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Title: Clean crazy
Author: W. C. Tuttle
Release date: June 16, 2026 [eBook #78877]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: The Ridgway Company, 1918
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78877
Credits: Prepared by volunteers at BookCove (bookcove.net)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLEAN CRAZY ***
CLEAN CRAZY
by W. C. Tuttle
Author of “Muley’s Morals,” “Salt of the Earth,” etc.
“Cleanliness is next to godliness, Hen,” orates Telescope Tolliver,
trying to stick up uh razor slash on his face with some cigaret paper.
“Uh feller ought to take uh bath once uh week whether he needs it or
not. Uh course I don’t mean that yuh ought to rub all the cuticle loose,
but uh nice refreshing bath, taken in uh gentlemanly manner don’t hurt
nobody.”
“That’s nice to listen to, Telescope,” says I. “Cleanliness is uh hi-yu
state of uh affairs, but when uh feller has to absorb said cleanliness
from uh wash-basin and uh dirty towel, it sort uh loses its girlish
charms.
“The last time I gets dudish thataway Muley Bowles comes along and gets
his big feet into that basin. I’ve only got as far down as my ears, and
there ain’t no water left, so I proclaims uh drouth on the lower part uh
my system and lets her go at that. I’d give three cheers to know who
honed this razor. If Chuck don’t get rid uh them corns uh his pretty
soon we’ll all have to grow whiskers on our faces. What’s all this here
talk about baths about, Telescope?”
“Uh man ought to go clean to uh dance, Hen,” he proclaims. “Being as
there’s going to be uh sprinkling of the fair sex at the Seven A shindig
it ain’t no more than right that we sloughs off uh little real estate
and smells more like uh rose. I hates to shave this early, but if Muley
and Chuck ever starts to get dolled up for uh dance there ain’t never
going to be no chance for uh civilized man to get prepared. We’ll get
most all ready, except the per-fume, Hen, and then they can have it all
to themselves, eh?”
“Speaking uh baths,” says I.
Telescope smokes hard on his cigaret, and grins at me.
“Hen,” says he, reminiscent like, “did you admire the swimming-hole when
you was uh kid?”
“I’d tell uh man,” says I. “Why, doggone it, Telescope, I re——”
“Fine,” says he, still grinning. “About half-way between here and
Paradise, down there where Tin Cup Crick makes that elbow turn, there’s
uh swimming-hole that was sure built to order. I discovered it the other
day, when I hazes uh cow across.”
“Too close to the road,” I objects. “Anybody going along the road could
look right over there.”
“Naw. Bushes all along the bank. You’d have to stand up in uh wagon to
see the water uh-tall, Hen. Let’s me and you go down there and have uh
good old swim. What do yuh say, eh?”
“Here they are, Muley!” yells Chuck Warner from the doorway. “You guard
the window while I hangs uh rope on ’em, and we’ll split the reward.”
“Being funny is an art, Chuck,” states Telescope, dangling uh pair uh
green neckties in his hands. “There’s always something pitiful about the
funny stuff you say. What are you and that animated can uh goose-grease
trying to start around here?”
“Goose-grease, eh?” yelps Muley Bowles from the window, where his face
looms up like uh milk-cheese. “You long, limber-jointed cross between uh
surveyor’s chain and uh razor-backed hawg—you!”
“Well, spring it,” I advises. “Let’s all laugh.”
“Haw! Haw! Haw!” whoops Chuck. “You’ll laugh all right, Hen. Sheriff
McFee was taking uh couple uh crazy men up to Warm Springs from Red
Lodge last night. He had them two hombres in the express car, where
their language won’t offend nobody—and drummers, and when it gets dark
they opines that they desires to sleep. McFee humors them by letting ’em
take off their clothes.
“Well, pretty soon they seems to get uh longing for the free and open
pe-rairie, so they busts McFee over the head with uh crate uh aigs,
piles uh heavy trunk on the messenger, and hits the cactus near
Paradise, with nothing on their bodies or minds.
“Also they takes McFee’s and the messenger’s six-shooters. McFee arrives
in Paradise with aigs in his hair and malice in his heart. He offers uh
hundred dollars reward for information that will corral the aig-busters.
I’d opine that them nude nuts will be hard to take alive.”
