Figures of speech
Date: 2026-07-18T00:00:00+00:00

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Figures of speech

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Title: Figures of speech

Author: W. C. Tuttle

Release date: July 18, 2026 [eBook #79120]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: The Ridgway Company, 1921

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79120

Credits: Prepared by volunteers at BookCove (bookcove.net)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIGURES OF SPEECH ***

Figures of Speech
by W. C. Tuttle

Author of “No Wonder,” “Sparing the Family Tree,” etc.

DEAR HANK:

Well, Hank, the world does move, as has been said before, and there is lots of times when a feller ain’t got no pen in hand; so them is likely a few of the reasons why you probably ain’t wrote to me for so long, eh?

Nobody ever got eye-paralysis from getting too many letters from you, Hank, but you ain’t much of a writer anyway, so I beg your pardon. Education is a great thing, and I’m getting more every day. You never had the advantages which have overcome me, but it’s all in a lifetime, and we can’t all be favored with things which are well and hearty.

Well, Hank, I’ve got a son and heir, and he’s a humdinger. Must be about one month of age now, and we’re both doing fine. Emmeline sure handed me some son, Hank, but I wish he had been born without the contaminating atmosphere of them darned Galesburgs. He’s got my mouth and nose, and his eyes look just like mine do when I’m thinking up something to startle folks with.

Hank, I don’t want you to hold it against me, but I wanted to name him after you. I said, “Hank is a good name,” and my uncle by marriage speaks up like this: “For what? For this baby?”

I said, “What did you think I was naming—a comet or a new drink?”

Uncle Gabe looks at me and walks out. I got his goat, Hank. I asked Emmeline how she likes Hank; and she says, “Hank who?” and I says, “I thought I’d name my kid after my old friend Hank,” and she says, “Do you mean Hank Peck?” and I says I did, and she says: “You got a lot of nerve, Dobie. Hank ain’t no friend of yours, and besides he’s nothing but a dish-faced puncher, and nothing to name a baby after.”

I told her I knowed you wasn’t nothing but a dish-faced puncher, but my friendship don’t take no account of homely faces or occupation.

She says, “I’ve promised to let Uncle Gabe name the baby.”

“All right,” says I. “Hang a jinx on the kid and see if I care. Let him run a Circle G on the kid’s left flank, cut a dewlap on his neck and call him Oscar, and she’s O. K. with me, but I’ll be —— if he’s going to name him So-and-So Galesburg Dalton. I sure don’t want no initial G in front of his family name.”

“Dobie,” says she, “we are going to call him Gabriel, after uncle.”

Hank, I growed mad all to once. The idea of calling a poor little, raw-looking hunk of yelps, which ain’t got no opinion, after a big boob like my uncle by marriage!

Hank, I hate to say anything against my relation. Uncle Gabe is all right as far as he goes, but to me he’s paralyzed in both hind legs, and you can’t blame me for it.

I says to Emmeline, “Will he always be knowed as such?” and she says, “Why, of course,” and I says to her: “Listen, honey. Man is of few days and full of trouble, which is natural for them and happens without no outside assistance; so why hang something like that on to the poor kid? Ain’t he going to have no square deal? You folks stack the cards against the little stranger, and he ain’t got sabe enough to play close to his stummick. You’re a unnatural mother and are queering the kid.”

Hank, as far as I’m concerned I don’t care how long Uncle Gabe has been standing there in the door listening to me, ’cause there ain’t nothing ever comes from my lips that I wouldn’t say in your face. He walks over to my kid and pokes him in the stummick with his finger, and then he says: “How is little Gabie? Ootsie, ootsie.”

Hank, you know how a animal acts when you tease its young? Even a fool hen will fight in a case like that; so I hopped right up, grabbed him by the back of the belt, and yanked him away.

“You heavy-handed wolf!” says I. “Don’t you poke my kid. Keep your big paws off the son of Dobie Dalton, or I’ll ride you ragged.”

Hank, it’s the simple little things in life that counts mostly. I’m quite a studier of human nature and I know things that nobody else ever thought about. Emmeline didn’t want to hurt her uncle’s feelings; so she blamed me for the whole thing. I’ve got a strong back and I can stand a lot without turning like a worm; so she opens up on me like this:

“Dobie, you never did have and never will have any sense. Uncle Gabe was just showing affection for little Gabie.”

“Is that so?” I asks. “I suppose I spur a bad horse for the same reason, eh? I suppose I thumb a bronc because I’m affectionate to it. This here Galesburg family are a delusion and a snare, and I’m going to take the shadder of my face away from their door, and go where I’ll be appreciated in full.”

“You mostly always are, Dobie,” says she, and I says, “Well, I’ve yet to see any appreciation,” and then she says, “You’re going to have seven years of hard luck, Dobie.”

Hank, you likely don’t know why, because you likely ain’t never heard that you get seven years’ hard luck when you bust a looking-glass. It wasn’t exactly me what done it, Hank, which takes off a lot of the curse for good behavior. Anyway, it wasn’t my looking-glass, and my uncle by marriage can blame himself, because he threw me through it himself. I didn’t go all the way through, because the bureau was against the wall, but I sure left my trademark.

When I went out I says to my uncle by marriage, “Did you know I was going away, Mister Man?” and he says, “I likely knew it before you did.”

He was just guessing, Hank, because I didn’t know myself; so I says to him, “Tell me where I’m going,” and he says, “I’ll leave that to you, Dobie, but the longer you stay the more you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

Hank, I hate to have anybody tell me what I ought to do, so I says to him, “All I ask is what I’ve got coming, and then I’ll leave peaceful.”

“Dobie,” says he, “you never know when you’ve got all that is coming to you. I’ve got warts on my hands now from beating you up.”

Hank, I got mad. No man or body of men can ever brag about licking me without making me mad. I comes from a good-looking lot of ancestors, and my blood tells in the end; so I flares up and says:

“Gabe Galesburg, you’re a big fat-head! You’re a descendant of Geronimo and Dirty Dora, and your family tree was planted by Captain Kidd. You’re a cross between a pickpocket and a pole-cat, and as far as I’m concerned you’re like something that never was nor never will be.

