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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78961 ***
+
+
+                         Alias Whispering White
+
+                            by W. C. Tuttle
+       Author of “The Hand of Providence,” “Pie for Magpie,” etc.
+
+
+Once in a while you’ll meet a feller that you couldn’t help liking, even
+if he took a shot at you, and that’s how me and Magpie felt about
+Franklyn Burt. He sure knowed minerals sixteen ways from the jack, but
+he didn’t act like he knowed a whole lot more than the rest of us old
+sourdoughs at that.
+
+His card said that he was a mining engineer. He just poked around our
+prospect, putting me and Magpie wise to a lot of new things on timbering
+and so forth, and what he didn’t find out about our mine wasn’t much.
+Said he was from Redfield, that he was quite well, thank you, and we
+made him as welcome as a mess of trout.
+
+One day Magpie has been to Piperock, and when he comes back he’s got a
+letter for Franklyn. It’s the first one he’s got since he came, which is
+more than Magpie and me gets in a whole year unless somebody sends us a
+catalog, telling us where we can get a suit of clothes for seven dollars
+and eighty-eight cents, and an extra pair of pants free.
+
+Franklyn peruses that letter, while me and Magpie throws a feed
+together, and all of a sudden he groans and spits out a man-sized cuss
+word.
+
+“I’d say that Frankie has been reading the news,” says Magpie to me.
+
+Frankie throws down the letter, disgusted like, and stares into space.
+
+“Uncinch, son,” advises Magpie. “There ain’t nothing broke so badly that
+it can’t be helped. Give us a look at your cards.”
+
+“She’s going to marry a duke,” says he, in a far-away voice, “a blasted
+duke, with one foot in the grave.”
+
+“Pshaw!” says Magpie. “Maybe we can push him the rest of the way.”
+
+“You don’t understand, boys,” says Frankie, shaking his head. “It isn’t
+her so much—it’s her aunt.”
+
+“Yes’m,” says I, “her aunt is going to marry the duke.”
+
+“No, Ike, I wish she were. Marion White and I were raised together, went
+to the same school and college, and we’ve—well, I wish you could see
+her, and then you’d know why I don’t want her to marry a duke.”
+
+“Why specify any certain breed?” grins Magpie. “You means that you sort
+of browses around the same range. I don’t blame you, son. I’d go back
+there and scare him so bad that he’d swim back home without even taking
+time to put on a bathing-suit. Does her folks cotton to this duke stuff,
+and where does auntie horn into the game?”
+
+“Her family consists of Wilberforce Van Veen and wife, Marion’s uncle
+and aunt. They are her mother’s sister and brother-in-law, and they act
+as guardians to Marion, and run the household. The bread-winner of the
+family is her father’s brother, Samuel White, known as ‘Whispering’
+White.
+
+“He made a mint of money down in Brazil, died and left it all to Marion.
+Of course, being guardians for Marion, the Van Veens sure did horn into
+society, and—well, they spoiled things for me. They filled Marion’s
+curly head with foolish ideas, and——”
+
+“Left you holding the sack,” grins Magpie, sympathetic like. “Now this
+Whispering White——”
+
+“He didn’t die,” states Frankie. “His wealth was practically all in the
+States, and the estate was settled up right away after he was reported
+dead by the Brazilian Government, and the Van Veens dove into society.
+One day Marion got a letter from her uncle. He had seen the papers, in
+which his obituary was printed, and the settlement of the estate. He
+told her that he was so glad to be able to read the sad news that she
+could keep the money—it would be hers, anyway.
+
+“He’s down there making another stake. It seems that a couple of natives
+broke into his place and stole some clothes and some emeralds, or
+something like that. He nailed the clothes thief, while he was after the
+jewel robber, and the authorities, finding the body clothed in
+Whispering’s clothes, took it for granted that it was he, reported the
+death, and buried the remains. It was about two weeks after Whispering
+had caught him, and they didn’t make a very thorough identification.”
+
+“He must think a heap of the girl,” says I, and Frankie nods.
+
+“Yes, I suppose he does, in a way. He never saw her in his life. In fact
+he never saw either of the Van Veens. He’s been a rover all his life,
+mostly in foreign lands and in the West, and he never was in Redfield.”
+
+“Now, about this here duke,” says Magpie, waving us up to the table.
+“Where does he hail from, and why?”
+
+“The Duke of Northmore,” says Frankie. “Never saw him in my life, but I
+know the type. A perfect lady, scented from his bawth, cawn’t stand
+excitement, and thinks that everybody wild enough to eat meat is a
+bounder and a beastly bore, don’t you know?”
+
+“Aw-w-w!” drawls Magpie, screwing a dollar into one eye, and twisting
+his face out of plumb in order to hold it there.
+
+“That’s it!” whoops Frankie. “Where in the world did you ever see the
+like, Magpie?”
+
+“Shot one once,” laughed Magpie. “Dang near got arrested for it, too. It
+was closed season.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Magpie Simpkins was built after the plans and specifications intended to
+be used to build a memorial to a Norway spruce. He’s the longest,
+boniest, wisest-looking person in seventeen States. He’s got a
+rail-splitting face, a tired-looking mustache, and a desire to prove to
+the world that when brains were passed around he got more than his
+share.
+
+I was christened Ike Harper, and I ain’t never been ashamed enough or
+scared enough to change it. I got bow-legs, make tracks in the sand like
+an Injun, and the best disposition on earth. I know when I’m licked, and
+there’s a lot of men who can pull quicker and shoot faster than I can.
+
+Me and Magpie have been puttering around our little mine for quite a
+long time. She starts out to be a silver proposition, but after a
+certain depth she turns yaller. We hammers out enough free-milling gold
+to keep us in bacon and beans, and prays that some day a millionaire
+will drive up in a shiny hack and offer to buy us out.
+
+Frankie don’t say much about our mine, but he puts in quite a lot of
+time puttering around, and writing letters. A few days after he gets
+that letter he borrows a burro to ride to Piperock. When he comes back
+we’re eating supper, so he fills up a plate with bean soup, and then
+hauls out a yaller sheet of paper.
+
+“Take a look at this, boys,” says he, smoothing the sheet out on the
+table. “What shall I answer?”
+
+It reads:
+
+    Regarding Your Report Offer Fifteen Thousand Cash Limit Twenty.
+    ADAMS.
+
+“Just about what is the puzzle?” asks Magpie, and Frankie grins.
+
+“That’s up to you, Magpie—you and Ike. That’s a bona fide offer for your
+little prospect. The wire is from Hartley Adams, the man I’m working
+for, and he offers you a limit of twenty thousand dollars for your mine,
+on my report.”
+
+“Son,” says Magpie, “I’ll go back there and kill that duke for you.
+What’ll you do to please him, Ike?”
