Chapter IV: Part 4

I looked, and sure enough! There was the pan with a small-sized shovelful of yaller-boys in it--pieces that would weigh up to $10 some of them. I couldn't believe my eyes.

"Where'd they get it?" says I.

"Out of the claim," says Aggy.

I nearly fell dead. "Out of the claim!" I yelled in a whisper. "Go on! Your whiskers are growing in!"

"Straight goods," says Ag, "and I had to stand here and see them do it! The Golden Queen is all my fancy painted her. The second pass that ice-pick-faced mut made he brought up a chunk as big as a biscuit. 'Is that gold?' says he. 'Oh, yes!' says I. 'That's gold!' The truth come out of me before I thought--it knocked me to see that chunk. First time I ever made such a break--well--well. Why didn't it occur to me to try the taste of that piece of ground before I put in my flavouring? I was so d--d sure there wasn't $13 worth of metal in the whole twenty acres! Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! To sprinkle a pocket that's near half gold with a little old pinch of dust, is one of them ridiculous and extravagant excesses my friend Shakespeare mentions! If there was a lily around here, I'd paint it, so's to go the whole hog."

"What in the name of all the Mormon gods are we going to do?" says I.

"Leave me think," he answers. And again he pulls his whiskers and whistles through his teeth.

There came a horrible yell from the hole. Daggett held up what seemed like a yaller potato. "Hooray!" says he. "Ain't that a humming bird?"

"You want to think quick," says I. "I feel something like murder rising in my veins."

"By gosh!" says Ag, snapping his fingers. "I've got her! Come to, you son-of-a-gun. Come to!"

"How's that?" I asked, not just tumbling exactly.

"Come to!" says Ag. "Regain your scattered intelligence! How in blazes can I sell, then, without your consent?"

"Right you are! I'm off!" says I. And with that I cut loose.

"Help!" howls Aggy; "help!"

The two fellers were too busy to want to stop, but after I sent a brace of rocks in their direction, they concluded it might be as well to quiet me first. Lord! How I did carry on! I gave Ag the wink and pulled for the creek, and it was not long before, with Aggy's help, in we all three went, kersock.

They pulled me out and laid me on the bank, insensible.

"He's dead, I reckon," says Daggett.

"No," says Aggy, "I can feel his pulse beat, but it does seem to me there's a different look in his face somehow."

Then I opened my eyes.

"Why, Agamemnon," says I, "what am I doing here?"

"Hush!" says he, "you ain't been well."

"Dear me! You don't say!" And I rubbed my forehead with my hand.

"But I feel all right now--have I been this way long?"

"Nigh on to six months, Hy, old horse; ever since we hit it so rich on our claim--don't you remember about that?"

"Certainly," says I. "It seems like yesterday; it's as clear--but who are these people?"

Ag let on to be very much embarrassed. "Well," says he, "why--hunh--why--to tell you the truth, I thought I ought to get you out of the country, to where you could see an expensive doctor, and these are some folks I brought down to buy the claim--you being sick, you know!"

"Buy the claim!" I hollers, jumping up. "Buy the claim? What's this you're giving me? After all my toils and hardships and one thing and another, to sell the Golden Queen? Well, I want you to understand that nobody buys this claim, except across my dead body," says I.

Aggy, he looks completely dumfounded. "My! This puts me in an awkward fix," he says. "Gentlemen, you see how I'm up against it? I can't sell without my partner's consent, now he's in his right mind; and, as far as that goes, the only reason I wanted to sell is removed. The dicker's off, that's the long and short of it."

Oh, how pleased that tinhorn looked! He swallowed three times and got red in the face before he answered a word.

"This may be all right, but it looks mighty queer to me," he growls.

"The ways of Providence is past understanding," says Aggy, taking off his hat. "To our poor human minds it does seem queer, no doubt. Now, Mr. Daggett," he continued, waving his arm in that broad-minded style he had, "I'm sorry things has come out this way for your sake, although a man that has such a sympathising nature as you will soon forget his own disappointment in the general joy that envelopes this camp. And to show you there's nothing small about me, you can have any one of those chunks you dug out this afternoon that don't weigh over two dollars."

Daggett sent the chunk to a place where it would melt quick, and expressed a hope we'd follow it. With that he hopped into his go-cart and pulled for town, larruping the poor horse sinful. We had the pleasure of seeing the animile turn the outfit into the gully in return for the compliment. They scrambled in again and disappeared from view. Then Aggy reached out his hand to me.

"Don't tell me nothing but the plain truth, old man," says he; "I can't bear nothing except the plainest kind of truth, but on your sacred word of honour, ain't your uncle Ag a corker?"

"Aggy," says I, "I ain't up to the occasion. There ain't a man on earth could do credit to your qualities but yourself."

Then we shook hands mighty hearty.

Where the Horse is Fate

One thing's certain, you can't run a sheep ranch, nor no other kind of ranch, without hired men. They're the most important thing, next to the sheep. I may have stated, absent-mindedly, that the Big Bend was organised on scientific principles: none of your gol-darned-heads-or-tails--who's-it--what-makes-the-ante-shy, about it. Napoleon Buonaparte in person, in his most complex minute, couldn't have got at this end of it better than I did. It looked a little roundabout, but that's the way with your Morgan strain of idees. Here's how I secured the first man--he didn't look like good material to the careless eye.

