*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79138 ***


                               NO WONDER

                            by W. C. Tuttle
                 Author of “Helped by a Horse Doctor,”
                 “When the Pilgrims Hit piperock,” etc.


I reckon it’s a fact that the United States is the melting-pot for the
world. She takes ’em in, melts ’em to a certain point and then pours out
everything from scientists to sheep-herders. What comes in between them
two high-minded occupations I dunno, ’cause we only gets the two kinds
out here.

Honest to grandma, we do get some queer pelicans out in the boundless
West. Seems like every scientist from the plain ordinary bug-hunter to
some high-minded, red-sealed, hammer-peaking _hombre_, who looketh for
the antiquated framework of a dippydocus or pack-o’-durham, comes to our
Piperock cabin, looking for advice, guidance or just to interrupt the
peaceful existence of me and that long, lean suffering hunk of
humanity—“Magpie” Simpkins.

We’ve helped ’em hunt for everything from the effects of sheep upon the
human mind to why the coyote howls at the moon—and made good. That is,
we’re still alive. I can stand for science, but when I looks upon the
fat, pink face of Reginald Alfred Jackson Hilton I know that somebody
has swiped the silver lining off our cloud. Yes, he introduced himself
by all them names, and Magpie wrote it all down on our cabin door for
fear we’d misplace it and not know how to call him in when it rained.

Reginald needed somebody to do his thinking for him, except when it
comes to thinking about Violet. Yeah, he could think about her—to a
certain point. Violet’s other name was Robertson-Clark.

Seems that Violet’s ma was so stuck on the family name that when she
married Clark she just hooked Robertson on behind and led it through
life. Reginald tells us that Violet thinks of him all the time, but if
Violet is much good mentally she don’t have to waste much of her brain
to do that.

Reginald was about as much use as a .22 cartridge in a eight-gage
shotgun. I don’t know why we let him stop with us. I voted to tie a can
on his big, hammerheaded mule and point the outfit towards Canada, but
Magpie just looks at Reginald, sort of awed-like and takes off his hat.
It don’t even faze Reginald when Magpie says, “Yes, ma’am” to him.

“I wish to stay,” says Reginald, and the son-of-a-gun did stay.

He wasn’t neither useful nor ornamental. Said his pa owned a railroad.
Pa opines that Reginald ain’t much use, as he is, so Reginald came West
to make a man of himself.

“Uh-huh,” says I. “And stopped here to make —— fools of us.”

“I read it in a book,” says he.

“By Barnum?” I asks.

“I expect so. Anyway it was by a good writer, re’lly. Told about a
fellow who got in bad at home. He came out West and got to be foreman of
a cattle-farm, or foreman of a mine, or foreman of a lumber-mill or——”

“Herded sheep,” adds Magpie.

“I expect so. Turned out to be a wonder, re’lly.”

“He would,” agrees Magpie, “More shepherds turns out to be wonders than
any other race on earth.”

“I’ll stay,” says Reginald, “and maybe I’ll turn out to be a wonder some
day.”

“The sheep need you,” says I.

Reginald didn’t look like a person who would turn out to be a wonder,
especially our first look at him, setting on the ground in front of our
cabin door. We steps out there and looks at him and his mule.

“Seven,” says he.

“Seven what?” I asks.

“Times. That quadruped doesn’t want me on his back, re’lly.”

The Lord only knows where Reginald picked up his wardrobe, but it wasn’t
west of Chicago. He’s got a green shirt with pink stripes,
lavender-colored wool chaps, Baden-Powell hat and yaller boots. His belt
is awful new and yaller, and in the holster reposes a .32 bulldog
pistol.

Reginald is sort of fat all over, pink fat, and he’s got bat-ears. I
don’t like them ears. All I’ve ever met hear everything they hadn’t
ought to and makes you repeat everything they should have heard the
first time.

“How did you happen to get a mule instead of a horse?” asks Magpie.

“Fellow told me that a mule could stand more than a horse. Can they?”

“Well,” says Magpie, “that mule only throwed you seven times today,
which shows that a mule can stand a lot.”

That’s how Reginald Alfred Jackson Hilton came to us. I wanted to bar
the door and keep him moving, but Magpie says:

“He’s worth lookin’ into, Ike. The poor kid needs guidance, and if we
let him go somebody will kill him. He ain’t got brains enough to
unsaddle that mule, and his blood will be upon our head if we don’t hang
on to him long enough to hammer some sense into his head.”

“His blood may be on our hands,” I agrees, “and some of it upon our
heads, but it’s his blood, Magpie. Better let him mosey on while our
corpuscles are intact.”

“He can’t hurt nobody, Ike, even if he shot ’em with that blunt pistol.
We’ll let him stay a while.”

“And get to be a wonder,” adds Reginald.

“You can’t help it,” says Magpie. “You’re a wonder now, and wonders
never cease.”

“I’ll do my best, re’lly. I read that in a book. I love books, don’t
you? Poetry and so forth.”

“And so forth,” nods Magpie.

“What have you read?”

“Undershirt.”

Reginald studies this for a while, and then says—

“Are you spoofing me?”

Magpie grabbed my wrist, and my bullet made a leaky spot in the cabin
roof.