+
+“Me? I’ll count a coup, and wear his hair for a watch-charm. When do we
+paint up for the war trail?”
+
+“Thanks,” laughs Frankie, but there ain’t a lot of joy in his laugh. “I
+appreciate the spirit, but you can’t shoot a man—not even a duke, just
+because he wants to marry the same girl you do. That’s East, boys. It
+isn’t fashionable to kill folks back there.”
+
+“Haw!” grunts Magpie, with his mouth full of beans, “sometimes a good
+scare is better than a bullet. I sort of pines for the East like a bear
+for a bee-tree. Let’s me and you go East, Ike. A change will do us a lot
+of good. Let’s go with Frankie.”
+
+Frankie looks us over, and nods sort of pleased like.
+
+“Love to have you,” says he. “Why not go? I can wire for a draft on the
+bank of Silver Bend, and we can settle up things later, in case you
+accept.”
+
+“Accept?” asks Magpie, smoothing his mustache, and looking at me.
+
+“Does a trout accept a fly hook? No, sir, he jumps at it. Consider us as
+having jumped, Mister Franklyn Burt.”
+
+“You and me both,” I agrees. “But what’ll we do back there, Magpie, and
+where will we go? We ain’t got nobody to visit.”
+
+“I have,” says he, hitching his belt around, “I have.” He pats himself
+on the chest, and twists his mustache. “Look at me. Give you three
+guesses who I am, and bet you ten dollars per guess that you’re wrong. I
+am Whispering White!”
+
+“My ——!” says I, and Frankie drops a cup of hot coffee on his knees.
+
+Magpie rubs the stubble on his chin, and grins—
+
+“Late of Brazil.”
+
+“But-but-but—” stutters Frankie.
+
+“Let the goats do it, son,” advises Magpie, and then he points at me.
+
+“This critter is my pardner, also from the nut country, and we’ve come
+back to see if anything needs fixing. What do you think, Frankie?”
+
+“Well!” exclaims Frankie, wide-eyed. “Well, I don’t know whether you
+could get away with it or not.”
+
+“Me?” asks Magpie. “Get away with it? Say, son, I’ve rustled cows and
+hung rustlers; salted mines and bought salted ones; and I’ve bit,
+fought, scratched and shot my way from the cradle up to date, and now
+you asks me if I can adopt a name and get away with it where I ain’t
+known. Consider yourself answered in the affirmative, and have some more
+coffee. What you trying to do—irrigate your knee-caps?”
+
+The next day we takes our burros and pilgrims to Piperock, takes the
+stage from there to Paradise, and draws five hundred each. That person
+has wired us a thousand to cinch the deal, and we fixes things up at the
+bank.
+
+“The feller what invented sleeping-cars was dying from insomnia,” states
+Magpie, after he bumps his head a few times in his bunk. He crawls out
+and yells for the porter to bring him an ax, so he can knock the head
+out of his bunk. The porter refused to get him one, so he puts his
+clothes back on.
+
+“What you going to do, Magpie?” I asks.
+
+“I’m going up to the rear end and set in the sight-seeing car,” says he.
+“Paid money for a bed and all I draw is a bird’s nest.”
+
+“You-all can’t sleep in the observation cah,” objects the porter.
+“You-all simply can’t do that.”
+
+Magpie reaches into his bunk, hauls out his old Colt, and shoves it
+inside his waistband.
+
+“For why can’t I?” he asks, but the porter went away without making up
+the bunk across from us, and didn’t show up until the party what owned
+it yelled his head off for a place to sleep.
+
+The next morning, while I’m standing on one ear, trying to inch my pants
+on, I hears Magpie’s voice. I peeks out, and here comes Magpie towing a
+party down the car with him. This party wears a man-sized bunch of hair
+on his face, a crooked nose and a pair of eyes what don’t match. He’s a
+congenial looking Jasper, and he’s wearing a rubber collar just like me
+and Magpie are.
+
+“Sleep well?” I asks.
+
+“Ike, I want you to meet Mr. Hobbs—knowed after a short acquaintance as
+‘Homely.’ Homely, this is my pardner Ike Harper. We didn’t sleep. Me and
+Homely bought a deck of cards from the porter, and we spent the night
+pleasantly. Tonight we’re going to climb up on top of the car and sleep
+in the open, eh, Homely?”
+
+“No argument,” agrees Homely. “Get into your pants, Ike, and we’ll all
+eat breakfast.”
+
+“Where do we stop?” I asks.
+
+“We don’t stop to eat,” explains Homely. “We eat in the dining-car. This
+here train don’t stop for no such things as eats. Sabe?”
+
+Homely points out a feller in the eating-car, and whispers to me:
+
+“I been associating with that feller for some time now, and I’d bet a
+dobie dollar that he’s Jesse James.”
+
+He don’t look like a bad-man, and he ain’t got no visible guns, but when
+he hands us our bill for breakfast I shakes hands with Homely and
+congratulates him on his deductions.
+
+Homely can take the biggest drink of whisky you ever seen. Why, that
+hombre can gasp and inhale a pint. Me and Magpie are temperance beside
+him. We can’t help liking him, ’cause he fits in fine with us. Frankie
+takes a liking to him, and we plays poker all the way to St. Paul.
+
+Homely can hold more assorted kinds of food on a knife blade than any
+other living man. It sure takes a steady hand to balance peas, potatoes,
+meat and bread and gravy on one blade and never spill a drop, but Homely
+can do it. Everybody on the car watched him, and I’m betting they envied
+him his ability.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+We got off at St. Paul, ’cause we had to change trains. Frankie gets me
+and Magpie to one side, and tells us that he ain’t going on to Redfield
+with us, ’cause folks might think it’s a plant. He’ll show up later. Him
+and Magpie have had some long talks, in which Magpie has learned more
+about that family than the family knows. Frankie says for us to dress
+befitting the occasion and our station in life. Of course it’s sort of
+up to Magpie, more than it is me, so me and Homely takes in the town,
+while Magpie goes shopping.
+
+We has some ham and eggs, and then inspects some of the places where
+good cheer comes packed in glass. We meets a pleasant sort of a person,
+who asks us, confidential like, if we’d care to mingle the pasteboards
+in a nice quiet place.
+
+The quiet place don’t interest us none, ’cause we’re sufficiently
+organized to play in a boiler factory, so we bought him a drink and
+pilgrims away with him. I don’t know where he took us, but I do know
+that it would take six Injuns and a pack of bloodhounds to ever pick up
+our trail.
+
+We got into a room full of smoke, and there’s a good game going.
+Five-dollar jack-pots, and no limit. The game is filled, so me and
+Homely joins the crowd around the table. There’s a feller right in front
+of us, wearing an ice-cream suit and big floppy straw hat, and he seems
+to be winning a-plenty. I can’t see his face, but from the way he folds
+his cards I can see he’s no infant at the game.
