Initial commit of ebook 78735 filesHEADmain

1 files changed, 742 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/78735-0.txt b/78735-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d0b565e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/78735-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,742 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78735 ***
+
+                         THE HAND OF PROVIDENCE
+
+                              W. C. Tuttle
+
+                   Author of “Tied Up for Tombstone,”
+                   “The Domestication of Dobie,” etc.
+
+
+“Mebby this ol’ place was excitin’ once upon a time, but since I’ve
+lived here she’s been jist about as wild and woolly and excitin’ as
+watchin’ a sheep-herder play solitaire,” opines Ricky Henderson to
+the bunch of us on the steps of Buck Masterson’s saloon.
+
+“Why,” he continues, when we don’t argue none, “even the dog-gone
+broncs have done forgot how to pitch in this man’s land. This year of
+1895 shore is dull and drab to ol’ man Henderson’s li’l boy.”
+
+“Too true, Ricky,” agrees Magpie Simpkins, agreein’ with some one fer
+once in his life. “Why, them broncs”--indicatin’ six buzzard heads from
+the Seven A and the Triangle outfits, which are noddin’ their heads at
+the rack--“are too dog-goned lazy to even go home if they was cut loose.
+Nothin’ short of the crack of doom would disturb their slumbers, and I
+knowed the time when we used to make bets as to whether our broncs
+wouldn’t tear loose and set us on foot when we hits town. It shore ain’t
+like the good ol’ days when---- What in ---- is comin’?”
+
+We all stands up on our hind legs, and also does the broncs at the rack.
+Whatever it was we shore don’t de-cipher the sound. We’re kumtucks to
+every degree of noise in that locality from the buzz of a sidewinder to
+the crack of a thunderbolt, but this sound was somethin’ ab-solutely
+new.
+
+It is poppin’ and roarin’ down at the end of the street and comin’
+closer every pop. “Cobalt” Williams jumps up on a chair, and climbs
+the support of the porch.
+
+“Here she comes!” he yells. “Nothin’ pushin’ and nothin’ pullin’! My
+Gawd!”
+
+Jist then it emerges from a cloud of alkali dust and ambles straight
+fer our place of refuge. Them broncs gits back their childhood days
+in a second, and, bein’ as some of them are tied with half-inch ropes
+there ain’t nothin’ to be done except to uproot that rack, the same
+of which they does with great cheer and dispatch.
+
+Immediately and soon them four rope-tied broncs proceeds to sweep the
+streets of our city with that twenty-foot rack. They begins operations
+by takin’ up the town pump, and then on second thought they annexes
+Pete Gonyer’s cart, which he has jist painted and left in the sun to
+dry. Pete put in a lot of work remodelin’ that ol’ breakin’ cart, and
+he won’t sing joyfully when he finds it has been distributed all over
+the range.
+
+Ol’ Sam Holt is comin’ up the road in his wagon, and he sees the cyclone
+jist in time. It’s sweepin’ in his direction, and the ol’ man, after
+takin’ one good look, swings his team around, and the last we sees of
+the procession the ol’ man is still in the lead. When the dust settles
+we inspects the cause of the disturbance. It’s standin’ in the middle of
+the street, shakin’ like it had the ager, and we recognizes the occupant
+as one “Scenery” Sims, of Curlew.
+
+Scenery gits his name from the fact that he builds his house on the
+top of a hill so he can see the country. He’s a li’l pop-eyed hombre,
+without no visible shoulders, and his tracks in the dust can’t be told
+from the spoor of a Piegan. Also he’s lousy with money which he made
+runnin’ sheep in the Johnson Hole.
+
+“Jist about what kind of a ---- thing is that?” snorts Wick Smith.
+
+Scenery looks us over with a superior air, and lights a seegar.
+
+“Don’t try to keep it a secret,” advises Cobalt. “We kin all see it,
+Scenery, so yuh might as well come across like a man.”
+
+“Say, yuh bunch of ignorant grangers,” sez Scenery, “do yuh mean to say
+yuh don’t know what this is?”
+
+“Shore, we know what it is,” replies Weinie Lopp, “but we wants to hear
+it from yore own lips.”
+
+“This,” sez Scenery, pattin’ the polished side of the contraption, “is a
+hossless wagon.”
+
+“Well,” sez Slim Hawkins, pickin’ up the remains of his plaited leather
+bridle out of the dust, “you shore comes to the right place. This is a
+hossless city right now.”
+
+Scenery looks off down the street in the direction taken by the hosses,
+and then dismounts.