“Uh man, with nothing on his mind
And nothing on his legs,
Who hits the county sheriff
With uh case uh ancient aigs,
Then pilgrims out in cactus land
To take uh little sleep
Hadn’t ought to be arrested;
He should be herding sheep.”
Muley recites with his face through the window.
I don’t reckon that Muley could help orating poetry if he wanted to. He
tips the hay-scales at two hundred and forty, rides the biggest
saddle-tree in the State, and constantly lives in hope that his past is
forgotten, and that he can learn to spin uh rope without balling it up.
Telescope Tolliver was built after uh pole-bean pattern. He ducks every
time he enters the door, and rides with short stirrups so his feet won’t
drag. His past is closely linked with Muley’s, and the less said about
it the better. Telescope insists that he’s originally from Kentucky—the
Tollivers of Kentucky, with the accent on “the.” Telescope sings. Some
folks sings by music and some by ear, but Telescope sings by main
strength.
Chuck Warner has banty legs on uh man-sized body, face like uh bronc,
and ability to tell uh lie and stick to it. He wiggles his ears like uh
burro, looks trusting out of uh pair uh innocent blue eyes, and
sings—when somebody don’t stop him.
Me? I’m Hen Peck. I was born in Missouri and showed in Montana. I ain’t
so awful to look at and I got uh lot uh natural sense. I sure can make
uh banjo set up and take notice; and also can sing uh little. I’m to be
described as having uh sympathetic disposition and warts on both hands.
I’m unlucky. If I hadn’t uh started to punch cows for uh living I might
uh made uh mark in the world, but no matter if I had, somebody would
have come along and rubbed it out.
Right now this unholy quartet is drawing down forty and board from the
Cross J outfit, owned and cussed at by old man Whittaker, christened
Ephriham. Any one wishing to correspond with me can send it to any one
of us, care of the Cross J ranch, Yellow Rock County, Montana. It don’t
make no difference who yuh address the letter to—the other three will
get it sooner or later.
“Lucky thing that you and Muley had your clothes on, Chuck,” says I.
“That’s all the alibi yuh had. How long did it take you and Muley to
frame up uh lie like that?”
“It ain’t no lie, Hennery,” replies Muley. “McFee is getting up uh posse
right now.”
“Why didn’t you fellers go with him?” asks Telescope. “They say it takes
uh thief to catch uh thief: why not uh nut to catch uh nut? Like
attracts like.”
Me and Telescope dodges two pair uh boots, and arrives outside intact.
* * * * *
“Let’s go swimming,” says Telescope, and we did just that thing. That
swimming-hole was built to order, and we can’t hardly wait to get our
clothes off. I reckon it’s about uh hundred in the shade, and believe me
that water did feel good to little Henry Clay Peck, Esq.
We dives off the bank and disports like uh pair uh muskrats. After we
ducks each other uh couple uh times, like uh pair uh kids, Telescope
shakes the water out of his ears and says:
“Hen, them broncs look uh heap dry and hot, don’t yuh think? Suppose we
gives ’em uh bath, too?”
“Not for mine,” says I. “That saddle cost me too much coin and I don’t
take no chance on having it curl up. Sabe?”
“Huh!” he snorts. “I reckon it would hurt yuh uh lot to ride bareback,
wouldn’t it? We can take off the saddles and bridles and use hackamores.
That’ll be more than we got on. What yuh say?”
I didn’t say. I climbs right out and begins to take off my rig. I’m
riding uh big Lazy Y roan, with just enough sense in its head to cause
it to eat. Telescope’s is uh brown outlaw, which displays uh
Cross-in-uh-Box brand and uh wicked-looking eye. We climbs on and forces
’em into the water. It’s deep enough to make ’em swim, and we starts ’em
to milling right in the middle of the crick.
Sudden like my bronc lets out uh snort like uh scared buck and paws for
the bank, and Telescope’s brown is right against me, snorting like uh
freight engine on uh grade.
I gets one look as we hits the bank, and sees the cause of all the
fright. Goats! Dozens of goats. High up on the other bank I glimpses uh
dilapidated figure, which I recognizes as being “Harelip” Hansen.
