity. Cleopatra was that kind, I reckon. - -We pilgrimed up to the front door, but all is still. - -“You better go around to the back door, Ike,” whispers Magpie. - -“Speak up loud!” says I. “What you trying to do, sneak up on her? Why -should I go to the back door, Magpie? We don’t want to catch her, do -we?” - -“Three minutes gone,” drones Wick. - -Magpie turns to the crowd and takes off his hat. “Feller citizens, I -regret I have only one tiger to die for.” - -Then he opens the door. - -We walks in like Daniel into the lions’ den or Joner into the whale. -The bronc is plain and visible, standing between the pool table and -the wall, with the reins looped around its feet. The card-tables are -upset and the place shows that there has been a certain amount of -action. - -Sudden-like, up behind the top of an unset table come the head of Buck -Masterson. He squints at us and his Adam’s apple bobs up and down like -it was practising to hop out the first time he opens his mouth. - -“Howdy, Buck,” says Magpie. “How’s each little thing with you?” - -“Tut-tolable,” says he hoarse-like. “Just barely so, so.” - -“Where’s the tiger?” I asks and Buck’s eyes get round as nickels. - -He’s so scared he can’t speak for a minute; then he whispers: - -“Uh-under me! I can’t let loose!” - -“Still alive?” asks Magpie. - -“I—I don’t know. It ain’t moved for a minute. My ha-hands are -paralyzed from squeezing the blasted thing!” - -“Get up easy-like,” advises Magpie, “and then jump back.” - -“I—I may do it,” whispers Buck. - -He takes a breath, eases his feet under him and then jumps high and -handsome. He falls over a chair, bumps his head against the bar and -collapses on the rail. - -“My ——!” he wails. “That was a close shave!” - -Then up comes a tangle of green cloth off the card-table, mixed with a -striped blanket. It rises to the height of a man and instead of the -roar of a man-eating tiger comes these words— - -“Let us all arise and sing hymn number sixty-seven.” - -The cloth falls away. He stands there, hands folded, and on his face -is the look of a man who has made his peace and don’t care what -happens. - -Buck gets to his feet and weaves forward. - -“Tut-testament,” he quavers. “I—I’m sorry I ch-choked you.” - -“Take a front seat, brother,” says Testament. “All sinners are -welcome.” - -“Five minutes are up,” states Wick Smith’s voice. - -“Go to thunder!” yells Magpie. “Everybody’s all right. There ain’t no -tiger in here.” - -I felt sorry for that poor bronc, so I goes over, untangles the reins -from its feet and led it out of the door. The crowd splits to let us -out and just as we gets out of the door somebody yells. - -I whirled and looked back. From the saddle-horn runs a rope back into -the saloon and she sure is pulled tight. Somebody slaps the bronc and -Cleopatra came among us. I reckon she must ’a’ been behind the bar. -She came out of the door, ducked behind the crowd like a flash and the -next second about thirty citizens of Cowland are tangled with our -tiger. - - * * * * * - -I slipped the rope off the horn and let nature take her course while I -took mine—around back to the remnants of our circus. Bosco is there. -Some of that gang must ’a’ lost a quart of hooch, ’cause I finds Bosco -trying to reach a point where he can see snakes that he don’t have to -eat. I takes it away from him and charms a few for myself. - -There’s a lot of noise around on the street but I ain’t curious. -Alcibiades stands there like a rubber statue. He sure was about the -laziest elephant on earth. Then cometh more noise and here comes the -mob, Magpie in the lead, and around his neck is a rope. - -I starts to explain things to ’em and I got a rope too. Bosco tried to -hide but they roped him from several directions to once. - -“Rope the elephant and you’ll have the whole works,” says I. - -“What will we do with ’em?” asks Yuma. “There ain’t no trees.” - -“It ain’t exactly a hanging matter,” states the judge and I could love -him for them words. “They ought to be in jail—blast ’em! If Scenery -only had some way to get out and ——” - -“He will,” states “Ornery” Olsen. - -“‘Dynamite’ Davidson and ‘Calamity’ Calkins went down there a while -ago and they said they’d get him out or kill him in the attempt.” - -“Where is the tiger?” I asked. - -“Dead!” snaps Wick. “Seventeen men fell on her and she died of old -age!” - -“I’ve got a scheme,” yelps Pete Gonyer, “a dinger of a scheme. Let’s -rope ’em on to the elephant and take ’em to jail. Have pe-rade, eh?” - -There wasn’t any need of a vote. It was unanimous. Even me and Magpie -and Bosco voted “aye.” Jail looked like a happy hunting ground beside -of all these ropes and tree talk. - -Alcibiades looked on, mean-like, during the roping. Magpie was in -front, then me and then Bosco. Somebody tied a rope to the elephant’s -trunk and then we strung out like a cross between a funeral and a -pe-rade. It sure attracted a lot of attention. Then we hove in sight -of the jail. - -There is Dynamite and Calamity, busy at something. Dynamite is on his -hands and knees, while Calamity stands over him. Beside Dynamite is a -wooden box with the cover off. Just then they rise up, sort of -hurried-like, and see us. - -Alcibiades ain’t had nothing to eat for so long that I reckon he -hankered for the contents of that box and he don’t stop when the rest -of the pe-rade does. The rope slips off his trunk and we stopped -against the jail wall. - -“Look out, you danged fools!” yelps Dynamite. “Get away from there!” - -The crowd stampedes a little ways but Alcibiades don’t move, and we -can’t. - -“Ain’t you got no sense?” wails Dynamite. “That fuse is only three -feet long!” - -We looks down and under the corner of the dobie wall is a spitting -fuse. We hammers Alcibiades but he don’t respond. - -“Get away from there, you danged fools!” whoops Calamity. - -“Don’t talk English—talk elephant!” yells Magpie. “We hear but can’t -heed.” - -_Swish!_ - -Alcibiades whirls his trunk sideways and we sees a stick of dynamite -whiz right into Judge Steele’s stummick. The judge lit all doubled up, -and the crowd gasped audibly. - -“Too bad,” says Magpie. “They won’t always go off.” - -Alcibiades digs into that box and roots out another stick. - -_Swish!_ - -The next stick sailed high over the crowd and we watched it drop out -of sight behind Pete’s blacksmith shop. - -_Bang!_ - -That one went off. We seen a wagon-wheel hop up and roll off the top -of Buck’s place and a lot of horseshoes scatter around over the -house-tops. - -The next one was a line shot at Wick Smith’s wood-shed, but that one -didn’t bust. The next one did. Alcibiades just gave it a nice little -toss, and she busted behind the crowd, causing some to go prostrate. - -“Good boy!” says Bosco, and then Alcibiades picks up the rest of the -powder, box and all. Everything is as quiet as a graveyard and we -hears Old Testament say— - -“In the midst of life we are in——” - -_Swish!_ - -Up went the box of dynamite straight for the crowd, and just then -Magpie throws himself sideways on the elephant, and the rest of us has -to foller suit. We’re about half-way down the side of that elephant -when Dynamite’s blast goes off. I’d plumb forgot that blast. I’d say -that Dynamite knowed how to use powder, ’cause the whole corner of -that jail moved out to meet us. It knocked Alcibiades down but he got -right up. He’s so thick-skinned that nothing could hurt his feelings. - -I can’t hear a danged thing. I look out at the crowd. Most of ’em are -still prostrate on the ground, but I can see the dynamite box, so I -know she didn’t bust. The ropes has slipped and we are no longer on -top of the brute. I’m hanging on the side like a pack-sack; Bosco is -draped over its rump and Magpie has one leg over its neck, while the -rope holds him under the other knee, and he’s hanging on to the -elephant’s ear with both hands. - -Out of the ruined side of the jail comes an apparition. It is covered -with dobie dust and great wonderment. It weaves up to us with both -hands in the air. - -“Don’t shoot!” it squeaks. “I give up!” - -“All right,” nods Magpie. “Don’t shoot, boys; they’re dying.” - -Maybe Alcibiades was shocked, too; maybe he had acquired man-eating -propensities from associating with Cleopatra, but anyway he whirled, -let out a mean _Hur-r-r-r-r-rump!_ and started after Scenery Sims. -Scenery ducked straight for the crowd, and Alcibiades follered him -like a bloodhound. We went some. - - * * * * * - -We didn’t go very many miles per minute, but we went awful strong. We -went through Wick Smith’s yard and we took two clothes-lines full of -clothes with us. We got so tangled up in washing that we didn’t know -where we went. Every one who took the time tried shots at us but we -ignored such trifling things. - -I managed to get a suit of flannels out of my eyes in time to see our -animated vehicle pointing straight for the door of our horse stable. -The door is too narrow for elephants, being as we only had horses in -mind when we built it, and I starts to yell a warning but the flannels -came back and shut me up. - -Comes a ripping jar, the snap of a rope and I hit the earth with -Magpie on top of me. He got up, dazed-like, and shut the door. - -“We’ve got him, Ike,” says he. - -_Crash! Rip-p-p-p! Smash!