+
+“Hosses have got to git used to these things,” he states. “Down to
+Curlew they’re gittin’ a heap used to ’em. The first day there is eight
+runaways, the next there’s only five and yesterday there is only three.
+It don’t take ’em long to ----”
+
+“How many teams was in Curlew yesterday?” interrupts Buck.
+
+“Three,” sez Scenery. “Let’s all have a li’l snifter.”
+
+“What makes the blasted thing go?” asks Cobalt. “She ain’t got no b’iler
+ner smokestack ner nothin’.”
+
+“Gasoline,” sez Scenery. “I ain’t noways familiar with the internal
+workin’s, but I knows that gasoline is the fodder. She cost me four
+thousand, but by cripes, she’s worth it.”
+
+“I’d reckon that yuh guides it with that iron walkin’ stick,” sez Slim.
+
+“Uh-huh,” agrees Scenery, with his face full of hooch. “It ain’t no
+trick to run the blamed thing. All yuh has to do is to wind the handle
+on the side, and she begins to splutter. Then yuh forks the seat, pulls
+north on that leever, steps on the pedal on the bottom and ----”
+
+“And what?” asks Buck.
+
+“Pray,” sez Scenery. “Let’s have another li’l snifter.”
+
+“Why the prayer?” asks Cobalt. “I don’t see no cause for religion.”
+
+“Shore yuh don’t, Cobalt,” replies Scenery, wipin’ the back of his
+hand across his mouth. “You ain’t used to nothin’ more dangerous than
+an ordinary outlaw bronc, which is a crawlin’, milk-eatin’ specimen of
+locomotion alongside this juggernaut.
+
+“’Cause why? ’Cause a bronc has got eyes, and don’t ordinarily butt
+his head agin an immovable object, nor git the idea that he’s a
+tree-infestin’ animule and try to re-pose serenely on the top of a
+tree. This thing don’t care a ---- where it goes. Sabe?”
+
+“Well,” sez Slim, “all I can say is that yo’re goin’ to find yoreself
+badly disliked in this country, Scenery. I’m commencin’ to feel a
+certain degree of animosity agin yuh already. That headstall and reins
+cost me twelve simoleons in Miles City this Spring, and I’m willin’ to
+bet that my bronc is plumb ruined by this time from trailin’ that
+rack.”
+
+“Sorrow ain’t payable at no bank, so I won’t say I’m sorry, Slim, but I
+will say----”
+
+Comes the rattle of a wagon out in the street and we hears ol’ Sam Holt
+yell:
+
+“Whoa! Hey, Buck! Bring me a drink!”
+
+“Come in and git it!” replies Buck. “Yuh ain’t paralyzed, are yuh?”
+
+“Hurry up!” yells Sam. “Dog-gone yuh, Buck, hurry up! I got a half-mile
+lead on that bunch of destruction, and if yuh don’t hurry I’ll have to
+pull out. Here they---- Hooray! Hooray! Never mind it now, Buck. They’ve
+got crossways of Judge Steele’s hay-rack and they can’t move a peg.
+
+“What started ’em, Buck?” asks Sam, when he comes inside. “I never
+knowed that them Seven A and Triangle cayuses had that much life. They
+done chased me fer three miles.”
+
+“Hossless wagon,” sez Buck. “Scenery comes to our town in this hossless
+vehicle, and scares delirious delight out of every bronc in the place.
+Didn’t yuh see it outside?”
+
+“So that was a hossless wagon, eh? I shore seed it outside, but I opines
+that it’s somebody’s buggy with the pole broke out. I’ve heerd tell of
+them things but I ain’t noways kumtucks to their peculiarities, Buck.
+
+“I’m shore glad that it’s Scenery Sims what first introduces said
+runaway promoter to our vicinity, ’cause he won’t be missed like a
+regular man would. Not havin’ no wife nor children he won’t have no
+one to mourn his untimely de-mise, and nobody will have pangs of
+re-morse fer smokin’ up his carcass with a gun.”
+
+“Havin’ voted for President Garfield in 1881, I don’t consider myself an
+infant in swaddlin’ clothes,” opines Scenery, loosenin’ the top button
+of his pants, so his six-gun will hang looser.