“Remain calm, Ike,” advises Magpie while Reginald seems to look for a
place to ooze out of the cabin. “I’m danged sure I don’t know what that
word means, but we can live it down.”

“All right,” says I. “Dry-nurse him if you wants to, but I ain’t even
going to be a silent pardner in the affair.”

“I’ll try and raise him without help,” nods Magpie sad-like. “I’ll put
him on a dynamite diet and give him injections of sheep-dip and
horse-liniment twice a day. He may pull through.”

“I hope to get along,” says Reginald, looking up at that bullet-hole. “I
want to amount to something.”

“You may,” grins Magpie. “It won’t be any wonder if you don’t, and
you’ll be one if you do.”

“Scenery” Sims, our sheriff, who is a human periwinkle with a squeaky
voice and squeaky boots, comes up to see Reginald.

“He ain’t neither game nor predatory animile,” says Scenery, “so I don’t
know whether to protect him or not. You ought to brand him if you wants
to keep him.”

“He’s all right,” argues Magpie. “He’s lived twenty years.”

“In the East. When I looks upon him, Magpie, I’m filled with these
thoughts. The Lord made Adam and then took one of Adam’s ribs and made
for him a woman, didn’t he? Well, this maverick is plumb safe from
matrimony, ’cause it would take all of his ribs, back-bone, inside and
outsides, from toe-nails to dandruff to make a rib for one woman. He,
he, he!”

“Yet he loves a woman,” says I.

“Don’t prove nothin’,” squeaks Scenery. “I had a pet fool-hen once what
thought a lot of me. It ain’t hard to love.”

“Not when you love a girl like Violet,” states Reginald.

“After lookin’ at you I’d say it ain’t,” agrees Scenery.

Magpie told Reginald he’d better put his mule in the corral or it might
wander away.

“I don’t mind, re’lly,” says he. “I intend to burn my bridges behind me.
Some day I’ll go home and show them what the glorious West has done for
me.”

“I hope you don’t mention names,” says Magpie.

                   *       *       *       *       *

I reckon that Reginald didn’t find things just like they told about in
that book.

One day “Jay Bird” Whittaker, who owns the Cross J outfit and most of
the Paradise bank, rides up to our cabin and orates thusly: “In regard
to that there pro-te-jay of yours, Magpie. That cross between a lulu and
a loco—know whom I am speaking about?”

Magpie nods.

“Hopple the son-of-a-gun! He’s expressed a wish to be foreman of the
Cross J. Uh-huh. Accepted without mercy.”

“Hire him?” grins Magpie.

“‘Telescope’ Tolliver kissed him.”

“My ——! What did he do, Jay Bird?”

“Thanked Telescope. Yessir, he did. Telescope took a liking to him and
made him a present of a gray bronc and——”

“Now that wasn’t no way to do,” complains Magpie. “Likely gave him that
‘Weaver’ bronc, eh? Where’s the remains?”

“Lemme finish, can’t yuh? The Weaver throwed him over the corral fence
and never broke a pole. I brought the funny jigger over in my buckboard,
and the last I seen of him he was up in Ricky’s barber-shop tryin’ to
find out if there’s a vacancy in the Forest Service in Death Valley.
Pete Gonyer told him there was.”

“Ike, will you go and get him?” asks Magpie, “I mean, ‘bring him,’
Ike—not ‘get him.’

“I will not,” says I, shoving my gun back into the holster. “I starts on
a labor of love and you throws a bomb into my motive power. Go herd your
own lambs.”

Reginald ain’t got much sense, but he’s got sort of an animal instinct
which sends him home at meal-time. Magpie is cooking supper when he
shows up. Reginald acts sort of melancholy and after while he says—

“A year ago today I left home.”

“Year?” grunts Magpie. “Where you been all the time?”

“West.”

“West of what?”

“Well—er—New York. When I think of it my head gets in a whirl, re’lly it
does. I don’t know what to do.”

“Spoonful of sody in warm water,” says I. “You’ve got gas pains.”

“Perhaps,” says he sad-like. “You see, it was like this: I met a man
from Silver Bend in New York, who wanted me to come West. I started out
and I got as far as Boston, and I stayed there and wrote letters and
sent them to this man at Silver Bend to post for me. Wasn’t it rather
clever of me, re’lly?”

“I see that you ain’t to be trusted,” says Magpie. “You have deceived
them what believed in you.”

“Well, they—er—re’lly, they dud-didn’t believe in me—much. That’s why I
came West to do big things. Oh I have tried. Today I tried to be foreman
of the Cross J cattle-farm, but—I must do something very soon. Re’lly
the outlook is dreary, and I have only two more days.”

“Internal combustion or has somebody promised to kill you?” I asks.

“I wrote to them,” says he tearful-like. “I got that book I told you
about and I had a lot of things happen to me like they did to the feller
in that book. I—I shu-shot a outlaw and I got to be foreman of the ranch
and I——”

“Saved the girl,” adds Magpie, but Reginald shakes his head, sad-like.

“No—not yet. The girl is Violet.”

“The story ain’t finished yet, eh?”

“Two more days,” wails Reginald. “Two more days. How can I make good?”

“Two more days for what?” asks Magpie.