_ - -The front logs of the stable goes squeegeed, and from the rear comes -the rattle of falling logs and a cloud of dust. We limps to the -corner. Out of the cloud of dust comes Alcibiades and on his back is -Bosco. The elephant skids to a stop, whirls and points straight into -the desert. - -“Bosco!” yelps Magpie. “Good-luck! Look out for snakes!” - -Magpie stares at me and then at the ruined stable. - -“I—I wonder if Bosco really did eat them snakes?” he asks -foolish-like. - -“He—he did,” states a voice, and out from the squeegeed doorway pokes -the hairy head of Bosco. “He sure did, gents. I am the only original -snakeeating——” - -He stops and rubs his hand over his eyes. He looks all around and then -whispers— - -“Which way is the city of Piperock?” - -Magpie points toward the town. - -“Sure?” - -“Sure. Why?” - -“That’s a —— of a question to ask,” says Bosco, and we watches him -blend into the mesquite, going away from Piperock. - -“That must ’a’ been Scenery on the elephant,” says Magpie awed-like. -“Scenery must ’a’ lost his clothes in the crash.” - -“Speculation has ruined a lot of men,” says I. “Why stop to -speculate?” - -We saddled our broncs and we didn’t hit the main road until we’re in -shooting distance of Paradise. Then we turns a corner and runs slap -into Jay-Bird and Hassayampa. They’re packing just enough to feel -glad. They hands us a bottle. - -“You fellers going to the celebration?” I asks. - -“You betcha,” agrees Hassayampa. “Looking forward to a _hyiu_ time. -How’s the circus?” - -“Only thing of it’s kind on earth,” says Magpie between swallers. -“Piperock is going crazy over it.” - -“Bet they are,” agrees Hassayampa. “Piperock deserves it. Don’t want -to sell out, do you?” - -“Sell it?” asks Magpie. “Hadn’t thought of such a thing. Who wants to -buy it, Hassayampa?” - -“It ain’t worth no more than you paid for it, Magpie,” says Jay-Bird, -“but we’d pay that much, eh, Hassayampa?” - -“Pshaw!” grunts Magpie. “I just got started, gents.” - -“You ain’t got no use for it, Magpie,” says Jay-Bird. “Me and -Hassayampa can afford a circus better than you and Ike. We’ll pay you -back in the same checks you paid us, eh? Is that a go?” - -“As you said, we can’t afford it,” nods Magpie. “We’ll trade.” - -Magpie puts the checks in his pocket. We take another round of good -cheer and ride on. - -“See you at the celebration,” yells Jay-Bird. - -“If you’ve got second sight,” nods Magpie, and we pilgrimed straight -for Silver Bend. - -We ain’t done nothing wrong in selling out. Believe me, that money -sure looked good. I wondered if Hassayampa and Jay-Bird had gone -crazy, but Magpie said if they hadn’t they soon would. - - * * * * * - -We got into Silver Bend after dark and hived up in a hotel. We’re so -sore and tired that we don’t wake up until noon. Magpie opines that we -better draw our money and go over to Powder River for a spell, so we -pilgrimed down to the bank. - -The curtains are down tight, and on the door hangs a card printed in -big letters: - - TO TRUST IS TO BUST. - TO BUST IS ——. - NO TRUST, - NO BUST, - NO ——. - -A feller comes along and stops beside us as we read the sign. - -“The cashier runs away with the contents,” says he, “and she’s busted -flat. They may pay ten cents on the dollar in a year or two.” - -Magpie twists his mustache and stares at me. - -“Hassayampa and Jay-Bird knew that,” he snorts. “The danged crooks -knowed them checks wasn’t no good, Ike!” - -“What did we know about the circus, Magpie?” I asks. - -He looks at me, scratches his head for a moment and says: - -“Piperock ought to be glad, Ike. Don’t you know it? They ought to rise -up and sing a song of thanksgiving and vote us a medal.” - -“What for, Magpie?” - -“To think we didn’t buy out P. T. Barnum.” - -Which we hope Piperock appreciates. - - -[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the December 18, 1919 issue -of Adventure magazine.] - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLAYING SAFE IN PIPEROCK *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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Tuttle</title> - <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover" /> - <style> - body { margin-left:8%; margin-right:8%; } - p { text-indent:1.15em; margin-top:0.1em; margin-bottom:0.1em; text-align:justify; } - .ce { text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; } - .poetry { display:block; text-align:left; } - .poetry .stanza { margin-top:0.7em; margin-bottom:0.7em; margin-left:4em; } - .poetry .verse { text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em; } - .poetry-container { text-align: center; } - .w001 { margin-left:15%; width:70% } - .x-ebookmaker .w001 { margin-left:5%; width:90% } - .mt01 { margin-top:1em; } - .mb01 { margin-bottom:1em; } - h1 { text-align:center; font-weight:normal; font-size:1.2em; margin-top:1em; } - .ce { margin-top:0.7em; margin-bottom:0.7em } - .tn { font-size:0.9em; border:1px solid silver; margin-top:1.8em; margin-left:8%; width:80%; padding:0.4em 2%; } - </style> -</head> -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Playing Safe in Piperock, by W. C. Tuttle</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Playing Safe in Piperock</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: W. C. Tuttle</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January 7, 2022 [eBook #67118]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Roger Frank and Sue Clark</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLAYING SAFE IN PIPEROCK ***</div> -<div id='001' class='mt01 mb01 w001'> - <img src='images/illus-fpc.jpg' alt='' style='width:100%' /> -</div> -<div class='ce'> -<h1 style='margin-bottom:0.7em;'>Playing Safe in Piperock </h1> -<div style='margin-bottom:0.5em;'>by W. C. Tuttle </div> -<div style='font-size:0.9em;margin-bottom:2em;font-style:italic;'>Author of “Alias Whispering White,” “When Civic Pride Hits Piperock,” etc. </div> -</div> -<div class='poetry-container'> -<div class='poetry'> -<div class='stanza'> -<div class='verse'>“I have been in lots of places,</div> -<div class='verse'>Fair as lilies in the dell.</div> -<div class='verse'>Some of ’em I kinda favor,</div> -<div class='verse'>Others I don’t like so well.</div> -<div class='verse'>There is one that’s ever calling,</div> -<div class='verse'>Come on back and hang your hat,</div> -<div class='verse'>Tough old, rough old town of Piperock,</div> -<div class='verse'>You’re a danged good town, at that.”</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<p>“‘Magpie,’” says I, “if my corns wasn’t hurting —— out of me I’d have -tears in my eyes from such sentiment. I’m all choked up—with alkali.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve got to admit that she rhymes,” says Magpie Simpkins, spitting -out a mouthful of dust and lifting his canteen to his lips. “I done -figured ’em all out of my own head, Ike.”</p> - -<p>“You better leave off taking things out of your own head,” says I. -“First thing you know, old-timer, you’ll be taking out what prompts -you to chaw your grub, and I’ll have to feed you with a -stummick-pump.”</p> - -<p>Then we pokes off the mountain and hits the trail toward Piperock. For -you who ain’t never heard of Piperock, I’ll say this much: Piperock -was the place the feller was thinking about when he wrote “Let -sleeping dogs lie.”</p> - -<p>Piperock looks like a siesta settlement, but she sure is deceiving. -Few folks ever get killed in the town. The good old village usually -invigorates ’em to a mile-a-minute clip, and we makes it a point never -to shoot anybody in the back.</p> - -<p>She ain’t the birthplace of nobody, and nothing much except -horse-thieves are buried there. When it comes to law and order, we’ve -got old Judge Steele. He’s got two law books and a copy of the -Congressional Record for 1885, which about covers all the crimes that -mankind is heir to, I reckon. Piperock ain’t on no map nor railroad -and she ain’t never been sung in song or story, but if you don’t think -she’s there, just get off the train at Paradise, ride north on Art -Miller’s stage to where he unhitches his team, and then start -something.</p> - -<p>She’s there like sixty per cent dynamite and no questions answered. Me -and that long-mustached, brainless, asinine arguer of a—well, me and -Magpie have been away for two months doing assessment work on some -mining claims that nobody would jump if we moved ’em down to the -railroad and offered to develop ’em free of charge. We sort of hankers -for the bright lights of Piperock. Even kerosene dazzles after using -candles for two months.</p> - -<p>Magpie stops, sudden-like, and appears to be looking down at a little -flat below us. I adds my gaze to his and gets astonished right away. -There is “Half-Mile” Smith and “Yuma” Yates: Half-Mile is one of our -own home folks, but Yuma is sort of <i>e pluribus unum</i> with me and -Magpie.</p> - -<p>Half-Mile has got his boots and vest off and is standing a little ways -from Yuma, who is arguing with a gun in his hand.</p> - -<p>“I don’t <i>sabe</i> this play,” says Magpie, wondering-like. “Appears to -be a one-sided proposition with Half-Mile on the weak end, Ike.”</p> - -<p>Just then we sees Half-Mile make a break for liberty, and Yuma’s gun -whangs out loud and clear. If he hit Half-Mile he didn’t get him in a -vital place, ’cause he sure is hitting the high spots.</p> - -<p>Magpie unhooks with his gun and I sees Yuma’s hat spin off his head. -By the time I gets into action Yuma is hived up behind a tree, and his -first shot cuts three shells out of my belt. Magpie was a danged fool -to miss his first shot, ’cause cover is mighty scarce on the side of -that hill.</p> - -<p>“Danged assassin!” yelps Magpie and spins lead past that tree so fast -that Yuma don’t dare to look out. “Shoot a unarmed man, will you?” And -then his gun clicks on a empty shell.</p> - -<p>“Give him ——, Ike!” yelps Magpie, but I wasn’t giving anything away -right then. I was trying to get my head down behind a rock which only -stuck three inches out of the ground.</p> - -<p>Yuma must ’a’ got excited, ’cause his shots were all going high, and -as soon as he shoots six times I breathes a sigh of relief. Just then -a hunk of lead comes from another direction and knocks the plug of -tobacco out of my hip pocket.