Burton and me had just turned the top of that queer hill, that overlooks the Southwest road into the Bad Lands, when I see a parcel of riders coming out. Somehow, they jarred me.

"Easy," says I, and grabs Burton's bridle.

"What the devil now?" he groans. "Injuns? Road-agents?"

"Nope," says I, getting out my field glass. I had guessed it: there was the bunch, riding close and looking ugly, with the white-faced man in the middle. If you should ask me how I knew that for a lynching, when all I could make out with my eyes was that they weren't cattle, I give it up. Seems like something passed from them to me that wasn't sight. And also if you ask why, when through the glass I got a better view of the poor devil about to be strung, I felt kind towards him, you have me speechless again. I couldn't make out his face, but there was something----

"See here, Burton," says I. "There's your peaceful prairie hanging, in its early stage."

"What!" says he, sick and hot at the same time. "How can you speak of the death of a human being so heartlessly? Let me go!"

"Hold!" says I. "You haven't heard me through. Perhaps you can be more use than to run away and hide your eyes. I ain't got a' word to say against quick law. I've seen her work, and she works to a point. She beats having the lawyers sieving all the justice out of it. All the same, they've been too careless around here--that, and a small bad boy's desire to get their names up. I know one case where they hung a perfectly innocent man, for fun, and to brag about it."

He looked at me steady. I had suspected him of being no coward, when it comes to cases.

"Now," I says, "I don't know what that is down there. Perhaps it's all right; then you and me has got to stand by. If not--well, by the sacred photograph of Mary Ann, here's one roping that won't be an undiluted pleasure. Now listen. I'm something of a high private, when it comes to war, but no man is much more than one man, if the other side's blood is bad. Give 'em to me cold, and I can throw a crimp into 'em, for I don't care a hoot at any stage of the game, and they do. But when they're warm--why, a hole between the eyes will stop me just as quick as though I wasn't Chantay Seeche Red. Are you with me? You never took longer chances in your life."

He wet his lips, and didn't speak very loud nor steady, but he says: "You lead."

"Well, hooray, Boston!" says I. "Beans is good food. Now don't take it too serious till you have to. Perhaps there ain't more'n a laugh in it. But--it's like smooth ice. How deep she is, you know when she cracks, or don't. Be as easy as you can when we get up to 'em. Nothing gained by bulling the ring. We must be prepared to look pleasant and act very different. Turn your back and see that your toy pistol is working."

Well, poor Burton! Wisht you seen him fumble his gun.

"I can't _see_ the thing," says he, kind of sniffling. "I'd give something to be a man."

"You'll do for an imitation," I says. "Remember, I was born with red hair; comes trouble, this hair of mine sheds a red light over the landscape; I get happy-crazy; it's summer, and I can smell the flowers; there's music a long ways off--why, I could sing this minute, but there's no use in making matters worse. Honest, trouble makes me just drunk enough to be limber and--talk too much. Come on."

We single-footed it down the hillside. The party stopped and drawed together, four men quietly making a rank in front. That crowd had walked barefoot.

We come to twenty yards of 'em in silence; then a tall lad swung out towards us.

"How, Kola!" says I, wavin' my hand pleasant.

"How do you do!" says he, as if it wouldn't break his heart, no matter what the answer was.

"Why, nicely, thank you to hell," says I. "What's doin'? Horse race?"

"Probably," says he; then kind of yawning: "We're not expectin' company this morning."

"Well," I answered, "it's the unexpected always happens, except the exceptions. You talk like a man that's got something on his mind."

Don't think I'd lost my wits and was pickin' a row to no advantage. I'll admit the gent riled me some, but the point I had in view was what old Judge Hinky used to call "shifting the issue." I wanted to make one stab at just one man--not the whole party--on grounds that the rest of the crowd, who was plainly all good two-handed punchers, would see was perfectly fair. And I intended to land that stab so's they'd see I was no trifler. It was my bad luck that not a soul in the crowd knew me--even by reputation, or my hair would have made it easy for me. So I put a little ginger in the tone of my voice.

"My friend," says the tall lad, "I wouldn't advise you to get gay with us. I would advise you to move right on--or I'll move you."

He played to me, you see. If he'd said, "_We_'ll move you," I'd had to chaw with him some more. Now I had him. Right under the harmless bundle of old clothes dangling from the saddle horn was the gun I'd borrowed from Ike--Mary Ann's twin sister, full of cartridges loaded by Ike himself--no miss-fire government issue. The next second that gun had its cold, hard eye upon Long Jim in front of me.

Whilst my hands seemed carelessly crossed on the horn, my right was really closed on the gun.

"I like to see a man back his advice," says I. "It's your move. Don't any other gentleman get restless with his hands, or I'll make our Christian brother into a collection of holes. Now, you ill-mannered brute," I says, "I don't care what your business is: it's my business to see that you give me civil answers to civil questions."

He shrunk some. He was too durned important, anyhow, that feller.

"Quick!" says I. "Lord of the Mormon hosts! Do you think I'm going to yappee with you all day? Nice morning, ain't it? Say 'yes.'"

"Yes," says he.

"I thought so," says I. "It's a raw deal when a man that's sat a horse as long as me can't say howdy on the open, without havin' a pup like you bark at him."

"Why," says he, feelin' distressed, "I didn't mean to make no bad play at you." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the prisoner, who sat like a white stone. "That's it. Misplaced horse. Got him with the goods."