“I got a letter today. Violet is coming out here. She eloped alone to
come and marry me. She says I’m her hero. She’ll get in Paradise
tomorrow and then she’ll take the stage for here next morning. Tells me
to be there to meet her.”

Reginald wipes the tears off his nose and sniffles real hard.

“But I won’t be there,” says he. “I can’t meet her. I ain’t no hero!”

“No,” says Magpie, with his mouth full of hot beans, “you sure
as —— ain’t.”

“Come and eat something and maybe you’ll feel better,” says I.

“Eat? I can’t eat—I’ve got to think!”

“Well, as long as you’ve got to—do the best you can,” says I. “But grub
on your stummick ain’t going to hurt your brains none to speak about.”

“If we only had some fish,” says Magpie serious-like. “Fish is brain
food.”

“I used to eat a lot of fish,” sighs Reginald.

“Another theory busted,” grunts Magpie, and then sets there and lets his
meal grow cold while he seems to think deep.

                   *       *       *       *       *

I know the symptoms. Magpie’s got an idea and is weighing every angle of
it. Magpie never put his ideas into words until they’re all figured out
to the sharp end of nothing whittled to a point. They’ve got to be
perfectly legitimate, plausible, et cettery, and then they won’t work
a-tall.

At times he squints at Reginald and then he turns his eyes towards me
and all the time he’s fingering his long mustache. After while he puts
some gravy in his coffee and pours some sugar over his potatoes.

“Two more days,” says Reginald sad-like. “You see, I’m her hero.”

After while Magpie rolls a cigaret and leans back from the table.

“They say that heroes are born—not made, but we’re going to prove that
they’re all wrong.”

“You go ahead and prove it,” says I. “But leave the name of Harper out
of the experiment. _Sabe?_ Right now I’m chemically pure in mind and
body and I expect to retain my girlish laughter for many moons. Deal me
out.”

“Ike—” Magpie sets there, squinting his long nose away from the smoke of
his cigaret and staring at the ridge-pole of the cabin—“Ike, me and you
are two old pelicans who has likely never felt love’s young dream and
ain’t qualified to pass upon the —— foolishness of such a condition.
Love only comes once, they say, and that is in the Spring of a man’s
existence.

“Two hearts which beat as one—as the poet says, and the poets ought to
know.

“Here is a chance to make love’s young dream come true. Violet is
looking for a hero. She can’t see nothin’ but a hero. Yonder sets the
hero. Me and you know —— well he ain’t heroic, Ike, but we don’t count.”

“She’ll find out he ain’t,” says I.

“Take time, Ike, and maybe by that time we’ll have shipped ’em East.
_Sabe?_ No matter how he falls down in the East—he’ll be a hero here.
We’ll make him look like one, anyway.”

“Lay down your hand,” says I. “You ain’t showed a pair yet.”

“Violet comes to Paradise tomorrow and comes here the next day on the
stage. Reginald is going to be in Paradise in time to come back on the
stage with her. Reginald is going to have a gun full of blank shells.
When the stage hits Wind River crossing there’s going to be a hold-up.
_Sabe?_ Two men are going to step out and stick up that stage.

“They’re going to order the passengers out. Reginald is going to come
out. He’s going to pull his gun before he gets out, because it takes him
too long otherwise. He’s going to come out of that stage spoutin’ smoke
and gun-wads, and me and you, Ike, are going to turn a flip-flop into
the brush and beat it. Get the idea? He’ll be a hero.”

Reginald takes it all in with his mouth open wide. Then he swallers hard
and says—

“Don’t I capture neither one of you?”

“You —— fool! What do you want?” howls Magpie. “Want us to get twenty
years in the penitentiary?”

“Oh,” says Reginald, thinking it over. And then he says, “I—I’ve told
them I was a dead shot.”

“The danged fool wants to kill one of us!” says I. “Of all the blamed
nerve I ever heard about, he’s got it all.”

“You don’t kill nor capture anybody,” says Magpie. “All you do is to
chase us away, save the girl and the money.”

“Well,” says Reginald, “well, I’m obliged to you, I’m sure. Wouldn’t it
be better if I just happened to ride up on a horse and shoot at you?
Make it more like the feller did in that book.”

“—— your book!” snaps Magpie. “This is real life.”

“With a touch of death,” says I. “Art Miller will likely get loco and
spray us both with buckshot.”

“Naw he won’t,” argues Magpie. “I know Art too well. He’ll stick his
hands right up and he’ll likely hold ’em up until we’re a mile away.
Maybe we’d better have Reginald tell him when to take his hands down.”

“I’ll try to remember it,” agrees Reginald. “Why will he have his hands
up?”

“There are times in my life when I’m a—a——”

Magpie reaches over and picks up his dictionary and peruses it a while.

“There are times in my life when I’m a—a potential murderer.”

“Yes,” says I. “And the rest of the time you’re a —— fool, Magpie. We
ought to let that unsuspectin’ female come out here and see Reginald as
he is.”

“Yes, Ike, that would be your way of doing it, but I—I’m crazy, I
reckon; but I can’t help wanting to start ’em out right. She’ll find out
soon enough that her Reginald ain’t no hero.”

“I’ll do my best,” says Reginald. “But you ain’t told me yet what he’ll
have his hands in the air for?”

“Prayin’,” explains Magpie, “for lightning to strike you.”