Harelip used to be uh cowman, but some rustlers busted up his herd. Then
he went into sheep over on another range just in time to get mixed up in
the sheep and cattle trouble, and his sheep paid the penalty of his
sins. He opines that nobody is going to hurt uh goat so he invests in uh
small herd.
I never saw two broncs take such uh dislike to goats as them two did. Me
and Telescope are all slick from that water, and the broncs are wet,
too, so yuh can imagine the chance we had to hold ’em with hackamores.
We went up that bank like two streaks, over to the main road, and away
we goes to Paradise hell-bent-for-election.
“Ho-ho-hold that —— roan down!” yells Telescope, laying back on his
bronc’s hips, and sawing with both hands.
“Hold ——!” I yells right back at him. “How can I hold mine while yours
acts thataway?”
I pulls on my bronc until I ain’t got uh pull left in my carcass, but
the harder I pulls the faster he runs, with Paradise only three miles
away.
I looks back after a while and sees Telescope riding sideways and
slapping his bronc on the side of its head, trying to turn it out of the
road, but that outlaw is so scared that it don’t even shake its head.
I’m simply raining sweat and profanity when Telescope forges up beside
me and yells in uh scared voice—
“Team coming!”
I takes uh look down the sandy road, and here comes uh wagon-load uh
folks. I can see colors, so I knows that there’s females aboard.
“What yuh going to do?” I yells, looking back, but I gets uh
demonstration instead of an answer.
Telescope hops high in the air, away from his bronc, and spills end over
end into that hot dust.
I takes another look at that wagon and follers suit. I lights setting
down, and I reckon I’d uh set there too long if the sand hadn’t been so
hot. I looks around and finds that the only bit uh cover is uh mesquite
bush back about uh hundred yards where Telescope had lit.
You can talk all you like about sprinters who can make the hundred yards
in nine and four-fifths, but I made that in four-fifths flat, and it
wasn’t no cinder path either. It was ankle-deep hot sand, but I spurns
it like uh bird, slides under the bush, wraps my arms around the roots
and sticks my head into Telescope’s stummick.
“Oof!” says Telescope, patting himself on the belt-buckle.
“_Mff-arr-guff-oof!_”
“Yes,” says I, “it sure is some sultry.”
“My ——!” he explodes, after he gets through swallering his discomfort.
“The shade is on the wrong side, Hen!”
Just then the wagon rattles past, and we sees that in it is Weinie Lopp
and uh couple uh women. We angles around the bushes as they goes past
and hears ’em talking about them crazy men.
“What’ll the officers do if they do see ’em?” asks uh female.
“Well, ma’am, they’ll just about have to shoot first and ask questions
afterward,” replies Weinie. “They can’t afford to take no chances in uh
case like this.”
The wagon rattles on and me and Telescope gets around on the shady side.
“This shade ain’t much but it’s better than nothing,” states Telescope.
“Now I reckon—look out! Here comes another wagon.”
We ducks back into the sun again and sizzles while that wagon goes on to
Paradise. I never noticed before how slow uh team uh horses can be.
As soon as they’re out uh range we goes back to the shade, but right
away comes uh couple uh girls on horseback, and we has to enter the
fiery furnace again.
I reckon that dust is the invention of the devil to make men sneeze at
uh time like this, but I couldn’t help it. Right when they’re opposite
us I simply has to cut loose and sneeze like uh confirmed hay-feverist.
It scares one uh them broncs and it bolts right toward us, and uh course
Telescope has to stand up. Blooey!
One of them horses goes right on up the road, but the other sunfishes,
and its rider lights high wide and handsome in her floppy skirt. She
sets there slapping the dust out of her eyes and making little squeaky
noises, while me and Telescope goes off across country like uh couple uh
skinned coyotes looking for uh place to hole up.
Hot? Say, I can just feel the lard oozing out uh my carcass, and as we
tops uh hogback ridge Telescope stops long enough to pant:
“Huh-huh-huh-Hen, we’re in uh-uh-uh nice fix! There—huh-uh-huh—uh—comes
the posse.”
“Let ’em come,” I wheezes. “I can’t run another foot. What do we
care—nothing but men.”
“Like ——!” he gulps. “They—huh—uh-huh—picked up them females.”