</p> - -<p>Then I hears Yuma yell:</p> - -<p>“Get above ’em, Half-Mile! They need to be teached a lesson.”</p> - -<p>“Half-Mile, are you all right?” yelps Magpie.</p> - -<p>“If you don’t think I am, hang on to yourself for a minute!” replies -Half-Mile from above us.</p> - -<p>“King’s X!” I whoops. “Mistake here!”</p> - -<p>“Two mistakes,” yells Yuma. “Who in thunder are you fellers?”</p> - -<p>“Magpie and Ike.”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” says Yuma. “Sorry I missed.”</p> - -<p>Then the four of us stands up and looks at each other.</p> - -<p>“Howdy, Magpie. Howdy, Ike,” says Half-Mile. “Nice day today.”</p> - -<p>“Great,” agrees Magpie. “Howdy, Yuma. How’s your folks?”</p> - -<p>“If I had any they’d be tolable,” says Yuma. “Thanks just the same.”</p> - -<p>“You spoiled the best start I ever had,” complains Half-Mile.</p> - -<p>“No, he didn’t,” argues Yuma. “You beat the gun, Half-Mile.”</p> - -<p>“Not understanding the event and wishful to be wiser,” says Magpie, “I -asks would you elucidate the why and the wherefor of this peculiar -conduct, Yuma?”</p> - -<p>“Feet racin’,” says Half-Mile. “I’m practising. Getting pretty fast.”</p> - -<p>“Uh-huh,” says Magpie. “You having any success in racing with a -bullet?”</p> - -<p>“Racing with ——!” He stares at Magpie. “Think I’m a danged fool?”</p> - -<p>“All depends on your answer, Half-Mile.”</p> - -<p>“Aw ——! When Yuma shoots the gun I runs as fast as I can, <i>sabe</i>?”</p> - -<p>“How many times have you done it today?” I asks.</p> - -<p>“Six, wasn’t it, Yuma?”</p> - -<p>“Seven.”</p> - -<p>“And you ain’t hit him yet? Let me try just once, Yuma.”</p> - -<p>“Half-Mile,” says Yuma, “these shepherds don’t know nothing. Let’s go -home.”</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>We didn’t try to stop ’em. We punched our burros into line and at the -main road we meets “Scenery” Sims. Scenery beat Magpie for the -sheriff’s office, and this is the first time we’ve met him in his -official capacity. He’s my idea of nothing to see nor hear, being as -he never growed to man’s estate and his voice sounds like rubbing a -tin can over a rock.</p> - -<p>“He, he, he! Was afraid maybe you hadn’t heard about it,” he squeaks.</p> - -<p>“Fill our ears, Scenery,” says Magpie, rolling a smoke.</p> - -<p>“Biggest thing you ever heard about, Magpie. Believe me, I’m the party -responsible for it all. Piperock needs you fellers.”</p> - -<p>“That’s plenty for me,” says I. “I’m going back the other way. I’ve -been butchered to make a Piperock holiday, and any old time that -Piperock needs me, I’m absent.”</p> - -<p>“Hear about it anyway, Ike,” urges Magpie. “Go ahead, Scenery.”</p> - -<p>“Old Home Week,” grins Scenery. “What do you think?”</p> - -<p>“Go ahead—we’ll bite,” says I.</p> - -<p>“Whatever it is it won’t last no week” says Magpie, prophetic-like.</p> - -<p>“The big celebration is all in one day. All the old-timers will be -there; <i>sabe</i>? This is going to be a <i>hyiu</i> time, if you asks me, and -she’s going to be full of brotherly love and peace on earth, good will -to all menkind.”</p> - -<p>“In Piperock?” I asks, and he nods.</p> - -<p>“Brotherly love?” asks Magpie, and he nods again.</p> - -<p>“Well,” says I, “if you was a big man, Scenery, or could pull a gun -real fast, I’d say you’re mistaken, but being whom you are I’ll say -you are either a danged fool or a liar.”</p> - -<p>“Quit that now!” he squeaks. “Quit it! Dog-gone you, Ike, I’ve got a -lot of power I didn’t used to have.”</p> - -<p>“All the old-timers?” inquires Magpie.</p> - -<p>“You heard me say it, didn’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Hoss-thieves, et cettery?”</p> - -<p>“Immune for a week, Magpie. I has issued my proclamation.”</p> - -<p>Magpie looks at me sort of sad-like.</p> - -<p>“What do you think, Ike?”</p> - -<p>“When does the battle begin?”</p> - -<p>“The celebration will be on Tuesday.”</p> - -<p>“This is Sunday,” says I, “which gives one whole day to dig ourselves -in and two whole nights to spend in prayer. Go ahead, Magpie, and may -the Lord have mercy on the children ’cause there won’t be no old folks -next year.”</p> - -<p>Piperock ain’t changed none to speak about. As we pilgrims into the -main street we sees “Tellurium” Woods gallop out of Buck’s place, and -just as he skids into Pete Gonyer’s blacksmith shop we hears the bang -of a gun. Then out of the saloon comes “Tombstone” Todd. He peers all -around.</p> - -<p>“Whyfor the salute, Tombstone?” asks Magpie.</p> - -<p>“Salute ——! Think I’m shooting blanks? Tellurium argued that I ain’t -eligible to stay here for Old Home Week. Said the only time I ever was -here a delegation comes from Paradise, decorates me plentiful with tar -and feathers and rides me off on a rail. Dang Tellurium’s hide!”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you remember the incident, Tombstone?” asks Magpie.</p> - -<p>“Don’t I? Sufferin’ snakes, I didn’t moult for two months! Scenery -said I could stay here as long as I dwelt in harmony and brotherly -love, and, by cripes, I’m going to foller the recipe if I has to -decimate the whole danged village.”</p> - -<p>Me and Magpie nods and pilgrims on to our shack.</p> - -<p>“Brotherly love seems to have come upon them,” says Magpie. “This town -appears mild and full of loving thoughts. Next thing we know, Ike, -these snake-hunters will be carrying autygraph albums and wish us to -write—</p> - -<div class='poetry-container'> -<div class='poetry'> -<div class='stanza'> -<div class='verse'>If you love me as I love you</div> -<div class='verse'>No knife can cut our love in two.</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> -<p>“And the bunk-house walls will be decorated with ‘Let Us Love Each -Other’ mottoes. I wouldn’t be surprized to see ‘Hassayampa’ Harris -kissing ‘Doughgod’ Smith.”</p> - -<p>“That’s a fact,” I agrees. “She sure is a sweet-cider atmosphere. Next -thing ye know they’ll be decorating horse-thieves’ graves. Do I seem -to hear joy bells ringing, Magpie?”</p> - -<p>“That’s ‘Dirty Shirt’ Jones, I’ll bet a dobie dollar,” says Magpie. -“One, two, three! Nope, he ain’t drunk yet, Ike.”</p> - -<p>Magpie was counting the clangs of a bell. Dirty Shirt uses that bell -as a barometer. It hangs on the corner of the Mint Hall, about sixty -yards from the door of Buck’s place, and the bell is a little bigger -than a cow-bell. Any time Dirty misses one out of three shots with his -Colt he’s drunk enough to quit. As long as he can ring her three times -in a row he keeps on until he can’t.</p> - -<p>Me and Magpie don’t no more than get settled when here comes old Judge -Steele. The old pelican is full of enthusiasm mixed with a certain -percentage of alcohol and he welcomes us home again.</p> - -<p>“You gents sure came back for the crowning e-vent of our lives,” says -he. “We welcome you home and likely we can use you.”</p> - -<p>“Use Magpie,” says I. “I’m out of order.”</p> - -<p>“Huh!” snorts the judge. “Ornery as ever, eh, Ike? You ain’t got as -much civic pride as a cat!”</p> - -<p>“Maybe not,” says I, “and I’ve got eight less lives. I may die when my -time comes but I ain’t rushing the e-vent. Piperock is always starting -something that they can’t finish without bloodshed and horror.”</p> - -<p>“We’re progressive,” explains the judge. “We sure are—to a startling -degree, and the eyes of the world will e-ventually turn to Piperock.”</p> - -<p>“They will,” says I, “and this is what they’ll be saying: ‘The words -on that tombstone are appropriate: They Couldn’t Let Well Enough -Alone.’”</p> - -<p>“This here celebration amounts to what?” asks Magpie.</p> - -<p>“Mostly everything, Magpie. On Tuesday we has the celebration proper. -There will be feet races, tugs-of-war, shooting matches, et cettery. -Lot of the fellers are practising for the events and she bids fair to -be a humdinger.</p> - -<p>“We aims to put Piperock on the map, Magpie. Always our inhabitants -has to go to Silver Bend to see the sights, such as a circus or a -opery. If we can advertise Piperock sufficient-like we can get said -attractions and keep our money and young men to home. You was pretty -good as a ordinary sheriff, Magpie, but you ain’t got the get-up that -our new sheriff has. Me and him got together on this and we deserves a -lot of credit.”</p> - -<p>“You’re welcome, judge,” says I, “and all that goes with it.”</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>Just then here comes old “Jay-Bird” Whittaker, who owns the Cross J -cow outfit and two-thirds of the banks in Yaller Rock county. The -judge ain’t partial to Jay-Bird, so he lopes off down-town.</p> - -<p>Jay-Bird gets off his bronc and sets down with us.</p> - -<p>“Look upon me,” says he sad-like. “Take a good look. Good! Do I look -changed? Do I look haggard around the gills? Yeah? I deserve to—gol -dingle danged if I don’t! Me and ‘Chuck’ Warner went to Silver Bend to -see the sights. <i>Sabe?</i> We seen ’em. That gol-danged, horse-faced, -prevaricating son-of-a-sea-cook and me got stewed! I don’t remember -all of what passed but I seem to hear talk about Buffalo Bill, -Antelope Doc, P. T. Barnum and Frontpaws.</p> - -<p>“Well, I woke up with my feet sticking out over the top of a manger, -and in my checkbook is a stub which shows that I, J. B. Whittaker, who -ought to have at least enough sense to make me half-witted, had paid -five hundred dollars for the sole ownership of Oswald’s Dog and Pony -Show!”</p> - -<p>“Bought it?” asks Magpie foolish-like.</p> - -<p>“You hard of hearing, Magpie?” asks Jay-Bird.</p> - -<p>“Is she a good show?”</p> - -<p>“I never looked—gol dang it! Chuck said I ought to be thankful that I -didn’t buy the Mastadon Carnival Company too, which has been showing -there a couple of days. Maybe I’d a bought it if I’d a been seen by -the owners. Dog and pony show! ——’s bells!”