“It don’t look like rain,” says Reginald.

Magpie raises up and sets on both of his hands. I do the same thing.
It’s a good thing to do when you’ve got a perfectly good gun hangin’ on
to you and a overwhelming desire to use it. Sort of gives you something
to do with your hands.

“I don’t know why you ever came out here,” says Magpie. “Why didn’t you
stay in Boston?”

“The man who was sending my letters moved away and I had to come. Didn’t
know anybody else to take it up with. I wish I had known you before.”

“I’d ’a’ moved too,” says Magpie.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Well, the next day we pulled the stingers out of some cartridges and
loaded Reginald’s gun for him. It was the first time it had been loaded
and he likely wondered why we put them brass things into the cylinder,
but he didn’t ask. Magpie showed him how to pull the trigger.

“Might as well give him a monkey-wrench,” says I. “He’ll forget to
shoot.”

“Are you spoofing me again?” asks Reginald. “There isn’t any such
thing.”

“As what?” I answers.

“A monkey-ranch.”

I went outside and shot three times at a tin can. Whether I hit it or
not don’t matter. Magpie watched me reload my gun and then held out his
hand.

“Look at it shake, Ike. All unstrung. That’s what a feller gets for
foolin’ with heroes.”

“Do they re’lly grow monkeys?” asks Reginald.

“Show him a monkey-wrench, Ike,” sobs Magpie. “I can’t. I mustn’t look
at him until I gets my natural desires under control.”

I showed Reginald a monkey-wrench and tried to explain, but it was a
waste of energy. I showed him how to hold it so it looks like a gun and
he sort of gets the idea.

“Just as good as a gun in a hold-up,” says Magpie.

“Maybe in the East,” I admits. “But not out here.”

“Aw, shucks! I could hold up a bank with a monkey-wrench and the banker
would swear I had a cannon.”

“Not here,” I argues. “Somebody’d kill you too quick.”

“Naw, they wouldn’t, Ike. It’s the power of suggestion. Know what I
mean? They’d take it for granted that you had a gun in your hands.
Shucks, they’d never think you was fool enough to have anything but a
loaded gun.”

All me and Magpie needs is a slight difference of opinion to start a
hy-iu argument, and this argument holds forth all the next day. Magpie
offers his reasons why he’s right, and then I sets up and howls that
he’s all wrong.

Reginald sets there and listens. Once in a while he opens his mouth to
ask what it’s about. We takes him in hand and explains all about it, and
then in another hour he makes another inquiry. Busting in thataway sort
of keeps the argument alive, and late in the afternoon we stops and
calls it a draw.

We manages to find Reginald’s mule and saddled it for him. We decides
that his clothes are too prominent for a hero to wear, so we garbs him
in an old shirt of Magpie’s and took away his lavender chaps. His hat
don’t fit well, so I gives him an old one of mine. We explains the whole
scheme to him and he understands perfectly.

He only fell off that mule once before he got out of sight down the
road.

Me and Magpie don’t need to rehearse. Magpie has been a sheriff, and I
know quite a lot about robberies too.

We rode out early in the morning, fixed our masks and got all ready to
be foiled by our hero. We aimed to pull it off right at the bank of the
river as the driver pulls for the deluge.

Art Miller was plumb docile and likely wished his arms were twenty feet
longer. He looked into the sky while he hooked one foot under the
express box and up-ended it over a front wheel. I opens the door.

“Everybody outside!” says I.

Comes a squeak, and out comes a little fat harness-drummer. He almost
swallers his tongue when he sees me.

“The rest of you come out!” I ordered hoarse-like; but the rest don’t
come out, ’cause there ain’t no rest.

“Get ’em all out!” croaks Magpie.

Just then I hears a noise and I looks down the road. Right into us comes
a big mule, running like a deer, and on that mule’s neck is Reginald,
hanging to the head-stall with one hand while he reaches back and grasps
the horn with the other. I grabbed that drummer and slammed him back
into the stage and then threw myself backwards.

I seen the mule swing wide enough to miss the stage, but it whanged into
the near wheeler on that team, played a billiard on a leader and then
shot into the air and halfway across the river before it hit the wet.

That stage four went into their collars, and I seen Art Miller go over
backwards on top of the stage with his arms still pointed at the sky,
and into that river went them four horses, scared stiff, the stage and
the driver, bent-for-election, follering the lead of the locoed mule and
our hero.

I crawls out of the brush and just then I sees Magpie coming up the
bank. He’s wet all over, but his mask is still on.

“What was the matter with that —— fool?” he asks. “Mule knocked me plumb
into the river.”

“If you was speaking of our hero,” says I, “it’s going to take about
seven doctors and a couple of lawyers to answer your question.”

“We’ve got to catch that stage, Ike!” yelps Magpie. “Lines dragging and
no way to stop ’em.”

We ducks over to our horses, lands into the saddles and just hits the
road in time to feel perfectly sure that somebody is shooting at us.
Some hunks of lead eases past us, one of which cuts a rosette off my
chaps. Looking back, we beholds a couple of men, riding fast, and they
appears to be throwing lead with both hands.

“—— the stuff that heroes are made of!” says I, and starts riding.

                   *       *       *       *       *

It was some procession while it lasted.

