Chapter III: Part 3

Excellent as was the feigned indifference of Mr. Bear, it must be borne in mind that he was opposed to an animal of parts. Our friend, the cat, was not a whit taken in by the comedy. When the time came for her to leap she was ready, to the last hair of her chimney-cleaner tail. She had been making most elaborate preparations all the while, stretching and retracting her claws, squirming her whalebone body flatter and flatter, her tail assuming majestic proportions, while her ears disappeared in inverse ratio.

Nearer and nearer came the chunk of coal and the slouching little bear, a touch of caution in each pretended careless action. Awful and more awful grew Grimalkin's battle plaint--her eyes blazed demoniacally.

By some subtle assurance, we humans were made aware that, on the floor of the wood shed, an imaginary deadline had been drawn by Mrs. Cat, and, when Ursus Minor advanced so much as the length of a claw beyond that in his orbit, an incident would mark his career. You may believe me or not, but the little bear understood not only this much, but he also knew where that line lay. Fully a minute he tantalised us by coquetting with it. He would advance recklessly, and we would say to ourselves, "Now!" when, lo! he would turn at the fatal point, to lie on his side and amuse himself by clawing at the chunk of coal.

Suddenly he boldly stepped across. An instant of numbing silence fell. A swish! A cat on a small bear's back. A scene impossible! A hairy tornado, rolling, twisting, flopping, yelling, screeching, roaring, and howling, tore, bit, scratched, clawed, and walloped all over the place. An epileptic nebula; a maelstrom that revolved in every way known to man at the same instant; a prodigy of tooth and claw. If that fight were magnified a hundred times, a glimpse of it would kill; as it was, myself and the clothing store boy clung weakly to the wall and wept.

The cat's tough hide easily turned the bear's claws, and his teeth were too tiny to work mischief; while his thick, shaggy coat made pussy's keener weapons ineffectual. As a consequence, the storm raged with unbridled ferocity, the motion of the foemen being so swift none could tell who was getting the better of it. There was energy in that small action and a bitterness of sound altogether indescribable, the mews of the astounded kittens quavering shrilly and loudly through the general frenzy.

At length, in spite of his antagonist's agility, the bear managed to get his "holt," and puss, wrapped in his strong arms, was practically whipped; not without protest--she was a "last-ditch" warrior. The bear settled back as grim and stolid as General Grant might have done, while the chivalry of the wood shed applied her hind claws to his waistcoat. However, the bear could do a little in this line himself. The effect was that each tried unsuccessfully to walk up the other.

The "strangle hold" began to tell. Never shall I forget the desperation in that cat's face as it appeared between the squeezing arms of the bear. Their attitude had such a resemblance to the "Huguenot Lovers" I have not been able since to look at that celebrated picture with proper countenance.

At this point, my companion and I came to the rescue. Finding all attempts at separating them by hand resulted in the usual wages of the peacemaker, we grabbed the chain and hauled the war to the pump. The pump was only a short distance way, yet it took us several minutes to make the trip, as every time we turned and gazed at them, their rigid adherence to their relative positions, no matter what condition as a whole this mode of locomotion caused them to assume, and the leering, bourgeois complacency of the victorious bear, contrasting with the patrician despair of the vanquished, caused such a weakness to come over us that we had to sit upon the ground for a while.

Water is the universal solvent. About half a minute under the pump formed the solution of this problem. A wet and skinny-looking cat, her elegance departed, streaked back to the wood shed and her offspring, while a sober and bedraggled little bear trotted behind his captors to Mr. D----'s menagerie.

This was my introduction to this bear. We called him "Cat-thumper," after the Indian fashion of christening a child from some marked exploit or incident in his career. This became contracted to "Thumper," an appropriate title, for, with the fat pickings of the restaurant, his bearship grew with a rapidity that made it a puzzle how his hide contained him.

Under these genial conditions Thumper developed humour. It became possible for one to romp with him, and in the play he was careful not to use his strength. So exemplary became his conduct that his owner, a man who never could learn from experience, or even from Billy Buck, decided to take him on Main Street. Mr. D----'s novelties were a standing menace to the security of the town and his own person as well. The amount of vanity that fat little man possessed would have supplied a theatrical company. One of his first acts, on entering a town, was to purchase the fiercest white hat, and the most aboriginal buck-skin suit to be obtained, and then don them. Almost the next act on the part of his fellow-townsmen was to hire a large and ferocious looking "cow-puncher" to recognise in Mr. D---- an ancient enemy, and make a vicious attack upon him with blank cartridges and much pomp and circumstance. Still it had no permanent effect on Mr. D----. Badinage could not wither him nor cussing stale his infinite variety. With all his exasperating traits, he had an impassable child-like faith in his doings and a soothing influence that made one smile when one wanted to cry.

The passage up street was made with no happening worthy of note except, of course, that other travellers gave him a wide berth (to Mr. D----'s extreme gratification) until they came to the butcher shop. Here Thumper's first move was to steal a fine tenderloin from the block, and swallow it whole.

"Ye're!" yelled the proprietor, an ex-Indian scout, "whatcher doin' there? Take that critter out of here!"

"I'm willing to pay for the meat," replied Mr. D----, with dignity.

"That's all right, too," retorted the proprietor, "but I promised it to Mr. Smith, and it's the only one I've got. How are you going to square that? What do you mean by toting a brute like that around, anyhow?" he wound up with increasing choler.