+
+“I’ve et rattlesnake soup and picked my teeth with a bayonet, and
+jist because I ain’t got no wife nor kids to mourn, it don’t give me
+no reason fer voluntarily passin’ on to the bourn from which no
+pilgrim ever returneth back. I hereby states, without malice nor
+deliberate intention of hurtin’ other people’s feelin’s, that me and
+my four thousand dollar bronc-boycotter goes where and when we
+danged pleases. Mebby she goes where I don’t want to go, and mebby
+she causes me to fork a cloud and finger music out of a harp, but
+regardless of all that, I opines that this is a free country, Sam
+Holt. Do I speak clear?”
+
+“Yuh shore does, Scenery,” agrees Sam. “If I had as many scoops of
+hooch under my belt as you have I could make a fittin’ reply to yore
+oration, but I’m like you--no speaker when I’m sober. I can say this
+much, though, Scenery: I don’t like yuh; I don’t like yore hossless
+cart and I don’t like yore platform.”
+
+Sam turns to Buck, who is considered the best rifle shot in the country,
+and sez:
+
+“Buck, if a machine about the size of Scenery’s was five hundred yards
+away and goin’ about twenty mile per hour, how far ahead of it would yuh
+hold with a 45-70 to hit it dead center?”
+
+“Well,” sez Buck, settin’ out the glasses ag’in, and squintin’ at the
+bar-bottle, “if I owned a hoss I wouldn’t stand so far away. Yuh might
+shoot low and hit the machine.”
+
+“All of which,” snorts Scenery, “proves that this here village is
+backward. Yore satisfied to loaf along on a hoss or in a rattlin’
+buckboard, but as fer me I ----”
+
+“Yuh sorter spurns the earth, as it were,” finishes Weinie. “All I hope
+is that in case that gas-grazin’ animule of yorn decides to mingle with
+a tree I’ll have a front seat at the show. I’d enjoy that--me.”
+
+“I’m goin’,” states Scenery, startin’ fer the door, “but in spite of
+the fact that my vehicle ain’t appreciated by you snake hunters I’m
+comin’ back some day.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+He winds on the crank until he jist about busts his gizzard before she
+starts whizzin’, and then he mounts. He slams the leever ahead, digs his
+heels into the dashboard, and that shiny corn-husker gives a couple of
+jerks, and off she goes toward Curlew, _rickety-rack, rickety-rack_.
+
+“That,” opines Magpie, after Scenery disappears in the dust, “is
+a ---- of a bunch of liabilities fer a man to ride on. Mebby it’s
+all right, boys, but she looks to me--sufferin’ coyotes! Look what’s
+comin’!”
+
+It shore was worth a second glance. Out of the cloud of dust, left by
+the departin’ Scenery Sims, comes the remnant of a vanishin’ race. Not
+mounted on prancin’ steeds and bedecked with beads, feathers and
+riotous blankets and stained with war-paint. Not wavin’ scalpin’-knife
+and tommyhawk and honin’ fer ha’r. Not any!
+
+This is ol’ Chief Plenty Black Bears and his fambly, consistin’ of a
+moon-faced klooch, eight papooses and five dogs, and the whole mess
+is ridin’ high and handsome in a--hearse! The chief opines to be the
+leader of the copper-skinned Four Hundred of Roarin’ Creek, and when
+he goes visitin’ he shore goes plumb stylish. He buys the hearse from
+an undertaker over in Helena, and the corpse-rustler puts in a high
+hat with a black plume fer good measure. The chief wears the hat when
+he drives.
+
+I would say that them broncs were goin’ some place. Up the street they
+comes with their bellies scrapin’ the dust, and that ol’ death equipage
+is swayin’ and bouncin’ some scandalous. The chief has got that plug hat
+pulled down over his face so the brim rests on the bridge of his broken
+nose, and he’s ra’red up there sawin’ on his lines, and every time the
+broncs hit the dirt yuh can hear him yellin’:
+
+“Hoh! Hoh! Hoh!”
+
+He’s hittin’ a dead center on the street and everythin’ is goin’ fine
+until he gits in front of the saloon. I reckon his lines were some
+patched up, and even good leather won’t stand fer too much pullin’.
+Anyway one of the lines snapped, and, bein’ as the ol’ war-whoop is
+overbalanced, he jist natcherally turns a back flip-flop, drops
+gracefully off the rear of the hearse and stands on his hat in the
+road.
+
+I don’t reckon it was through any sense of loyalty or desire to remain
+with their lord and master, but the rest of the fambly descends one by
+one, via the li’l door at the rear. Each one spills out, bounces a
+couple of times, gits up, looks back, and then goes over and sets down
+on Sam Holt’s porch. The squaw, bein’ the last one out, has to walk
+back about a quarter of a mile, while the funerial dray fades out of
+sight over a ridge.