We hit Calamity grade at forty miles an hour where the road is only wide
enough for one rig at a time, and right there we catches the stage. We
came around a turn, jumping high and handsome and slap bang into that
passenger vehicle.

I gets a passing glimpse which seems to inform me that one wheel has met
a rock, the same of which puts the outfit out of the race, and then my
horse and Magpie’s hit together, trying to go around the edge of the
grade, and we went over the edge. It was about eighty feet to the river.
I think I got there first, but it’s a question.

We hit a deep place which was plumb lucky for us. I went down and got a
handful of rocks and am just coming up when somebody comes down to get
me.

We went back to the bottom and then came back to the top. I blows the
alkali water out of my nose and gazes into the features of the man who
came down after me.

It was our sheriff—Scenery Sims. He ain’t even got a squeak left. I
throws him out on the bank and then looks across the pool at Magpie, who
is setting on a rock, combing his mustache.

“Where—did this come from?” I asks, pointing at Scenery.

“Even as you and I,” splutters Magpie, looking back towards the grade.

“He’s after us, I reckon.”

Just then a bullet hit the water beside Magpie and another whines off a
rock beside me. I lopes off down the river to a riffle where I splashes
across and joins Magpie.

“Where’s our broncs?” I asks.

“Gone hence, Ike. Don’t reckon they even got scratched. Let’s get
a-goin’.”

“If I ever get my hands on that —— fool on that gray mule—” says I.

“Self-preservation first, Ike. Somebody must ’a’ knowed about that
hold-up. Dang these high boots full of water!”

“Next time I monkeys with heroes, Magpie——”

“Aw, forget Reginald. I hope Scenery didn’t suffer any bad effects. Did
he wake up enough to recognize us?”

“If you ’a’ let me tie a can on that —— mule in the first place——”

“Live and learn, Ike.”

“Not with you, Magpie—learn and die.”

It takes us two hours to get to our cabin. We hobbles inside and sets
down on the bunk where we sets and lets our feet dangle.

“The danged thing didn’t come home, I reckon,” observes Magpie. “Maybe
the mule killed him.”

“Walking always did bring sweet thoughts to your lips, Magpie,” says I.

“I’m going down-town,” says Magpie. “I’m going to get me a big drink
of——”

Just then the door opens and Scenery and Mike Pelly comes in. Scenery is
sort of wet and moldy-looking, and his face looks like somebody had
caressed him with a curry-comb. He looks at us and squeaks—

“Maybe you are innocent and can prove it, but I’ve got to do my duty.”

“Provin’ innocence is a tiresome chore,” opines Magpie and throws down
on the both of ’em with his six-shooter.

“Unhook their guns and hog-tie ’em, Ike.”

“My suspicions are not unfounded,” squeaks Scenery. “You’re going to be
worried for a long time over this day’s work. Anything you say or do can
be used against yuh. If you’ll give up the five thousand you stole and
promise to——”

“It is not for the sheriff to coerce a criminal,” states a voice, and
there stands Judge Steele, peering over his glasses at us. “I hereby
adjudicates——”

“Set down, judge!” snaps Magpie, and the judge takes one look at
that .45 and obeys. Then I hog-ties the presiding judge of Yaller Rock
County.

“When I sets in judgment on you two, I will remember this,” says he.

“Tell it to the jury,” grins Magpie, and then we went outside.

“Canada or Mexico?” I asks.

“For murder, Ike. I’m going to kill a hero.”

                   *       *       *       *       *

We went down to Buck’s place and finds that Art Wheeler is the center of
attraction. I tries to back Magpie out of there, but Art sees us and
yells:

“Who-ee! You ought to ’a’ seen it, Magpie. Seven of ’em with
Winchesters. Four .45-70’s and three .30-30’s lined up on me. I kicked
an empty express box off among ’em, slammed the rawhide into my four
broncs and saved the day.”

“Huh!” grunts Magpie. “Say yuh did? What day, Art?”

“Today. Down at Wind River crossin’. By grab, I showed them bad men a
trick or two. Five .45-90’s and two——”

“Recognize any of them?” I asks.

“Not exactly, but I think the leader was ‘Black’ Anderson, Ike. ’Course
he had a mask on, but he had a big black beard and would weigh over two
hundred. All of ’em had two six-guns and every one had a rifle.
Three .40-82’s and——”

“Changed guns real often,” observes “Slim” Hawkins. “Wonder they didn’t
shoot at yuh, Art.”

“Didn’t they? Say, you betcha they did. I’m foggin’ along Calamity when
all to once I seen that they was gainin’ fast, so I uses my head. I
hooks a front wheel around a boulder, which throws one of my leaders off
its feet, and I just blocked that road complete.

“When them bandits comes whoopin’ up the road and around that curve,
they sees that they can’t stop and they can’t go around me; so they just
simply flew off that grade. Honest to gosh, I——”

“Hol’ on, Art,” cautions Buck. “You ain’t speakin’ of hummin’-birds.”

“Flew!” snaps Art, floppin’ his arms, so there won’t be no mistake about
it. “Flew right off. I says to myself, ‘Ah-ha!’ just like that, and then
the eighth one flew off, and——”

“Stop and count again,” interrupts Pete Gonyer.