"I cannot see but what I have a perfect right to take with me any animal or animals I choose!" said Mr. D----.

"Not into this shop, by Jingo!" said the proprietor, reaching under the counter. "Now you sneak him out of here, quick, or I'll shoot him."

"Very well," said Mr. D----, bowing, but red, "very well. Come, Thumper!"

Thumper was in no mind to move. He liked the situation. Mr. D---- pulled on the chain, and Thumper overlooked it. A small crowd gathered in front of the door and encouraged Mr. D---- by calling, "Pull hard, the man says!" "Now, altogether, yee-hoooo!" and similar remarks. I have always felt that a bear enjoys a joke. In this case I am sure of it. Showing no bad temper, he simply refused to budge, and, by this time, when he had made up his mind, the decision was final, as far as any one man was concerned. Mr. D----'s temper went by the board; it was an embarrassing situation. "Come out of that!" he cried, with a sharp jerk at the chain.

The look of irritation vanished from the proprietor's face. "Why don't some of you fellers help the gentleman out with his bear?" he asked. Thereupon the spectators took a hand and Thumper was dragged into the street. Evidently he thought this one of the usual frolics to which we boys had accustomed him; for, once upon the sidewalk, he began to prance and gambol in the graceful fashion of his kind. It so happened that the nurse-girl of the mayor of the town, a huge Swede woman as broad as she was long (which is almost hyperbole), came trundling her charge up the board walk at the precise moment that Thumper bowled over a gentleman in front and came plainly to her view.

One Norwegian war-whoop and away she galloped, the perambulator before her, as it was not in the mind of the Vikingess to desert her duty. Screeching, she tore up the walk, the carriage bouncing and rattling, and the baby crowing with delight. An Indian stepped out of a store directly in front of her. Him Telka rammed with such fury that he landed on his neck in the road, with his feet in the air. But, as he regained his balance, resentment was drowned in unbounded amazement. "Wakstashoneee!" he said, "wakstashoneeeee!" which is the limit in the Sioux tongue. Never had the Dakota warrior expected to see the day when he would be made to bite the earth by a Swede woman and a baby carriage. Around the corner for home whirled Telka, making the turn like a circus horse. Arriving at the house, she placed one fairy foot against the door with such spirit that the lock-socket hit the opposite wall, picked up carriage and baby and went upstairs with them three rises to a leap. At the top she burst into a wild oratory of "tanks" and "Eenyens" and "beejjeerens" and "yoomps," scaring her mistress into the belief that the Sioux had attacked the town in force--an event she had long anticipated.

Thumper was led back to his pole in the park, and fastened with an ox-chain, this step being taken at the request of an informal committee of citizens. "Chained bear or dead bear" was their ultimatum, for, while they enjoyed Telka's performance, they didn't propose to make it a custom to obtain their fun from frightened women. So Thumper's freedom of the city lasted but a day. To make amends for this, we boys used to go in and tussle with him more often than before. The play was the bright spot in the life of the captive. He would begin his double shuffle of joy whenever a group of boys made their appearance. At first, this went well enough. As I have said, the bear's nature revealed its better side, under the benign influence of plenty to eat, and I cannot remember that he once took advantage of his vast and growing strength. Mr. D---- encouraged the performances, as the menagerie's purpose was to attract the attention of travellers who had a half-hour's wait at the station, and thus to spread the fame of his railroad eating-house. But misfortune came, through the applause of the passengers. Several young men of the town embraced the opportunity to show off. One of these, a brawny young six-foot Irishman named Jim, used to punch old Thumper pretty roughly, when he had a large audience. Jim was neither a bad-hearted nor cruel fellow; he simply had a body too large for his disposition. In the phrase of the West, he was "staggering with strength," and in Thumper he found a chance to work off his superfluous nervous energy--also to occupy the centre of our local stage for the brief time of train-stop. If it is love that makes the world go round, certainly vanity first put it into motion. "All is vanity," said the Preacher. From the devoted astronomer's austere lifework to the twinkle of a fairy's glittering tinsel; from the glories of the first man up the battle-swept hill to the infamous assassin, all is vanity. Such a universal attribute must necessarily be good, except in abnormal growth. Jim showed his overdevelopment of the faculty, while the abused Thumper modestly sat still and grew. And still he grew, and still he grew--with a quiet energy that made the fact that he had passed from a large bear to a very large bear go by unnoticed.

Several times, when Jim was showing more skill than Thumper, the memory of a mauled cat came to my mind. The ursine look shot at Jim now and then recalled it. I even went to the length of remonstrating, but it was without effect. It was on a Sunday morning that Nemesis attended to Jim's case. Circumstances were propitious. An excursion train, crowded with passengers, pulled up at the station. Jim had a new suit of black broadcloth, due to a temporary aberration of our local Solomon who ran the clothing store. Because of this victory, Jim was in an extraordinarily expansive mood as he swaggered down the platform.

"I guess I'll try a fall out of the bear," he announced to his companions, in a tone that informed all of his intention. Gaily he swung his long legs over the fence and advanced upon Thumper, who, by a strange coincidence, was poised on the end of his spine, with his feet in the air and his tongue lolling humorously out of his mouth, as when I first made his acquaintance. The bear noted the approach from the corner of his eye, stretched out his paws, examined them critically, seemed satisfied with the inspection, shook himself thoroughly, and resigned affairs to Fate.