+
+Nobody thought to cut that hat off the chief’s head--we pulls it off,
+and the pullin’ didn’t improve the ol’ boy’s looks any. He fingers his
+face fer a while, and then looks off in the direction from whence he
+comes.
+
+“What was yore hurry, Chief?” laughs Buck.
+
+He looks at Buck fer a minute and then points off down the road.
+
+“Seeum diaub!” he yelps. “_Hyas peshack!_”
+
+And then he waddles over to Holt’s porch, where the squaw is busy takin’
+the census.
+
+“Well,” sez Magpie, “I’d say he was right when he said that he had
+seen the devil, and that it was very bad. Don’t anybody tell him what
+it really was, ’cause he’d jist about massacree Scenery. Sentiment is
+a queer thing, boys. If the chief assassinated ol’ Scenery we’d jist
+about have to hang the Injun on general principles ’cause he’s an
+Injun. If a white man killed Scenery we’d give a dance. I kinda like
+the ol’ war-whoop, so let’s let him think that it was the devil.”
+
+It’s about three hours since Scenery left when we hears voices raised
+in anger, and we stops the deal long enough to recognize the wau-wau
+of Pete Gonyer and Andy Johnson, and they’re speakin’ like men with a
+grievance on their chests.
+
+“This shore is one fine town, Andy,” snorts Pete. “By the horns on the
+moon, I leaves a perfectly good li’l red cart in front of my shop. It
+was jist an inoffensive li’l ol’ cart, Andy, and somebody comes along
+and scatters it fer miles!”
+
+“Dang yore ol’ cart!” wails Andy. “I got blisters on my heels as big
+as a dollar and six-bits. That’s the first time that roan hoss ever
+piled me, and I ain’t cheerin’ none. Piled slick and clean, six miles
+from home and mother!”
+
+“Yuh can’t blame the hoss, Andy.”
+
+“You said somethin’, Pete. If that hoss had been ridin’ me I’d have
+shore done some pitchin’ myself. I’d admire to know what it was.”
+
+“Looked like a smoke-spittin’ whangobbler to me, Andy. Six miles in
+tight boots! Aw ----!”
+
+We gits up and walks out on the porch. There sits Pete and Andy and
+they’re shore a tired-lookin’ pair of pilgrims. Pete’s got his boots
+off, but Andy’s feet are swelled up so tight he can’t git his boots
+off, so he’s cheerfully cuttin’ ’em off with his knife.
+
+“Been takin’ a li’l stroll?” asks Weinie Lopp.
+
+Andy scowls at Weinie, cuts the last boot off, and tries to wiggle his
+toes:
+
+“Go ahead and tell ’em what happened, Pete,” sez he. “I’d do it but
+they’d say I was a liar.”
+
+“Well,” says Pete, borrowin’ my tobacco and papers, “I don’t care a
+tinker’s dang what they say to me. I can’t believe it myself but I
+shore know it came along.”
+
+“Meanin’ which?” grins Magpie.
+
+“We met,” sez Pete, inhalin’ deep, “Andy and me, we met--say, Andy, give
+it a name.”
+
+“The whangobbler,” prompts Andy.
+
+“The whangobbler,” sez Pete. “Me and Andy--aw, Magpie, yuh don’t need
+to grin. We’re ridin’ slow-like along the road, and jist as we starts
+around the curve at the mouth of Peel Heel Gulch we hears a rippin’
+sort of a noise, and right then this said whangobbler enters our
+midst.
+
+“My bronc don’t take time to buck. He jist whirls off the grade, turns
+plumb over in the air and de-posits me in a mesquite, so what I seen of
+it was sort of sudden-like. Andy’s cayuse r’ars up, falls agin’ the side
+of the hill, and leaves Andy with his boots in the air over a log. Them
+two hosses gits together and leaves fer parts unknown. I kin almost
+swear that I hears that whangobbler laugh when we meets disaster.”
+
+“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roars Slim. “Yore a fine pair of rustics! Don’t yuh
+know a hossless wagon when yuh sees one?”
+
+Andy and Pete looked foolish like at each other and then Andy clears his
+throat--
+
+“Pete, that’s jist what I said at----”
+
+“You did like ----!” snaps Pete. “Mebby yuh meant to say that, Andy, but
+the things yuh called it couldn’t noways be construed to spell hossless
+wagon. Not by about four Chinese alphabets.”