"Oh!" says I. "Well, 'twouldn't have done no harm to mention that first place. I wasn't noticing you particular, till you got too much alive for any man of my size to stand." I dropped my gun. "Excuse haste and a bad pen," says I; "but why don't I draw cards? Both parents were light complected and I've voted several times. How is it, boys?"

"Sure!" says they. "Take a stack, brick-top."

"Gentlemen," I says; "one word more and I am done. The question as to whether my hair is any particular colour or not, is discussed in private, by familiar friends only--savvy the burro, how he kickee with hees hin' leg?"

They laughed.

"All right, Colonel!" says they. "Come with us!"

I had that crowd. You see, they was all under twenty-five, and if there's anything a young man likes--a good, hearty boy--it's to see a brisk play pushed home. I'd called 'em down so their spinal columns shortened, and gagging about my hair, and the style I put on in general, caught their eye. And their own laughing and easiness wasn't so durned abandoned, as Charley Halleck used to say. There was a streak of not liking the job, and everything a little "put on," evident to the practised vision.

I'd gained two points. Made myself pretty solid with the boys, for one, and give 'em something besides hanging their fellow-man to think of for another: distracted their attention, which you got to do with children.

"I speak for my friend," says I, pointing to Burton.

"We hear you talk, Colonel," says the joker. "He's with us." So we trotted on towards the cotton-woods.

The line of work was marked out for me. I put on a grim look and sized the prisoner up from time to time as though he was nothing but an obstruction to my sight, although the face of the poor devil bit my heart. He glanced neither way, mouth set, face green-white, the slow sweat glassy all over him. Not a bad man, by a mile, I knew. It don't take me a week to size a man up, and I've seen 'em in so many conditions, red and pale, sick, dead, and well, that outside symptoms don't count for much.

I noticed another thing, that I expected. Out of the corner of my eye I see them boys nudgin' each other and talkin' about me. And the more I rode along so quiet, the more scart of me they got.

I tell you how I'd test a brave man. I'd line the competitors up, and then spring a fright behind them. Last man to cross the mark is the bravest man--still, he might only be the poorest runner. With fellers like me, it ain't courage at all. It's lunacy. I ain't in my right mind when a sharp turn comes. Why, I've gone cold a year after, thinking of things I laughed my way through when they happened. But I'm not quarrelling with fate--I thank the good Lord I'm built as I am, and don't feel scornful of a man that keeps his sense and acts scart and reasonable.

In one way, poor old Burton, lugging himself into the game by the scruff of his pants, showed more real man than I did. Yet, he couldn't accomplish anything; so there you are, if you know where that is.

I said nothing until we slid off beneath the first tree. Then I walked up to the three leaders and says, whilst the rest gathered around and listened:

"Has this critter been tried?"

"Why, no!" says one man. "We caught him on the horse."

"Yes, yes, yes," says I, raising my voice. "That's all right. But lend me your ears till I bray a thought or two. I'm that kind of a man that wouldn't string the meanest mistake the devil ever made without givin' him a trial."

"You give me a lot of trial this morning," says Long Jim.

I wasn't bringing up any argument; I was pulling them along with a mother's kind but firm hand, so I says to him: "Ah! I wasn't talking about _gentlemen_; I'd shoot a gentleman if he did or didn't look cross-eyed at me, just as I happened to feel. I'm talking about a man that's suspected of dirty work."

Now, when a man that's held you stiff at the end of a gun calls you a gentleman, you don't get very mad--just please remember my audience, when I tell you what I talked. Boys is boys, at any age; otherwise there wouldn't be no Knights Templars with tin swords nor a good many other things. I spoke grand, but they had it chalked down in their little books I was ready and willing to act grander. Had I struck any one or all of 'em, on the range, thinking of nothing special, and Fourth-o'-July'd to 'em like that, they would have give me the hee-hee. Howsomever, they was at present engaged in tryin' to hang a man; a job one-half of which they didn't like, and would dispose of the balance cheap, for cash. And I'd run over their little attempt to be pompous like a 'Gul engine. Position is everything, you bet your neck.

So up speaks Mr. Long Jim, that I've called a gentleman, loud and clear.

"You're _right_," says he, and bangs his fist into his other hand. "You're dead right, old horse," says he; "and we'll try this son-of-a-gun now and here."

"Sure!" says everybody, which didn't surprise me so much. I told you I was used to handling sheep.

After a little talk with his friend, Long Jim comes up and says: "Will you preside, Colonel?"

"I have a friend here who is a lawyer," I suggested, waving my hand toward Burton.

The speaker rubbed his chin.

"I guess this isn't a case for a lawyer," he says. "The gentleman might give us a point or two, but we'd prefer you took charge. You see," he says to Burton and me earnestly; "there's been a heap of skul-duggery around here lately--horse-stealin', maimin' cattle, and the like--till we're dead sick of it. This bucco made the most bare-faced try you ever heard of--'twas like stealin' the whiskers right off your face--and us fellers in my neighbourhood, old man and all, have saw fit to copper the deal from the soda-card. We ain't for doin' this man; we're for breaking up the play--'tain't a case of law; it's a case of livin'--so if you'll oblige, Colonel?"

"All right, sir; I'll do the best I can. Who accuses this man?"

"I," says a straightforward-looking young man of about twenty odd.

"Step up, please, and tell us."