Jim, stimulated by the remarks of the passengers and their eager interest in his doings, marched up to Thumper, struck a sparring attitude, and shuffled around, making sundry little passes and jabs which the bear ignored.

"Punch him!" cried a voice in the crowd. Jim lunged; the bear ducked, lazily, but effectually, and the crowd laughed. Jim drove right and left at his antagonist; the bear parried, ducked, and got away, until the crowd shrieked with merriment and the Irishman was furious. He lived to punch that bear, and, at length, he succeeded--square on the end of Thumper's snout. The bear sneezed, dropped his head, and stared fixedly at Jim.

"Run!" I yelled--alack! too late. Up rose Thumper to a paralysing height, higher still went his trusty paw, and down it came, with a swinging, sidewise blow on the Irishman's neck.

I will maintain, by oath, affirmation, or combat, that Mr. Jim made six complete revolutions, like a button on a barn door, before he struck mother earth with the dullest of thuds.

Ten to one that the town was out one Irishman would have seemed a good business proposition, and, to clinch the assurance, the bear began to walk on Jim. While the bear kneaded him like a batch of dough, some of us woke and rushed to the scene of action.

I do not remember clearly how we got out of it. Some pulled at the bear's chain, and some grabbed Jim by whatever offered a hold. At length James was rescued, alive and weeping, though three-quarters of the new suit, including the most useful portion of the nether garments, remained in Bruin's paws as the spoils of victory. The crowd on the platform was charmed. This was precisely the thing it had travelled miles to see.

Poor Jim! He was a spectacle. Tears, scratches, and dust robbed his face of all humanity; the scant remnants of the Sunday suit fluttered in the breeze; his shaking knees barely supported him. We gave him a stimulant, a blanket, and some good advice. Mr. D----, for once in his life on the right side of the question, was especially forward in furnishing the last necessity. So passed Jim from the field of his glories, and, barring some scratches, bruises, and a stiff neck (not to mention the Sunday suit, as that loss really fell upon Solomon), he was as well as ever inside of a few days. The only lasting result of the encounter for him was that, when the small boy of the town thirsted for excitement, there would arise a cry of "Hey, Jim! bin down ter pet cher bear?" and then . . .

When the train departed, and the crowd had disappeared, I went down and looked at Thumper. He seemed unchanged. I offered him a cracker; he stretched out the back of his paw, having learned that people shrank from the sight of his five-inch claws, in acceptance. This gobbled, he eyed me, as he leaned back against his pole, like an absurd fat man. Humour shone on the outside of him, but I fancied that, deep in his eyes, I could see a dull red glow, Indian style. "Now," said I to myself, "from the pangs of Jim I shall extract a moral lesson. Whenever I feel like showing off at somebody's expense, let me use caution not to select a grizzly bear."

What Thumper thought no man can tell.

In the Absence of Rules

We had a pig when we was down on the little Chantay Seeche. The Doctor begged him off a rancher, to eat up the scraps around camp. A neat person was the Doctor and a durned good cook.

We called him the Doctor because he wore specs--that's as good a claim as many has to the title. His idee was that when the pig got fat he would sell him for lots of money, but long before Foxey Bill (which was piggy) had reached the market stage money couldn't buy him. He was a great pig. My notion of hogs, previous to my acquaintance with him, was that they were dirty, stupid critters, without any respectable feelings. Perhaps it's because animals get man-like, when you associate with 'em a great deal, or perhaps Foxey Bill was an unusual proposition; but, anyhow, he was the funniest, smartest brute I ever see, and we thought a slew of him.

Clean was no name for his personal appearance. Every Sunday the Doctor took a scrub-brush and piggy down to the creek and combined 'em with the kind assistance of a cake of soap. Then Foxey just shone white as ivory, and he'd trot around in front of us, gruntin' to attract our attention, till everybody'd said, "What a beautiful, clean pig--ain't he just right?" Then he'd grunt his thanks to the company and retire behind the shack for a nap. We used to fair kill ourselves laughing at that darned pig. He had the most wheedlin' squeal, so soft and pleadin'; and he'd look up at you with them skim-milk eyes of his so pitiful, when he wanted a chunk of sugar, that you couldn't refuse him.

And knowing! Honest, he knew more'n some men. One day old Wind River was tellin' some things (that _might_ have happened to him) in his usual way, bein' most careful to get the dates and all dead right, you know--"Now, _was_ his name Peter, after all? Comes to my mind it was Willyam--Willyam Perkins--Well--But, anyhow, him and me, we saw that Injun," and so forth. This was a Sunday, and the gang of us sittin' in a circle, fixing leathers and one thing and another and misstatin' history faster than a horse could trot, with Foxey Bill in the middle, cocking his head from one speaker to another, takin' it all in.

At last Wind River wound up the most startlin' and unlikely collections of facts he'd favoured us with for some time. Up gets Foxey with a shriek and gallops around the house. Any man with the rudiments of intelligence would know he was hollerin': "Well, that's just too much for me; ta-ra-rum!"

Wind River looked scart. "Say!" says he. "Say! Thet hawg knows I'm er-lyin' jes' 's well 's I do!" After that old Windy used to talk to the pig as though they'd been raised together.