+
+“Scenery Sims!” yelps Pete, after we explains about it. “That li’l ol’
+wool-lovin’ pelican! Magpie, you bein’ sheriff of this county, can’t
+yuh act as a game-warden long enough to declare open season on the Sims
+fambly?”
+
+“The game law,” replies Magpie, “includes elk, deer, antelope, mountain
+goats and sheep. Also it protects at all times, beaver, otter and
+singin’ birds. He ain’t no otter nor beaver, and I can swear that he
+ain’t no singin’ bird. He’s a crow or a buzzard by his voice, the same
+bein’ le-gitimate targets at all times.”
+
+“Thanks,” sez Andy. “I allus aims to be within the law. Magpie, are yuh
+familiar with the vital parts of one of them wagons?”
+
+“About six inches above the seat.”
+
+“Kerect!” sez Andy. “I don’t like to see anythin’ suffer from bein’
+wounded.”
+
+And then he hobbles across the street in his socks to git some
+moccasins.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not tryin’ to change the subject none, but I’d jist like to remark that
+hoss-thieves don’t show proper consideration fer the law. If they had
+shown proper decency in their callin’ this story probably wouldn’t have
+occurred, or if it did I’d have been in the audience instead of on the
+stage.
+
+A couple of days after Scenery introduces his machine to the admirin’
+populace of Piperock, Magpie gits a call to go over on the Li’l Muddy to
+investigate a rustlin’ proposition, and without consultin’ my wishes or
+desires, he immediately swears me in as a deputy and drags me along with
+him.
+
+I ain’t lost no rustlers. Live and let live is my motter, and I’m so
+strong on the first part of that sayin’ that I’m plumb gunshy. We
+starts late and reaches Cottonwood Creek that night. Not wishin’ to
+have to hunt hosses in the mornin’, we pickets the broncs down on
+the creek bottom, and while we’re dreamin’ of shootin’ hundreds of
+rustlers with one hand, while we pins glory medals on our bulgin’
+breasts with the other, some son-of-a-gun stole our hosses!
+
+All they leaves was, “Thanks,” which was wrote on a piece of paper with
+the charred end of a stick, and hung on the picket pin. Magpie looks it
+over, picks up the piece of charcoal and writes “Yore welcome” on the
+same piece of paper and hangs it back on the stake.
+
+“That li’l trick,” sez Magpie, “shore prejudices me agin’ all
+hoss-thieves, Ike. Heretofore I’ve only took a stand agin ’em when
+somebody gits peeved at their activities, but hereafter I’m agin all
+hoss-thieves, black, white and red.”
+
+“All of which is a noble and upliftin’ oration,” sez I, “but high ideals
+and future ambitions don’t cut down the distance from here to Piperock.”
+
+Magpie consults a cigaret or two before he figgers the exact position
+which we are occupyin’.
+
+“Ike, we’re about eight miles above the main road, as near as I can
+figger. Suppose we jist amble down the creek, and we’re bound to hit
+the road. Can’t be over eight miles.”
+
+“And after that,” sez I, cheerfully, “we’ve only got a li’l ol’
+measly ten miles more to walk before we sees the ol’ homestead. This
+deputy sheriff life is shore great. All yuh got to do is to have some
+rattle-headed apology fer a sheriff ask yuh to hol’ up yore right
+hand while he repeats a few words which he don’t know the meanin’ of,
+and then let him pin a piece of tin on yore manly bosom, and yo’re
+organized to go out and capture all lawbreakers and----”
+
+“Walk back,” sez Magpie. “Sarcasm is a great accomplishment, Ike, but it
+don’t ease yore achin’ feet. Let’s git a goin’.”
+
+Did yuh ever walk eight miles--the kind of miles of which some hombre
+guessed the distance, and then added six more to be sure and have it
+long enough--down hill in high-heeled boots? It can be done but
+you’ll never feel the same toward yore feet agin. Yore toes bug out
+of the end of yore boots until yuh can hear yore toenails squeak, and
+jist when yuh thinks yuh can’t stand any more torture, yuh stubs yore
+toes on a sharp rock. Hell hath no fury like a stubbed sore toe.
+
+Shore, we arrived at the road, but that didn’t cheer me none. To me it
+was only a case of subtractin’ eight from eighteen. We bathes our feet
+in the crick to take the swellin’ out, cuts holes in our boots so we
+can git ’em on agin, and limps off toward Piperock.