* * * * *
Did I say I couldn’t run another foot? I lied about my ability. Did yuh
ever run across country without no clothes on your anatomy? No, uh
course yuh never did. That’s uh privilege that is accorded to uh select
few.
Uh cactus gets stuck on your heel, flies from there up to some choice
part of your carcass and takes uh grip that calls for pinchers and
heroic action.
Before me and Telescope had hit Tin Cup Crick we looks like uh pair uh
full-fledged porkypines. We flops down in the thick brush before the
posse shows up, and rolls and wheezes our lungs full of air.
“My ——!” wails Telescope. “I’m all stuck to thunder. The end uh my nose
is the only place where there ain’t no stickers and that’s only because
it was too far in front. Here comes the posse, Hen! Thank God for these
bushes!”
We lays low and waits for ’em to come close. Sudden like we hears uh
noise, and Harelip Hansen comes down through the brush and breaks out
into the open. We can’t see him now, but pretty soon we hears voices and
we opines that he’s conversing with the posse.
“Zhure I zeen um,” we hears Harelip proclaim. “In zwimmin’.”
“Which way did they go?” we hears McFee ask, and then: “Uh-huh. I
thought so. Must uh been the same ones that tackled these ladies. Mighty
lucky thing we came along when we did. Yuh never can tell about uh crazy
man. I reckon we’ll have to kill ’em.”
“Did they have any guns?” asks somebody.
“Yes,” we hears uh female reply. “Yes, they were heavily armed. They
surely were a savage-looking pair, weren’t they, Mable? I honestly
thought my last hour had come.”
“Indeed, yes,” we hears the other one reply. “They surely were a
desperate-looking pair. One of them tried to overtake me.”
Telescope kicks me on the ankle, thereby joining us together through the
medium of uh healthy prickly-pear.
“Ouch!” groans Telescope. “Deliver me from all women.”
“That woman ain’t lying,” I states. “She believes that them things
actually happened. Anyway you are uh desperate-looking hombre—nude
thataway, Telescope.”
“Don’t argue shapes with me, Hennery Peck,” he hisses. “You’d make uh
good model for uh cross between uh sack uh sand and uh pretzel. You
ain’t nude, Hen. You couldn’t never be nude—not with your present
physique—you’re naked as ——!”
“Well,” we hears some of the posse say: “It’s uh cinch they ain’t going
to come and invite us to put uh rope on ’em, so we better be moving on.”
After they leaves us we gets busy on cactus spines. We manages to get
the worst ones out of our legs, and then starts crawling through the
brush in the general direction of our clothes. They say that curiosity
killed uh cat, but no cat was ever born with curiosity that uh range
steer can show at times.
You can ride all around him on uh bronc and he won’t pay no attention
’cause he sort uh figures, I reckon, that the man is part of the horse,
but you let uh steer see uh man on foot, and he immediate and soon
wishes to investigate.
This long, rangy red steer that me and Telescope crawls up against in
them bushes gets scared of uh year’s growth when he sees two nude
specimens. He lets out uh bawl like his sun was about to set, and paws
his way up uh washout, where he stands and gawps at us, with his tongue
hanging out uh foot.
“Don’t move!” I whispers. “Stand perfectly still and he’ll think we’re
part of the scenery.”
“I’m uh cactus,” states Telescope, and then he imitates one to
perfection by stooping over to pull uh thorn from between his toes.
That settled things for that steer. The minute that Telescope imitates
uh cactus bending in the breeze the steer gets uh longing for uh nice
piece uh juicy cactus, and he immediate and soon comes right down to see
if we’re of the edible variety. He sticks his red head down, sticks his
tail up, puts uh kink in it, and orates aloud that he’s uh committee to
find out things.
Me and Telescope didn’t linger longer. There ain’t nothing in sight that
looks like uh safe place to be, so we goes off across country regardless
of contour or description, and that committee uh one red steer pilgrims
in our wake.
We acquires more cactus in our journeys, also numerous and sundry
bruises from mesquite prongs and rocks. We sure lead uh care-free and
aimless existence for the next few minutes. Telescope leads by one jump,
and about uh hop and uh bawl behind yours truly comes that Seven A
critter. Every little while it lets out uh warning that the worst is yet
to come, and we shoves the speed up another notch.