“I’m through with you. Sabe? From this time on, don’t cross my path or nod. Cherish my wife and baby until I can hew a place in the world for them to come to, but to you I am as dead.”

Well, Hank, I just landed here in Helena, and you ought to feel proud that I wrote to you right away. Write soon, and believe me, it’s got to be bad writing if I can’t stand for it in a letter.

Truly and sincerely yours,

Dobie Dalton, Gen. Del.

Helena, Aug. 1.

P. S. Remember what I said above about talking back “to my uncle by marriage”? I said to him, “To you I am as dead.” Well, Hank, that sucker ain’t got no imagination. He can’t imagine anything being dead—you know what I mean?

I got to the picket fence ahead of him, and I sure jumped high, but I reckon I left the ground too soon, because I came down on top of the fence and ran a picket right up one leg of my chaps. I remembers hearing uncle by marriage say, “Not only to me, but to every one else,” and then I don’t know anything until I woke up in the Palace Saloon, with the boys trying to find out why my leg won’t bend. I look pretty good out of my eyes and expect to be O. K. very soon.

I went to a lawyer and told him all about it. I told him what I said about me being as dead to uncle, and he says: “That was just a figure of speech, of course, but maybe your uncle was afraid you wouldn’t keep your word. What do you want me to do anyhow?”

I says, “You can’t hang him, can you?” and he says, “No,” and I says, “No chance for a life sentence?” and he says, “No,” and I says, “Well, let him to go to —— as far as I’m concerned.”

Well, Hank, of all the nerve you ever seen, that lawyer had it. He wanted me to pay him five dollars for advice. I says to him: “If you think I’m going to pay you two-fifty for each time you said, ‘No,’ you’re loco. I’m the only one what suggested anything, and you ought to pay me.”

Hank, take my advice and keep away from lawyers. They ain’t what they’re cracked up to be, and if they don’t get paid they get sore, and this one ought to be fighting for a living instead of lawying, believe me.

Yours

Dobie

DEAR HANK: Well, Hank, I got your letter this morning, and I want to tell you right now that I ain’t Mister Dalton. Have you forgot my first name? My gosh, the Circle C must be hard up for paper if that’s all they had. I didn’t ask for no telegram, Hank.

You say to me: “Go to ——! Can you read that plain?”

Sure I can read it, Hank, but that ain’t nothing to say to a friend. I ain’t scared of no hereafter, and after I’m dead she all looks alike to me. I ain’t even hinted about your ignorance, Hank, and you read that wrong. There are things I know which I wouldn’t say to nobody’s face, even if I knew them like I do you.

I also want to tell you that you never seen the day in which you could bust me in the nose, unless you sneaked up on me in the dark. As far as Emmeline is concerned, Hank, I know my own business better than you do. Maybe you’re stuck on my wife, eh? You seem to be interested a lot, but you ain’t never been married and don’t know any better.

I agree with you when you say I must be some father for any child. It’s fine, believe me, but it’s like I heard a feller say once, “There’s a Divinity which shapes our ends,” and I could tell him about a family which sure has spoiled the shape of anything this here Divinity ever done for me, and their name is Galesburg.

Honest, I never said you was ignorant, but if you keep on writing like the last one, Hank, I’m going to form a opinion of my own. Any time you want to call me something what you can’t spell—get a dictionary, and don’t make a lot of fool marks that nobody knows what they are.

Well, Hank old friend, I’ve got a surprise for you. Now, I don’t want you to tell everybody about this, and brag that you knew me when I was a common, ordinary puncher like you are, but just keep still about it. You remember Pete Huddleston, who used to punch cows for the Lazy Y? Well, I meets Pete, and we has a regular wau-wau. I showed him your letter and he says:

“Hank never will amount to nothing like me and you. He ain’t educated and not naturally bright.”

I guess you must know him well, because he sure knows you all over. Nice feller. I asked him what he was doing for a living, and he says, “Why, I’m a cow detective.”

What do you know about that, Hank? Some jump in the world, eh? Well, I told him I had figured on something like that, and he says, “Why don’t you use your talents in protecting the cows, on account of there being a awful wave of crime sweeping over us?” He said I ought to quit paying the saloon rents, and be a man among menkind.

Well, he took me up to a office and introduces me to a feller, who looks me over and says, “What have we here?”

“He wants to be a detective,” says Pete.

“Oh!” says the feller. “Why are you sore at the cows?”

I says: “I ain’t sore at nothing. Why think I’m sore at the cows?”

“Well,” says he, “there must be some reason for wanting to do them dirt.”

“I want to be a great help to them,” says I, and he says, “Go East, young man, and give them a chance.”

Pete wants me to get the job pretty bad, so he says, “Say, Sam, this feller might make a lot for us on commission.”

The feller looks through some books, and then says:

“Maybe he can. Do you know any place where you can catch a lot of rustlers all at once? Cow detectives don’t get a regular salary, you understand. We pay a hundred dollars per head for all rustlers in good condition.”

Hank, I never figured on hunting thieves on commission, but that’s the way they work. Hundred per head ain’t so bad. Figuring two or three per month, makes a fair salary, eh? You’re danged right she does.

“Well,” says I, “give me a star and a gun, and watch me land ’em.”

“You’ll have to buy a gun and a star from us,” says the feller. “I’ve got a extra gun you can have for fifteen dollars.”

“I’ve got a second-hand star for six,” says Pete.

“Well,” says I, “it must be the North Star or the Evening Star to be worth that much, and as far as the gun is concerned, at fifteen dollars, I will use a club on them.”

Pete hunts up this star and hands it to me, and tells me it’s special. It was a star, but there ain’t no writing on it at all, and I tells Pete I’d be sort of a blank officer with a star like that.

“My gosh!” says he. “How far do you reckon you’d get with a star that said ‘Detective’ on it? Detectives don’t want folks to know their business. Sabe?”

Of course I knew that, Hank, but I didn’t want to mention it at first. When you pins me right down to it I know quite a lot about mostly anything you can mention, and I know lots of things that nobody ever seen in a book by practical experience.