+
+I stands there and watches the draw on a pot what has been boosted
+enough to make it worth fighting for. Floppy hat draws one, and the
+dealer one. The rest petered out before the draw. Homely lights a cigar
+and says to the dealer—
+
+“Mister, I’d be willing to pay you good wages to show me how you done
+that.”
+
+“Done what?” snarls the feller, squinting up at Homely from under his
+eyeshade.
+
+“Palm cards thataway,” grins Homely. “You’re setting on a queen that
+ought to be in your hand, and your hand shows a king what hadn’t come
+due yet, and you done it so slick that I almost missed it.”
+
+All of which is a dangerous remark right at that time, if anybody should
+ask you. Nobody said a word or moved for a few seconds, and then I sees
+the dealer turn pale. The party in the big hat has sort of leaned back,
+and when I glances down over his shoulders I see the muzzle of a gun
+pointing right at the dealer’s stummick. The man behind the gun reaches
+out and begins to remove said pot into his coat pockets.
+
+The party at the right, being out of line of the gun, opines that he’s
+got to exercise his lungs, and he does so with great cheer. He seems to
+want the police, fire department and a free passage out of there all to
+once, and just then some darn fool turned off the lights.
+
+Man, there was some going on right there. I reckon there was at least a
+dozen men in that room, and when the lights went out I hopped back
+against the wall and let ’em stampede.
+
+I hears the smash of glassware, when somebody tipped over the bar, and
+conversation consists of curses and yelps. Then comes the pop of a
+six-gun, and the bullet burnt my ear.
+
+Believe me, Ike Harper ain’t no stranger to powder smoke, so I whoops
+loud and clear, hauls out my old Colt and takes a shot at anything that
+happens to be in my way. Across from me a gun pops and I gets my ears
+full of plaster.
+
+_Bing_ goes a gun from the other side, and she settles down to a steady
+battle. Every time I sees a flash I shoots at it, and I reckon the
+others were doing the same. I shoots six times, and then has to quit,
+and I reckon the others were in the same fix.
+
+“I wish I knowed where that danged switch was,” I hears a voice
+complain, and then it says again, “Don’t shoot, you darn fools—I’ve
+found it,” and the lights comes on again.
+
+There stands Homely, leaning against the wall, with an empty gun in his
+hand, and a foolish look on his face. We both looks across the room,
+where the table is laying on its side, and up over the edge comes a
+waving lock of hair, then a pair of squinty eyes, and a tired-looking
+mustache, and Magpie Simpkins breaks into a grin. He climbs to his feet,
+sets down on the edge of the table, and looks around on the floor.
+
+“Anybody seen anything of that Brazil hat of mine?” he asks. “This sure
+is one dusty place for an ice-cream suit, if you asks me.”
+
+We don’t have nothing to say, so he grins at Homely and says—
+
+“Homely, you spoke just in time—all I had was a bob-tail.”
+
+Homely scratches his head and shoves his empty gun in his pocket—
+
+“Well, Magpie, you’re a rotten shot—that’s all I can say.”
+
+“That goes triple, Homely,” grins Magpie. “You and Ike had an even
+break. Let’s get out of here. Them scared Jaspers will likely call the
+police.”
+
+“Not them,” says Homely, “what they’d call a policeman for wouldn’t get
+nobody in jail but themselves.”
+
+We had a fine time finding our way out of there, but we manages to get
+back to the hotel. Magpie is so happy over finding that hat that he
+forgets the condition of his clothes.
+
+“Some hat,” says he. “I told the clerk that I was from Brazil and wanted
+a hat, and he told me that he had a hat that had been waiting for me a
+long time. I’m supposed to be from Brazil, Homely.”
+
+“Supposed to be?” asks Homely, who ain’t wise to our pilgrimage, so
+Magpie sets down and tells him all about it.
+
+Homely gets excited over it, and offers to help pull the stunt.
+
+“I like Frankie,” says he, “and I hate dukes like ——! Let me have first
+shot at him and I’ll go along with you.”
+
+“I know how you feel about it, Homely,” says Magpie. “If a feller ain’t
+never shot at one he naturally hankers for the experience. I shot at one
+once, and I know the sensation, but this is going to be a safe, sane and
+sanitary proposition. Sabe? Naturally I got a lot to say about who
+spends the money I earned, and I ain’t in the market for no shop-worn
+dukes, but I ain’t provoked enough to let you shoot him on sight. Come
+with us if you like, Homely, but don’t pack no gun.”
+
+“I’ll come,” agrees Homely. “Me and Ike will sort of hang around as a
+body-guard, and shoot him when you throw him out.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+It’s quite some trip from St. Paul to Redfield, but the town was there
+when we arrived. Some say it was there before the war, which gave the
+inhabitants an alibi for fighting.
+
+We climbs off the train and let it go on without us. We looks the place
+over from an unprejudiced standpoint and found her lacking.
+
+There ain’t a hitching-rack in sight, and the only bronc we can see has
+got its tail cropped off short, and is being mishandled by a
+skinny-looking person, wearing panties, who bobs in the saddle like he
+had boils. He sure is careful of his saddle.
+
+There’s quite a lot of folks at the depot and I’d reckon there ain’t
+many strangers stop there, ’cause everybody stares at us.
+
+We sort of mills around, looking for a place to go, when a dude-looking
+feller busts out of that herd of inquisitives and pilgrims up to us.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” says he to Magpie, “would you mind telling me who
+you are, and all that, don’t you know? I’m with the _Clarion_.”
+
+“Real estate, roulette or religion?” asks Magpie.
+
+“Beg pardon? Oh, I see you misunderstood me. I’m a reporter. I—I thought
+perhaps you—er—might be worth a story. You and your party are so—well,
+different, don’t you know?”
+
+“Story and a half,” grins Homely, looking up at Magpie, “go on and tell
+the kid who you are, old-timer. Me and Harper will see that you get fair
+play.”
+
+“I am Whispering White from Brazil, and other seaports,” says Magpie,
+and that feller’s eyebrows rise half an inch.
+
+“Whispering White, the South American millionaire?” he gasps. “The man
+who died, and then came back to life? The uncle of Marion White, who is
+going to marry the duke?”
+
+“No,” says Magpie, “who was going to marry him.”
+
+The feller sure got busy on a piece of paper.
+
+“When did you leave Brazil?” he asks.
+
+Magpie scratches his head, and squints at me and Homely.
+
+“When did we leave Brazil?” he asks. “In May, wasn’t it?”
+
+“April first,” says I.
+
+“And the rest of your party is?” he asks, indicating me and Homely.
+
+“This one,” says Magpie, pointing at me, “this is ‘Bedrock’ Benson,
+mayor of Pecan Province, and this other one is Homely Hobbs, the
+greatest squirrel expert in South America, if not in the world.”