</p> - -<p>We all rolls smokes and just about that time here comes Hassayampa -Harris of Curlew, who owns the banks that Jay-Bird don’t. Him and -Jay-Bird is what you’d call business rivals. Hassayampa squints down -at Jay-Bird and shoves his hat off a heated forehead.</p> - -<p>“Think you’re smart, eh?” he grunts sarcastic-like. “Buying things, -eh? Going to put yourself up as another Buffaler Bill, eh? Going to -start a Wild West Show, eh? Well, I spiked one of your wheels, -old-timer.”</p> - -<p>“Yeah?” says Jay-Bird. “Who told you?”</p> - -<p>“Chuck.” Hassayampa grinned from ear to ear. “I got him loaded and he -spilled it all to me. Don’t blame Chuck, Jay-Bird, ’cause he was too -full to think what he was doing. <i>Sabe?</i> He told me all about what you -bought and why you came home after more money.”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” grunts Jay-Bird. “He told you, did he? What did he say I came -here after more money for, Hassayampa Harris?”</p> - -<p>“Haw! Haw! Haw! For why, eh? Haw! Haw! Haw! I beat you to it, J. B. I -bought the Mastadon Carnival outfit myself.”</p> - -<p>Jay-Bird looks at Hassayampa for a moment, and then falls right off -the steps.</p> - -<p>“Some shock, eh?” grins Hassayampa. “Maybe I should have told him more -easy-like.”</p> - -<p>We turned Jay-Bird over on his back and he’s laughing so danged hard -that his jaws are almost locked. He ain’t able to talk for some time. -After a while he shuts off the tears and looks at Hassayampa.</p> - -<p>“Chuck told you that? Haw! Haw! Haw!”</p> - -<p>Hassayampa sets there, fooling with his six-shooter and staring at -Jay-Bird’s tears; then he swings his bronc around, abrupt-like.</p> - -<p>“Where you—Haw! Haw! Haw!—going?” asks Jay-Bird.</p> - -<p>“I’m going to kill Chuck Warner. He lied to me!”</p> - -<p>“Kill him a few times for me, Hassayampa,” yells Jay-Bird. “He never -told me the truth in his life.”</p> - -<p><i>Clang!</i> goes a bell. <i>Bang! Bang!</i></p> - -<p>“Dirty Shirt is drunk,” opines Magpie.</p> - -<p>“As usual,” nods Jay-Bird. “Are you going to be active in the -celebration Tuesday, Magpie?”</p> - -<p>“Ain’t decided yet. I’m going to let Ike help ’em out. Feel it’s my -patriotic duty to let ’em have a little assistance.”</p> - -<p>“Magpie Simpkins,” says I, “me and you are pardners in material -things, but when it comes to my soul you don’t own a share of stock. -You ain’t going to loan me and I ain’t going to have no hand in -anything. <i>Sabe?</i> I’m going down-town right now, and if you hear my -old .41 talking out loud you’ll know that brotherly love has snuck up -on me and I’m playing safe. Good-by!”</p> - -<p>If we had a newspaper in Piperock, you’d likely see something like -this:</p> - -<p>The follering guests registered at Holt’s hotel today:</p> - -<p>“Piegan” Peters, “Tombstone” Todd, “Ace-High” Anderson, “Dynamite” -Davidson, “Calamity” Calkins, “Sad” Samuels, “Windy” Wilson, “Shiner” -Seeley, “Slow-Elk” Sloan, “Ornery” Olsen, “Hip-Shot” Harris and others -too ornery to mention.</p> - -<p>Every danged one of them are practising horse-thieves. Brotherly love -don’t mean nothing to that bunch, unless the brother owns some -middling good stock.</p> - -<p>Then I meets Dirty Shirt. He’s about six and seven-eighths drunk and -he greets me more with his eyes than his tongue. He squints one eye at -me and then holds out his six-shooter for me to shake hands with.</p> - -<p>“Comp’ments of the sheason to the Harper twins,” says he serious-like. -“By cripes, Ike, your brother looks more like you than you do. Fact.”</p> - -<p>“Which one, Dirty?” I asks and he rubs his eyes.</p> - -<p>“Ex-coosh me! My mishtake, I’m sure. You folks goin’ to shelebrashun? -If so—why not? All three nods together. Good!”</p> - -<p>“Anything going on up-town, Dirty?”</p> - -<p>“Naw! Pete Gonyer and ‘Slim’ Hawkins are up in Holt’s hay-mow nursing -a pair of Winchesters, while they makes out schpecifications for -tug-of-war.</p> - -<p>“‘Mush be amachoor,’ says Slim. ‘Stric’ly amachoor.’</p> - -<p>“‘Amachoor what?’ asks Calamity. ‘Horsh-thieves,’ says Slim.</p> - -<p>“Now everybody’s sore, Ike, ’cause they’re all professionals. Why, -there ain’t ’nough amachoor horsh-thieves around here to tug the hat -off your head.”</p> - -<p>Just then Magpie shows up with two saddle-broncs and a hurry-up -expression on his face.</p> - -<p>“Get on, Ike,” says he. “Hurry up!”</p> - -<p>I gets on that horse and follers him. That’s the trouble with me; I’m -a born follerer and no questions asked. We thunders through Paradise -like Paul Revere advertising a flood, and I don’t overhaul Magpie -until his bronc begins to miss a step here and there.</p> - -<p>“Magpie,” says I, “let’s stop and fight.”</p> - -<p>He yanks up his tired bronc and stares at me.</p> - -<p>“Stop and fight?”</p> - -<p>“Uh-huh. I’m just as big a coward as you are, Magpie, but I won’t run -no further.”</p> - -<p>“There ain’t nothing to fight, Ike.”</p> - -<p>“You didn’t think I’d stop if I thought there was, did you? What in -the devil are we killing our broncs for, I’d lower myself to ask?”</p> - -<p>Magpie rolls a smoke and loops one long leg around the horn of his -saddle. When Magpie appears to get confidential I feels that life is -but a fleeting flower.</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>“Ike, me and you has scrabbled mighty hard for existence, ain’t we? -We’ve punched cows for forty a month, prospected everywhere and found -nothing much, and we run the sheriff’s office with a gun in one hand -and our life in the other, ain’t we? What have we got? I asks you as -man to man, what have we got?”</p> - -<p>“We’ve got between five and six hundred dollars in the Silver Bend -bank,” I replies.</p> - -<p>“We did have, Ike. We did have a measly amount like that. How far will -a amount like that go, I asks you? As old age sneaks upon us, Ike, and -our hands lose their cunning we need to be upholstered in worldly -goods or go to the bone-yard.”</p> - -<p>“Has somebody robbed that danged bank?” I gasps.</p> - -<p>“I hope not, Ike. I wrote a check for five hundred and gave it to -Jay-Bird, so I ain’t worrying.”</p> - -<p>“The —— you did! What for, Magpie?”</p> - -<p>“For the complete and entire ownership of Oswald’s Dog and Pony Show, -which will be knowed in the future as Simpkins’ Stupendous Shows -Combined.”</p> - -<p>“Combined with what?” I whispers.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know yet.”</p> - -<p>I don’t say nothing more. I look at him—that’s all. I hope to die if I -didn’t want to kill my pardner. I swallers hard and scratches the butt -of my six-gun.</p> - -<p>“I knowed you’d choke up with e-motion, Ike,” says he, reaching over -to pat me on the back. “It’s a thing that only comes once in a man’s -life, and I knowed it would make you happy. Opportunity knocked and I -sure let her in. Come on, Ike, and we’ll make P. T. Barnum’s outfit -look like a medicine show. Why, dog-gone it, Ike, we can run that -outfit one season and clean up enough to let us loaf the rest of our -lives.”</p> - -<p>“Barnum was right,” I whispers. “He sure was.”</p> - -<p>“You danged know he was,” nods Magpie. “He knew.”</p> - -<p>“One every minute, Magpie, and no stop-watches on earth.”</p> - -<p>I don’t know nothing about circuses. My folks got all their money -honestly, and I don’t know a blood-sweating Behemoth from a ant-eater, -but it don’t need zoological wisdom to see that me and Magpie owns a -lot of undesirables.</p> - -<p>First on the list cometh Cleopatra. Magpie has a book which I read -once, and it says that Cleopatra showed up on the Egyptian range about -one hundred and seventeen years before Christ, but after I looks her -over I comes to the conclusion she ain’t that young.</p> - -<p>Cleopatra is a man-eating tiger, but from the looks of her ribs I’d -say that she ain’t mixed with men folks for a long, long time. Her -teeth look like she’d been trying to get sustenance from stones. She -might pinch but I’ll be danged if she could bite.</p> - -<p>Then comes Allah. He looks like a antique rug that the moths had been -living in. They say a camel can go eight days without drinking, but -I’m betting Allah can go longer than that without eating. He’s what -I’d call a shipwreck of the desert.</p> - -<p>Then comes Alcibiades. This critter might ’a’ been a elephant years -ago, but right now he ain’t much but a mass of rubber wrinkles and a -pair of mean little eyes. Alcibiades sure needed washing and ironing.</p> - -<p>The pony end of the outfit consists of four little pinto ponies, and -the dogs tally about six mongrels, one mixed breed and one just dog. -There’s two monkeys which scratch like lumberjacks. There’s a dirty -tent, two painted wagons, a bass drum, a bale of hay and a set of -harness.</p> - -<p>With these few words I have proclaimed what we own for five hundred -dollars. Oh, I forgot to mention a water-bucket minus the bail. I’m -looking over our loss when Magpie comes back, grinning like a fool.</p> - -<p>“Eighty dollars, Ike!” he whoops. “We own the whole layout now. The -Simpkins’ Stupendous Shows United.”</p> - -<p>“Eighty dollars for what, Magpie?” I asks.</p> - -<p>“Mastadon Carnival Company, Ike. Hassayampa knowed there was no use -bucking me. We own everything now.”</p> - -<p>“Except brains,” says I. “What does the Mastadon consist of?”</p> - -<p>“Why—” Magpie scratches his head—“I’ll be danged if I know. Must be -worth eighty dollars. It ain’t reasonable to suppose——”</p> - -<p>“Figuring comparative prices, Magpie, you must have got an extra -water-bucket for the eighty. What is a carnival, Magpie?”</p> - -<p>We ain’t far from Judge Mulligan’s office, so we went over and -borrowed his dictionary. It said that a carnival was a time of riotous -excess.