"Why, it's like this," he says. "I'm ranchin' lone-hand down on Badger. There's the wife and two kiddies, and a job for a circus-man to make both ends meet--piecin' out a few cattle and a dozen hogs with a garden patch. All I got between me and a show-down is my team. Well, this feller comes along, played out, and asks for a drink of water. My wife's laid up--too darn much hard work for any woman--and I've got Jerry saddled by the fence, to ride for the doctor. Other horse is snake bit and weavin' in the stable with a leg like a barrel. I goes in to get the water, and when I comes out there's this sucker dustin' off with the horse. Then I run over to C-bar-nine and routs the boys out. We took out after him, corrallin' him in a draw near the Grindstones. That's about all."

"Make any fight?" I asked.

"Naw!" says the man, disgusted. "I was wanting to put my hands on him, but he comes in like a sick cow--seemed foolish."

"How foolish?"

"Oh, just stared at us. We called to him to halt, and he stopped, kind of grinned at us and says: 'Hello!' I'd a 'hello'd' him if the boys hadn't stopped me."

"Prisoner," I says, "this looks bad. I don't know where you come from, but you must have intelligence enough to see that this man's wife's life might have depended on that horse. You know we're straggled so out here that a horse means something more than so much a head. Why did you do this? Your actions don't seem to hang together."

The poor cuss changed face for the first time. He swallered hard and turned to his accuser. "Hope your lady didn't come to no harm?" says he.

"Why, no thankee; she didn't," says the other lad. "'Bliged to you for inquirin'."

There was a stir in the rest of the crowd. The prisoner had done good work for himself without knowing it. That question of his proved what I thought--he was no bad man. Something peculiar in the case. Swinging an eye on the crowd, I saw I could act. I went forward and laid my hand on his shoulder, speaking kind and easy.

"Here," says I, "you've done a fool trick, and riled the boys considerable. You'd been mad, too, if somebody'd made you ride all day. But now you tell us just what happened. If it was intended to be comical, we'll kick your pants into one long ache, and let it go at that; if it was anything else, spit it out."

He stood there, fumblin' with his hands, runnin' the back of one over his forehead once in a while, tryin' to talk, but unable. You could see it stick in his throat.

"Take time," says I; "there's lots of it both sides of us."

Then he braced.

"Boys," says he, "I got a wife an' two little roosters too. I feel sorry for the trouble I made that gentleman. I got split like this. Come to this town with seven hundred dollars, to make a start. Five hundred of that's my money, and two hundred m' wife saved up--and she was that proud and trustin' in me!" He stopped for a full minute, workin' his teeth together. "Well, I ain't much. I took to boozin' and tryin' to put the faro games out of business. Well, I went shy--quick. The five hundred was all right," he says, kind of defiant. "Man's got a right to do what he pleases with his own money; but . . . but . . . well, the girl worked hard for that little old two hundred. God Almighty! I was drunk! You don't s'pose I'd do such a thing sober?" turning to us, savage. "That ain't no excuse, howsomever," he goes on, droppin' his crop. "Comes to the point when there's nothin' left, and then I get a letter." He begun taking things out of his pockets, dropping 'em from his big tremblin' hands. "It's somewheres here--ain't that it? My eyes is no good."

He hands me a letter, addressed to Martin Hazel, in a woman's writing. "Well, that druv me crazy. So help me God, sir, I ain't pleadin' for no mercy--I'll take my medicine--but I didn't know no more what I was doin' when I jumped your horse than nothin'. I only wanted to get away from everybody. I was crazy. You read 'em that letter," says he, taking hold of me. "See if it wouldn't drive any man crazy."

Now, there's no good repeatin' the letter. It wasn't written for an audience, and the spellin' was accordin' to the lady's own views, but it was all about how happy they was going to be when Martin had things fixed up, and how funny the little boy was, and just like his pa, and, oh, couldn't he fix it so's they'd be with him soon, for her heart was near broke with waiting.

There was sand in my eyes before I'd read long, and that crowd of fierce lynchers was lookin' industriously upon the ground. One man chawed away on his baccy, like there'd be an earthquake if he stopped, and another lad, with a match in his mouth, scratched a cigarette on his leg, shieldin' it careful with his hands, and your Uncle Willy tried to fill a straight face on a four-card draw, and to talk in a tone of voice I wasn't ashamed of hearing.

During the last part of the letter the prisoner stood thoughtful, with the back of his hand to his mouth; you'd never known he was settin' his teeth into it, if it wasn't for the blood dropping from his thumb.

"The prisoner will retire," says I, with the remnants of my self-respect, "while the court passes sentence. Go sit down under the tree yonder." He shambled off. Soon's he was out of hearin' the feller that lost the horse jumps up into the air with an oath like a streak of lightning. "Here's a fine play we come near makin' by bein' so sudden," says he. "I wouldn't have that man's death on my soul for the whole territory--think of that poor woman! And he's paid the freight. Colonel, I want to thank you for drawin' things down."

So he come up and shook me by the hand, and up files the rest and does the same thing.

"Now, friends," says I, "hold on. Court hasn't passed sentence yet. I pass that this crowd put up to the tune of what it can spare to buy"--consulting the letter--"to buy Peggy a ticket West, kids included, exceptin' only the gentleman that lost the horse."

"Why, we ain't broke altogether on Badger!" says he. "You ain't goin' to bar me, boys?"