The speed limit uh human endurance is about reached in my system, when I
sees Telescope throw up his skinny arms and drop out uh sight through uh
fringe uh brush, and the next fraction of uh second finds me doing the
same.
I drops through space for uh second or two, and then: _glub!_ I lands
all sprawled out in uh pot-hole with alkali mud in the bottom. I reckon
that steer tries to stop on the edge, but he skids around and comes down
the bank rear end first, right into our midst and mud.
I gets uh wallop that stands me on my head up against that sticky bank,
and when I gets my perceptions to working again, I observes that steer
flat on its side in the bottom of that pot-hole with Telescope setting
on its head.
The hole is only about twenty feet across the bottom, and the sides
slope sharp to the rim, which is about twenty feet away. The steer is
making funny noises with its nose in the mud, and Telescope’s head
droops like uh wilted flower, while he pants and puffs like uh winded
pup. I puffs uh little and rubs some mud out uh my eyes.
“Sus-sus-some bulldogger—me,” stutters Telescope, spitting out uh gob uh
alkali mud.
“More like uh Mexican hairless dogger,” says I. “I sure gives yuh credit
for leading that misguided piece uh beef into uh cul-de-sac.”
“Cul de ——!” he groans, looking at the top of the bank. “I lead him all
right, but how am I going to leave him?”
“Get him by the tail and throw him out,” I advises. “You always could
throw the bull, Telescope.”
“Funny, ain’t yuh?” he snaps, sarcastic like. “Maybe that’s uh better
idea than you thought it would be. Out uh the mouth uh fools often
cometh wisdom. We’ll both get him by the tail and then it’s uh cinch he
can’t hook us.”
“And he’s too wise to starve to death, and will have to leave here
sooner or later,” says I. “You set there until I gets uh good grip.”
* * * * *
I grabs that tail in uh death grip, braces my feet in the mud, and
notifies Telescope that he can get up and hook on. For the next few
seconds there is something doing. That animile immediate and soon gets
on his feet in that slippery, yaller mud, and digs deep into his soul
for sounds to tell how mad and scared he is.
He tries to change ends but the anchor is too much of uh drag, so he
lets out an extra bawl for good measure and bores straight for the rim.
We’re with him in spirit and in fact, and the three of us flops back on
to good going in record time. Preferring uh stern chase we encourages
that steer to keep going, and you can take it from me, uh steer can run.
I’m hanging on to its tail near the rump and Telescope is out on the
extreme end, and we bumps, whips and bounds across country like two tin
cans on the tail of uh wolf.
I’m ready to quit pretty soon, but I ain’t in no position to drop off
first, being as I’m sort of in front, so I tries to yell loud enough for
Telescope to hear—
“Let go!”
I thought he had taken my advice, so I slaps that steer uh parting
wallop with my free hand and lets go with the other. I was mistaken. I
reckon that Telescope must uh taken uh half-hitch on that tail, ’cause
when I lets loose I gets run into so danged hard that I turns flip-flops
and chases stars for fifty feet out of our line uh march.
I’m laying there taking uh star census, when I hears uh voice proclaim
from the brush below me:
“I hope he got killed! Dang his hide!”
“Me and you both,” says I, right back at him. “I hates red steers worse
than ——!”
Telescope Tolliver raises his bony physique into my line uh vision and
looks me over.
“Henry Clay Peck, I didn’t mean the steer,” he states. “What did yuh let
loose for? You busted my wishbone—dang yuh!”
“There’s luck in busted wishbones,” says I. “If your heart ain’t too
full uh malice I wish you’d come up here and take uh few prickly-pears
out uh me—I want to set down. Where’s the steer?” I asks, as Telescope
imitates uh windmill, trying to shake uh prickly-pear out of his thumb.
“Dang his red hide—I don’t know! I don’t care! If he ain’t slowed up
none he’s in Canada by now. My gosh, I’m fit for uh hospital!”
“And you’re all dirty, too, Telescope. Uh bath don’t do some folks any
good. Anyway we sure are having some holiday, wild and free thisaway.
What’ll we do now that’ll be painfully funny? After all this I could
laugh myself sick at uh lynching.”