“Lemme make my statement, can’t yuh?” wails Art. “That eighth one was
Scenery Sims. He went right after ’em. Mike Pelly was with Scenery, but
Mike’s bronc went lame on him and wasn’t going so fast, so he stayed on
the grade.”

“Did Scenery get any of them?” I asks.

“Never seen ’em after they flew. Scenery says he dived plumb to the
bottom of Wind River, but there wasn’t any of them down there. Says he’s
got a clue, though.”

“How did Scenery happen along?” asks Magpie.

“He was chasin’ ’em,” explains Art. “Chased ’em from Paradise. Well,
sir, when I looks into the muzzles of them five .50-110’s and them
two .45-60’s, I says to myself, ‘I’ve got to use mighty good judgment
right now, ’cause if them guns go off I’m going to be downhearted for
quite a while.’ Them .30-30’s sure do tear——”

Magpie led me outside, where we stares at each other. “What kind of a
plea are you going to make?” I asks.

“Lapse of memory or insanity, Ike. Five thousand! And Scenery chased us
all the way from Paradise—all seven of us. Look who’s comin’.”

It’s a buckboard, and in it is Jay Bird Whittaker and “Perfume” Parsons,
his cashier. They stops in front of the saloon and the crowd comes out.
Of course, everybody tries to talk at the same time, but after while we
hears Perfume say:

“Well, that kinda tallies with what happened to me, only I never seen
but three. The others likely was guardin’ the outside. Winchesters?
Sure. The one what done the talkin’ had a awful big six-shooter.”

“Five thousand,” we hears Jay Bird say, and then me and Magpie wanders
away.

“The thick plottens,” says Magpie, foolish-like. “Next thing we’ll be
hearin’ of somebody what got hung for committing suicide. We will now go
to the jail.”

“What for?”

“I want to see if our hero is still at large.”

He wasn’t in the jail; but on top of the sheriff’s desk is an old
sombrero and in the sweat-band is the initials—I. H.

“Our hero lost his helmet,” says Magpie. “Here’s where Scenery Sims
loses his clue.” And he puts the hat inside his vest.

We starts for the door, but turns right around and starts back again.
Scenery, Mike and the judge are almost to the door. There ain’t no way
out except right into their arms, so we steps inside a cell, pulls the
door shut and sets down by the wall.

“You couldn’t hog-tie a dead-ex wagon with a loggin’-chain and a
padlock,” says Magpie, mean-like.

“I’d like to know how in —— they got loose,” says I.

“Be a lot of satisfaction,” whispers Magpie, and then they comes in.

“Well,” says the judge, “we’ll set the machinery of the law into motion
at once. Them criminals has got to face the bar of justice and I’ll see
that they gets plenty of it. Heroic measures must be dealt with.”

“I’ll get ’em,” squeaks Scenery. “All seven of ’em. They sure are
desperate and unmindful of the law when they holds up a bank and then
holds up a stage while makin’ their getaway. I didn’t think it of Magpie
and Ike, but I know they ain’t got no morals.”

“Crooks from their belts both ways!” snorts Mike.

“Organize a posse at once,” orders the judge, and the three of ’em goes
outside, talking about it.

“Narrow escape, Ike,” grins Magpie, sneaking over to the door, “We sure
was in a tight—uh——”

“Yes,” says I. “Tight and narrow. You danged fool, you knowed them doors
lock when they shut tight.”

Magpie walks over and peers through the barred window. Pretty soon he
says:

“Holee henhawks! Look who’s here, Ike.”

I goes over and peers out of the window at Reginald and his mule.
Reginald looks like he had been curried with a handful of jack-knives,
and the mule looks as meek as milk.

“Hey!” yells Magpie, and Reginald looks up. “Move over closer, you
locoed, double-crossin’ jug-head!”

Reginald yanks hard on one rein, pulls the mule’s head plumb around to
the fender of the saddle, and the mule ambles over sort of sideways.

“Wouldst talk with thee, hero,” says Magpie.

“Yes’m,” says Reginald. “Present.”

“We’re in jail,” says Magpie. “On your account, you misguided
mud-turtle. Know what I mean?”

“Oh,” says Reginald. “I didn’t recognize you before. Glad to see you. In
jail? Can’t get out?”

“Oh yes,” says Magpie, sweet-like. “We can get out when the sheriff
unlocks the door.”

“Is that the only way?”

“Well, I helped build this jail, and I feel that if you was to shoot
about ten pounds of dynamite in the proper place it might dent the wall.
How are you, hero?”

“I’m fine, re’lly. The mule ran into one of those wire fences—the kind
with the little thorns on. I’ve got some good news for you, Mister
Simpkins.”

“Good news!” grunts Magpie. “Go ahead—shoot.”

“I can’t shoot because I lost my gun. I think it was when we went into
the wire thorns.”

“Where’s Violet?” I asks.

“Violet? Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you about her. Her folks caught her
in Philadelphia.”

“Is that the good news?” asks Magpie.

“Oh no. I just wanted to tell you that you were right.”

Just then the mule lifts its head and starts ahead. Our hero just sets
there and rides away.

“Just wanted to tell me I was right,” says Magpie.

“My ——!”

“It may be good news, but nobody’d believe it,” says I.