"Not on your life, if that's the way you feel," says I. I don't know what amount that crowd could spare, but I'll bet high on one thing. If you'd strong-armed the gang, you wouldn't start a bank with the proceeds after the collection was taken. There wasn't a nickel in the outfit. "I'm glad I didn't bring any more with me," says Burton, strapping himself.

Of course, I was appointed to break the news to the prisoner. He busted then; put his head on his arm and cried like a baby. But he braced quick and stepped up to the lads. "There ain't nothing I can say except thank you," says he. "I want to get each man's name so's I can pay him back. Now, if anybody here knows of a job of work I can get--well, you know what it would mean to me. Sporty life is done for me, friends; I'll work hard for any man that'll take me."

"I got you," I says. "Come along with me and I'll explain."

Then we said by-by to the boys. I played the grand with 'em still, and I'll just tell you why, me and you bein' such old friends. Although it may sound queer, coming from my mouth, yet it was because I thought I might give them boys the proper steer, sometime. You can't talk Sunday-school to young fellers like that! They don't pay no attention to what a gent in black clothes and a choker tells 'em; but suppose Chantay Seeche Red--rippin', roarin' Red Saunders, that fears the face of no man, nor the hoof of no jackass--lays his hand on a boy's shoulder, and says, "Son, I wouldn't twist it just like that." Is he goin' to get listened to? I reckon yes. So I played straight for their young imaginations, and I had 'em cinched to the last hole. And after the last one had pulled my flipper, and hoped he'd meet me soon again, me and Burton and the new hired man took out after sheep. "But," says Burton, still sort of dazed, "God only knows what we'll meet before we find them. Even sheep aren't so peaceful in this country."

He was right, too. However, when I start for sheep, I get 'em. You can see by the deep-laid plan I set to catch help for the ranch, how there's nothing for fortune to do but lay down and holler when I make up my mind.

Agamemnon and the Fall of Troy

Me and Aggy were snuggled up against the sandpaper edge as cute as anything, said Hy Smith. Even our consciences had gone back on us--they didn't have nothing to work on. The town looked like it had been deserted and then found by a party of citizens worse off than the first.

The only respectable thing in the hull darn shack-heap was Aggy's black long-tailed coat and black-brimmed hat. And they made the rest of the place look so miserable that Ag wouldn't have wore 'em if he'd had another hat and a shirt. We was a pair of twin twisters that had busted our proud and graceful forms on a scrap-iron heap.

I s'pose it was the turible depression of bein' stuck in such a hole, or some sudden weakenin' of the brain; but anyhow, in that same town of Lost Dog, Agamemnon G. Jones and Hy Smith ran hollerin' into a faint away game.

We paid ten dollars for a map showin' the location of the Lost Injun mine, from a paralytic partially roomin' at the Inter-Cosmopolitan Hotel. The Inter-Cosmopolitan had got pretty near finished, when the boom exploded with a loud sigh.

One-half the roof was missin', and the clapboardin' didn't come quite to the top, but that paralytic took it good-natured, sayin' that as he wasn't more'n half a man, half a hotel was plenty good enough for him. But ah! he allus wound up, if he could get the proper motion in his hind legs, he'd be up and find his Lost Injun mine, and after that no dull care for him.

I ain't goin' to describe that gentleman any more. When I say he unloaded a map of that Lost Injun mine, with the very spot marked with a red cross, anybody'll understand that the paralysis hadn't affected his head none.

You see, he was so quiet and patient under his afflictions, and he talked it off so smooth, that the flyest gent that ever lived could be excused for slippin' up and gettin' stuck in the discourse before he knew that gravitation was workin' at the same old stand.

Now, for a straight-away dream-builder give me Aggy. He could talk the horns off a steer, and that steer would beller with happiness to think he was rid of a nuisance.

Ag stood six-foot-two by two-foot-six, and when he had the long-tailed coat, the plug hat, and his general-in-the-army whiskers working right, he only had to stick one hand in his vest and begin, "Fellow-Citizens and Gentlemen," and he could start anything from a general war to a barber-shop expedition to gather North Poles.

Give him a good, honest, upright gang of men that would weigh two hundred a head, and Aggy could romp with their money or them, so the worst used monkey in the cage would go home pleased.

Ag was built to play with huskies, not paralytics; so one day when he stooped and turned sideways to get into the paralytic's room, treadin' soft on the boards so's not to land the outfit in the cellar, the sight of the poor sick man lyin' there--everlastingly lyin'--his helpless hands turned palm up on the covers, why, old Ag's heart was touched. He was that kind of grass-hopper, Ag, to whipsaw you out of a hundred and then lend you five hundred, even if he had to rip the pelt off somebody else to get it. I asked him about that trait onct.

"Why, Hy, my boy," says he, with his thumb in his vest, and his twenty-five cent cigar in his teeth--we was livin' at the risk of a high-roller hotel at the time--"in the first place, I'm a gentleman in disguise, and carelessness allows me to drop the disguise now and then; besides that," says he, "I hate these here conventions. Because I touch Mr. Jones for his wad, must I therefor scramble Mr. Ferguson? And if I stake Ferguson, must I open a free lunch for the country? Now, God forbid!" says Ag. "I started out being pleased by doing the things that pleased me, regardless of the vulgar habits of the mob. The mob can select its destination at any or all times it pleases, but I'm going to be Agamemnon G. Jones," says he. "The unexpected always happens, and I'm the unexpected," he says.