The feller shakes hands with me, and he says:

“The secret of being a detective is this: Buy a gun and a star, a ticket to Brazil, and don’t monkey with other folks’ business.”

“Do you want to send me to Brazil?” I asks, but he says, “No, I reckon not, because they’re exporting, not importing.”

I says, “Is that a figure of speech?” and he says, “I reckon so.”

Hank, some folks talk like fools to me, but in them cases I let sleeping dogs lie. Me and Pete went down-stairs and h’isted a few, and Pete tells me that he wants me to take time by the fetlock and show folks what I can do.

Hank, you can just think of the word “rustler” and into your brain comes the thought that you know where there is plenty of them, but when you get to wondering where they are, you can’t put your thumb on a single one. Here I’ve paid twenty-one dollars for utensils of the trade, and I can’t think of a single customer.

“Maybe you can frame somebody,” says Pete, and I says, “I ain’t in no picture business,” and Pete says: “That’s a figure of speech, and means that it ain’t always the guilty which suffers the most. We ain’t looking for no died-in-the-wool thieves. All you’ve got to do is to make the evidence strong enough and nobody cares. Here is your chance to get even with them what has sinned against you.”

“I hate my uncle by marriage,” says I, and Pete says, “There you are.”

“Yes,” says I, “there I ain’t. He ain’t fit for nobody to associate with and maybe he’s expecting me back.”

“He won’t know you,” says Pete. “Detectives always go disguised.”

Hank, I knew all about disguises, but I wanted him to mention it first.

I says: “That’s all right, Pete, but what kind of a disguise will I take upon me? I’m knowned far and wide by my face and figure, and I sure don’t want folks to call me by my first name when I show up.”

He asks me how much money I’ve got left; so I tells him, and then he leads me down the street. He says, “We’ll let Fate decide, Dobie.”

Hank, if I was you I’d never let Fate decide anything for me. Flip a coin, cut cards or do anything where you’ve got an even break. We stops in front of a store, and Pete tells me they have everything we want.

“The idea is to get a disguise that don’t attract attention,” says he. “What is the most plentiful around your home town?”

“Dogs,” says I, and he says: “Use your own judgment, Dobie, but I can tell you right now that your hind legs don’t bend the right way. Is there many Injuns around there?”

I says there is, and he says: “There you are. Can you talk Injun?”

“No,” says I, “but that don’t matter, because nobody except the Injuns can, and if any Injun doubts my word I’ll run him ragged.”

I can do it, too, Hank. I often wonder why a man like Daniel Crockett wanted to pack a gun for, when he could likely have knocked them upside down with his hands.

Well, Hank, they didn’t have just what I wanted, but it ain’t what we want in this world, but what we get, as the sheriff said to the horse-thief. I sure got some great stuff. The feller said I was getting a bargain in history stuff, and I guess I did. I got Geronimo’s war-bonnet, Sitting Bull’s shirt, Chief Joseph’s moccasins, and a pair of beaded pants, which the feller said belonged to Pokyhontas. They’re all heirlooms.

The feller wanted to sell me a squirrel-rifle, but I told him I was out for bigger game, and he said I ought to get a scatter-gun, so I could kill a hundred at a shot.

I said, “I never seen that many squirrels in one flock in my life,” and he said, “You sure have been lucky, but if I was you I’d look out.”

Hank, city folks made me laugh. I’ve been bred and born in the open, and ought to feel sorry for them, I suppose, but I couldn’t help saying, “If you knew anything about natural history you’d know that squirrels are harmless,” and he says, “They’ve got to eat, ain’t they?”

Wasn’t that a foolish answer, Hank? I sold my own clothes to him for fifteen dollars, which hadn’t been worn out much. Pete wanted me to pay him six dollars for that star, but I wouldn’t; so we made a contract, in which I’m to give him ten per cent. on all the outlaws I caught in the first six months. Pete thinks he’s smart, but I’ll show him: I figure to hold off on the bounty for the first six months and then cash in strong. Well, Hank, there ain’t nothing worth reading, so will close, hoping to hear from you soon.

I hope the next time you write it will be with a pure heart and not full of sarcasm. You’re a old friend of mine and I think of you more in sorrow than in anger, because you can’t help being what you are, and I don’t expect it.

Yours resp’y as ever,

Dobie Dalton, Helena, Aug. 10.

P. S. Hank, I had a funny experience when I went to the hotel to get my war-bag. I went in the back way and was just trying to get into my room when a feller steps up to me and says, “What’s the idea?”

I says to him, “Who are you?” and he says, “The house detective,” and I says, “My gosh, are the buildings mixed up in this fearful wave of crime?”

He says, “You’re too smart for a Injun,” and I says, “Yes, and for any house detective.”

Hank, my room is on the second floor. You go down about thirty steps, turn to the right and go down about thirty more. I think we missed the first thirty, and then bounced over the railing to the lower floor. There was a lot of folks setting around in them plush chairs, but they takes one look at a Injun chief going high and handsome with a paleface, and then they just kind of faded out. One fat feller hit a big window dead center, and opened up—one whole side of the place. I picked up my opponent and threw him over the counter, where he lit on the clerk’s head, who was hiding.

I stops to get my wind, and then the clerk pokes his head over the edge of the counter, and he says to me, “Do you wish to check out?” I says, “I ain’t the kind of a whippoorwill that wastes valuable time in wishing, but I’ll be polite enough to wish thee a fond fare-thee-well.”

I starts out and he says, “Don’t you want your Bill?” and I says, “I didn’t know his name was Bill, but if it is let him go as he lays, because I can’t use him any more.”

Pete got me out of jail, and says I ought to pay him something for showing up at the right time, but his watch must have been slow, because the right time would have been just before them seventeen policemen hit me all to once.

Them wolves of the law sure patted me on the head, Hank, and if I wasn’t a wonderful constitution you would be putting flowers on my alabaster brow before this. I sure stood a lot of petting on the head.

Pete is a old fox. He told the judge that I wasn’t all there in the head, but he would see that I left town right away. He took me up to his room and fixed my head, where I am now.