+
+“Great stuff!” exclaims the feller. “What do you think of Redfield?”
+
+“I knowed a man what got lynched for saying what he thought,” says
+Magpie, “so I’ll just keep my face shut.”
+
+“I suppose you’ll miss the palms and coconuts,” says the reporter,
+grinning, and writing fast.
+
+“The palms,” agrees Magpie. “Nuts are the same wherever you find them.
+What is the best hotel in the place?”
+
+He showed us a hotel, and when we pilgrims up to the front door we gets
+assaulted by some fellers in band uniforms. Magpie chases one of them
+all over the house, trying to get his valise back. After he nails this
+feller he takes the valise away from him, picks him up and throws him
+out of the front door.
+
+“If the boss is in I’d admire to have you ask him if we can have a room
+with a bed big enough for three men,” says Magpie to the person behind
+the counter, “and I don’t want one with a dirty white pitcher setting
+there in a cracked, white dishpan, either, and if the springs bust down
+like they did in Silver Bend I’ll come down and tie that bedstead around
+your darn neck. Sabe? Now do we connect with our desire or don’t we?”
+
+“You-you-you—” stutters the feller, and he turns a big book around in
+front of Magpie, and hands him a pen.
+
+“Register,” says he. Magpie looks at the pen and book, and then at the
+feller.
+
+“I didn’t come here to vote,” says he, “I came here to sleep.”
+
+“What name, please?” asks the feller, and Magpie gets mad.
+
+“Young feller,” says he, “I don’t like this town. Folks want to know
+your name and occupation the minute they see you. I’m Whispering White,
+of Brazil. These two with me are Bedrock Benson and Homely Hobbs. We’re
+all from Brazil. Now, do we get that room?”
+
+“Yes, Mr. White,” says he, getting friendly all at once, “surely you do.
+You’ll want rooms with bath?”
+
+“Bath?” asks Magpie, turning to us, “you fellers dirty?”
+
+“I got dusty crossing the ocean,” says I, and Homely speaks up:
+
+“I’ll take a little bath with you, Whispering, if I lose. I’m game.”
+
+A couple of fellers packs our grips over to a little room, and we all
+goes in with them, and that room goes skyhooting toward the sky. We
+found out later that they only built the stairs to keep folks from
+falling down the hole.
+
+It was before noon when we gets there, and along about two o’clock the
+alarm rings. Homely sabes the thing, so he yells into the box on the
+wall—
+
+“What do you want?”
+
+Then he sort of grins at Magpie, and says—
+
+“Mister Van Veen is down-stairs and wants to know if he can come up.”
+
+“Tell him it’s a public place,” says Magpie, “and that I can’t stop
+him.”
+
+He came. The first thing I noticed was that he’s got dimples where his
+knuckles ought to be, and his finger-nails are pink. His face is fat and
+pink, and he wears specs that would make good magnifying glasses, and he
+anchors them to his person with a yard of crape ribbon. He exudes a
+scent that you’d naturally connect with a lisp and he carries a cane.
+
+He stands there in the doorway, peering at us like a dude owl, and
+pretty soon he hauls out a big silver case, takes out one of them
+cigarets what smell like a disinfectant, taps same three times on the
+case, and clears his throat. I names him “Pinky” right there.
+
+“My ——!” snorts Magpie. “Am I related to that?”
+
+“I am—er—looking for Samuel White,” says he. “Which one of you—er—gents
+are he?”
+
+“I are he,” says Magpie. “But I’m no er-gent. What you selling?”
+
+“Selling? Haw! I am your—er—relative. Mr. Wilberforce Van Veen, at your
+service.”
+
+“Thanks,” says Magpie, “I don’t need you today. Come on in and rest your
+feet. How’s the folks?”
+
+“Thank you. Very well, I thank you. I read in the _Clarion_ of your
+arrival, and it was a great—er—surprise, I assure you. How do you find
+Redfield?”
+
+“By getting on the right train and getting off at the right depot,” says
+Magpie. “Meet Bedrock Benson and Homely Hobbs, Van.”
+
+“Aw! Pleasure, I assure you,” says he.
+
+“Glad you think so,” says Homely.
+
+“How’s your folks?”
+
+“Well, I thank you,” and then he turns to Magpie: “May I have a few
+minutes’ private conversation with you, Samuel?”
+
+“Shoot,” says Magpie, “don’t mind these hombres, Van. They know more
+about my business than I do, so don’t mind them in the least.”
+
+“It is in regard to—er—Marion and the Duke of Northmore,” says he,
+nervous like, lighting another joss-stick. “You—er—must have intimated
+to the reporter that you were not in favor of the union, and—er—I came
+up to ask you to call them up and—er—sort of correct the error, don’t
+you know? They must have misunderstood you. The preparations for the
+wedding are under way, and such a report at this time might—er—well,
+prove embarrassing. You understand, don’t you?”
+
+Magpie rolls a cigaret, and sort of grins under his mustache.
+
+“How is the duke fixed?” he asks.
+
+“You mean his financial standing? Really, you can’t figure things that
+way, old fellow. His title, the title he can give Marion, can not be
+summed up in dollars and cents. I dare say he’s comfortable.”
+
+“Comfortable?” grins Magpie, “Maybe we can change that. Does my niece
+know I’m here?”
+
+“No, she does not. She and the duke are motoring today. I shall have to
+do everything I can to block you in case you try to interfere in any
+way. My wife and I are her recognized guardians, remember.”
+
+“Pinky,” says I, “don’t rile him. Whispering is a holy terror when he’s
+riled, and if you get too blasted tutty he’ll take your pocketbook away
+from you, and you’ll have to go to work. Sabe?”
+
+“Them is words of wisdom,” agrees Homely. “A dollar in the hand is worth
+two dukes in the family, Van, old scout. Could you use a glass of milk
+and sugar if I was to offer to treat the crowd?”
+
+“Why—er—really I don’t know,” says he, bewildered like. “I believe I
+must go now. I hope to see you all again. Pleased to have met you. Good
+afternoon,” and he softly closed the door.
+
+“Magpie,” says Homely, “you ain’t no gentleman. Always take off your hat
+when a person like that talks to you. Ain’t you got no manners? You
+embarrassed him extremely.”
+
+“Manners!” snorts Magpie. “No, I ain’t, Homely. I ain’t got no judgment,
+either, or I wouldn’t have picked that snow-shoe rabbit for a relative.
+I wonder what Marion is like?”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+We found out the next day. The three of us walks out to the Van Veen
+residence. It sure looks like a lot of money surrounded by a brush
+fence, and when Homely sees it he says to Magpie:
+
+“You must have made a lot of money in Brazil. Nice place to live.”