You wouldn't ask for a man to keep his statements clearer than that. I was the only person had a line on him. I'd figger out every possibility for him and then sleep peaceful, knowing that it had come off different.

So while nobody'd figger on Ag's gettin' stuck by a paralytic, darned if he didn't come away with a map in his hands. "Here is our fortune, Henry," says he.

Well, now, I jumped sideways. "Look here, Aggy Jones, do you mean to say that legless wonder has stuck you?"

"Mr. Troy conveyed all rights in the property to me for $10, paid in hand, including this method of findin' out where it is," says he.

"Where'd you get the $10, and me not know it?" says I.

"Trivial, trivial," says Ag.

"And do you expect to follow that dotted line until you stub your toe over a half-ton nuggets?"

"Frivolous, frivolous," says Ag.

"Yes," I says, "yes. Trivial--frivolous--all right--but what's that red cross?"

"Shows the location plainly," says he, shiftin' his cigar. "Where the arms of that cross intersect, we double it, or turn nurses in the army."

Well, I stared at him. Too much thinkin' goes to a man's head sometimes.

"You feel anything strange about you anywheres?" says I.

"Yes," says he, tapping it. "This map-- Accordin' to the scale of miles these here arms on the cross are somethin' like fifty miles long. Ah, what a merry, merry time we shall have, Hy, chasin' up and down glass mountains, eatin' prickly pear, drinking rarely, and cullin' a rattlesnake here and there to twine in our locks. It will seem like old times, dropping a rock in your boots in the mornin' to quell the quivering centipede and the upstanding and high-jumping tarantula."

"Say," says I, "do you think there's a mine here at all?"

"Mine!" says he, like I'd asked a most unexpected question. "Mine? Have we lived out of eyeshot of the most remarkable mine in the United States and Canada at any time we smoked the trail?"

"No," says I, "that's so; but, Ag, you ain't goin' to push for that red cross out in the middle of hell's ash-heap, are you?"

"Only a little ways," says he; "it's time we left this anti-money trust behind us, and I always like to leave dramatically, if it's only to give the sheriff a run."

"More fast-footin' in this?"

"'Nary, but we shall meet some of our fellow-townsmen on the river to-morrow--all men who haven't done us a bit of good--and then we'll flap our gliders to a gladder land."

"But that ten dollars----"

"Look here. Let's _again_ settle this money question once for all. Am I the financial expert for this party?"

"You be."

"Selah," says Ag. "And unlike the corporations in the effete East, where a high collar marks the gentleman, we mix amusement with our lives?"

"Sure," says I.

"Well, then," says Aggy, speaking with the frankness and affection of one or more friends to another, "I ask you to swallow your tongue and watch events."

"Keno," says I. "Produce your events."

So the next day we hooted it out toward the southeast, packin' grub only, and I never says a word.

Bimeby we see a lot of people comin' a horseback, on board waggons, and runnin' afoot.

"Each man with a map," says Ag. "Look at 'em dodge, Hy. They go out of sight for seconds at the time--'Shall we gather by the river, the beautiful, the beautiful Squaw River?'--I reckon."

We did. Everybody seemed surprised at seein' everybody else.

"Just come out for a picnic, friends?" says Ag.

"Oh, yes," says everybody. "Great old day and nice spot here--tired of town--thought we'd make a holiday."

"Good, good," says Aggy, his honest face gleamin' with joy. "Let's all eat now and swop maps afterward."

Things kind of stopped for a minute. If a man was unhitchin' a mule, he waited till you could count 1, 2, 3, and then continnered.

"What d'ye mean by 'map'?" says one lad, bent under a horse to hide his face.

"What do I mean?" says Ag, offended. "Why, I mean just what Noah Webster meant when the dove came back bringin' the definition to his ark. I mean map--m-a-p, map--a drawin' that shows you the way to get to a red cross that doesn't exist on the face of nature. I like green crosses as a matter of taste, but all our paralysed friend had left was a red one, so I took that, not to be unsociable."

I've been at pleasanter lookin' picnics.

Finally the feller under the horse did some deep thinkin' and come out. "Have you honest got a map?" says he.

"To the Lost Injun mine? 'Heigh-o, the Lost Injun!'" sings Aggy. "Here she is, my friend, with all dips, angles, and variations; one million feet on the main lode; his heirs, assigns, orphans. _E pluribus unum_, forever and forever!"

"Yours ain't just the same as mine," says the feller, grimly spittin'.

"No," says Ag, "I reckon he spread it around. He didn't know this was the nearest ford on Squaw Creek, and we might likely come together."

And then arose a cussin', not loud, but with a full head of steam--it would make ordinary loud seem like the insides of a whisper--and a rush for horses.

"Peace, friends, peace!" says Aggy, standin' up his hull height and with his noble chest fillin' his black coat; his black whiskers expandin' in pride--a hootin', tootin' son-of-a-gun to look at. And when he said "peace," the earth shook.

The crowd stopped. "Think!" says Aggy. "Attempt the impossible! Think! Remember that paralytic is on a parlour car, flying swiftly toward the setting sun. I see the picture of that lonely railroad train whooping ties across the prairie. What is the use of throwing yourselves into a violent perspiration in a mad chase of a thing that no longer exists? The paralytic is no more; thy Faith Hath Made Him Whole." Aggy sank his voice to a beautiful whisper.

"Well, you got stuck yourself," pipes up old Grandpa Hope. "He, he, he, he shelled you too!"