Don’t tell anybody that I’m a detective, Hank, because they’ll find it out sooner or later. You can’t hide my light under a bushel, Hank, because I’m a shiner.

Yours for the law,

Dobie

DEAR HANK:

I take my pen in hand and stare at your letter. I wonder if you have been crossed in love or something. You act like somebody which has been accused of stealing a cow and ain’t got no alias.

Hank, if you’re in trouble confide in me and I’ll advise you what to do. I won’t advise you wrong if I know what’s right, and I’ve got the law behind me in all my advising and it’s cheap.

You better get a dictionary, Hank, and find out things. You say I should have used the word “asphalt” instead of alabaster, in speaking of my brow. I looked it up, Hank, and I know you’re wrong. Asphalt is black, while alabaster is white. Didn’t you mean concrete? Likely you did.

You say that Pete made a fool out of me, but you know that can’t be done, and you say that you don’t dare to tell me what you want to in a letter, on account of the government. What has Uncle Sam got to do with secrets between me and you, as long as we ain’t moonshining or smuggling?

Maybe you’ve done something awful and are afraid to tell me by letter. If you have, Hank, you can lay it all at the feet of ignorance. If I had hold of you for a while I’d sure wise you up for your own safety. This world is filled with pitfalls for the ignorant.

You say that anybody’d know I wasn’t a Injun. Ha, ha, ha. You’re showing ignorance, Hank.

I walked the last fifteen miles into Mesquite, just because I fooled a man with my disguise. I was riding on top of a box-car, and a brakeman came along and seen me. He says to me, “You’re going to enjoy this,” and I says, “Siax mux wux hoodledoo,” which sounds like a pleasant reply in some language.

I don’t know what it means, Hank, but maybe he did, because he gets sore. The train is going along fast, and the brakeman has a big club and two big feet.

He says to me, “Injun, you better hang on to your religion, because my great-great-grandfather was scalped by Injuns, and I’ve hated them ever since.”

Hank, as indifferent to pain as I am, I will never look upon barb-wire with compassion again. I bounced twice after I lit, and the last bounce left me in a barb-wire fence, where I had to leave some of my Pokyhontas’ pants and a lot of flesh and blood.

I had the satisfaction of knowing that I fooled the brakeman on my nationality and also that I jumped ahead of his kick. A couple of ordinary punchers comes riding along, and one of them says, “That’s the first time I ever seen a blond Injun hung up to dry.”

Believe me, Hank, it takes some Injun disguise to get past with if you’ve got blond hair, eh? You know where I told them to go, Hank, but they likely won’t go. Cow-punchers are ornery hounds, Hank, and you ought to quit it.

Well, I got to Mesquite intact. Likely you don’t know what that word means, so I will say I got all of me there without making two trips.

Hank, I felt right at home here. I figured there ought to be some mail for me; so I went to the post-office. I went right up and looked the postmaster in his eye.

“Well,” says he, “what do you want?”

Hank, I thinks awful quick in a emergency, and I remembers my disguise.

“You catchum mail for Pokyhontas?” I asks.

Sam McAllister is the postmaster, Hank, and I’ll bet a broom could knock his eyes off. He looks at me for a minute and then says—

“Are you the one what saved John Smith?”

I says: “Maybe I am. I’ve knowed so many Smiths in my life that saving one or two don’t make me remember nothing.”

“Nothing for Pokyhontas,” says he, and, Hank, just then in comes my loving wife Emmeline and my uncle by marriage and they’re packing my son and heir. Sam McAllister makes a lot of fuss over the kid, and you would too, Hank, because he sure looks like me in every way.

“There ain’t no doubt about him being a Galesburg,” says McAllister, and my uncle by marriage says: “He sure is. Everybody says he looks just like me,” which is a darn lie, Hank. Then my uncle by marriage asks if there’s any mail, and McAllister says: “A letter for Dobie Dalton. You want that?” and he says, “No, we sure don’t, because it must be somebody asking him to pay back borrowed money.”

Ain’t that a nice way to act, Hank? When a dog is down they all kick him. You know how I felt, standing there in reach of my loving wife and son and heir, and I can’t touch them on account of me being a detective in disguise. I wanted to get a look at my own flesh and blood; so I slips over and peeks over my loving wife’s shoulder.

Well, Hank, there ain’t nothing much ever happens around here. This place is deader than a skinned snake and folks are clannish and cold. Anyway, I got a good look at my own little son, and he’s worth it, you bet. In a way, I can’t blame my uncle by marriage, after thinking it over, because I wouldn’t want no Injuns peeking over my wife’s shoulder and feasting their eyes upon my kid.

If you don’t think my Injun disguise was good, Hank, you ought to have seen me light on my hands and knees out in the street. I got up and looked back, but decided that if I went back and licked him I’d get a lot of notoriety from licking my uncle by marriage, and my secret would be made public.

I went on across the street and into a saloon. I leans up against the bar, and says to the bartender, “Whusky.” I could have said whisky, but when you’re a Injun you’ve got to talk broken. The bartender comes around in front of the bar and walks up to me.

Hank, he was a man of low degree like a sidewinder, and I hope to die if I ever forgive him. He got up close and says, “You think you’re cute, don’t you?” and I says, “I know I am,” and he says: “No U. S. marshal will ever convict me of selling booze to a Injun by a stool-pigeon like you. This is one job you fall down on.”

I says, “I never fall down from a hombre like you.”

Hank, I don’t know what a stool-pigeon is, and I don’t want to know, but it must be something awful. That bartender hit me just like I’d done him a lot of dirt. Some folks ain’t got sense enough to know when to quit. I’ve licked a lot of fellers in my time, but I always mixed mercy with my ferociousness, and quit when they had enough, but this bartender was vulgar in his actions and only quit when he got tired.

Hank, you will say, “Why didn’t you go back and knock his head off?” I’ll tell you why. A feller like me lowers himself when he licks bartenders. Folks would say, “The poor bartender,” and so forth, and I’d get no credit for my hard work. Anyway, a detective can’t mix with folks like that and keep his dignity, and dignity is a asset with detectives.