+
+“Yeah,” says Magpie, “nice but not homelike. Why, Homely, a lizard
+wouldn’t live in a place like this, and a rattlesnake would bite himself
+inside of a week. No sagebrush nor rocks, and I ain’t seen a man here
+what ain’t pink in the face. It sure does ruin the human race living in
+a place like this.”
+
+We hammers on the front door, and a general opens the door for us. We
+all bows to him, and Magpie says:
+
+“Colonel, we’re glad to meet you. I’m Whispering White, and this is
+Bedrock Benson and Homely Hobbs.”
+
+We all shakes hands with him.
+
+“How’s the army?” asks Homely.
+
+“Beg pardon,” says he, with his nose in the air. “Who shall I announce?”
+
+“Gosh,” snorts Magpie, “he’s going to make an announcement. Go ahead,
+Officer.”
+
+“Beg pardon,” says he, getting red as a beet. “Who shall I announce?”
+
+“Who have you got?” grins Magpie. “We came up to see Marion White, but
+if you got anything else we’ll look it over.”
+
+“Ah!” says he. “Step into the drawing-room, and I will inform Miss
+Marion of your presence.”
+
+“Merry Christmas,” says Homely, and we all follers the officer into a
+room what reminds me of molasses. Everything is dark and heavy, and your
+boots don’t even squeak on the floor. Some folks seem to be afraid of a
+little sunshine, so I goes over to let up a shade, when I hears a female
+voice say: “Quite a surprise!” and I turns just in time to see Magpie
+kiss her.
+
+Magpie sure knows how to play a part, I can say that much for him, but
+his judgment is all wrong.
+
+“Sir!” she yelps. “How dare you! I am Mrs. Van Veen,” and Magpie got his
+face slapped.
+
+He goes plumb up to his ears in a soft chair, and Homely whistles—
+
+“Set ’em up in the other alley!”
+
+“My mistake, ma’am,” says Magpie. “It’s so blasted dark in here that I
+didn’t see who I was kissing. Now that I can see you I’m ashamed of
+myself.”
+
+“Are you Samuel White?” she asks, and I can see the frost on her breath.
+
+“Of Brazil, ma’am,” admits Magpie; “how’s the folks?”
+
+“You wished to see Marion?”
+
+“Gosh!” snorts Magpie. “I came all the way from Brazil, sent an army
+officer to tell her I was here, and now I got to wish. All right,
+auntie, I’ll wish. Now can I see her?”
+
+“Uncle Samuel!” says the voice of a mocking bird behind me, and Ike
+Harper got his first free kiss. Man, I’d orate aloud that she’s some
+filly. Me and her exchanges hugs, and then I breaks the clinch.
+
+“Ma’am,” says I, “you sure shows good judgment, but that long hombre
+over there is your uncle.”
+
+Magpie meets her half-way, and I can hear auntie sniff. Pretty soon they
+breaks away, and looks foolish like at each other, and Magpie says:
+
+“Ain’t you got no place where there’s light enough for us to see each
+other? I don’t like this cell.”
+
+“Let’s go out on the porch,” she suggests. “I want to meet the rest of
+your friends.”
+
+“I kissed your aunt,” says Magpie, apologetic like. “I’d have kissed
+your uncle, too, but he was smoking a vile cigaret.”
+
+Marion laughs like she was amused, and we all goes out on the verandy,
+and gets used to each other’s looks. She’s some looker in the light, and
+I says to myself—
+
+“I don’t blame Frankie, and I’m glad she made that mistake.”
+
+Homely watches her while he rolls a cigaret. She must have attracted him
+some, ’cause he throws away his cigaret and puts the match in his mouth,
+and says—
+
+“Say, you ain’t going to marry no duke, are you?”
+
+Her eyebrows goes up about an inch, and she stares at Homely.
+
+“Ex-cuse me!” he gasps, and puffs hard on the match.
+
+“Why,” says she, offended like, “why ask that when the announcements are
+all out, and——”
+
+“My ——!” says I. “More announcements, boys. When do we see the duke?”
+
+“He’s at his hotel,” says Marion. “We are having a reception here
+tonight. Perhaps you can arrange a meeting tomorrow.” And then her and
+Magpie strolls away up the verandy for a personal visit, while me and
+Homely takes off our boots to rest our feet, and sets down to wait for
+him to break away.
+
+We tells her we’re a heap glad to meet her, and then we goes back to the
+hotel. Magpie has a drink with us, and then orates that he’s going to
+buy some more clothes and get his hair cut. We don’t want to go with
+him, so me and Homely pokes around the streets. Watching a hair cut is
+my idea of nothing to see.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+We’re standing on a corner when here comes Pinky in an automobile. He
+didn’t aim to see us, I reckon, so me and Homely both yelled at him to
+stop, and then we pilgrims out to his buggy. He didn’t tell us not to,
+so we climbs in with him, just as a policeman comes up. He tips his hat
+to Pinky, and says—
+
+“Anything I can do for you, Mister Van Veen?”
+
+Pinky looks at me and Homely, and his gills get sort of red, but then he
+shakes his head—
+
+“Nothing, Officer, thank you.”
+
+“You sure stand in with the law, Van,” says Homely. “Let’s all go have a
+drink. What do you say, Van?”
+
+“Why—er—really, don’t you know, I’m afraid——”
+
+“We’ll protect you with our lives,” states Homely. “Won’t we, Ike?”
+
+“To the death,” says I. “Drive careful, ’cause I got a gun on my hip,
+and it might jolt off and ruin a cushion.”
+
+Pinky didn’t seem in the best of spirits, but he took us out in the
+country to a place where they sells everything from soda water to souls.
+He wanted to drink mineral water, but we objects so hard that he decides
+in favor of real liquor.
+
+Pinky is the hardest man I ever tried to get six drinks into, and after
+that he’s the hardest to choke off. He sure did surprise me.
+
+“Reshepshun tonight,” says he, wise as a owl. “Bes’ people in the city.
+Duke’ll be there. Duke’s a lion—you know it?”
+
+“Mostly all do lie more or less,” agrees Homely. “Are we invited?”
+
+“Sure. Friends of mine—besshur life. Got evenin’ clothes?”
+
+“Night-gown party, eh?” gulps Homely, along with a pint of liquor.
+“Pass. I’m a respectable person, Van.”
+
+“Dresh shuit,” says Pinky. “Le’s all go to tailor, eh? Get shuited for
+party. What shay?”
+
+“No argument,” agrees Homely. “If there’s any shooting going on you can
+count me in. Lead us to Mister Tailor, and may the Lord have mercy on
+his shoul.”
+
+All of which shows that Homely is beginning to thicken. Me—I’m getting
+beautifully primed.
+
+We went to the tailor’s about a hundred and fifty dollars’ worth. Pinky
+insists on dressing us right there, so we left our week day garments in
+his care, and got back in that machine.