"I admit it," says Ag, "and yet it is not quite what it seems. I borrowed Slit-Eyed Jenkins's two gilded nickels to get in this game. I further admit that the Government never should have left the word 'cents' off these nickels, to tempt poor but not bigoted men; further, I'll say that if Jenkins had brightened them up he might have passed them for $3.89. But Jenkins puts a thief within his stomach that steals away his business ability, so that when I asked for them nickels he merely replied: 'Take the damned Yankee skin-tricks away, with my thanks.'

"I have noted in my travels that the person to pass immoral money on us is the agent whose mind is absorbed in selling you a diamond ring, that nothing but his desire to get rid of would drive him to sell; so in this case I dropped them nickels into the grateful and quiverin' hand of that paralytic, drew my man and--here we are," says Ag.

It was the first time I ever saw a gang of full-grown men blush at the same time.

Nobody had nothin' to say except Ag, who threw the lapel of his coat back and addressed the meeting.

"Gentlemen," says he, "as I have mentioned before, our paralysed friend has fled, departed, skinned out, screwed his nut far, far from here. Don't blaspheme in the very face of the Almighty by trying to be more ridiculous than you already are. If you arrive warm and distracted, the few remaining inhabitants of Lost Dog will hold the dead moral on you the rest of your days. Cool off and wipe the word 'map' from your minds; turn from the villainies of man to the stark forces of nature; see where Squaw Creek has forced her remorseless and semi-fluid way through the mighty rampart of these Gumbo hills."

"I wish you would hush," said a puncher. "Leggo, Ag!"

"Here's where you get the worth of your money," says Ag. "You wouldn't play poker with _me_, would you? Of course not. I might get your money. In fact, I think I should, myself. But you would turn over ten fine large bones to a paralytic who made pencil sketches of a scene in the Alps and put the sign of the price on 'em--one sawbuck, or ten plunks? There is the sawbuck," says Aggy, tappin' his map. "But where are the plunks? Go to! There are no plunks. We kick the dust of Dog-town from our hind legs. Flee cheerily, one-time neighbours, to where a red cross fifty miles in length lies exposed to the sunlight, and then dig; dig for wealth beyond the dreams of avarice; dream of scow-loads of gold floating on a canal of champagne. Don't forget to dig, because that will give you a muscle like a Government mule. And here's where we dig--out. Ta-ta, fellow-citizens, I never expected to get you so foul!"

"I think you was working with that feller," says one man, excited.

"Dream on--dream on," says Ag, "but don't make any motions in your sleep. I've heard that wakin' up somnambulists with a .44 Colt's is bad for their nervous systems." The lad was quiet. "Gentlemen," says Aggy, "if you have kicks, prepare to shed them now."

"No tickee--no kickee," says the cow-puncher. "But kindly don't bunch me with these Foundered Dogs," pointing to the rest.

"Certainly not," says Ag. "Come with us, friend?"

"I sure ought not to," says the puncher, scratchin' his head. "The ole man expects me to go down to Sweet Water and bring home a bunch of calves; but, thunder! calves just loves to play, and the ole man's got so quiet that Peace troubles his mind. Where you goin'?"

"Well," says Ag, sincerely, "you can search me."

"Fits me to half a pound," says the puncher; "ain't nothin' suits me better than to fall against somethin' I don't know the name of. Darn calves; if there's anything I don't like some more than other things, calves is the party of the first part---- Yekhoo!" says he, "c'm round here, Mary Jane." With that he waved his leg over the saddle and we was off.

"You fellers got any money?" says the puncher. We told him we was entirely innocent in that respect.

"Well, I got fifty of my own, and two hundred the ole man give me to buy any likely stock I might see. He'll stand on one leg and talk naughty to me when he finds I've spent it, but, Lord! there's no use remembering things that ain't happened yet, and besides, _he_ was a hopper grass that flew, when _he_ was a youngster. So that's all right. Gosh! don't it feel good to be out in the real fresh air oncet more!"

It sure was good. We made it, ride and tie, northeast by the compass. There's one good thing about these United States--so long's you keep movin' you're sure to run into a town somewheres.

We spent three nights out. Every camp, before rollin' in, Ag and me and the cow-puncher made up a quartette and sang, "How dear to my heart is the scenes of my chi-i-i-i-i-i-ldhood," "Old Black Joe," and so forth, then laid down in faith no critter would trouble us that night. And say! it was simply dead great when we was lyin' on top of old Baldy Jones's Meza, the moonlight ketchin' the canyon lengthwise, and old Aggy comin' down, down, down, "Rocked--in ther--cradle--of--the--deep." Holy Smoke! he sounded fifty fathom. Honest, he made that slit in the earth holler like an organ. We was that enthusiastic we oncored him, leavin' our own pipes out. You talk about your theatres and truck! Give me Agamemnon G., a white night, and several thousand square mile of ghost-walk country--that's the music for me. He never waggled them black whiskers--just naturally opened his mouth, and the hills on the skyline pricked up their ears to listen. You could hear that big, handsome roar go bouncin' along the crags and wakin' up the wildcats in the cracks. Lord! what a stillness when the last echo stopped! Well, that cow-puncher, he had a tear runnin' down the side of his nose, and I never felt so happy miserable in my life.

The only words spoke was by Ag. "Mary and Martha!" says he, "I've scart myself!" so we all rolled up.