Well, I told a feller about it—about me falling down on the job, and he says, “That’s just a figure of speech,” and I says, “I don’t like them kind of figures, because they mean trouble every time I hear one.”

Well, as I said before, Hank, there ain’t nothing worth writing. I got up and went around to the shady side of Sellers’ Hotel, and set down to plot a little and repair my shirt and war-bonnet.

Pretty soon a feller drifts out on the porch and looks at me. He’s a political-looking person, with one of them tall hats and a fancy vest.

He comes over by me, looks me over and says, “You sabe English?”

I shakes my head and he says, “What do you speak?” and I says, “Kickapoo,” and he says, “Fluently?” and I says, “I can get along.”

He grins and sets down with me. He says: “Me and you are going to do business. You ain’t busy, are you?”

I says, “Now, you keep your distance and talk, because I’ve been riled and I’m liable to bust loose any old time,” and he says, “Bust loose if you feel that way, because I used to be heavyweight champ of the Pacific Coast,” and I says, “There ain’t no use of us having trouble right away.”

There’s no use in starting things, Hank, when they can be avoided. He tells me that we’re going to do some business, and we’re both going to get rich. He takes me around to the street and shows me some circus-poster things which orates that Chief Howling Wolf, of the Dogrib tribe, the greatest medicine-man on earth, is to appear for two nights, and will let suffering humanity buy some of his Alaskan Alleviator, which will cure anything from Nome to New York. The chief is under the direction of Professor Diogenes McGillcuddy, who discovered the wonderful healer.

I looks it all over and then I says, “I need it all right, but I ain’t got the price of a bottle of water.”

He says to me: “You’ve got it all wrong. You are to be Chief Howling Wolf.”

Hank, I didn’t know what to say, so I says, “How do you make that out?”

“Well,” says he, “I had a half-breed Siwash playing the part, but he got sick.”

I says, “Why didn’t he take some of the Alleviator?”

He stares at me, and then says: “My gosh! Me and you are going to make a lot of money. You know it will cure anything, don’t you?”

“It says it will cure in from ten minutes to ten hours,” says I, “but where do I get rich on it?”

“You get a royalty on each bottle I sell. For every bottle I sell, you get five cents, and all you’ve got to do is sing a Injun song, do a war-dance and act like you was in a trance. Maybe you’ll have to make a speech in your own tongue. You’ve got a cinch.”

Well, Hank, I hired out to him, and then we went up to his room at the hotel. We sat down and then he says to me: “You had me fooled for a while but I know you ain’t a Injun. Why do you wear those clothes?”

I says to him, “Now that me and you are pardners, I’ll tell you. I’m a detective.”

Hank, it takes all kinds of folks to make a world, and some of them has queer notions. This feller tells me later on that he was born with a hatred for the name of detective, and when he hears it he busts loose and hurts somebody. I’m sorry I spoke so quick, but it’s all in a lifetime.

Old Man Sellers comes up to see what the noise was all about, and the professor paid him for the busted furniture, and told him that the chief was in a trance and wasn’t responsible. McGillcuddy is French, and the French think quick like I do. He painted my face with horse liniment, so it won’t show so much, but the feeling is there.

Hank, I’ll say again that I think something must be wrong with you. If you need any advice you can write me at Miles City and address me as Howling Wolf, the wonderful medicine-man from Alaska. If you’re sick, Hank, I’ll see if I can get you a price on a bottle of Alleviator.

Yours for suffering humanity,

Chief Howling Wolf, Dogrib.

Mesquite, Aug. 16.

P. S. We are only going to show here one night instead of two. The professor is going to slip one over on the city marshal. He tells me that the marshal made him contract to show here two nights, and he’ll arrest us if we don’t hold to it, but we got it all fixed. It’s all right, Hank, because he ain’t got no moral right to hold us, and anyway, Bill Jackson is the marshal and he used to be just a ordinary puncher like you, and you’d look well trying to make us show two nights, wouldn’t you, Hank?

H. W. D.

DEAR HANK:

If you wrote to me at Miles City I never got it, and it will likely go to the dead-letter office and neither of us will ever see it again, but if you ain’t wrote yet, Hank, don’t do it, because I ain’t there. This old town always did have a hold on me, which is natural, being as my darling wife and son and heir lives here. They are both well and send you their regards, as far as I know.

Well, Hank, I’ve been a actor. What do you think the boys of the old outfit will say when you say, “Boys, my old bunkie is a actor?” It’s a fact, Hank. The show was free, gratis for nothing, and almost every seat was taken. Me and the professor piles all the bottles on a big table, and gets everything ready.

Hank, did I tell you we had two hired men with us? Well, we’ve got two niggers, who ain’t niggers, but white men. One of them sings and the other sings and plays the banjo. We use them to sing sad songs so folks will feel sick and buy more Alleviator.

I sets on a blanket in the middle of the stage, with the professor back of the table and a nigger on each corner of the stage. The professor has diamonds as big as marbles, Hank, and he’s some moneyed man, believe me. Well, the curtain goes up and the feller with the banjo thumps away until he gets tired, and then the professor steps up and says:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to gaze upon the last living member of the famous Dogrib tribe of the wilds of Alaska, which I brought at enormous expense to compound herbs and barks which will cure any and all the ills of mankind.

“Before me sits Chief Howling Wolf, medicine-man of the Dogribs, who brought his entire tribe of twenty thousand souls through pestilence, flood and blizzard without losing a single soul, and all he used was the marvelous Alleviator. Without losing a single soul—a single soul, mind you! Upon that table is enough of this wonderful mixture to cure every ill in your city.

“Ladies and gents, the Alleviator is beyond price. It should only be within the grasp of the most wealthy, but the chief refused to compound the mixture until I signed an agreement to sell it within the reach of all. Now, before I have my gifted Tennessee minstrels pass among you, selling the Alleviator at the unheard-of price of one dollar per bottle, I will prove my assertions by having the chief do the Dance of the Blizzard, only danced by the Dogribs.”

Hank, of course my uncle by marriage has to stand up in the audience and say: “One moment, professor. You state that the chief is the last of his tribe, and again you say he saved the whole tribe of twenty thousand. What happened to them?”