+
+We’re pretty dry, so we hunts a place to wet them new suits. I don’t
+like a coat you can’t button, and them pants are too tight to go over
+the tops of my boots, so I tucks them inside. Pinky’s crazy any time he
+thinks we’re going to dress up that much and then wear high collars and
+white ties.
+
+We tore them off in that palace of vice, and then bought us each a red
+one, and two new rubber collars. Homely got a red four-in-hand, with
+black horseshoes on, while I got a pure red one of the kind you can
+cross and tie off each end to your suspenders.
+
+I never felt so aristocratic in my life, and Homely looks like a actor.
+He feels so good that he stands on the sidewalk and sings:
+
+    “I’m a buckaroo from Bucktown and I drinks my whisky clear.
+    I’m a rearin’ rootin’ tooter, a son-of-a-gambolier.”
+
+The same of which makes a hit with Pinky, and we has to stand right
+there and sing it until he learns the words. Then Pinky throws the quirt
+into that automobile, and we ambles for home. Pinky would sure make good
+on a cross-country drive after coyotes, but four wheels are too many,
+and the road ain’t wide enough, ’cause he ignores the road entirely,
+jumps a brush fence, skates all around over a nice grassy plot, and when
+I wakes up I got flowers in my mouth and dirt in my ears.
+
+Homely is setting there in a fountain, splashing water, and Pinky is
+hugging a female statue, and whispering words of love into its ear. The
+hind end of the automobile is sticking out of the side of a little lath
+house covered with vines, and one wheel is still turning, and I wonders,
+foolish like, if it will stop on 00 or the red.
+
+I wipes the dirt off my face, and walks over to the wreck. Homely swims
+to land, and Pinky gets disgusted when the lady don’t talk back to him,
+so we all goes over inside the little house.
+
+“Tha’s shame,” says Pinky, “never went in here before. Wife’ll have
+shixteen fits—you know it? Peculiar woman is Louisa. Ever met her?”
+
+“Whispering kissed her by mistake,” says I, and Pinky chuckles, and
+looks wise.
+
+“Tha’s bes’ way. Married her by mistake myshelf. I’m always making
+mistakes—you know it? Have shixteen fits.”
+
+“Bottle didn’t break,” announces Homely, fussing around inside the
+automobile. “Let’s all have a snort and take a nap. Nice and cool in
+here. Over the lips and through the gums: look out, Stummick, here she
+comes.”
+
+“That’s shome toast,” applauds Pinky. “Mush tell that at club. Ho,
+hum-m-m-m-m!” and he went to sleep with his head through a busted wheel,
+while me and Homely curls up on the seats.
+
+“Homely,” says I, “are you comfortable?”
+
+“Am now,” says he, “the front of this blasted shirt kept doubling up and
+shutting off my wind, but now I got her bent out of the way. How do you
+like Pinky?”
+
+“Just like a cucumber—pickled but not raw. They upset my stummick.”
+
+I don’t know how long I slept but when I woke up I can see a light
+through the door of the shack, so I’d opine it’s after dark. Pinky and
+Homely are snoring, so I rolls a smoke. Pretty soon I hears voices, male
+and female.
+
+“But my deah girl,” says the male voice, “you surely wouldn’t let a
+boundah like that interfere. Brazil, indeed! He’s not your parent, and
+when you are mine I’ll snap my fingers at him.”
+
+“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” says Marion’s voice. “I don’t think
+it would scare him in the least. He surely is unconventional, and has
+the quaintest pair of men with him.”
+
+“Barbarians!” snorts this party, which I’d opine to be the duke, “fancy
+throwing a bellboy out of the hotel when he essays to carry your
+luggage. And they eat with their knives! Unconventional? I’d jolly well
+say that they’re uncivilized and uncouth. Shall we enter the
+Summer-house?”
+
+“I wonder where uncle is?” says Marion. “He hasn’t been home since early
+this afternoon, and auntie is simply furious.”
+
+They ambles inside. I reckon it must be dark to them, cause they
+stumbles over Pinky’s legs, and the duke sprawls all over a front wheel.
+Marion cuts loose a little squeak, and I hears Pinky’s voice softly
+singing:
+
+    “I’m a buckaroo from Bucktown, and I drinks my whisky clear.
+    I’m a rearin’, rootin’ tooter, a son-of-a-gambolier.”
+
+“Uncle!” gasps Marion. “Uncle!”
+
+“Say, what in —— is going on around here?” inquires Homely, sleepy like.
+“Busting into a man’s room this way.”
+
+I see him rise up in the machine, grab at something, and I sees a man,
+with shiny hair, roll out of the doorway and weave toward the house. I
+reckon Homely cast him fairly hard.
+
+“Tha’s good!” proclaims Pinky. “Marion, I’m ’shamed of you. Go in the
+house shooner or later. Homely, you old Injun, where’s that bottle?”
+
+All of which shows that Pinky is getting civilized fast. Marion walks
+out of there, sort of dazed like, and follers the duke.
+
+“The duke says that we’re barbarians, Homely,” says I, “he says we eat
+with our knives.”
+
+“Huh! I’d rather be one than to eat with my fork—they leak.”
+
+“Le’s go ’way,” says Pinky, “Marion will tell Louisa, and I’ll have to
+come in the house. Best time I ever had, and I hope you decide to remain
+here.”
+
+“Not if I live,” says I, pushing my shirt down so I won’t look so
+chesty. “Let’s all go in the house.”
+
+“That’s sensible,” agrees Homely. “Hear the music? Let’s all go in and
+sing a song.”
+
+“Tha’s the stuff,” says Pinky; “all shing a shong. Don’t take a drink in
+there, ’cause they drink punch. I got some in my room, and when that’s
+gone we’ll kill the butler and rob the cellar. I’m a rearin’ rootin’
+tooter—wish I lived in Brazil.”
+
+“You’d do well there,” says Homely, “in fact, you’d flourish.”
+
+We weaves around to the front door. Everything is decorated up, and some
+folks are getting out of an automobile on to a strip of carpet, which
+seems to lead into the door. We goes over and wipes our feet off, too,
+locks arms and goes for the doorway.
+
+That blamed army officer is there again. I’ll bet that hombre has got an
+over-sized Adam’s apple or he’s studying the stars, ’cause he pokes his
+long nose in the air and looks right over our heads. Me and Homely
+shakes hands with him, and then gives his hand to Pinky, who shakes it,
+hearty like.
+
+“Shimmons,” says Pinky, earnest like, “we’d like to be announshed and
+introdushed.”
+
+“Beg pardon, sir,” says he, still looking up.
+
+Homely looks him over, steps behind him and kicks him in the back of the
+knees. We left him setting on the steps, and walked on.