We keeps watch out of that window until dark, but don’t see anybody.
Seems like everybody has joined the posse.

We’re almost asleep when we hears a noise. We hears Scenery’s voice and
then hears Reginald say—

“Re’lly, I do not wish to be incarcerated.”

“I don’t give a dang!” squeaks Scenery. “You’re mebbe innocent, but
you’re actin’ suspicious around here like a burglar. _Sabe?_ Into jail
you go.”

We hears him unlock the door and we hugs the corner of the cell. Comes a
scuffle, Scenery squeaks out a cuss-word, and then comes a _click_!

“Now, dang your pink hide!” wailed Scenery. “You’ve done it—you have!
And the key is on the outside where I can’t reach it!”

“I must get out,” says Reginald. “Re’lly I must, don’t you see?”

“_Aw-w-w-w—!_” squeals Scenery. “Locked in my own jail! Dang you!”

“It can’t last much longer,” quavers Reginald. “Re’lly it can’t.”

“The —— it can’t!” snaps Scenery.

“It’ll have to last until morning. No——”

“But it can’t!” wails Reginald. “No one has any power over it, re’lly.”

“You’re loco,” argues Scenery. “I won’t talk with you.”

“But don’t you see,” pleads Reginald. “It can not last. Don’t you see
that? I wonder that any one can be so ignorant of——”

                   *       *       *       *       *

I won’t use any word to describe what follows. If you can imagine one
vast eclipse of everything worth a dang, a wind blowing a million miles
an hour, the biggest noise ever made—well, you’ve got a slight idea of
the importance of what happened right then.

We’re inside that jail cell, all dark-like, and in the next instant I
saw the moon. Yessir, I looks right up at the old moon. I seen some
stars around the moon and then there’s sort of a veil drawn over
everything and then I sees a lot more stars.

These last ain’t what “Comet” Custer used to call “fixed planets,”
’cause they’re sort of agitated, running into each other and making
little puffs of smoke when they collides. I says to myself—

“Don’t be surprized at anything you see, Ike, ’cause they say this
Western country is changing every day.”

Then I seems to be setting down under a tree in the moonlight.
Everything is peaceful. I looks up above me and I sees the granddaddy of
all buzzards setting on a limb, humped up, looking down at me.
Ordinarily I tolerates a buzzard, but this one is a “specimen,” so I
reaches down for my gun. Then I looks up at the buzzard and shakes my
head.

The gun ain’t in the holster, ’cause there ain’t no belt to carry a
holster; also and moreover there ain’t no pants over which to wear the
belt. I says—

“I’m dreaming that I’m out in the open without any clothes on.”

“_Yer-r-r-ack!_” says the buzzard.

Comes a ripping sound and something lands right on my neck. I seen a
Roman candle and a couple of pin-wheels and then I wriggled loose.

“_Juz-z-erflookuffuff,_” says the buzzard.

“Magpie,” says I, “you’ve caught a bad cold. You’ve been in a draft.”

He seems to crane his neck a few times and then spits audible-like.

“I don’t know what I had in my throat,” says he, “but I think it was the
key to the jail. What in —— happened, Ike?”

“I ought to know, hadn’t I?” I asks. “Somebody told me, didn’t they?”

“Look!” croaks Magpie. “Big dog.”

It comes along towards us, coming slow.

“Danged big dog,” wheezes Magpie. “Get out, Nero!” and he throws a rock
at it. We heard the rock hit it, and then the dog stops and to our ears
comes—

“Now—now, I’ve withstood too much—re’lly.”

“Reginald!” gasps Magpie. “I’d forgot you.”

“I—I don’t mind,” wails Reginald. “Re’lly I don’t.”

“Where’s the sheriff?” I asks, and Reginald seems to take it under
advisement.

“I don’t know, re’lly. We were together quite a while and then I seen
him get on my mule and then—I don’t know, re’lly. I tried to make him
understand about that dynamite, but——”

“Dynamite?” croaks Magpie. “It was dynamite.”

“So it said on the box in your cabin. I took all there was because I had
no scales to weigh out ten pounds and——”

“Forty pounds if there was an ounce!” groans Magpie.

“Go on—uh—hero.”

“I just lit the what-you-call-it when I became arrested and——”

“I heard the rest,” sighs Magpie. “But what I want to know is this: why
in —— didn’t you come and tell us that Violet never came? You knew
danged well we were going to hold up that stage.”

“Oh, yes, that’s right,” agrees Reginald. “I re’lly must have forgotten.
You see I was deeply interested in your argument, and I forgot. You were
right.”

“Right about what?”

“Holding up a bank with a—er—monkey-wrench.”

“How do you know?” I asks.

“Because I did it,” says Reginald. “I proved the theory. I’m a wonder.”

There ain’t a word said for a long time and then Magpie says:

“Yes, you’re a wonder. There ain’t the least doubt about it. You’ll get
about twelve years in the penitentiary. How much money did you get?”

“Quite a lot, re’lly,” says Reginald, shaky-like. “I filled both
saddle-bags.”

“My ——!” grunts Magpie. “Five men with Winchesters! We’ve got to save
him, Ike, and thereby save ourselves. What did you do with it,
Reginald?”

“Threw it away.”

“Threw it away? Holee henhawks! Where?”