“We’ll go over and get our clothes, Hen,” he states. “I’m all through
with this here cave-man stuff. My cripes, that water will feel good on
these cuts and bruises, eh?”
We limps across them burning sands like two naked souls in the losing
end of the hereafter, and after hunting every bit uh cover on the way,
we finally hits the bank uh Tin Cup again. We splashes around for uh
while and then climbs the bank where we left our clothes.
“There!” says Telescope. “That water sure felt good, eh, Hen? There
ain’t no use talking, clothes sure do make the—what the ——!”
“Gone!” says I, vacant like. “Somebody stole ’em.”
We looks over the place where we left our habiliments of civilization,
but all that’s left is half uh Telescope’s hat, one saddle-blanket and
the two saddles and bridles.
“Nobody stole ’em,” proclaims Telescope, pointing at the cut-up ground.
“See what took ’em, Hen? Goats! The sons-uh-guns done ate half uh my
hat, too!”
“I hope the souls of all departed goats will haunt Harelip Hansen all
the rest of his danged life!” I pronounces.
“Haunts ——!” howls Telescope. “Butts, you mean. Who cares about goat
ghosts?”
We sets down there and contemplates our condition. Telescope picks up
that saddle-blanket and tries to make uh breechcloth for himself but
he’s got too many cactus spines in that part of his anatomy, so he
throws it away and puts on that half uh hat.
“From your eyebrows on up you’re civilized,” says I. “But what’s the
use—nobody’s going to look at your face.”
“Aw ——!” he wails. “We got to get home, so we might as well start now as
any time.”
“We can’t take the road,” I objects. “We’re liable to run into uh posse
any time, and besides that there’s uh danged lot uh travel on this road
today. If we had clothes on we’d never meet anybody, but it seems like
when yuh gets naked yuh got to pass uh pee-rade all the time.”
“No, we’re not using roads this season, Mister Peck,” says he. “Roads
were built for civilized folks. We’ll pilgrim up Sillman Gulch to the
forks, sneak over the top through them cottonwoods, and work our way
home down that gully back of the bunk-house.”
“We might visit Miss Emily and Genevieve on our way,” I suggests.
Them two is the Mudgett sisters. They lives with their brother, Abe
Mudgett, who is away right now. Them two is twins, and if there ever was
two homelier women on earth they never showed up in this State. Them two
old maids don’t need no protector, ’cause it’s uh cinch that nothing
will ever attack ’em in the daylight.
“Uh-huh,” agrees Telescope. “We sure are dressed for uh call. I don’t
reckon that Solomon in all his glory would attract the attention that me
and you would.”
We sneaks across the road and hits the brush up the gulch. After we’ve
gone about half uh mile, we hears voices, and sees several people ride
across the gulch above us. We drops low in the brush, as two fellers
ride close by us, and we hears one of ’em opine:
“They can’t get far, that’s uh cinch. Believe me, I don’t take no
chances on them kind uh Jaspers. Things like this is what scares women
plumb stiff. I reckon all the men in the country are on their trail.”
Telescope looks foolish like at me and digs some hardened mud out of his
ear.
“That’s cheerful news for us to hear, Hennery,” says he.
“Yes,” says I. “I ain’t been cheered so much since uh doctor took one
look at me and said, ‘Smallpox.’ I reckon we might as well keep going.
I’d as soon be killed near the ranch as out here in the brush.”
We listens uh while and then sneaks on up the gulch. About uh quarter of
uh mile further on we slips into sight of the Mudgett house, which is
only uh short distance from the bottom of the gulch.
We sets there and watches the place for uh while but there don’t seem to
be any sign uh life. The door is shut and the blinds are down.
“Nobody there,” says I. “Let’s go on, Telescope.”
“Hen, ain’t you got no sabe in your system?” he asks. “Look at the
washing on the line over there.”
I looks and beholds two pair of overalls and some female apparel,
hanging there on uh line, stretched from the house to the barn, and it
warms my heart like wine.
“Telescope,” says I, “you got Sherlock Holmes out on uh limb. The trunk
is open and nobody home. Let’s go cover our shame.”
* * * * *
We eases ourselves out of the brush, and skips across that open space
with joy in our souls, and when we’re about half-way across we turns and
goes right back to the brush with birdshot in our hides. It sure was uh
reversal of form.