+
+We’ve pilgrimed along fer about a mile when Magpie stops and gazes at
+our back trail. By cripes! I hears it too. Bein’ absolutely up to date,
+my sensitive ears catches the splutter of a hossless wagon, and she’s
+comin’ the same way we’re headed. I looks at Magpie, and his homely face
+is harborin’ a grin.
+
+“Why be glad?” I asks.
+
+“Ride, yuh maverick!” he whoops. “We’ll ride home in style, Ike.”
+
+Jist then Scenery and his rattlebox appears around the turn, and Magpie
+spreads his long legs in the middle of the road and waves his arms.
+
+“Halt!” he yells, and Scenery heaves hard on the brake. “In the name of
+the law I commands yuh to give Ike and me a ride to Piperock.”
+
+Scenery looks some careworn and scratched. He’s got a piece of dirty rag
+coverin’ a cut on his forehead, and one eye is assumin’ a purple tint.
+
+“Well,” sez he, lookin’ us over and then movin’ over to one side of the
+narrer seat, “the name of the law don’t mean nothin’ to me, but I’m
+willin’ to help a friend, Magpie. You fellers will have to ride that
+side of the seat double, ’cause this trouble-huntin’ buggy wasn’t built
+fer no fambly equipage.”
+
+We climbs aboard and away she goes. By cripes, it shore beat walkin’
+four ways from the jack. While she makes a heap of noise it shore
+pilgrims along fine, and it did feel queer to be ridin’ along thataway
+without nothin’ in front but the road. We swings around the top of the
+grade at the summit of Roarin’ Mountain and dips down toward the creek.
+Bein’ a fairly steep hill, the wagon seems to gather speed at every
+bounce.
+
+“Better ease her up a li’l, Scenery,” sez Magpie, reachin’ back and
+gittin’ a good holt on my belt. “There’s a plumb bad curve at the
+bottom, and--my Gawd!”
+
+Right around the turn comes a four-hoss team, with Johnny Myers of the
+Triangle outfit, drivin’, and Hank Padden, the owner of the Seven A, is
+sittin’ beside him on the high seat, smokin’ his pipe. All three of us
+yelled at the same time, but them yells were a plumb waste of good wind,
+’cause them broncs were too busy to hear ’em. I seen ol’ man Padden hit
+the road on the seat of his pants, and Johnny was still in the air as we
+passed, so I don’t know jist how he did land. The four hosses went off
+through the timber, buckin’ and bawlin’ and makin’ light of that heavy
+wagon.
+
+“D-d-d-danged f-fools!” grunts Magpie, as we sailed over a stump and
+skidded almost off the road. “D-d-drivin’ wild hosses thataway. Hosses
+have shore got to git----”
+
+_Whiz! Spat!_ Magpie’s hat goes sailin’ off into space, and ol’ Scenery
+gives her another fork full of gas.
+
+“C-c-c-can Johnny sh-shoot s-s-straight?” yells Scenery in my ear.
+
+I nods my head as much as I can, bein’ as it’s bent backward from
+contact with Magpie’s shoulder blades, and then Scenery yells--
+
+“Duck!”
+
+I hears a gentle zephyr _oof_ past my ear, and then we turns a corner
+and gits out of sight. Scenery stops his wagon and looks her over.
+
+“I’d say we was goin’ right smart,” he remarks. “Johnny was shootin’ a
+30-30 and she jist barely punctures the back of the seat.”
+
+He gits aboard agin and on we goes.
+
+“I’d gather from them remarks,” sez Magpie, “that you’ve had so much
+trouble with this machine that a 30-30 bullet more or less ain’t nothin’
+out of the ordinary.”
+
+“Yore mouth was full of words jist then,” sez he. “Nothin’ can feeze
+me any more. This danged thing can jist about make a man impervious
+to any and all kinds of bloodshed. I’ve seen death and destruction
+starin’ me in the face fer a week. I’ve wrecked homes, caused
+twelve-year-old work hosses to go loco and kick the hand what feeds
+’em, and scratched ---- out of my own face. Today this thing opines
+to go to the top of Sentinel Butte, and I can’t noways seem to change
+its mind. We goes off the east side with great cheer and plenty of
+rattle, and ambles half-way down the hill on one wheel. After which
+we cultivates a mesquite patch. She shore is acrobatic.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+We chugs cheerfully along until we’re about a mile from town, when we
+starts down-grade agin. I reckon that Scenery wants to go into town
+some fast, so I don’t pay no attention to our speed until we gits
+close. I feels Magpie reachin’ back fer my belt and bracin’ his feet
+agin the dashboard, and then I ascertains that we’re movin’ faster
+than usual.