Two days after we met a line of ore-wagons drug by mules. When we was twenty foot away the cow-puncher and the first driver give a holler, and in ten seconds they was shakin' hands and poundin' each other on the back, sayin', "Why, you damned old this and that!" When a lull come, the cow-puncher says, "Jack, let me present my friends!" so the driver he shook hands with us and says, "Any friend of Billy's on your meal ticket! Where you crowd of sand skinners headed for?" So, after some talk, he understood. "You want a town," says he. "Well," p'inting with the butt of his whip, "eighteen miles over yonder you'll find your place, if you're looking to make the sidewalks stand perpendicular; and twenty mile over there, if you want to find some of the nicest people outdoors. Pretty girls there, bet cher life. Chip Jackson filled me full of lead two months ago to get his name up--reg'lar kid trick; wanted to get a rep as the man that put out Jack Hunter; he didn't put me out no more'n you see at present, but the folk over at Cactus used me white. Nussed me. Gee! A dream, gents, a dream! Real girls, with clothes that whispers like wind in the grass, 'Here I come! Here I come!'

"I got the prettiest, slimmest, black-eyed one marked down for me. I wanted her right off, but she said she couldn't consider it, and cried a little; so I cuddled her up and ca'med her down and said I'd do the considerin'. That's a great place--you fellers have seen enough rough house, why don't you shuck down that way?"

"I play her wide open," says Aggy, "from pretty little kittens in white to chawin' the ear off my fellow-man; but, to speak honest and straightforward, we ain't got the sinews of war to start a campaign in such a town, as I'd like to."

"Broke!" hoots Hunter. "Well, that don't go a minute! Here!" says he, "glue your optics to that." He chucked out a specimen peppered with yaller. "That's my mine. I'm just thinkin' of taking a half interest in the mint. You can pick her to go twenty thousand to the ton--help yourselves, gents." He began sortin' rock. "Oh, here!" says he, "wait!"

Then he called his men--Greasers--and spoke to 'em firm in Spanish, that they was to bring their turkeys and empty their pockets. They rolled their eyes and talked about saints. "G'wan," says Jack, "if you fellers didn't know that I knew you were pinchin' me for at least two hundred a trip you wouldn't respect me. Come, shake your jeans, or I'll strip you clean when it comes you're between me and my friends."

So, mournin' and groanin', they unloaded about fifty pounds of the loveliest rock you ever see. There was a piece shaped like a cross that Ag picked out for himself, but the Greaser that owned it hollered loud, and Ag give it back to him. "With that in his clothes," says Aggy, "he can steal religiously--I wouldn't take that comfort from the poor soul for anything."

"These here Greasers get the best chunks," says Jackson, "because they got more time to hunt. Now, don't look cross-eyed," says he to 'em; "I pay you five a day, and you fish two hundred for yourselves." At which the Greasers smiled a little again, feelin' that things weren't without their cheerful side.

"Boys, I got to leave you," says Hunter. "The next time you come through here, you'll see a log cabin built to hold two or more with comfort, because I ain't such a blatting fool to build a house that's going to take my wife's attention from me--log cabin's good enough. Don't mention that to Miss Lorna Goodwin when you see her, because I ain't took her in my confidence that far yet, but say a good word for your uncle, and by-by! Get up, there, Mary! Straighten them traces, Victoria! Oop! Oop! here we go clattering fresh! So-long, till later!" and away he went, the dust a-flyin'.

We landed in Cactus, ready and anxious to be respectable. We first took in the barber shop, had a bath and a trimmin' up.

"Fix these whiskers of mine," says Ag to the barber, "as though they was inclined to be religious, and a few strokes from a nice, plump, clean little widder's hand would make 'em fall. You can say what you please about widders," says Aggy, "but a woman who's had one man and wants another has holt of the proper sand. It's a compliment when a widder shines up to a man. She's no amateur."

Then we bought clothes and played seven-up in the hotel till they was fixed to fit us. We wanted to stroll through Cactus right. After this was done we mashed our rocks, panned the result, and got $375 from the bank--all told, we had pretty nigh six hundred between the three of us.

The sight of us, trimmed, wouldn't cramp you none. That cow-punch he went an inch to the good over six foot. I came along about an eighth below him, and Aggy loomed far in the night. We all had features on our faces, and--well, Cactus sure was a pretty little town, with its parks and irrigated gardens, and when we strolled, we noticed the girls kind of let their sentences drag--probably because they didn't see us.

"Say, this is great!" said the cow-puncher. "That bug up there," p'inting to the electric light, "kinder exudes retail moonlight when he sings. But my! Here's where you get your fine-looking girls! I wonder how the old man 'ud take it if I said to him, 'Paw, dear, I'm married.' I can lick him, though, even if I let him say sourcastic how far from that point I be. Oh, my Christian Spirit!" he whispers, "do you catch sight of that easy-mover in the white clothes! Holy Smokes! Let's introduce ourselves!"

Ag got up and marched forward. "Is this Miss Lorna Goodwin?" says he.

"No, sir," says the girl, kinder awed by the sight of him.

"I'm very sorry," says Ag. "We are strangers here, and we only knew a friend of Miss Goodwin's."

"Why," says the girl, "Lorna's right back of us. Shall I take you to her?"

Aggy bowed. "With such a guide, I'll follow anywhere," says he, "and I certainly would like to see Miss Goodwin."