Hank, that sucker makes me mad, so I stands right up and says, “They all died since I left, you —— fool!”

Naturally everybody applauds. They appreciated it a lot, but the professor and them two minstrels hopped upon me, sat upon me and so forth. I hears the professor saying:

“Ladies and gents, I apologize for the chief’s remarks, although it ain’t necessary after I explains to you that the chief is mostly always in a trance, and while he can’t speak a word of English, he will speak some one else’s thoughts. He’s a mental telegrapher.”

Wasn’t it cute, Hank? He sure lied quick, and they believed him.

“You can’t speak a word of English, can you, chief?” asks the professor and I shakes my head, which wasn’t any lie, being as one of them alleged niggers had kicked me in the mouth.

Hank, I danced that Blizzard thing, and it was good, too. The crowd whooped for more. One feller cried tears. It was kind of sad, at that, Hank. Seemed like everybody bought a bottle of the Alleviator.

There was a lot of ordinary punchers there, Hank, and they acted just like they usually do. I wonder that you stick at the punching job, Hank, but I guess it’s about all you’re fit for.

I was singing my Injun song, and it was a darn good song, even if I did make it up as I went along, and all to once something squashed right into my face. Another hit me lower down and I seen it’s eggs. The next one must have been tossed high, because I caught it as it came down. Hank, I’m all out of practise, but at that I hit my uncle by marriage in the face.

Just then somebody took a shot at the banjo, and it made me mad. To think that a lot of low-down punchers would so far forget themselves as to do that. I steps over to the table, picks up a bottle of Alleviator and I sure crowned somebody.

The professor yelped at me to quit, but I told him to go to ——, because I can’t understand English, and went on bombarding. The audience got into the spirit of the thing, and our Alleviator began to come back to us. I sure would have had that bunch stampeded, but them low-down punchers began to shoot the bottles off the table, and when the enemy shoots into your ammunition supply you’ve got to quit.

I never seen hide nor hair of them minstrels after the first shot. Well, Hank, being a actor has its joys and sorrows the same as plumbing or milking cows, but it’s care-free just the same.

Me and the professor crawled out of the back door, and gets met by my uncle by marriage. I don’t know who he is until he gets through hanging the professor over a hitch-rack, and then he says, “I’ll learn you to hit me with an egg!”

See the funny side of it, Hank? I sure had to laugh, and I busts right out. He says, “What are you laughing about?” and I says, “You —— fool, it was me who hit you.”

Well, Hank, when I woke up I was doubled up in an old plaster barrel, and the professor was crawling around on his hands and knees. I says to him, “Did you lose something?” and he says, “No, I’m just looking for the hole which the dynamite made when it exploded.”

I fell out of the barrel and shook myself together. The professor leans against the hitch-rack and groans a few times, and says, “You sure put that show on the rocks, feller.”

I says, “We won’t argue the right or wrong of it, but let’s get us both a dose of the Alleviator and pull our freight.”

He says, “You poor darned fool,” which shows that he felt sorry for me, and then he says, “Well, it’s a cinch we won’t show here no more,” and I says: “They’ll have to beg a lot on bended knee to buy a drop of Alleviator from me. Are we going to do what we planned?”

He says, “Yes; you get hold of the marshal and hang on to him until I yell for you, and then we’ll show this town what is what.”

The idea was for me to kidnap the marshal until the professor can get ready to leave.

Well, Hank, my fingers are getting tired from holding this pen, and there ain’t no news worth writing about. I suppose you are still polishing a saddle and going without a shave like all punchers do. Funny that you stay there, but it ain’t so funny when you consider that you couldn’t do anything else. Hank, if you was put up against the things which have confronted me, you’d fall flat and throw up your hands.

It takes brains to be a detective or a actor, and you’d never be either. I don’t like to ask anybody for a dollar, Hank, and I’m too proud to do it, but right now a dollar would look bigger than Dancing Prairie. I was to get five cents for every bottle that was sold, but I never got a cent, and I never heard the professor yell.

If you need any advice, Hank, you could send a five-dollar bill in the letter along with them questions, and I’d answer them for nothing, but I know you ain’t the kind of a pelican to ask for something for nothing; so I’d keep the bill without hurting your feelings.

If you went to any other detective, Hank, he’d charge you that much for one question, while I give personal attention to each and every one.

Hoping to get your questions very soon, I remain as ever,

Yours resp’y and truly,
Dobie Dalton,
Mesquite, Aug. 20.

P. S. I’m using my own name again, being as I’m no longer Howling Wolf, and I ain’t got no Injun clothes for a disguise nor anything else worth wearing. I suppose the professor is sore as a boil to lose his main actor, but I ain’t to blame as you can see. I never throw nobody down, Hank, and I’m strictly upright.

I found the marshal standing in front of the Jewel Saloon. I rushes up to him and says, “Officer, there’s a dead man down the street.”

He says, “What’s the matter with him?” and I says, “Cramps, I guess.”

The marshal grabs hold of me and tries to yank me around into the light to see who I am; so I pats him on the head with my six-shooter. It won’t do for him to see me or they’ll hold the show for another night; so I caresses him once and then packed him down the street, where I put him under the sidewalk. Then I got to yelling and shooting, just like the professor told me to do, to attract attention down that way, and believe me, it sure did start things moving.

The whole town comes down there, and they wants to know what it’s all about. I’m listening for the professor’s yell when somebody says, “It’s that fake Injun who threw them bottles!”

Hank, I got a string of about twenty punchers around my neck in a second. I measure six feet in my socks, but when I woke up I’m so short I don’t know whether I’ve got bunions or a headache. They sure roosted upon me.

Well, Hank, there ain’t a thing they can do to me. A lawyer came in to see me today, and the sheriff let him stay five minutes.

I said to him, “It’s a shame and a disgrace to do this to me, and I don’t know anything about anything,” and he says: “You talk too much. If you don’t keep your mouth shut you won’t have a foot to stand upon.”

I says, “My gosh, are them savages going to amputate my feet?”