+
+We enters that town like a steer with a can on its tail, and pee-rades
+right up the main street. We’re goin’ so fast that things are sort of a
+blur, but I sees a plenty.
+
+There’s a team tryin’ to do a balancin’ act on the hitch-rack, and
+saddle hosses are goin’ away from there in flocks, but what catches
+my attention most is a glimpse of Pete Gonyer and Andy Johnson, one
+on each side of the road, swingin’ their ropes. Either of them
+jaspers is able to pick the foot of a runnin’ steer any ol’ time,
+and I has a sinkin’ sensation when I feels a rope slap me on the off
+ear.
+
+We loses Scenery.
+
+He jist seems to e-vaporate out of that seat, and we’re so far away when
+he comes down that we don’t even hear him grunt. Magpie slides over into
+the vacant side of that seat, and takes hold of the steerin’ gear.
+
+“Put on the brake!” I yells in his ear, but he only looks foolish at me
+and yells back--
+
+“Th’ danged thing’s gone!”
+
+Shore enough it was! I felt a jar and hears a rippin’ noise as we loses
+Scenery, so I reckon one of them ropes picks off that leever. Anyway, it
+was gone, and all that was left was about four inches of iron stickin’
+up through the bottom.
+
+Magpie leans hard on the steerin’ gear and around we goes like a coyote
+tryin’ to dodge a hound, and in a minute or two we’re viewin’ the main
+street of Piperock at forty miles per hour.
+
+I reckon the thing ain’t been rode enough to make her bridle-wise ’cause
+she deserts the straight and narrer way and breaks straight fer Wick
+Smith’s store. I gits a glimpse of Wick, dancin’ a jig in his doorway,
+and wavin’ a shotgun.
+
+She swerves at the curb and crosses the street. I sees Weinie Lopp
+start through the blacksmith shop and fall into the slack tub in the
+excitement. Magpie seems to git control once more and heads her for
+Sam Holt’s picket fence. She don’t shy none this time.
+
+Comes a _thr-r-r-r-r-rup_ and what I sees looks like an explosion in a
+shingle mill.
+
+“Ike,” yells Magpie, as we saunters out of town agin, “hang on tight! I
+don’t know how long the danged thing’s wound up fer, and I ain’t goin’
+to have to walk back when she quits.”
+
+“Tend to yore drivin’!” I yells, easin’ myself in the saddle, as we hops
+over a pile of boulders. “This ain’t no time fer conversational promises
+nor flights of fancy. Where yuh goin’?”
+
+“B-back to town!” he yelps, as he ports his helm, and we spins on one
+wheel in the space of a saddle blanket.
+
+I reckon the whole population of our fair city is out to see the
+pee-rade this time.
+
+I spies a pedal sort of a dingus in the bottom of the wagon, and I yells
+in Magpie’s ear, and points it out to him:
+
+“Why don’t yuh step on that thing? Mebby it’s the brake!”
+
+He nods his head, and does jist what I suggests. By cripes!
+
+That outlaw piece of machinery gives a roar and bores straight fer the
+audience. Scatter? Well, some! One greaser, named Pete Gomez, was caught
+flatfooted, and when he comes down he drapes over the hay scales like a
+sack on a clothes-line. It was all done so danged quick-like that all we
+gits is a sort of a general impression, and then we’re out of the other
+side of town and goin’ fast.
+
+“Yuh might give that thing a rest!” I yells at Magpie, pointin’ at his
+boot which is still loafin’ on that pedal.
+
+“Yah!” he yells back, jist missin’ a mesquite thicket by a hair. “That
+thing ain’t no brake, Ike!”
+
+“No, it shore ain’t!” I agrees at the top of my voice. “That’s one
+part of the danged thing that we know ain’t what we thinks it might
+have been. Look out fer that--Gawd!”
+
+“Quit yore yellin’, Ike! Dog-gone it, I missed that steer a foot.”
+
+“Where yuh goin’ now?” I asks mildly curious-like.
+
+“Town!” he yells above the roar of that instrument of destruction, and
+back we shore does go.
+
+Magpie gits sort of careless-like this time. I reckon that familiarity
+breeds contempt, and Magpie’s been doin’ so well that he lolls back in
+the saddle and misses his location to the extent that we climbs the
+board sidewalk of the first house. Not carin’ to do a sidewalk
+exhibition we cuts back into the street, takin’ one of the props from
+under Jimmie Peyton’s chop-house porch, and bends the front axle of
+our mount so she runs a heap bow-legged. It don’t seem to affect her
+speed none but she seems to misjudge direction somethin’ scandalous.