Reginald thinks for quite a while, and then, “Do you know where the road
crosses that muddy place where that funny bridge is?”

“Moose Swamp,” says I. “Corduroy road.”

“I threw it in there,” says Reginald. “I was in a hurry.”

“Oh you —— fool,” groans Magpie. “You poor ——, let’s go. We’ve got to
find it, Ike. Come on, Reginald, you pie-headed, brainless—uh—hero.”

Just then we hears voices. I reckon that everybody who didn’t go with
that posse is on their way down to see what the big noise was. We hears
Scenery’s voice squeak like the E-string of a fiddle:

“How do I know? I arrested that pro-te-jay of Magpie’s and he yanked the
door shut on both of us, and then the jail rose up and left us. I don’t
know a thing until I wakes up and finds myself ridin’ that mule.”

“Come on,” says Magpie, and the three of us limps around to the main
street. There’s one animal at the hitch-rack—Reginald’s mule.

Magpie yanks the saddle off and throws it on the sidewalk.

“Climb on,” says he. “Nothin’ dainty about this here equipage; but maybe
the three of us can hold down this long-legged son-of-a-gun.”

                   *       *       *       *       *

We put Reginald between us and started out of town. Hold him down? Say,
that big hammer-headed mule needed about half a ton to make him travel
smooth. We went down that road like a runaway locomotive.

We went through Pete Gonyer’s backyard and when we hit the road again
we’ve got forty feet of clothes-line, two suits of underclothes, a pair
of overalls and several socks.

“Guide the danged thing!” I yelps, trying to get the rope from under my
nose.

“What with?” howls Magpie. “Who took the bridle off?”

“I did,” admits Reginald. “I knew how to do that much.”

On we went down that dim road, lickety-brindle, high and handsome.

“Ho-o-o-ld fast!” yells Magpie, and we went across the river so fast
that the mule likely never even got his feet wet.

It’s only a mile more to Moose Swamp.

“How—are—we—going—to—get—off?” yells Magpie.

“That is easy, re’lly,” chokes Reginald. “If it isn’t, I’m a wonder.”

“Got any laundry left?” I yelps.

“The overalls.”

“Throw it over his head,” I advises. “Blind the danged thing, Magpie,
and he’ll slow up.”

I feels Reginald go forward, so I know Magpie must be trying my scheme,
and then Reginald straightens up. Did the mule slow up? Yeah, like Kelly
did.

“Wow!” yelps Magpie; and just then I feels the rear end of that mule
rise up and I turns a flip-flop with our hero in my arms.

Comes a splash and a glob and I skids into a tree with my ears, eyes and
mouth full of mud. Pretty soon I hears Magpie’s voice weak-like and
kinda gooie:

“Blind mule missed the bridge! Wonder if anybody’s alive?”

“I ain’t,” says I. “But I can’t answer for Reginald and the other mule.”

“I—I would be all right if somebody would take the mule off my lap,”
wails Reginald. “Re’lly, I would. He has his feet in my lap and I can’t
put the bridle over his head.”

“Bub-bridle?” croaks Magpie. “You’ve got the bridle?”

“Yu-yes. I th-thought we might need it.”

We led the mule out of the mud and then we managed to get Reginald on to
the bank. Magpie lit a match and looked at us, but made no remarks.

“Now, where did you throw it?” asks Magpie.

“I think I can show you,” says Reginald, weak-like.

We tore our way through the brush and got back to the road, where we lit
matches and let Reginald hunt for the vital spot.

“Right about there,” says he, pointing off into the swamp. “I think that
is the place, re’lly.”

“You’re a —— of a robber!” groans Magpie. “Well, I reckon we’ve got to
find it, Ike.”

The mud was above our knees, but we didn’t mind it. We got out in that
goo and dug deep. Mosquitoes bit us every place possible and being as
we’re about seven-eighths out of clothes there is plenty of
possibilities.

I’ve got so many sore spots that I’m just one big ache and I can hear
Magpie creak every time he stoops over. I lifted up enough mud with my
two hands to build a real nice swamp, but all I ever got between my
fingers was mud.

We played mud-hen for about an hour, without any luck a-tall. Somebody
wrote once about a “gibbous moon.” That was the kind that shone down
upon us. Two gaunt, ragged ghouls, flapping and digging in oozy slime,
while on the bank stands two blots, one of which has got long ears.

After a while I hears Magpie say:

“—— the mud and everything else!” and he goes glob-globbing to the bank
and crawls out.

“Get on that mule and point towards the North Star,” I hears him say to
Reginald. And then he adds, “I hope you hit the North Pole and freeze
your feet.”

Reginald don’t say a word. I see him get on the mule.

“Just about where is that money you stole?” asks Magpie.

“In—in the saddle-bags,” quavers Reginald.

Splat!

Magpie slapped that mule with his hat and it fades off down the road,
just hitting here and there. I crawls out.

“The money in the saddle-bags?” I asks. “Why—uh—”

“Uh-huh,” says Magpie, soft-like. “Feel of this, Ike.”

He hands me a slippery, muddy object, and I runs my fingers over it.

It was a monkey-wrench.


[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in Adventure Magazine,
January 18, 1921. It is believed to be in the public domain in the
United States; copyright status may differ in other countries.]

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79138 ***