Foxey Bill made one miscalculation. He thought he was a small pet, like a cat. This didn't jibe with the five hundred pounds of meat he toted. And, like a cat, one of his principal amusements was to have his back scratched. If you didn't pay attention to him, when he squealed so pretty for you to please curry him with a board, he'd hump up his back, like a cat, and rub against your legs. You instantly landed on your scalp-lock and waved the aforesaid legs in the air. Of course, when the other fellers saw this comin', they didn't feel it restin' on their conscience to call your attention to it--in fact, we sometimes busied one another talkin' to give Foxey a fair field. So Foxey had things his own way around the diggin's for some time.

Then comes bow-legged Hastings, our boss, with a ram tied hard and fast in the bottom of the waggon. He explains to us that the ram is valuable, but that he's butted merry Halifax out of everything down to home, and he don't want to shut him up, so will we please take care of him? And we said No--Wanitchee heap--we guessed not--never.

Then Hastings got mad and talked to us, flyin' his hands. Such a disobligin', stubborn, sour outfit he never saw, he said. What was the use of his bein' boss, when we just laid awake nights thinkin' up disagreeable things to do to him? Was there ever a time that he'd asked us to do this or that, that every man in reach didn't r'ar up and jump down his throat? He said he'd rather be a nigger rooster on a condemned government steamboat than bear the title of boss of such a rag-chewin' hide-bound set of mules; kick, kick, kick--nothin' but kick, and life wasn't worth livin'.

So then he went behind the shack and pouted. Well, we liked Hastings, and this made us feel bad--that's the way he worked us.

The Doctor, he fried up a dish of all-sorts in his happiest manner and took it around in a cheerful voice. No. Didn't want food. Heart was broke. So then we all went and apologised and agreed to keep the ram. Then Hastings recovered, and we had that cussed sheep on our hands and feet and all over us.

Well, it was like the devil enterin' a happy home. As for Foxey, he just took one long look at the brute, curlin' and uncurlin' his little tail; then "Hungh!" says he, and blinked his eyes shut, walkin' away from there. I've seen times when I'd liked to been able to use the English of that grunt, to thoroughly acquaint some gentleman of how little I thought of him, but I ain't got the gift of speech. It was an awful call-down--but the sheep, he didn't care. If there was such a thing as a foolish Sheeny, that's what a sheep would remind me of.

But the rest of us run into practical and applied trouble in its various branches. There's one night, the Doctor starts for the cabin with a mess of flap-jacks in his hands, and the sheep comes up and pushes him in the pistol pocket so that the Doctor goes sailing into the drink with a stack of brown checks hoverin' all around him.

Then Wind River shows his one tooth and rocks on his heels, hollerin' and laughin', and the sheep rises up and smites him on the hip and thigh so he flew after the Doctor like a grey-whiskered sky-rocket, with a ha-ha! cut in two in the middle. "Woosh!" says old Windy as he comes up. "Hi, there cooky! I'll beat you ashore!" He was a handy-witted old Orahanna, that Windy, and you didn't put the kybosh on him easy. So it went with all of us. That ram come out of no-where-at-all another night and patted me on the stummick so I pretty near fainted. I tried to twist his cussed head off his shoulders, but he'd knocked the wind out of me so it was like fightin' an army in a nightmare. I was glad when the boys come out and pried me loose. Oh, oh! How we hated that woolly, blaatin' fool of a sheep!

"Well," says Windy, "I'm layin' fur th' day he snaggles himself up with Foxey Bill. You're goin' to see a nice quiet sheep after that happens."

The rest of us had lots of faith in Billy, but we couldn't see where he stood a show to win.

"Shucks!" says Steve. "The sheep'll knock the bacon out of him. The Lord knows I don't want to see it, but that's what's got to happen. Poor Bill ain't onto his style of fightin' at all. You know how pigs make war--standin' side by side, tryin' to hook each other in the flank, gruntin' and circlin' around with little quick steps--how's that goin' to apply to this son-of-a-gun that hits you a welt like a domestic cannon and then chases himself off to the sky-line for another try?"

"Well," cuts in the Doctor. "I ain't a-sayin' _how_--but Bill _does_ him, all the same--bet your life."

"You talk feeble minded," says Steve. "Nobody'd more like to believe you than me, but the points ain't on the cards. It'll be just like that Braddock's campaign agin the Injuns. There goes the Britishers (that's Bill) amblin' gaily through the woods, dressed up in red and marchin' arm to arm, for fear some careless Injun would miss 'em, and there's the Injuns (that's that durned ram) off in the woods jumpin' up and down with pleasure and surprise. 'Oh, Jimmy!' hollers the Injun to his little boy. 'Run get grandpa, Towser, mama, and the baby--everybody's goin' to pick one of these and take it home--no Injun so poor but what he's entitled to at least one Englishman.'"

"That's all right," says Windy. "But where's your Injun now?"

"Well," says Steve, flabbergasted, "that's kind of true, too; he has vanished some."

"I bet you money," says the Doctor, "that Bill does him."

"I hate to rob the poor in mind," says Steve. "And yet I'd like to lose that bet--make it a month's wages?"

"I'm for standin' by my friend," says the Doctor. "I'll bet you up to the first of January."

"Got you," says Steve. "You know where you can borrow chewin', anyhow. Any other gentleman want part of this?"

Steve had money he'd drew out of his poker game up-town, so the rest of us stood not to live high until after January first, if Foxey Bill didn't lick that sheep. We didn't believe he would, but he carried our money.