+
+“Look!” I yells, grabbin’ Magpie by the arm and pointin’ up the street.
+“They’re adoptin’ the block system!”
+
+They’ve run one empty wagon and one load of hay into the street so it’s
+impossible fer us to go through, and they knows danged well that in
+spite of the fact that we’ve got some acrobatic buggy she ain’t equal to
+no such jump as that.
+
+I glances at Magpie. His mouth is wide open, and yuh could hang yore
+hat on his eyes when he sees what we’re up against. He simply stares
+and drives to our doom.
+
+I’ve heard tell that in a case like that a feller’s past life comes up
+and slaps him in the face. Mine didn’t. We was goin’ so fast that all I
+could remember was that one of my red drawers legs was tore off at the
+knee and that my mismated socks were full of holes.
+
+I reckon that Magpie was dazed some, and I jist gits presence of mind
+enough to grab his arm and yell--
+
+“Pick the hay, yuh blasted fool!”
+
+Yuh see, he was steerin’ straight fer the empty wagon. I don’t know
+whether I pulls hard on his arm and whether the yell does the
+business, but anyway we didn’t hit that wagon a-tall. We turns like
+a steer tryin’ to git back to the main herd, and hits the hitch-rack
+square in the middle.
+
+The four by six across the top of the rack is jist high enough to hit
+the bottom of the seat. When we swerves, we natcherally rests on our
+shoulder blades with our boots in the air, and that cross-piece picks
+the seat right off. Bein’ as we’re on the seat, it’s some pickin’s.
+
+I remembers gittin’ a view of Piperock upside down, and I sees a boot
+heel above me which I identifies as belongin’ to Magpie, so from that
+I’d opine that he broke all altitude records, and then somebody blows
+out the lights.
+
+I reckon I’m a li’l off in the head, ’cause there seems to be people
+twenty feet tall all around me, and I hears a voice--sounded somethin’
+like Pete Gonyer’s--sayin’--
+
+“Mebby he’ll pull through.”
+
+And then another giant speaks up and says--
+
+“Don’t be joyful, he may live.”
+
+And then I turns into a beautiful dove, and I’m flyin’ along in the
+clouds, and I sees another dove which is Magpie, and we’re flyin’ in
+opposite directions. Fer some reason neither of us can turn out, and
+we meets in the air in one awful smash. I feels the life-blood flowin’
+out of my beautiful beak, and then I wakes up long enough to hear Buck
+Masterson yell:
+
+“Don’t spill all that good hooch, Slim! If he’s too dead to swaller
+likker there’s no use forcin’ it down!”
+
+I sets up and looks around.
+
+Magpie is settin’ on the pool-table holdin’ his head in his hands, and
+Scenery Sims is slumped down in a chair, with a half-full bottle hangin’
+loose-like in his hand, and he’s starin’ at a knot-hole in the floor.
+
+“Well,” sez I, sizin’ up the assemblage, “we seem to have stopped.”
+
+“Uh-huh,” agrees Buck, “it would seem that way. What was you fellers
+tryin’ to do--make a hossless racetrack out of our main street?”
+
+Bein’ a meek sort of a person, I’m jist about to make a soft answer
+when--
+
+_Bang!_ The windows rattled, and a picture fell off the wall and busts a
+couple of bottles on the bar.
+
+“What the ---- was that!” yelps Buck. “Sounded like----”
+
+Sam Holt stumbles inside, and I sees him tryin’ to stuff into his pants
+pocket what looks to me like a piece o’ blastin’ fuse.
+
+“Say,” sez he, before any one else has time to ask a question, “that
+danged machine didn’t show no judgment whatever! She stops out there on
+the flat, right over a place where I’ve done cached twelve sticks of
+dynamite. I plants it there ’cause nobody ever knows when that stuff is
+due to bust. I reckon it was the hand of Providence, Scenery.”
+
+Scenery sets that bottle carefully on the table, wabbles over to Sam and
+sticks out his hand.
+
+“Sam,” sez he, “yore a bringer of good news. You’ve done saved this
+remnant of the Sims tribe from dyin’ with its boots on, and jist to
+show that there ain’t no hard feelins I’d like to shake hands, and
+inquire the price o’ hossflesh.”
+
+And the hand of Providence and the hand of Scenery Sims met.
+
+
+[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the November 3, 1918 issue
+of Adventure magazine.]
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78735 ***