</p> - -<p>“My gosh! We’ve bought a riot, Ike!” exclaims Magpie.</p> - -<p>“Not me,” says I. “Don’t blame me. I’ve had a riot wished upon me.”</p> - -<p>We didn’t get paralysis of the eyelids looking at our purchase. If the -dog and pony show was small, the carnival was the sharp end of nothing -whittled to a point. There’s three small tents badly in need of canvas -to hide the bare poles. One of ’em has a sign proclaiming it to be—</p> - -<div class='ce'> -<div>SONG BIRDS FROM THE SUNNY SOUTH</div> -</div> -<p>Inside is a platform and some benches.</p> - -<p>“Them birdies has gone south, Magpie,” says I.</p> - -<p>The next tent proclaims to be the abode of—</p> - -<div class='ce'> -<div>THE PEARL OF EGYPT, THE POETESS OF MUSCULAR</div> -<div>MOTION, DIRECT FROM THE SULTAN’S HAREM</div> -</div> -<p>It’s as empty as a last year’s coyote den and smells like a muskrat -burrow.</p> - -<p>At the next tent we meets the last survivor. It sets there gnawing on -a hunk of bread and don’t pay much attention to us. I never seen such -outright hair on any human being. His head looks the same from front -and back, and all he’s got on is the collar and sleeve of a dirty -shirt and a skirt of swamp-grass. The words “water” and “bath” sure -was a dead language to that <i>hombre</i>.</p> - -<p>“Just about who in —— are you?” asks Magpie.</p> - -<p>The feller looks up at us, masticates a few times and then points at a -dirty sign on the tent.</p> - -<div class='ce'> -<div>BOSCO THE WILD MAN. HE EATS ’EM ALIVE</div> -</div> -<p>“Run out of snakes?” I asks and he nods.</p> - -<p>“Where’s the rest of the layout?” asks Magpie.</p> - -<p>Bosco stuffs the rest of the bread in his face and swallers hard.</p> - -<p>“Well, the boss said he was going home; the niggers said they was -going back to making beds in Pullman cars, and I heard that the Pearl -of Egypt left here with a sheep-herder.”</p> - -<p>“You the sole survivor?” I asks and he nods.</p> - -<p>“Yep! Know where I can get a job?”</p> - -<p>“Job!” snorts Magpie. “I bought you, feller. Cost me eighty dollars.”</p> - -<p>“You got stung,” states Bosco. “I ain’t got a snake left.”</p> - -<p>“You really a wild man?” I asks.</p> - -<p>“Well,” says Bosco sad-like, “I ain’t been paid for two weeks, and -they left me stranded here without no clothes, so you can draw your -own conclusions.”</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>Never since the Lord dumped the leavings of the Bad Lands and wrote in -the big book, “They will call this Piperock,” has the old moon looked -down upon the like. Into the old cow-town, at five A.M., drags the -darndest conglomeration a human ever conceived. The Simpkins’ -Stupendous Shows Combined drifted into Piperock. It was Magpie’s idea. -I wanted to take the things the other way, but Magpie wanted to give -the old-timers the treat of their lives and Magpie usually has his -way.</p> - -<p>Magpie drove the team, which hauled dogs, monkeys, tent-poles and so -forth. Then came Bosco on Alcibiades, leading Allah, and behind them -cometh Ike Harper driving four calico ponies hitched to a tiger’s -cage, inside of which Cleopatra yowled and complained against alkali, -rheumatism and lack of sleep. We led our broncs and left ’em at our -own shack as we came past.</p> - -<p>We pulled around behind the city, unhitched, unloaded and then laid -down on a part of the Pearl of Egypt’s tent and went to sleep. When we -wakes up we observes Scenery Sims looking over our outfit.</p> - -<p>“What is this here mess and what you fellers aiming to do?” he asks.</p> - -<p>“This?” asks Magpie surprized-like. “This is Simpkins’ Stupendous -Shows Combined.”</p> - -<p>“Yes? What you aiming to do with it?”</p> - -<p>“Show her off in Piperock tomorrow. She’s some attraction, Scenery.”</p> - -<p>“Belong to you, Magpie?”</p> - -<p>“Feathers and everything!”</p> - -<p>“Then,” says Scenery, “you better hire somebody to haul it away and -bury it.”</p> - -<p>“Think you’re funny, don’t you?” asks Magpie. “Get this inside your -barren skull, little one: This is a cross between a circus and a -carnival and tomorrow she helps to entertain the old-timers. <i>Sabe?</i>”</p> - -<p>“Smells like a cross between a pole-cat and ancient eggs,” says -Scenery. “Remove it from our fair city to once!”</p> - -<p>“Away from here? What do you mean, feller?”</p> - -<p>“I’m running this celebration.” Scenery pats himself on the chest. “Me -and Judge Steele inaugurates same and we has the say-so. <i>Sabe?</i> We -adjudicates against anything that ain’t our own doings. In the first -place, you ain’t got nothing that attracts us, and in the second -place, as the sheriff, I rules against what you have got. You can’t -show in the city of Piperock while——”</p> - -<p>I saw Alcibiades working closer and closer to Scenery, but I didn’t -think it was any business of mine to warn the law. It was nice -team-work between Alcibiades and Cleopatra, if anybody asks you. The -elephant just wrapped its trunk around Scenery, slammed him up against -the cage and he don’t no more than hit the bars when a pair of paws -come out and shucks the lower half of Scenery plumb to his birthday -suit.</p> - -<p>Then Alcibiades cracked the whip with the sheriff, and when he lit -twenty feet away he still retains his boots, shirt and an idea of the -general direction home.</p> - -<p>“Good work!” applauds Bosco, sticking his head out from under the -canvas. “Things like that never happen in a carnival.”</p> - -<p>“You hang around here very long, Bosco, and you’ll see a lot of things -what never happen any place else,” says Magpie.</p> - -<p>We’ve just got one tent up when here comes Judge Steele. He hauls out -a sheet of paper, balances his glasses on his nose and reads:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p style='text-indent:0'>“To whom it may concern or annoy:</p> - -<p>“Be it knowed this day and date that the city of Piperock, according -to the laws of the State of Montana and the rights of humanity, does -here and hereby announce to all and sundry, that on the fifth day of -August, being tomorrow, there will not be tolerated within our sacred -precincts anything of the circus nature. Be it further knowed that the -city of Piperock does not hanker for anything of like nature and will -not tolerate same. This aforementioned city is aiming to play safe for -once, and no questions asked.</p> - -<p>“Signed by Lindhardt Cadwallader Sims, sheriff, and wrote out by Judge -Steele, notary public. Amen.”</p> - -</blockquote> -<p>“Is there anything else that Scenery wants?” asks Magpie.</p> - -<p>“He said something about a pair of pants, I believe.”</p> - -<p>Just then cometh Tombstone, Ace-High, Slow-Elk and Hip-Shot. They -stops and considers Alcibiades and then wanders over to us.</p> - -<p>“That ultimatum ain’t hardly square, judge,” complains Magpie. “Me and -Ike has expended a enormous amount of time and capital on this -stupendous aggregation of wonders and we’ve done it all that you might -have a enjoyable day. It has cost us a e-normous amount of wasted -energy, and in the event that we can’t exhibit here we are broke, -busted and worn to the bone.”</p> - -<p>“Who says you-all can’t show off here?” asks Hip-Shot.</p> - -<p>“It has been so adjudicated by the sheriff,” states the judge. “I -wrote her out and I know there ain’t no loop-holes in same. Scenery -has decreed that this circus ain’t going to show here, and I -represents his feelings.”</p> - -<p>“No circus, eh?” says Hip-Shot. “I pines for a circus. How about you -fellers?”</p> - -<p>“Like a calf for its maw,” agrees Slow-Elk. “I ain’t never seen no -circurious, Hip-Shot, but since you spoke I’ve begun to hanker awful -for one. Let’s have one.”</p> - -<p>“It must be so,” nods Hip-Shot. “We’ll have her.”</p> - -<p>“You might talk to the sheriff,” says the judge.</p> - -<p>“Talk ——!” grunts Hip-Shot. “Come on, Slow-Elk.”</p> - -<p>They pilgrimed away and the rest of us sets down and rolls smokes.</p> - -<p>“I just wants to know,” says Ace-High nervous-like, “I just wants to -know if there is anybody here except me and Tombstone and the judge -and Magpie and Ike? Five is maybe all that is here, but I feels that -I’d like to be sure.”</p> - -<p>“Much obliged, Ace-High,” says Tombstone. “You’ve got more nerve than -I have. Is it or ain’t it?”</p> - -<p>“Gents,” says Magpie, “meet Bosco, the wild man. Eats snakes.”</p> - -<p>“I could love you, feller,” says Ace-High, “love you for being flesh -and blood. Danged if I didn’t think my sins had began to react upon -me.”</p> - -<p>“Feeling so good I ain’t got the heart to chide you,” says Tombstone, -“but if I was you—well, this is a he-man’s town, Bosco, and all that, -but we’ve still got some of the finer feelings left, so I’d advise you -to get some pants.”</p> - -<p>When Slow-Elk and Hip-Shot shows up again, Hip-Shot bows low to us.</p> - -<p>“Proceed with your circus,” says he. “All is well and good.”</p> - -<p>“You saw Scenery?” asks Magpie joyful-like. “What’d he say?”</p> - -<p>“Not much,” grins Slow-Elk. “He said to hang on to them keys, ’cause -there ain’t no more like ’em, but he spoke too late.”</p> - -<p>“I throwed ’em down that hole where Wick Smith bored for water,” said -Hip-Shot.</p> - -<p>“Keys to what?” I asks.</p> - -<p>“Cell door and the jail,” grins Slow-Elk. “Scenery is bottled up.”</p> - -<p>The old judge gets up and shakes out his coat-tails.</p> - -<p>“Do you mean to say that our estimable sheriff is locked in his own -jail?”</p> - -<p>“I pass on the ’steamable part, judge,” grins Slow-Elk, “but you sure -guessed the last of it to a gnat’s eyelash. Let’s all have a drink on -the sheriff’s impossibilities.”