Well, sir, it was a tough time waitin' for the combat to come off. Bill simply despised the sheep. Couldn't stand near to him. The only time he'd stay by the house was when the sheep was off somewheres. And, of course, it was strictly against the rules for any person to aid, abet, or help either warrior, or interfere in any way, shape, or manner.

I was two mile out from camp one day, when I heard "Ke-bang, ke-bang, ke-bang-ety, bang-bang-bang-bang!" The Doctor was losin' off all the guns in the shack to once. I hollered to Steve, him to Windy, and then we flew for home, leavin' the calves to their own responsibilities for a while.

The other boys was on hand when we arrived, their faces shinin' with excitement, and yellin' to us for the love of Moses to shake a leg before it was too late.

Poor Billy was pickin' himself up, after rollin' over three times, and the durned ram was prancin' away, wigglin' his tail like little boys does their fingers, with a thumb to the nose.

The Doctor explained to us, whilst we was waitin' for the next jar. "There's Bill," says he, "eatin' his meal out of his half-a-barrel as quiet and decent a citizen as you'll find anywheres. That's his grub and he don't like grass. Well, what must that quar'lsome hunk of horns and mutton do, but try to shove him away from there. Mind you, that ram does like grass, and he's got several hundred thousand square mile of it to lunch on--but no, sir! What he must have is a hunk of bread out of Billy's barrel. Now, Billy's no hog--he lets him have the piece of bread--then the ram wants the hull barrel; hoops, staves, and all. That's too hootin' goldarn many for anybody to stand, by ninety-nine per cent., so Bill slams him one. The ram walks off and fetches him a swat like hittin' a side of beef with a fourteen-foot board. Poor old Bill rolls three yards. Then he takes after the brute, but the ram runs away as usual. Billy thinks the fight is over and goes on with his eatin'. You're just in time to see the end of the second round. Bill's _goin'_ to lick him, but cuss me if I see _how_. He can't get _at_ that blaatin', skippin' mess of wickedness. He don't understand at all. If the sheep would give him one fair hack, he'd show him--Look! Oh, Lordy! There he goes again! _Damn_ that sheep!"

It was an awful sight for Billy's friends to witness. I'll never tell you how many times he went rollin' down the hill, only to come back as game and useless as a rooster fightin' his reflection in a lookin' glass. He'd chase after the sheep, gruntin' fierce, but pshaw! the critter'd simply trot right away from him, wigglin' that insultin' tail in his face. Old Billy's tail was coiled as tight as a watch-spring with rage.

"He'll _do_ him," says the Doctor. "He sure _will_! Now you wait!"

"I am waitin'," says Steve, at the end of the twentieth round. "Waitin' and waitin'. The only play that I see Billy makin' is for the sheep to break his neck buntin' him. You hand me that rifle. I'll now bet the crowd there's a dead sheep here in five seconds by the watch. I can't stand this."

But we wouldn't let him cut in. Fair play is fair play.

"Boys," says Wind River soft, "Bill has laid his ropes--I see it in his eye!"

"G'wan!" says Steve. "You see it in your own eye!"

"Well, you watch," says Windy. "Bill and me has been pretty well acquainted ever since that day he called me a liar--look at him now!"

Sure enough. Bill was nosin' his barrel away from the house. I couldn't see the point exactly, but took it on faith.

He was knocked galley-west and crooked three times before he moved the thing a rod, but whatever he had in his mind, he calmly went on with it as soon as he got up.

"Oh, thunder!" says the Doctor. "See him now! Billy, you're an old fool! You'll get butted plumb into the crik, next pass!" For Bill had pushed the barrel to within five foot of the edge of the creek. And when he heard the Doctor talk, I'll take my oath, that pig looked up and smiled.

"He's got him now!" says Wind River. "He's got him now, for all my next year's salary! I see it in his face!"

And Windy was so dead sure he impressed the rest of us. So there's silence, whilst old Foxey Bill is chewin' away in the barrel, and the ram is comin' over the grass--t-r-rmt, t-r-rrmt--as hard as he can paste her, head down and eyes shut. Bill, he doesn't see anything either, until there ain't more'n three foot of air between 'em, and then he jumps aside!

"Swoosh!" goes the ram into the water, and Billy straightens out his little curly tail and waves it in the air like a flag. And holler! I wisht you could have heard that pig! Nothing could been more human. "I've got the deady-deady on you, you hook-nosed, slab-sided, second cousin of a government mule!" says he. "Oh! I've got you where I want you and the way I want you, and it's up to you to convert yourself into cash at the earliest opportunity, for you won't be worth much in the market when I'm tired of my fun!" This he says as he gallops to the other side, to head the sheep off, his mild blue eye on fire. I tell you it's dangerous to rouse up a fat person with a mild blue eye.

A sheep don't swim much better than a mowin' machine, and this feller got desperate--he was for the shore, no matter what broke. And Bill ripped the wool out of him for fair as he tried to scramble up.

"Our fight, Steve!" says the Doctor. "I _knew_ he'd do him all the time! You throw up the sponge and we'll yank the critter out!"

"Let him drown," says Steve. "I don't like him, hide nor hair--and, besides, think what he's cost me."

But that wouldn't do. Hastings would have looked so mournful, happiness couldn't get along in the same territory with him. So out comes Mr. Ram. Done. Everlastingly done. All in and the cover screwed down. We pointed our fingers at him and did a war-dance around him, sayin': "Agh--hagh! You will, will you? Now, don't you wish you'd been good!" He hadn't a word to say. And that good old Billy, he comes up and rubs Wind River's legs out from under him just as natural as ever, not set up or swell-headed a bit, like the gentleman he was.