He says, “That’s just a figure of speech,” and I says: “Good-by, feet! I know something about figures of speech, and I’ll likely get a judge with the same ideas that my uncle by marriage has—also the bartender; but you tell them for me that they’ll know they’ve been to a party if they start anything, believe me. I’ll make them go a plenty before they cut Dobie Dalton loose from his boot-holders.”

Well, Hank, there ain’t no news. Hope you will ask those questions and are too proud to want them answered for nothing.

Yours,

Dobie

MR. HENRY PECK:

Well, Hank, I must say I got your letter, for which I am ashamed of myself for reading same. I looked all through it, and it wouldn’t be a sensible letter for even my son and heir to write. You act like a little kid which has had their candy stole.

Just to show your ignorance, you say you wouldn’t even ask me the time of day and expect to get an intelligent answer. I’ve got one of the best watches ever made, and you know it. Have I ever lied to you when you asked me what time it was? Answer—No; and you know it, too, Hank.

Of course you know your own business better than I do, which I doubt, but I’ll concede that much to you, but you’re crazy when you say you wouldn’t pay five dollars for my brains if they’d hand them to you on a gold platter, and throw the platter in. Hank, did you ever price a gold platter? You never did or you wouldn’t talk that way, which shows ignorance.

I often wonder if you ain’t a little bit loco from listening to the cows bawling all the time. Try stuffing a little cotton in your ears, which advice I give you for nothing such as it is.

You don’t know what a detective has to do, because you say that if anybody misses any cows out here you’ll know who stole them. I get you, Hank. You think you’re a mind-reader, eh? You’ll find that you can’t do much like that, because outlaws are smart, you bet.

Well, Hank, the court set yesterday, which means that the judge was there to listen to you lie about everything, but I didn’t have to lie, because I hadn’t done nothing in the first place. I took the sheriff with me to the court-house.

The judge asked me if I was represented by counsel, which means the same as asking if I’ve got a lawyer, and I told him I didn’t because my arrest is a farce, and I ain’t paying no law-shark to get me loose from something I ain’t been tangled in, and he don’t say nothing, because he knows I’m right.

Then he says, “Call the case of the State versus Dobie Dalton, alias Howling Wolf,” and I says, “For gosh sake, judge, is the whole State against me in this?”

The judge makes the sheriff go to the back of the room and throw three fellows outside, and I said, “Why didn’t you send me?”

The lawyer says, “You’ve got troubles enough, ain’t you?” I reckon he felt sorry for me, Hank, but I don’t need no legal sorrow.

Well, Hank, old Abner Blalock, who owns the bank, gets up on the stand and talks like this:

“Last Tuesday night I had been to the medicine show and was going home. I heard a lot of shooting and yelling going on down the street; so I started to go down there. I’m almost in front of the bank, when there came a big explosion and the whole front of the bank fell out.

“I ran back and found three men, two colored men and the other was the medicine professor. I heard him yell, ‘You danged fool, you used too much juice!’ Just about that time one of the colored men hit me, and that’s all I know, except that they didn’t get any money.”

Hank, that was a awful blow to me and I reeled in my chair. Then the marshal gets up in the chair and tells the judge that I hit him over the head after trying to entice him down the street. That’s about all he had to say, and then the judge asks me to tell what I know. I says:

“What the marshal just told you is a lie on the face of it. He says he seen who I was, and that’s a lie, because I wasn’t in the light where he could see my face. I don’t know anything about the robbery. I found the marshal crawling around the street. I started shooting and yelling, and then I happens to think that if the crowd comes milling down there they might step on him; so I shoved him under the sidewalk. I asks damages from them what walked over me, and I wish now that I had left that lying officer to his fate and took care of my own. Amen.”

One feller choked over his chew, and they had to take him outside. The judge gets sort of overcome, too. The prosecuting attorney walks up and down the floor, and then he looks at the judge, who shakes his head. Hank, I sure had ’em all guessing.

Then the judge calls, “Gabriel Galesburg,” and my uncle by marriage comes up and holds up his right hand. Hank, there’s more liars in the court-house than there is in your cow-outfit, which is quite a few.

The judge says, “In your opinion, has Dobie Dalton brains enough to be accessory to a bank-robbery?”

My uncle by marriage says, “Judge, he ain’t got brains enough to be an accessory to anything.”

“Do you recognize the defendant?” asks the judge, and my uncle by marriage says: “His face had been altered quite a lot, but his actions prove he’s nobody on earth but Dobie Dalton. He’s likely been made the goat in this proceedings.”

The judge and his friends all seem to get their heads together, and then he asks me to take the stand.

“Dobie Dalton,” says he, “the court has decided to be lenient. I am going to give you five years in the penitentiary at Deer Lodge, and make it a suspender sentence.”

Hank, when the enormity of the offense strikes me, I stands up and says:

“Why, you danged old billy-goat-faced alleged lawyer, I’ll show you where to head in at. Any old time I make suspenders in Deer Lodge for five years, it will be a cold day. You can’t hand Dobie Dalton anything like that.”

Hank, I moved quick. The sheriff reached for me, but I kicked his feet out from under him, and then I picked up a ink-bottle and whaled away at the judge. If the judge had held still it would all been right, but he had to duck his head, and the bottle hit my uncle by marriage between the eyes. Hank, I went through that crowd like a stampeding cow and raged down the steps and away I went.

Nothing can stop me when I make up my mind to go ahead, because I’ve got will-power wrote all over my face. I know there ain’t no use trying to get away on foot; so I lopes down to a hitch-rack, where there’s a lot of broncs tied. I says to myself, “You’ll likely get caught and have to make a few extra suspenders, but after five years it won’t make much difference.” I grabs a pinto and hops into the saddle.

Hank, I’m a fine judge of human nature, and I can look a man in the face and tell what he is, but I guess I’m out of practise with broncs. This one looks meek and mild, but he lied in the face. That don’t make much difference if you know a horse has the bucking idea, but when you don’t it’s like misplaced confidence. I don’t mind a bronc pitching a little, if I’m looking for it, but I was thinking more about speed than height, and I missed the right stirrup and while I’m trying to find it I loses the other one.