+
+“I’ll announsh us,” says Pinky. “Forward, marsh!”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Say, there was some herd in that room. I never seen so much of so many
+ladies in my life, and I’d ’a’ likely went right out if I had been
+sober. The men are all wearing unbuttoned coats like ours, so I feels
+sort of at home. They all turns as we comes in, and Pinky waves his arms
+like a windmill.
+
+“Ladies and gentlemen,” says he, loud like, “Mister Bedrock Benshon, and
+Homely Hobbs, late of Brazil. Boys thish aggregation is all folks that
+know me. They never had a good time in their lives, ’cause they’re
+afraid to. Shake hands with ’em.”
+
+Homely gathers in the hands of a tall, skinny dame, and it scared her
+plumb sick.
+
+I reckon she never shook hands with a man before. A feller tried to
+dodge me, but I beat him to it, and give him some grip. He sure is a
+lily-white person, with one weak eye, which he advertises by wearing
+glass over it. When I shook his hand he almost wiggled out of his pants.
+
+“Howdy,” says I; “how’s your folks?”
+
+I reckon he’s hard of hearing, ’cause he just stares at me, so I hauls
+him up close and yells in his ear—
+
+“How’s your folks!”
+
+He fainted in a chair.
+
+“Mr. Benson!” says Marion’s voice, chiding like, and I turns.
+
+She’s standing there looking at the feller in the chair, and then says
+to me:
+
+“Why—why, that’s the Duke of Northmore. Where is my uncle?”
+
+Everybody is quiet for a second, and we hears Pinky’s voice:
+
+“You can’t, eh? Shay you can’t play it? Oh, Homely! Thish orchestra
+can’t play our song. Let’s shing without the music, eh?”
+
+Auntie is standing there as white as a statue, and her eyes are as round
+as saucers. She sure is frozen stiff, and just then I hears a voice that
+I know. It’s Frankie Burt.
+
+“My dear Mrs. Van Veen,” says he, low like, “let me handle the
+situation, please. You don’t want a scene.” Then he turns to me, and
+whispers: “Ike, get Homely and Van Veen, and I’ll show you where Van
+Veen’s room is.”
+
+I walks right over to Pinky, and whispers in his ear—
+
+“I’m dry as ——.”
+
+“So’m I, Bedrock,” says he, loud like. “Thish ain’t no fun. Let’s me and
+you and Homely go up to my room and wet our necks. Come on, Homely, you
+old rootin’ tooter.”
+
+Frankie led the procession up them winding stairs. I looks down from the
+top, and notices that a lot of them folks ain’t got their mouths shut
+yet. The duke is being drenched with a glass of punch, and seems on the
+road to recovery.
+
+“Pinky,” says I, “you ain’t going to let Marion marry the duke, are
+you?”
+
+“Shush,” says Pinky, shaking up a bottle; “my wife’s doing it. I ain’t
+nothing but a crawling worm in thish house. Wife’s crazy over titles.
+Crazy over everything but me, and I’m glad she draws the line some
+place. Feel shorry for Marion, but I feel more shorry for me. Have to do
+everything I don’ want to do—except tonight. Man or moush? Which’re you
+goin’ to be? Man’r moush? Going ri’ down and tell that bunch that I’m a
+wolf and it’s my evening to bark.”
+
+“No, you’re not, either,” says Frankie from the doorway. “For Heaven’s
+sake, Van Veen, have a little sense.” Then he turns to me: “Have you
+seen Mag—er—Whispering tonight?”
+
+“Nope. Is he coming here?”
+
+“Said he was,” says Frankie, and just then Pinky sighs deep like and
+rolls over on the bed.
+
+Homely inhales another pint, and lays down with Pinky.
+
+“Ike,” says Frankie, “let’s you and I go down and wait for Magpie.”
+
+“You go first,” says I, “I’ll be out in a minute.”
+
+I searched Homely for a gun, but didn’t find one. You never can tell
+what he might do—loaded thataway. I went out of the door, and got almost
+to the top of the stairs, when I hears Marion and Frankie talking low.
+
+“Marion, for God’s sake, don’t throw yourself away on that fellow,”
+pleads Frankie. “Wake up, girl. Everybody, except your aunt is laughing
+at you. Your new uncle is dead against it. Why, Marion, the duke hasn’t
+a cent, and he’s a mighty poor specimen of humanity. You’ll have to
+agree to that.”
+
+“Franklyn,” says she, sort of sobbing like, “it’s all settled, and it
+must go through.”
+
+“Has Whispering White met the duke yet?” asks Frankie.
+
+“No. He will meet him tomorrow. Excuse me, I must go back to my guests.”
+And I hears her go down the stairs.
+
+I pokes around the corner, and runs into Frankie.
+
+“Cheer up, son,” says I. “She ain’t married yet. Never give up, not even
+when they faces the preacher—somebody might shoot him.”
+
+“Ike, you’re a philosopher,” says he, shaking his head, “but I’m afraid
+it’s a hopeless hope for me. Let’s go down-stairs.”
+
+We went down. Frankie drifted away from me, and I sort of got lost. I
+wandered around by myself, getting sorer and sorer all the time.
+Everybody acts like I got the smallpox. I tried to talk to the fiddler,
+but he’s deaf and dumb, and when I asks a lady how her kids are she
+sticks her nose in the air, and drifts.
+
+I tries to get near enough to that army officer to ask him where the
+water-bucket is but he sees me and lopes out of sight. Auntie passes me
+once, but I reckon she figured me a white chip in a big stack of blues,
+’cause she didn’t see me at all. I found Marion after while. She’s
+surrounded with the duke and a lot of other smaller cards, and that duke
+stared hard at me again.
+
+“Take a look, you poor hunk of hash,” says I.
+
+I’m getting tired of being stared at, and I don’t even care about
+Marion, ’cause I’m beginning to think she don’t assay any more on brains
+than the rest. The duke walks like he’d wintered in a hard pasture and
+cracked his hoofs. When I snapped at him, his lower jaw sags, and he
+feels to see if his tooth-brush mustache is still with him.
+
+“Aw!” says he. “Cattle!”
+
+“You dang well know it!” says I. “Where your kind would last about as
+long as a snowball in ——! Where there’s a strong distinction drawn
+between male and female.”
+
+“Mr. Benson!” says Marion, shocked like, but dang me if I don’t think
+she winked one eye.
+
+We must have been talking loud, ’cause when I looks around, ’most
+everybody is listening.
+
+“Heavens!” I hears auntie gasp. “I’ll have him removed at once.
+Simmons!” she yelps. “Simmons!”
+
+“You don’t need to yelp for help,” says I; “I’ll remove him.”
+
+“Mr. Whispering White,” announces that army officer, in a loud voice
+just then, and we all turns.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+There stands Magpie, with one hand twisted in the army officer’s collar,
+and a grin on his face.