The ram eat his grass and minded his own business from that time on.

For Sale, the Golden Queen

This is the story of the great Golden Queen deal, as Hy Smith told it, after recovering his sanity:

Aggy and me were snug up against it. One undeserved misfortune after another had come along and swatted us, till it looked as though we'd have to work for a living. But we plugged along at the Golden Queen, taking out about thirty cents a day--coarse, gold, fortunately--and at last we had 'bout an ounce and a half. Then says Aggy:

"We could sell this mine, Hy, if we only put our profits in the right place."

"Yes," says I. "This is a likely outfit around here to stick a gravel-bank on, ain't it? Good old Alder Gulch people, and folks from down Arizony way, and the like of that! Suppose you tried it on Uncle Peters, for instance--d'ye know what he'd say? Well, this 'ud be about the size of it: 'Unh, unh! Oh, man! Oh, dear me! That ain't no way to salt a mine, Ag! No, no! You'd oughter done this, and that--that's the way we used to do in Californy--nice weather, ain't it? No, thanks--I don't care to buy no placer mines--lots of country left yet for the taking up of it--it's a mighty good mine, I admit--you'd better keep it.' That's what he'd say."

Ag combed his whiskers with his fingers. "I don't think we could close out to Uncle Peters," says he.

"And if you tried some of the rest of 'em, they'd walk on your frame for insulting their intelligence. Perhaps you was thinking of inviting Pioche Bill Williams up to take a look at the ground?"

"Well, no," says Aggy, slowly. "I don't think I'd care to irritate Bill--he's mighty careless with firearms."

"I should remark. I ain't a cautious man myself in some ways, and I've met a stack of fellers that was real liberal in their idees, but for a man that takes no kind of interest in what comes afterward, give me Pioche Bill. Oh, no, Aggy, we don't sell any placer mines in these parts."

"I tell you what," says Ag. "Let's go up to town. Stands to reason there must be a mut or two up there--somebody just dying to go out and haul wealth out of the soil."

"We're a good advertisement for the business. We look horrible prosperous, don't we?" says I.

The main deck of Ag's pants was made of a flour sack. I had a pretty decent pair, but my coat was one-half horse blanket and the other half odds and ends. Ag had a long-tailed coat he used to wear when he was doing civil engineering jobs.

"We could fix one man out fairly well," says he.

"Yes; and the other would look like the losing side of a scarecrow revolution."

"Wait a minute," says he, "I'm thinking." So he sat and twisted his whiskers and whistled through his teeth.

"I've got it!" says he. "The whole business right down to the dot! Darned if it ain't the best scheme I ever lit on! Here's what happened to us: We're two honest prospectors that have been gophering around this country for years, never touching a colour, grub running low, and--well, there ain't any use bothering with that part now. I can think it up when the time comes. Here's the cream of the plant. We've had such a darn hard time of it that when at last, under the extraordinary circumstances which I have recounted before, we light on the almost undiluted gold of the Golden Queen, your mind is so weakened that you can't stand the strain of prosperity. You're haunted with delusions that you're still a poor man, and I can't keep any decent clothes on you--fast as I buy 'em you tear 'em up. Now I'm willing to sell the Golden Queen for the merely nominal sum of--what shall we strike 'em for? Five hundred? For five hundred dollars, then, so I can get out of this country to some place where my poor pardner will receive good medical treatment."

"And I'm the goat?" says I. "Well, I expected that. But do you expect anybody's going to swallow that guff? It's good. Ag, it would do fine in a newspaper, but can you find a man to trade five hundred hard iron dollars for it?"

Aggy drew himself up mighty proud. "I'll tell you what I've done in my day," says he, "I've made an intelligent man believe that the first story I told him wasn't so. Can you beat it?"

"I know you, Ag," says I. Then we had to slide down and see if we could get a small loan off Uncle Peters, for we didn't have enough dust to finance salting our sand-bank and pay for a trip to town, too. Ag would have it that we must do our turn for the old man. "It'll amuse him," says he, "and he's more likely to come forward." Truth of the matter was, when Aggy got one of his fine idees, he had to let the neighbourhood in.

Well, sir, Uncle Peters was that pleased he forked over a cartridgeful without weighing it. My play was to look melancholy, and tear a slit in my clothes once in a while. I had to just make believe that part when we was rehearsing for the old man, as there wasn't enough material to be extravagant with.

So up to town we goes, and if you ever see a picture of hard luck on two feet, it was me.

"I'm going to strike for a gambling joint," says Ag. "You take a tin-horn gam, and he knows everything, and that's just the kind of man I'm looking for."

So when we hit town, Ag sails into the Palace Dance Emporium, where they had the games running in the middle of the place between the lunch counter and the bar. He had nerve, had Agamemnon G. Jones.

"Hy," says he, "you'll have to watch the play a little. Mebbe you'd ought to change some, just as it happens. I'll have to do my lying according to the way the circumstances fall, so keep your eye peeled, and whatever you do, do it from the bottom of your heart. I can fix it so long as you don't queer me by shacking along too easy."

So saying he fixes the new necktie he'd bought down at the corner, tilts the new hat a little, and braces ahead. He could look more dressed up on 20 cents' worth of new clothes than some men could with a whole store behind 'em.