</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>Then we enters Buck’s place. The rest of the surrounding country is in -there and they’re enjoying the fulness of the world. Wick Smith is -standing on the bar orating, and we listens to his wau-wau. Wick has -been dallying with the weaving water, and his voice is full of silv’ry -bells:</p> - -<p>“—And friends of old, I says to thee all, there may be cities of gold -and silver and palaces of paradise personified, but when a feller -hankers for a pat on the back and the grasp of a honest hand and——”</p> - -<p>Wick happens to glance down at Bosco and seems to run short on vocal -power. He stares at Bosco for a moment, lets his glance wander to the -ceiling, shuts his eyes tight and proceeds—</p> - -<p>“As I said before, when a feller hankers for a hat on the back and the -hasp of a—a——”</p> - -<p>Then he glances down again.</p> - -<p>“Judge,” says he, sliding off the bar, “you talk a while. I—I reckon -my innards are ailing, I reckon.”</p> - -<p>He weaves out of the door with his eyes shut.</p> - -<p>Bosco looks around at that assemblage and then walks out the back -door. Wild men has feelings the same as regular folks, I reckon, but -to everybody outside of about six of us Bosco is the limit in hooch -hallucinations.</p> - -<p>“I’d—I’d set ’em up,” says Buck weak-like.</p> - -<p>Six of us faced the barrier but the rest shook their heads. Dirty -Shirt took his under advisement. He walked to the door, rung the bell -three times, and joined us.</p> - -<p>“It may get me e-ventually,” he announces, “but I’m still firm in my -left hand, folks.”</p> - -<p>All to once Wick stumbles back inside and flops in a chair.</p> - -<p>“Send for Doc Milliken!” he yells.</p> - -<p>“Ailin’, Wicksie?” asks the judge.</p> - -<p>“Terrible!” Wick looks around, wild-like. “Ain’t nobody going to send -for a doctor?”</p> - -<p>“Will a little liquor take out the hurt?” asks Slow-Elk.</p> - -<p>“Liquor ——! I need a antydote! First I see a cannyball and then I see -a danged woolly dog!”</p> - -<p>Wick’s voice hits a high note, and he stares at us wild-like.</p> - -<p>“He seen a dog!” gasps Dirty Shirt. “Wick Smith has seen a dog! My -gosh, this is terrible!”</p> - -<p>“Woolly dog,” says Wick, like he was talking to himself. “It had a -stick in its hands and was walking like a man. When it seen me it -hopped up in the air and turned over and lit on its hind feet and——”</p> - -<p>“Snakes!” gasps Yuma. “Smitty has got crippled crawlers!”</p> - -<p>“You’re a liar!” howls Wick. “Don’t I know a dog from a snake?”</p> - -<p>“Grab him before he gets violent!” yells Big-Foot and makes a dive for -Wick. Wick might have been sick in the head, but it hadn’t affected -his legs. He beat Big-Foot to the door and neither of ’em hit the -sidewalk on their way out.</p> - -<p>“Haw! Haw! Haw!” whoops Judge Steele. “Them darned fools don’t know——”</p> - -<p>Big-Foot comes backing into the door, catches his spurs on the -threshold and falls flat on his back, where he lays with his eyes -shut.</p> - -<p>“Take it away!” he yelps. “Dang it all, take it away!”</p> - -<p>“You—you got ’em too, Big-Foot?” asks Buck.</p> - -<p>“Hawg tie me!” yells Big Foot. “I seen more than Wick did!”</p> - -<p>“Somebody has been monkeying with the circus, Ike,” whispers Magpie.</p> - -<p>We ducked out the back door. Bosco is setting there on the canvas. He -says a couple of the dogs got loose, but nothing else is gone.</p> - -<p>We sat down and smoked a while, when Magpie says—</p> - -<p>“Bosco, do you know anything about this circus of ours?”</p> - -<p>“You ain’t got no circus,” says Bosco. “I seen this aggregation when -she was at her best and she wasn’t worth a whoop.”</p> - -<p>Magpie nods and considers Alcibiades.</p> - -<p>“What good was that elephant? He didn’t travel on his looks, did he?”</p> - -<p>“Him? Naw! They used to give him soft rubber balls to throw into the -audience—if there was any audience. Oswald never played to capacity.”</p> - -<p>Magpie picked up a stone about as big as his fist and walked over to -the elephant. He held out the stone and Alcibiades took it. He seems -to sort of take a good hold with his trunk and then swings it back and -forth, like he was weighing it. Then he whirls his trunk up and -sideways, lets out a little grunt and away went that rock.</p> - -<p><i>Crash!</i></p> - -<p>It bored right into the eaves of “Old Testament” Tilton’s shack about -fifty yards away. We hears the crash and a moment later here comes Old -Testament out of the door.</p> - -<p>He’s got his hands folded and we can see his lips moving. Over one ear -is a lump the size of a egg.</p> - -<p>“Howdy, parson,” says Magpie, but Old Testament don’t hear nor see us. -As he walks past us we hears him singing soft and low—</p> - -<p>“Rockavages clef’—rockavages cl’—Rockavages——”</p> - -<p>Then he shakes his head and starts all over again.</p> - -<p>“He can’t get over the rock!” says Magpie, awed-like, and we watches -the old preacher turn into the street out of our sight.</p> - -<p>“Magpie,” says I, “this here circus is getting in bad. You can do a -lot of things around here, but any time elephants start hitting -preachers with rocks, it’s going too far. I feel within me that -there’s going to be a reaction.”</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>We sets down to consider things, when here comes Yuma, Wick and -Big-Foot. They’re sneaking along like they was afraid we’d fly away. -Yuma has a sack in his hand, while the rest of ’em packs guns. They -stares down at Bosco and contemplates deep-like over our wild man.</p> - -<p>“You—you’re the snake-eater the judge told us about?” asks Yuma.</p> - -<p>“I am,” says Bosco. “Eat ’em alive! Greatest sensation of the age! -Scientists has pondered over my marvelous powers to withstand the bite -of poison reptiles. Yessir, I am Bosco! I eat ’em alive!”</p> - -<p>“You sure must be a awful handicap to the snakes,” opines Yuma. -“You’ve got St. Patrick beat, feller. All he done was chase ’em. You -eat pizen ones?”</p> - -<p>“Always! The flavor of poison is vanilly to me.”</p> - -<p>“Not rattlers?” says Big-Foot. “Not them spotted devils?”</p> - -<p>“Rattlers? Ha! Ha! Ha! I love ’em. I’m sorry I haven’t any left, -gents, but I ate the last one day before yesterday. I suppose I’ve got -to go back to eating ordinary food.”</p> - -<p>“Rise up and cheer!” says Yuma joyful-like, holding up the sack. “You -sure get banqueted, feller. In this sack is a ol’ diamond-back with -sixteen rattles and a button. Fat as a fool and you gets him free -gratis for nothing.”</p> - -<p>“A-a-a-alive?” gasps Bosco.</p> - -<p>“Betcha! Ain’t even bruised nor shy a button. Me and Big-Foot caught -him under the sidewalk. He’s a humdinger. We’ll watch you eat him.”</p> - -<p>“Wait!” yelps Magpie. “You fellers think I’m running a free show? This -layout costs me money and I only lets Bosco eat snakes after you has -paid one dollar per each to see the feeding. <i>Sabe?</i>”</p> - -<p>“If we furnishes the eatables?” asks Yuma.</p> - -<p>“You can’t noways furnish what you don’t own, Yuma,” states Magpie. -“That snake is part and parcel of nature, and you can’t own one unless -you raises same from your own stock. <i>Sabe?</i> That snake don’t belong -to nobody, so you might as well give it to me.”</p> - -<p>“This snake?” asks Yuma, holding up the sack. “This belongs to ——” -Alcibiades has edged over close and when Yuma holds up the sack, he -just reaches over, wraps his trunk around it and yanks it away. -Alcibiades begins swinging that sack back and forth, playful-like.</p> - -<p>“Look out!” yelps Magpie. “He’s going to throw it at somebody!”</p> - -<p>Wick was wise enough to gallop straight away, but Yuma and Big-Foot -seemed to think that height was salvation. They bounces straight for -Cleopatra’s cage, being as that’s the highest thing at hand, and they -begins to claw their way right up the bars.</p> - -<p>That cage wasn’t built for no such a stunt, and when they’re about -halfway up the side Cleopatra lets out a woful wail and slams herself -up against the bars. The cage sways for a second and then over she -comes off the wagon, and two perfectly unreliable horse-thieves and a -antiquated tiger bite the dust together, with the horse-thieves -underneath.</p> - -<p>Allah was almost in the way of the crash and the next thing we know -our shipwreck of the desert gets the stampede fever, too, knocks me -and Magpie flat into a tangle of canvas and poles, and away he went -into the desert. His two humps weave in different directions as he -gades away, and it reminds me of two drunken punchers riding double.</p> - -<p>Bosco took a high-dive the other way, and I sees him setting there on -the ground, investigating some cactus he dove into.</p> - -<p>Me and Magpie gets our breath and sets there looking at each other, -when here comes Judge Steele, Pete Gonyer, Art Miller, Doughgod Smith -and Old Testament. They groups near us and the judge clears his -throat.</p> - -<p>“Magpie Simpkins, Ike Harper <i>et al.</i>: We, the sober and industrious -citizens of Piperock, has gathered in serious conclave this day and -date and has adjudicated that we will not have the glorious morrow -sullied or marred by a circus or circuses.</p> - -<p>“In the name of the parties responsible for Old Home Week, I hereby -delivers this here ultimatum: Get your danged circus hence! We are not -empowered to arrest you and have no jail to lock you in if we were, -but we still got ropes and willing hands. We’ve got enough to cope -with tomorrow without dry nursing denizens of the jungles. For once in -its glorious existence Piperock is playing safe. <i>Sabe?</i> This here is -our final——”</p> - -<p>“My ——!” interrupts Pete. “Looky!”</p> - -<p>The tiger cage begins to rise up and them ultimatumers backs into a -compact body and pulls their guns. Then out comes the remains of -Big-Foot. His hat is smashed down over his eyes but he don’t care -where he goes.