+
+“Thanks, Colonel,” says he, shoving him away. “Maybe the next time you
+see a man at the door you won’t stick your blasted nose in the air and
+refuse him admittance.”
+
+Magpie is still wearing that ice-cream suit and big hat. He hitches up
+his hip pocket and grins at everybody.
+
+“Howdy, folks,” says he.
+
+He grins and winks at Marion, and just then I hears a gasp behind me,
+and I turns. There stands the duke, staring at Magpie, like he was a
+ghost, and Magpie is staring right back at him.
+
+“Holy horned toads!” grunts Magpie, and reaches for his hip.
+
+The duke moved. The dignity all left that jasper, and he turns coyote
+for fair. He ducked behind a lot of half-dressed ladies, and went up
+them stairs like a bear.
+
+Magpie is sort of handicapped, with so many folks around, but I think
+his bullet cut the duke’s necktie off, ’cause we found it on the stairs.
+Just as the duke turned the corner he runs slap into Pinky and Pinky
+came rolling down-stairs just in time to keep Magpie from going up fast.
+Pinky lights setting up, and Magpie races past him. I hops half-way up
+them stairs, and pulls a gun, so nobody can interfere with Magpie, but
+nobody wanted to go up, I reckon.
+
+“Good evening, folks,” grins Pinky, looking around, foolish like, but
+nobody paid any attention to him.
+
+Auntie has fainted flat, and a fat little hombre is fanning her with a
+glass of punch. Marion is backed against the wall, and Frankie is trying
+to shake hands with her.
+
+Comes a —— of a racket upstairs, and here comes the duke, Magpie and
+Homely. Magpie and Homely have each got hold of a coat-tail, and right
+at the top step the duke shucks his coat, and comes down like a
+pin-wheel, and into that crowd he goes.
+
+Homely slips on the top steps and don’t hit again until he sets down
+beside me, halfway down. The duke cuts a swath through the crowd, and
+goes out through an open window like a prairie-dog going into his own
+home.
+
+_Bang_ goes a gun beside me, and the top pane of the window is busted
+into a million pieces. I reckon it caused several ladies to foller
+auntie’s example. I turns around and there sets Homely, with a big Colt
+in his hand, and a scowl on his face.
+
+“Missed!” he wails. “Might ’a’ knowed he wouldn’t go so high. Allowed
+too much, and over-shot.”
+
+“Where did you have that gun?” I asked. “I searched you.”
+
+“In my boot, Ike. No pocket in these pants, and the waist is too tight.”
+
+Magpie throws that coat down, disgusted like, and puts his gun back in
+his pocket.
+
+“Dang the luck!” he snorts. “Lost him again!”
+
+“Again?” I asks. “Did you say again?”
+
+Magpie leans against the corner-post of the stairs, and smooths out his
+necktie.
+
+“That was the feller what we used to know as ‘Diamond Duke,’ down in
+Mesquite,” says he. “He’s a duke, I reckon, and one of the slickest card
+sharks on earth. He’s a crook from his belt both ways, and ain’t got the
+nerve of a rabbit. Hellwinder with fool women, and talks like a
+dictionary. Rung in a cold deck on me one night, in a big pot, and was
+foolish enough to reach for a gun, when I called him. We both shot. I
+killed him dead, and his bullet went into the ceiling. I went over and
+gave myself up to the sheriff, and when he went back over there the duke
+had gone. He’d fainted—that’s all. Somehow I can’t seem to kill the
+breed.”
+
+“Same here!” grunts Homely, disgusted like. “Allowed too much for the
+rise.”
+
+Auntie has recovered from her faint, and hears Magpie’s testimony. She
+drops like a wilted lily, and looks a million years old.
+
+“Ruined!” says she, wailing like. “Everything is ruined.” Then she turns
+to Magpie, and says in a weak voice: “Samuel, will you leave us, please?
+Tomorrow we will talk things over.”
+
+“Yes’m,” agrees Magpie. “Come on, Ike.”
+
+Everybody is either left or leaving, and there don’t seem to be much
+animation left in the party.
+
+“Our hats are in that shack where we left the automobile,” states
+Homely. “Let’s get them and go home.”
+
+When we went out of the door we looked back. There sets auntie, sad and
+deserted like, and over in the corner by the music-stand is Pinky. He’s
+got a fiddle that somebody forgot, and he’s discording something awful,
+and singing:
+
+    “I’m a buckaroo from Bucktown, and I drinks my whisky clear.
+    I’m a rearin’, tootin’ tooter, a son of a gambolier.”
+
+It sure was a grand night for Pinky Van Veen. We went out to that house,
+and started to scratch a match to locate them hats, when we hears a
+noise.
+
+“Sounds like somebody walking in mud,” chuckles Magpie, and then we
+hears Frankie say:
+
+“Boys, I never can thank you. Have you fellers got time to shake hands
+with the future Mrs. Franklyn Burt?”
+
+We sure took time.
+
+“That money is in the bank at Silver Bend,” whispers Frankie. “Maybe
+some day I can do something for you to pay you for this.”
+
+“Had a lovely time at your party,” says Homely. “Enjoyed it fine, and I
+sure wish you a lot of luck. Sorry I held that gun too high, but a
+feller can’t be lucky all the time.”
+
+We tells them good-by, and goes back to the hotel. Magpie walks up to
+the counter, and says to the man—
+
+“When do we get a train going West?”
+
+“Ten-thirty,” says he, and we all goes upstairs. Magpie begins to pack
+his valise.
+
+“Where you going?” asks Homely. “Ain’t leaving, are you?”
+
+“On that train. Pack up, Ike. I don’t like this town, and I’ll be danged
+if I talks things over with auntie, ’cause there ain’t nothing left to
+talk about except the weather. I’m sick for the smell of sagebrush, and
+I’m sick of the smell of perfume.”
+
+Homely packed up, too, and went to the depot with us.
+
+“Come on back to Piperock with us, Homely,” says Magpie. “Dang your old
+hide, you’d fit in fine with the rest of us old pelicans.”
+
+“Sure like to,” says he, “but I can’t. I got to go East on business, but
+likely some day I’ll see you both again. Sure hope so.”
+
+We climbs on the steps of the car, and shakes hands with him.
+
+“Come out our way, Homely,” says I. “Dog-gone, I’d sure like to see your
+homely old face out there. The cabin door is open.”
+
+“I know it is, Ike,” says he. “If you fellers ever get as far south as
+Brazil look me up, will you?”
+
+“Brazil?” wonders Magpie. “Did you say Brazil, Homely?”
+
+“Uh-huh,” yelps Homely, as our train rolls away, “Pernambuco, Brazil.
+Ask for Whispering White—that’s me.”
+
+
+[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in Adventure Magazine,
+December 3, 1918. It is believed to be in the public domain in the
+United States; copyright status may differ in other countries.]
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78961 ***