When we got into the place the folks gazed at us. Aggy was leading me by the hand.

"There," says he, very gentle. "Now sit down, and I'll tell you a story by and by."

I tore a hole in the coat, and mumbled to myself, and sat down according to directions.

Then Aggy walks up to where the stud-poker game was blooming.

"Gentlemen," says he, making them a bow, "I trust it won't inconvenience you any to have my poor unfortunate pardner in your midst for awhile? I can't desert him, and I do like to play a little cards now and then."

"What's the matter with him?" asks the dealer.

Ag taps his head.

"Violent?" asks the dealer.

Now, Ag didn't know just how he wanted to have it, so he didn't commit himself to nothing.

"Oh, I can always handle him," says he.

"Well, come right in," says the dealer. "They're only a dollar a stack."

"Well," says Ag, "I'll just invest in $10 worth to pass away the time--you take dust, don't you?"

"I used to say I wouldn't take anybody's dust," says the dealer, being funny with such a good customer, "but since I've struck this country I've found I've gotter."

Ag pulls out the old buckskin sack, that would hold enough to support quite a family through the winter. It was stuffed with gravel stones.

"Oh, here!" says he, whilst he was fumbling with the strings. "No use to open that--I've got another package--what you might call small change." Then he digs up Uncle Peters' cartridge shell.

I want to tell you I had my own troubles keeping my face together while Ag was doing his work. You never see any such good-natured, old-fashioned patriarch as he was. When they beat him out of a hand he'd laugh fit to kill himself.

"You're welcome, boys!" he'd say. "There's plenty more of it."

At the same time, you wouldn't live high on all you could make out of Aggy on a stud-poker game. He was playing 'em right down to cases, yet the way he talked, he seemed like the most liberal cuss that ever threw good money away. Of course, they had to ask him about his pardner and the rest of it whilst the cards were being shuffled, and a few inquiring remarks drew the whole sad story out of Ag.

"It's mighty tough," says he; "Hy's a fine-looking feller, when he's dressed decent; but the sight of new clothes on himself makes him furious; he foams and rips till he's tore them to gun-wadding."

"Where did you say this here claim of yours was?" asks the dealer.

"Up on Silver Creek--just below Murphy's butte," answers Ag politely.

Then that dealer put in a lot of foxy questions making poor, innocent, unsuspecting Aggy give himself dead away. He told how there wasn't time to look for a buyer that would pay the proper price and he wouldn't know where to look anyhow, so he'd have to take the first man that offered, even if he didn't get no more than five hundred for the claim.

The dealer breathed hard and fairly shuffled the spots off the cards.

"Now," says he, "I sympathise with you--I understand just how you feel about your pardner. I'm the same kind of man myself, that way. If I had a pardner in difficulties, I wouldn't mind what I lost on it so long's I could fix him up."

Here's where I nearly choked to death, for if any man could get the price of a meal off that tinhorn, without sitting on his chest and feeding him the end of a six-shooter, his face was one of the meanest tricks a deserving man ever had sprung on him.

"So if I was you," continued the dealer, "I'd get him out of this country quick, and as for your claim, why, I don't mind if I held you out on that myself," says he. "I don't want no mines; I wouldn't bother with it, only I see you're a good, kind-hearted man, and it's my motto that such people ought to be encouraged. Now, what do you say if we start for a look at the territory this afternoon? Nothing like doing things up while you are at it." Aggy kind of scratched his head as if this hurry surprised him. "I didn't just think of letting it go so sudden," said he. "You know I'm kind of attached to the place."

"That's all foolishness," says the dealer. "Your poor pardner there wants attention--you can see that--and I don't believe you're the sort of man to let him go on suffering when there ain't no need of it."

"No," says Aggy, thoughtfully, "that's so."

"And would you mind," says the dealer, his hand fairly trembling to get hold of it, "just letting me have a squint at that gunny-sack full of dust you have in your clothes?" I didn't require any hint from Ag that it was my place to be violent. With one loud holler I landed on my ear on the floor and kicked the poker table on top of the dealer. More'n a half-dozen men hopped on to me, and we had it for fair all over the place. I gave 'em the worth of their time before they got me in the corner.

"Whew!" says Aggy, wiping his brow, "this is the worst attack he's had yet."

"Just what I was telling you," says the dealer, very confidential and earnest. "You want to get him away from here quick--I've had some experience in those kinds of cases, and when I see your friend's face, I knew you wanted to get a move on."

"It's dreadful, ain't it?" says Ag. "I believe you're in the right about it--but, say, I feel that I'd ought to pay for the lamp he busted."

"Not at all," says the dealer, as generous as could be. "Not at all! That's an accident might have happened to any gentleman. Now, I'll just take a friend along, and we'll sail right out to your place. Can you drive there?"

"Oh, yes!" said Aggy. "The roads ain't anything extra, but you can make it all right."

So away goes the four of us that afternoon. Ag and me, we felt leary of the fourth man at first. He let on to be considerable of a miner, but after a bit we sized him up.

"Did you ever," says Aggy whilst they was talking this and that about mines, "did you ever run your pay dirt through a ground-sluice rocker that was fitted up with double amalgam plates, top and bottom, and had the apron sewed on to a puddle board that slanted up, instead of down?"

