Mr. Scraggs Part 14

"'That's it!' says I. 'Pardner, you've struck it. There ain't one man in a thousand thinks of tuckin' the sky around him when he turns in, but many a time when I've shoveled the last batch of centipedes and tarantulas into the fire, petted a side-winder good-night, and fired a farewell shot at a scalplock vanis.h.i.+n' over the hill, I've thought that same thing. Oh! the soothin'

gooley-woo of windin' yourself up in a bright-colored sunset and lyin' down to peaceful dreams! I sleep too hard to remember about the angels' wings.'

"I spoke so earnest he swallowed me whole. 'Centipedes and tarantulas,' says he, musin' (evidently he hadn't figured on 'em); 'an' what is a "side-winder," Mr. Scraggs?'

"'A "side-winder," sir,' says I, 'is a rattlesnake who travels on the bias, as I've heard my wife remark about her clothes--he's a kind of Freemason; he lets you in on the level and out on the queer."

"'Rattlesnake?' says he; 'ha--hum--rattlesnake, yes, yes, yes--not dangerous, I hope?'

"'Oh, no!' says I. 'He bites you up somewhat, but it's only play.'

"Right here he got off a joke. It took some time--I see it comin.'

"Rather dangerous _play_, that, Mr. Scraggs, heh?' says he. 'Ha, ha, ha!'

"Well, I reckon I enjoyed that joke as much as he did--the two of us laughed for five minutes. But, somehow, he looked so simple and innocent and foolish, my heart bucked on guyin' him. There wasn't no bad pretensions about him; it was only that the old ladies had told him he was a wonder so long, he'd been more'n a man if he hadn't come to believe it--it's pretty medium hard to keep to cases under them conditions. That's what made him cough so deep and important, and stand there with a frown on his brow, lookin' as if he knew a heap more than he could understand.

"I side-stepped. 'I gather,' says I, 'you want to go campin',' and you want me to pilot you?'

"He just beamed on having the puzzle solved so simple, 'That's it exactly,' says he.

"'I guessed it almost from the first,' says I. 'Well, we want a team and blankets and a camp kit; that'll cost something.'

"'It isn't a question of cost,' said he, pulling out a cuc.u.mber and skinnin' much money off the top of it. 'You take that and secure what we need.'

"'I'll do what's right by you,' says I, and meant it. That afternoon the Rev. Percival Mervin and Mr. E. G. W. Scraggs pulled out with a team of mules for parts unknown. I had no more idee what kind of land we were runnin' into than Percival himself; howsomever, one country's a great deal like another, after all.

But I gave him the history as we journeyed--oh, sure! Hadn't he come out for pleasure?

"'There,' says I, p'inting with the whip, 'is Dooley's Pillar, so called because a man by the name of Dooley, helped only by his widow, stood off eight ravagin', tearin' savages there for three weeks.'

"'Good-ness gra-cious!' says Percival. 'And did they escape?'

"'The Injuns? Oh, yes; they got away.'

"'No, I mean the Dooleys.'

"'Yes, they got away, too; everybody got out all right--only the name stayed.'

"'I should have thought there would have been bloodshed,' says he, astonished and a little disappointed, too, for all he was such a kind-hearted little man.

"'It come mighty near it,' says I; 'mighty. The only reason there weren't was because the Injuns couldn't get at 'em--don't you notice that cliff at the bottom?'

"'Yes.'

"'Well, that goes completely around, and it ain't climbable, so the Injuns had to stay down.'

"'I see,' says he; and we rode three mile before he said: 'But how did the Dooleys get there?'

"'They was ketched by a tornado in Sore-toe Canon, over yonder,'

says I, 'and blowed right to the top--the Injuns chasin' 'em horseback and shootin' at 'em on the wing.'

"Percival he cleaned his gla.s.ses, looked hard at Dooley's Pillar, and give me his honest opinion.

"'It,' says he, 'is very remarkable.'

"I looked at him. It was; but too much like taking a loan out of a blind beggar's hat. 'F I'd been a decent man I'd quit. There was a fatal fascination about Percival, though--you wondered how much he _would_ swaller--kind of spurred you up to heave something at him he'd see wasn't so. It needed a better man than me to do it.

You never in all your life heard of such things as took place along that route. As he said, it made him glad to think he'd got holt of a man who had the history of the country at his fingers' ends.

"He showed nothing but a thirst for information when I pointed out Grant's Leap--the place where General Grant hopped to safety with three Apache arrows sticking in the fulness of his pants.

"'Why!' says Percival, 'I never heard that General Grant was out in this country.'

"I shook my head wise. 'No,' says I; 'he kept it dark.'

"'Nothing against his good name, I hope?' says he, anxious.

"'Not at all,' says I, warm. 'He done it to oblige a friend--it was told me in confidence, so I can't say more.'

"Just then we made a turn that brought Grant's Leap into better view. I'd thought it was a narrer slit, but it 'ud be a good horse-pistol that could carry across.

"'General Grant must have been very agile as a young man,' says Percival.

"'Not at all,' says I. 'It ain't mor'n fifty feet, and that was before he was all wore out runnin' for the Presidency.'

"'Oh, I see,' says Percival. 'Don't think I meant to doubt you.'

"'I didn't,' says I, my conscience biting me again.

"There was no help for it, though; he had to have a story of every queer-looking hole, rock, tree, or mud-puddle we saw. There was one spooky-looking tree, dead on one side. 'Now,' thinks I, 'I shall lay you out and quit.'

"So I told him about how the vigilantes had wrongly suspected a man who peddled rubber hose of a murder, overtook him under that very tree, and, lacking rope, strung him with a section of his own goods, riding away without a look behind them. When the poor lad was yanked off the horse the hose stretched so his feet touched the ground: he gave a jump, went up high enough to loose the strain, swallowed a mouthful of air, and so forth. His hands being strapped behind him he couldn't help himself, but for three days he hopped up and down there, securing light refreshment by biting the leaves off the tree, which, strange to say, never put out green leaves on that side again.

"'And then he was rescued? Who did it?'

"'He was--the vigilantes did it. The reason they suspected him was that they found a receipted bill for fifty feet of garden hose in Ike's, the murdered man's, pocket. Knowing perfectly well that Ike never paid a bill in his life, that looked suspicious, but when they come to look at it closer they see the bill was made out to another man, and they hustled back. The pedler was game, though weary. They raised an ax to free him, but he hollers--one word to the jump--"Don't--waste--too--much--hose!"'

"Percival put his hand on my shoulder. I thought my little effort would receive at least a smile, and was preparin' to join in, when he says:

"'Think of the state of that innocent man's mind for those three days!'

"Well, I tried to, to oblige Percival, but I just naturally couldn't; if it hadn't been a nut come loose under the wagon there'd been nothing left for me but to die right there.

"Only one thing marred the trip. We run across a man who asked where we was going.

"'Oh, out a little way!' says I.

"He looked at Percival. 'Here a minute!' says he. I went over to him. 'Look out for your eye!' he whispered. 'The 'Paches are up.'

"Well, I never paid any more attention to a man predictin' Injun troubles than I do to a farmer's kickin' about the weather, so I thanked him and we strolled on. I explained to Percival that the man was the well-known desperado, James Despard, of the b.l.o.o.d.y Hand, and he was askin' me if I'd met any of his enemies.