</p> - -<p>Then out comes Yuma. He don’t seem to see us. He tips his hat over one -eye, does a few fancy jig steps and then reaches in under that cage. -Then he straightens up and away he goes, dragging Cleopatra by the -skin of her neck.</p> - -<p>Cleo has had the shock of her old age but she’s still alive. She spits -and slaps, but Yuma goes merrily on his way ahead of a cloud of dust -made by a grandma tiger which is digging deep into her soul for sounds -to tell us how exasperated she is.</p> - -<p>This conclave of indignant citizens stands there and gawps at the free -show, until—</p> - -<p><i>Swish!</i></p> - -<p>Alcibiades whales away with that sack and hits the old judge right in -the back of his neck. He lands on his hands and knees but skids back -to his feet.</p> - -<p>“Who hit me?” he wails. “Who threw that?”</p> - -<p><i>Z-z-z-z-z-z-zee!</i></p> - -<p>The string had come off the sack and right at their feet coiled the -rattler, indignant as thunder over things in general.</p> - -<p>“Ah-h-h-h-h-h! Wow!” yelps Doughgod.</p> - -<p>The monkey cage must ’a’ got busted up in the fracas, ’cause just then -a mangy little member of the missing links hopped from a wagon-wheel -and lit on Doughgod’s shoulder. Doughgod stiffens like he was hanging -on to a electric battery and then lets out another whoop and tries to -buck the monk off. Doughgod collides with Old Testament and the two of -’em goes down in a heap.</p> - -<p>“Make it a good one,” says Magpie and kicks the staple out of the lock -on the dog cage.</p> - -<p>Doughgod and Old Testament got up just in time to trail the others and -lead that yelping bunch of mongrels away from us. Then we flops, -weary-like, down upon our canvas again. Magpie slips his gun loose and -shoots the head off that snake, which is hunting for a place to hive -up under our tents.</p> - -<p>“Five hundred and eighty dollars, Magpie,” says I. “She’s going fast.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he admits, “she’s fading out, Ike. The Simpkins’ Stupendous -Shows is about scattered. Nothing left but a snake-eater and a -elephant. Sorry you missed your meal, Bosco.”</p> - -<p>“My ——! Did you think—I—say, that snake still had its fangs!”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” says Magpie. “I see. You—you sort of commit suicide with a empty -gun, as it were, eh?”</p> - -<p>“As it were,” nods Bosco. “I’m going away from here pretty soon. I -ain’t got nothing to wear, no place to go and nothing to ride upon.”</p> - -<p>“There’s lots of places to go,” says Magpie, “and you can ride that -danged elephant if you want to.”</p> - -<p>“Like ——!” says I. “I’m going to have something out of this. I’m shy -two hundred and ninety dollars, Magpie.”</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>Then cometh old Judge Steele and Yuma. They’ve got a white rag on a -stick. Yuma is half out of clothes and they both seem chastened in -spirit. They halts fifty yards away.</p> - -<p>“We come more in sorrow than in anger,” states the judge. “Sorry we -didn’t kill you fellers early this morning. Which of you deplorable -jassacks is the tiger-trainer?”</p> - -<p>“I wash my hands of the tiger,” replies Magpie “I may have Yuma -arrested for stealing it but that’s all.”</p> - -<p>“It’s in the saloon,” says Yuma, bowing apologetic-like. “Buck is in -there and so is Old Testament, and we ain’t heard from them for quite -a while.”</p> - -<p>“Half-Mile’s bronc is in there, too,” adds the judge. “Half-Mile roped -it and then fell off his bronc as it went into the door.”</p> - -<p>“Gosh!” grunts Magpie. “I feel sorry for the bronc.”</p> - -<p>We walks down to the flag of truce and like a pair of danged fools we -let ’em get the drop on us. They takes our guns and throws away the -flag. Then they prods us down in front of the saloon, where all of -Piperock stands or mills around. They gives us three cheers—we already -had a tiger.</p> - -<p>“Now,” says Judge Steele, “we’ve got these hombres. Wick, you hold the -watch. Now we’re going to give you hombres just five minutes to get -your danged tiger out of our late friend Buck Masterson’s place of -business.”</p> - -<p>“Late?” asks Magpie. “Is Buck late?”</p> - -<p>“Well,” says the judge, taking off his hat, “maybe I was a bit hasty -in that statement but I will say this much: He’s danged tardy.”</p> - -<p>“Old Testament is tardy, too,” says somebody in the crowd.</p> - -<p>“One minute is passed,” states Wick.</p> - -<p>“The consequences is what?” I asks.</p> - -<p>“Your case is parallel with horse-stealing,” states the judge.</p> - -<p>Magpie looks at the crowd and grins.</p> - -<p>“You horse-thieves suffering any to speak of?”</p> - -<p>“Two minutes gone,” reminds Wick. “You know best.”</p> - -<p>“Can I have a gun?” asks Magpie, but the judge shakes his head.</p> - -<p>Magpie tightens up his belt and spits on his hands.</p> - -<p>“Come on, Ike!”</p> - -<p>I wonders at the time what Magpie spits on his hands for. He sure -wasn’t afraid the tiger would slip through his hands. Cleopatra was -awful old and old age naturally makes her childish and cross. Reminded -me of that poem about the woman who knew by heart from finish to start -the book of iniquity. Cleopatra was that kind, I reckon.</p> - -<p>We pilgrimed up to the front door, but all is still.</p> - -<p>“You better go around to the back door, Ike,” whispers Magpie.</p> - -<p>“Speak up loud!” says I. “What you trying to do, sneak up on her? Why -should I go to the back door, Magpie? We don’t want to catch her, do -we?”</p> - -<p>“Three minutes gone,” drones Wick.</p> - -<p>Magpie turns to the crowd and takes off his hat. “Feller citizens, I -regret I have only one tiger to die for.”</p> - -<p>Then he opens the door.</p> - -<p>We walks in like Daniel into the lions’ den or Joner into the whale. -The bronc is plain and visible, standing between the pool table and -the wall, with the reins looped around its feet. The card-tables are -upset and the place shows that there has been a certain amount of -action.</p> - -<p>Sudden-like, up behind the top of an unset table come the head of Buck -Masterson. He squints at us and his Adam’s apple bobs up and down like -it was practising to hop out the first time he opens his mouth.</p> - -<p>“Howdy, Buck,” says Magpie. “How’s each little thing with you?”</p> - -<p>“Tut-tolable,” says he hoarse-like. “Just barely so, so.”</p> - -<p>“Where’s the tiger?” I asks and Buck’s eyes get round as nickels.</p> - -<p>He’s so scared he can’t speak for a minute; then he whispers:</p> - -<p>“Uh-under me! I can’t let loose!”</p> - -<p>“Still alive?” asks Magpie.</p> - -<p>“I—I don’t know. It ain’t moved for a minute. My ha-hands are -paralyzed from squeezing the blasted thing!”</p> - -<p>“Get up easy-like,” advises Magpie, “and then jump back.”</p> - -<p>“I—I may do it,” whispers Buck.</p> - -<p>He takes a breath, eases his feet under him and then jumps high and -handsome. He falls over a chair, bumps his head against the bar and -collapses on the rail.</p> - -<p>“My ——!” he wails. “That was a close shave!”</p> - -<p>Then up comes a tangle of green cloth off the card-table, mixed with a -striped blanket. It rises to the height of a man and instead of the -roar of a man-eating tiger comes these words—</p> - -<p>“Let us all arise and sing hymn number sixty-seven.”</p> - -<p>The cloth falls away. He stands there, hands folded, and on his face -is the look of a man who has made his peace and don’t care what -happens.</p> - -<p>Buck gets to his feet and weaves forward.</p> - -<p>“Tut-testament,” he quavers. “I—I’m sorry I ch-choked you.”</p> - -<p>“Take a front seat, brother,” says Testament. “All sinners are -welcome.”</p> - -<p>“Five minutes are up,” states Wick Smith’s voice.</p> - -<p>“Go to thunder!” yells Magpie. “Everybody’s all right. There ain’t no -tiger in here.”</p> - -<p>I felt sorry for that poor bronc, so I goes over, untangles the reins -from its feet and led it out of the door. The crowd splits to let us -out and just as we gets out of the door somebody yells.</p> - -<p>I whirled and looked back. From the saddle-horn runs a rope back into -the saloon and she sure is pulled tight. Somebody slaps the bronc and -Cleopatra came among us. I reckon she must ’a’ been behind the bar. -She came out of the door, ducked behind the crowd like a flash and the -next second about thirty citizens of Cowland are tangled with our -tiger.</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>I slipped the rope off the horn and let nature take her course while I -took mine—around back to the remnants of our circus. Bosco is there. -Some of that gang must ’a’ lost a quart of hooch, ’cause I finds Bosco -trying to reach a point where he can see snakes that he don’t have to -eat. I takes it away from him and charms a few for myself.</p> - -<p>There’s a lot of noise around on the street but I ain’t curious. -Alcibiades stands there like a rubber statue. He sure was about the -laziest elephant on earth. Then cometh more noise and here comes the -mob, Magpie in the lead, and around his neck is a rope.</p> - -<p>I starts to explain things to ’em and I got a rope too. Bosco tried to -hide but they roped him from several directions to once.</p> - -<p>“Rope the elephant and you’ll have the whole works,” says I.</p> - -<p>“What will we do with ’em?” asks Yuma. “There ain’t no trees.”</p> - -<p>“It ain’t exactly a hanging matter,” states the judge and I could love -him for them words. “They ought to be in jail—blast ’em! If Scenery -only had some way to get out and ——”</p> - -<p>“He will,” states “Ornery” Olsen.</p> - -<p>“‘Dynamite’ Davidson and ‘Calamity’ Calkins went down there a while -ago and they said they’d get him out or kill him in the attempt.”</p> - -<p>“Where is the tiger?