"Why, sure!" says that feller, judging from Aggy's tone of voice that this was the proper thing to do. "We didn't use to handle our dirt no other way out in Uckle-Chuckle county."

"Is that so?" cries Aggy, very much surprised. "Well, do you know that very few people do?"

"It makes me tired," answers the man in a knowing way, "to think of the way some folks mines. Now that you've called my attention to it, I don't recollect that I've heard of anybody using a ground-sluice rocker the way you speak of, since I left old Uckle-Chuckle county." And here I got a little violent again, because I can't conceal my feelings as well as Ag. I had to have several attacks on the way out when Ag was brought to close quarters, but we did pretty well on the trip.

"Well, gentlemen, there's the Golden Queen!" says Aggy when we turned the bend in the creek. "Seems funny that such an uninteresting-looking heap of rocks and stuff as that should be a gold mine, don't it?"

He sees by their faces that they was a little disappointed and that he'd better get in his crack first. Then the question come up of how we was to get them fellers to dig where we wanted 'em to without letting 'em see we wanted 'em to. But, Ag, he was able for it.

"Gentlemen," says he, "just stick your pick in anywhere's--one place is just as good as another. [That was the gospel truth.] But if you don't know just where to start suppose we try an old miner's trick, that Mr. Johnson there, I make no doubt, has done a hundred times."

Johnson, he smiled hearty. "Yes, yes! That old game!" says he. "I'd nearly forgot all about it--let's see--how is it you do it?"

"First you throw up a rock," says Ag.

"Oh, now I remember! Sure!" says Johnson. "You throw up a rock----" He stopped, smiling feeble and uncertain, waiting to hear the rest of it.

"Suppose we let Mr. Daggett [that was the tinhorn] do the throwing?" says Aggy. "He's a new chum, and we fellers always feel they have the luck. You may think this is all foolish superstition," says he, turning to the gambler, "but I tell you, honest, there's a good deal in it," and that was the second true thing Ag said that day.

Daggett, he threw up the rock.

"Now, go and stand over it," says Ag. Daggett's goes over according, but he ain't pointed in the right direction.

"Now, you turn around three times."

But after he done it we weren't no better oft than before, for the chump landed just as he had started.

Ag surveyed the ground.

"Now, you walk backward three steps, then four to the left, then back five more--ain't that it?" turning to Johnson.

"That's it!" says Johnson, slapping his leg. "That's her! The same old game! Lord! how it all comes back to a feller!"

"And just where you land, you dig," finishes Ag, handing Daggett's pick.

Daggett sinks the pick to the eye the first crack.

"Gosh!" says he. "Seems kind of soft here!"

"Is that so?" cried Aggy, highly excited. "Then you've struck gold for sure!" Having put it there himself he felt reasonably certain about it.

Well, they scraped up the bedrock, and Aggy offered to let Johnson pan it, but Johnson said he'd had to quit mining because his hands got so sore swinging a pan, so Daggett he kind of scrambled the dirt out after a fashion, and there at the bottom was our ounce and a half of gold! Well, I want to tell you there was some movement around there. We weren't in the same fix of a friend of mine who loaded a pan for a tenderfoot with four solid ounces, and when he slid the water around on that nice little yeller new moon in the corner of the pan, "Humph!" says the tenderfoot, "don't you get any more gold than that out of so much dirt?"

Four ounces to the pan only means about a hundred thousand dollars a day income.

"Gooramighty!" says my friend, plumb disgusted. "I'd have had to borrow all the dust there is on the creek to satisfy you--did you think it was all gold?"

It broke my heart to see the way that man Daggett washed the fine gold into the creek, but he was familiar enough with handling the dust to know that an ounce was good money, even if it did look small. He turned pale, and begun to dig for dear life. There was no prying him loose. Well, that's a point Aggy hadn't counted on. He managed to slide over near me.

"For heaven's sake, Hy!" he whispers, "fly down to Uncle Peters' and get some more dust or we're ruined! I'll put it in the pan somehow, if you'll only get it here! Hold the old man up if you have to--but get that dust!"

I begun to holler very melancholy, and prance around. By and by I pulled my freight loose and careless down creek.

"Say!" says Johnson, "there goes your friend, Mr. Jones! Shall I ketch him?"

"Oh, no," says Aggy. "Let him alone--he's used to it around here--he'll be back right away again."

When I got out of sight I humped for Uncle Peters.

"Sure!" says the old man, when I told him our troubles. "Take the whole blasted clean-up, Hy. We honest men has got to stand by each and one another--don't let that rascally tinhorn escape."

So I grabbed Uncle Peters' hard-earned savings and hustled back again.

As soon as I got in good view of the outfit, I knew something was wrong, by the look of Ag's face; but what it was got me, for there was both them fellers in the hole now, digging dirt like all possessed. Daggett had busted his supenders, and the other lad's coat was ripped up the back; but they didn't care; they were mauling the fair face of nature like genuine lunatics, and cussing and swearing in their hurry.

"Well, what's the matter with Ag?" thinks I. "Them fellers ain't got on yet, that's certain," but he looked as if he'd swallowed a stroke of lightning the wrong way. Never see a man--particular a man with Aggy's nerve--look so much like two cents on the dollar. I didn't have to be cautious in my approach; our friends were too busy to notice me.

"What the devil's loose, Ag?" says I.

"Oh, nothing!" says he. "Nothing much! They're taking it out by the hatful, that's all. Look!"