Hank, as good a detective as I am, I can’t find either of them stirrups, and after while I thinks, “What’s the use of hunting?” and I seems to leave everything behind.

Hank, do you believe in hunches? I have a lot of them, some of which I don’t use, but this time I got a good usable one. When I got the wind back into my diafram, which is my lungs, I looks around. Know where I am, Hank? I’m in Gabe Galesburg’s front yard, with the dog barking in my face.

I look at the house and says, “Dobie, it appears that you must go into the house and see your loving wife and son and heir.”

Hank, you know that nothing stops me when I get a idea, so I walks right up to that house without knocking, and goes inside. There’s a strange woman in there, and I says to her, “Where is my loving wife?”

She says, “I don’t know,” and just then I hears my son and heir bawling, and I says to her: “Woman, you are keeping something away from me. Emmeline is under a bad influence, and she can do as she likes, but nobody is ever going to keep me away from my kid. You folks think you are smart, but I’m here to tell you that a man has as much right to have a kid as any woman, and I shudder to even think that my son and heir is to be raised up in a home like this.”

Hank, I know how to talk to them, eh? That woman just stands there and stares at me, and I says, “You just watch me get him,” and I went right in and got my kid and walked out to the front room.

I says, “This kid belongs to me, woman, and wo unto the human being mortal who gets into my path.”

“Papa?” asks the kid, and I says, “You’re —— right it is, old-timer.”

Pretty good for a two-months-old kid, eh, Hank? Blood will tell every old time, and the Daltons are early talkers.

I starts out of the door, and something seems to burst in my head. At first I think it’s a blood-vessel, but when I comes to a little I finds a piece of it in my lap and I know it was that marble statue that Emmeline liked so well. The woman is standing on the steps holding the kid by the hand, and that kid is bawling to beat ——, and it ain’t my kid at all, Hank, because it’s got red hair and freckles, and she calls it Sam.

She says to me, “You ought to be ashamed,” and I says, “You’re the first woman who ever hit me with a nude statue, and you ought to be ashamed with me.”

I got up and felt of my head, and then I says to her, “You don’t need to be scared, ma’am, because I ain’t going to swipe that homely little bunch of frec’les and red hair,” and then I started for the gate.

Hank, I’ll never soothe a woman’s fears again. They ain’t got no sense of right or wrong. I ain’t took twelve steps when she hits me in the back of the head with half of that statue, and I drove my nose in a geranium-bed.

I got up after while and starts for the gate, when I meets a stranger. He says to me, “Holy smoke, what happened to you?”

I says, “Let me give you some advice. Don’t go near that house. There’s a woman up there who owns a red-headed kid, and she’s a cross between a bobcat and a buzz-saw. She ain’t got principle nor nothing.”

Well, Hank, I’m all through giving advice, if you know what that means. If you wrote to me and enclosed a million silver dollars and offered it to me if I would tell you the time, I’d tell you to take your money and go where it is hot.

Well, Hank, I don’t know when you will hear from me again. I’m getting tired of the long Winter and long for a sunny clime. I feel that you are still my friend, Hank, and I subscribe myself the same as I mostly always do, as yours sincerely and truly,

Dobie Dalton,

Mesquite, Aug. 30.

P. S. Unless something happens I am going away from here, Hank. After I left Gabe Galesburg’s home, I wanders downtown. I don’t care if they send me up for life, but I figure nobody will know me now.

Then I meets my uncle by marriage. He’s got a lump where that ink-bottle hit him, but he don’t mention it, which is a mark of respect to him.

He looks at me, and then he says, “My ——, Dobie, you’re a puzzle.”

I says, “I can sure keep them guessing,” and he says, “Why Emmeline wants to hang on to you is a puzzle to me, but nobody understands women.”

I says, “What do you want to know about them?”

He looks at me and shakes his head, and then he says, “How would you like to go to Los Angeles?”

I says, “Is that a figure of speech?” He says, “No,” and I says, “What’s the joke?” He says, “Emmeline,” and then he takes me down to the depot and shows me a car-load of furniture, and tells me to get in.

“Now,” says he, “you are welcome to ride to Los Angeles in there, but it won’t break my heart if you fall off on the way.”

I says to him, “Can I go and kiss my wife and son and heir before I go?”

“No, it can’t be done,” says he, and I says to him, “You can go to —— and that ain’t no figure of speech.”

That would be inhuman, Hank. I’d as soon think of going to China without kissing my relatives by marriage; so I walked back up-town. Hank, I wish I wasn’t so badly attached to my family, because if I was one of them selfish brutes without bowels of compassion I’d be riding along fine and dandy, instead of being here without no one to love me, a suspender sentence on my head and no money in pocket.

They took away my star and gun, which means I’m no detective in appearance; but I ain’t mad, Hank. If you don’t hear from me in Los Angeles you’ll know I never got there or forgot to write.

Yours privately,

Dobie Dalton, Citizen.

P. S. I forgot to tell you that after I went back up-town I drifts into a saloon, and I says to the bartender, “Do you know Gabe Galesburg?”

“Sure,” says he. “He left for Los Angeles today,” and I says, “What for?”

“To live, I reckon. His wife and their niece left yesterday, but he had to stay and ship his furniture.”

Can you beat that, Hank? I says, “What did he do with his home?”

“Sold it to Bill Gallagher,” says he, and I says, “Has Gallagher got any kids?” He says, “One little red-headed one.”

I says, “Who is this Gallagher person?” and he says, “‘Fighting Bill’ is all I know,” and I says, “Pardner, you think that ain’t much to know, but it would have been a college education to me a while ago,” and the bartender says, “Do you know him by sight?” I says, “No—by feel.”

Well, the poet was right when he wrote:

The moving finger writes, and having wrote

Moves on, nor all your prayers or getting sore,

Can move it back to rub out any debts

Nor copper any bets you’ve lost before.

And that ain’t no figure of speech. Amen.

Dobie.

Transcriber’s Note

This story appeared in Adventure Magazine, March 18, 1921. It is believed to be in the public domain in the United States; copyright status may differ in other countries.

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