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Dead!” snaps Wick. “Seventeen men fell on her and she died of old -age!”</p> - -<p>“I’ve got a scheme,” yelps Pete Gonyer, “a dinger of a scheme. Let’s -rope ’em on to the elephant and take ’em to jail. Have pe-rade, eh?”</p> - -<p>There wasn’t any need of a vote. It was unanimous. Even me and Magpie -and Bosco voted “aye.” Jail looked like a happy hunting ground beside -of all these ropes and tree talk.</p> - -<p>Alcibiades looked on, mean-like, during the roping. Magpie was in -front, then me and then Bosco. Somebody tied a rope to the elephant’s -trunk and then we strung out like a cross between a funeral and a -pe-rade. It sure attracted a lot of attention. Then we hove in sight -of the jail.</p> - -<p>There is Dynamite and Calamity, busy at something. Dynamite is on his -hands and knees, while Calamity stands over him. Beside Dynamite is a -wooden box with the cover off. Just then they rise up, sort of -hurried-like, and see us.</p> - -<p>Alcibiades ain’t had nothing to eat for so long that I reckon he -hankered for the contents of that box and he don’t stop when the rest -of the pe-rade does. The rope slips off his trunk and we stopped -against the jail wall.</p> - -<p>“Look out, you danged fools!” yelps Dynamite. “Get away from there!”</p> - -<p>The crowd stampedes a little ways but Alcibiades don’t move, and we -can’t.</p> - -<p>“Ain’t you got no sense?” wails Dynamite. “That fuse is only three -feet long!”</p> - -<p>We looks down and under the corner of the dobie wall is a spitting -fuse. We hammers Alcibiades but he don’t respond.</p> - -<p>“Get away from there, you danged fools!” whoops Calamity.</p> - -<p>“Don’t talk English—talk elephant!” yells Magpie. “We hear but can’t -heed.”</p> - -<p><i>Swish!</i></p> - -<p>Alcibiades whirls his trunk sideways and we sees a stick of dynamite -whiz right into Judge Steele’s stummick. The judge lit all doubled up, -and the crowd gasped audibly.</p> - -<p>“Too bad,” says Magpie. “They won’t always go off.”</p> - -<p>Alcibiades digs into that box and roots out another stick.</p> - -<p><i>Swish!</i></p> - -<p>The next stick sailed high over the crowd and we watched it drop out -of sight behind Pete’s blacksmith shop.</p> - -<p><i>Bang!</i></p> - -<p>That one went off. We seen a wagon-wheel hop up and roll off the top -of Buck’s place and a lot of horseshoes scatter around over the -house-tops.</p> - -<p>The next one was a line shot at Wick Smith’s wood-shed, but that one -didn’t bust. The next one did. Alcibiades just gave it a nice little -toss, and she busted behind the crowd, causing some to go prostrate.</p> - -<p>“Good boy!” says Bosco, and then Alcibiades picks up the rest of the -powder, box and all. Everything is as quiet as a graveyard and we -hears Old Testament say—</p> - -<p>“In the midst of life we are in——”</p> - -<p><i>Swish!</i></p> - -<p>Up went the box of dynamite straight for the crowd, and just then -Magpie throws himself sideways on the elephant, and the rest of us has -to foller suit. We’re about half-way down the side of that elephant -when Dynamite’s blast goes off. I’d plumb forgot that blast. I’d say -that Dynamite knowed how to use powder, ’cause the whole corner of -that jail moved out to meet us. It knocked Alcibiades down but he got -right up. He’s so thick-skinned that nothing could hurt his feelings.</p> - -<p>I can’t hear a danged thing. I look out at the crowd. Most of ’em are -still prostrate on the ground, but I can see the dynamite box, so I -know she didn’t bust. The ropes has slipped and we are no longer on -top of the brute. I’m hanging on the side like a pack-sack; Bosco is -draped over its rump and Magpie has one leg over its neck, while the -rope holds him under the other knee, and he’s hanging on to the -elephant’s ear with both hands.</p> - -<p>Out of the ruined side of the jail comes an apparition. It is covered -with dobie dust and great wonderment. It weaves up to us with both -hands in the air.</p> - -<p>“Don’t shoot!” it squeaks. “I give up!”</p> - -<p>“All right,” nods Magpie. “Don’t shoot, boys; they’re dying.”</p> - -<p>Maybe Alcibiades was shocked, too; maybe he had acquired man-eating -propensities from associating with Cleopatra, but anyway he whirled, -let out a mean <i>Hur-r-r-r-r-rump!</i> and started after Scenery Sims. -Scenery ducked straight for the crowd, and Alcibiades follered him -like a bloodhound. We went some.</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>We didn’t go very many miles per minute, but we went awful strong. We -went through Wick Smith’s yard and we took two clothes-lines full of -clothes with us. We got so tangled up in washing that we didn’t know -where we went. Every one who took the time tried shots at us but we -ignored such trifling things.</p> - -<p>I managed to get a suit of flannels out of my eyes in time to see our -animated vehicle pointing straight for the door of our horse stable. -The door is too narrow for elephants, being as we only had horses in -mind when we built it, and I starts to yell a warning but the flannels -came back and shut me up.</p> - -<p>Comes a ripping jar, the snap of a rope and I hit the earth with -Magpie on top of me. He got up, dazed-like, and shut the door.</p> - -<p>“We’ve got him, Ike,” says he.</p> - -<p><i>Crash! Rip-p-p-p! Smash!</i></p> - -<p>The front logs of the stable goes squeegeed, and from the rear comes -the rattle of falling logs and a cloud of dust. We limps to the -corner. Out of the cloud of dust comes Alcibiades and on his back is -Bosco. The elephant skids to a stop, whirls and points straight into -the desert.</p> - -<p>“Bosco!” yelps Magpie. “Good-luck! Look out for snakes!”</p> - -<p>Magpie stares at me and then at the ruined stable.</p> - -<p>“I—I wonder if Bosco really did eat them snakes?” he asks -foolish-like.</p> - -<p>“He—he did,” states a voice, and out from the squeegeed doorway pokes -the hairy head of Bosco. “He sure did, gents. I am the only original -snakeeating——”</p> - -<p>He stops and rubs his hand over his eyes. He looks all around and then -whispers—</p> - -<p>“Which way is the city of Piperock?”</p> - -<p>Magpie points toward the town.</p> - -<p>“Sure?”</p> - -<p>“Sure. Why?”</p> - -<p>“That’s a —— of a question to ask,” says Bosco, and we watches him -blend into the mesquite, going away from Piperock.</p> - -<p>“That must ’a’ been Scenery on the elephant,” says Magpie awed-like. -“Scenery must ’a’ lost his clothes in the crash.”</p> - -<p>“Speculation has ruined a lot of men,” says I. “Why stop to -speculate?”</p> - -<p>We saddled our broncs and we didn’t hit the main road until we’re in -shooting distance of Paradise. Then we turns a corner and runs slap -into Jay-Bird and Hassayampa. They’re packing just enough to feel -glad. They hands us a bottle.</p> - -<p>“You fellers going to the celebration?” I asks.</p> - -<p>“You betcha,” agrees Hassayampa. “Looking forward to a <i>hyiu</i> time. -How’s the circus?”</p> - -<p>“Only thing of it’s kind on earth,” says Magpie between swallers. -“Piperock is going crazy over it.”</p> - -<p>“Bet they are,” agrees Hassayampa. “Piperock deserves it. Don’t want -to sell out, do you?”</p> - -<p>“Sell it?” asks Magpie. “Hadn’t thought of such a thing. Who wants to -buy it, Hassayampa?”</p> - -<p>“It ain’t worth no more than you paid for it, Magpie,” says Jay-Bird, -“but we’d pay that much, eh, Hassayampa?”</p> - -<p>“Pshaw!” grunts Magpie. “I just got started, gents.”</p> - -<p>“You ain’t got no use for it, Magpie,” says Jay-Bird. “Me and -Hassayampa can afford a circus better than you and Ike. We’ll pay you -back in the same checks you paid us, eh? Is that a go?”</p> - -<p>“As you said, we can’t afford it,” nods Magpie. “We’ll trade.”</p> - -<p>Magpie puts the checks in his pocket. We take another round of good -cheer and ride on.</p> - -<p>“See you at the celebration,” yells Jay-Bird.</p> - -<p>“If you’ve got second sight,” nods Magpie, and we pilgrimed straight -for Silver Bend.</p> - -<p>We ain’t done nothing wrong in selling out. Believe me, that money -sure looked good. I wondered if Hassayampa and Jay-Bird had gone -crazy, but Magpie said if they hadn’t they soon would.</p> - -<div style='height:1em;'></div> -<p>We got into Silver Bend after dark and hived up in a hotel. We’re so -sore and tired that we don’t wake up until noon. Magpie opines that we -better draw our money and go over to Powder River for a spell, so we -pilgrimed down to the bank.</p> - -<p>The curtains are down tight, and on the door hangs a card printed in -big letters:</p> - -<div class='ce'> -<div>TO TRUST IS TO BUST.</div> -<div>TO BUST IS ——.</div> -<div>NO TRUST,</div> -<div>NO BUST,</div> -<div>NO ——.</div> -</div> -<p>A feller comes along and stops beside us as we read the sign.</p> - -<p>“The cashier runs away with the contents,” says he, “and she’s busted -flat. They may pay ten cents on the dollar in a year or two.”</p> - -<p>Magpie twists his mustache and stares at me.</p> - -<p>“Hassayampa and Jay-Bird knew that,” he snorts. “The danged crooks -knowed them checks wasn’t no good, Ike!”</p> - -<p>“What did we know about the circus, Magpie?” I asks.</p> - -<p>He looks at me, scratches his head for a moment and says:</p> - -<p>“Piperock ought to be glad, Ike. Don’t you know it? They ought to rise -up and sing a song of thanksgiving and vote us a medal.”</p> - -<p>“What for, Magpie?”</p> - -<p>“To think we didn’t buy out P. T. Barnum.”</p> - -<p>Which we hope Piperock appreciates.</p> - -<div class="tn"> - <p style='text-indent:0'>Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in - the December 18, 1919 issue of <em>Adventure</em> magazine.</p> -</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLAYING SAFE IN PIPEROCK ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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