“Ambushed!” wails Telescope, as we falls under cover and picks at them
stinging spots.
“No argument,” says I, picking uh number seven shot out uh my hide and
rolling it in my hand. “There’s always uh silver lining though,
Telescope.”
“For instance?”
“Well,” says I, holding out that little piece uh lead. “We might uh been
uh lot closer, for one thing, and they might uh had uh thirty-thirty.”
_Zee-e-e-e! Zing-g-g-g-g! Boom! Boom!_
Two more loads uh shot invades our sanctuary, and causes us to hug each
other. Uh course we’re about out uh range, but them shot has still got
enough ambition to bring tears to our eyes.
“Dang uh woman!” wails Telescope. “They can’t see us but they got
imagination enough to hit us just the same.”
“Well, they ain’t going to hit me no more,” says I. “Little Henry Clay
Peck ain’t going to expose his sylph-like form to no more shotguns.”
I wiggles off through the brush and Telescope is with me.
“Where yuh going?” he asks.
“I’m going to hole up over here in the thick brush and there ain’t
nothing short of uh cloud-burst or uh fire going to pry me loose until
it gets dark. Sabe?”
“I wish we had some way to tell ’em that we ain’t the ones,” complains
Telescope.
“Well, we ain’t. Uh course I know and you know that we ain’t crazy,
Telescope, but there ain’t no use telling it to somebody at uh hundred
yards when they got uh gun. Nobody in this country ever seen us running
around naked thisaway, so yuh can’t blame ’em if they don’t recognize us
at uh glance. I’m sure going to lie silent until darkness covers this
troubled land. Everybody’ll be at the dance, so we’ll have uh cinch.”
We lays there nursing our wounds, sunburn and scratches, and praying for
uh smoke until it gets dark.
Then out we pilgrims and turns our swollen feet toward the Cross J. We
picks up prickly-pears at every step, and our progress is profanely
audible. We’re sore and stiff, and that night air ain’t what you’d
designate as being tropical.
“Cleanliness may be next to godliness, Telescope, but this is the most
ungodly bath I ever had,” says I. “Every time I thinks of the old
swimming-hole I’m going to think of cactus, scared broncs, wild steers,
birdshot, irresponsible women and goats. This is what uh feller gets for
trying to smell like uh rose. After this I takes my bath in sections.
Never again do I remove my clothes. I don’t reckon I got uh spot the
size of uh two-bit piece on my carcass what ain’t injured in some way.”
“Them is my sentiments, Hen,” groans Telescope. “Never again do I be so
dudish that I takes two baths in one day.”
We pilgrims on through the dark and swings out through the willers back
of the bunk-house.
We sees somebody light uh match on the porch of the ranch-house, but
there ain’t no beacon out to guide us home. We sneaks around to the
bunk-house door and finds it locked tight. The window is nailed down.
“Locked out!” wails Telescope, in uh whisper. “After all this suffering
we finds that we ain’t even welcome at home. What’ll we do now, Hen?”
“I’ll tell yuh what. We’ll sneak up to the back of the house, open the
window to the old man’s room and get some uh his clothes. We got to be
danged quiet ’cause there’s somebody on the front porch.”
We crawls around behind the house, and up to the old man’s window. Lucky
for us the window ain’t fastened, so we pushes it up like two
experienced burglars.
Telescope slides his lanky frame over the sill into the dark, and I’m
right behind him.
“How are we going to get uh light?” I asks, in uh whisper.
“Cinch,” he whispers. “I know where the old man keeps his matches.”
He fumbles around in the dark for uh minute and then gives uh satisfied
grunt.
“Got ’em, by gosh!”
Then he strikes uh match, and holds it up. Here we are standing in the
middle uh that big room, like two naked souls, holding uh light for all
to see.
“My ——!” gasps Telescope and me together, and that match still burns
merrily on.
There’s three beds in the room; and from each bed rises the figures of
two females. They got curler things on their heads and horror in their
eyes.
One of ’em makes uh noise like uh little chicken calling for its maw,
and then all is silent again.
“——!” snorts Telescope, when that match burns down and nips his fingers,
and we’re in darkness again.
I’ve heard some noises in my time, but that bunch uh females can make
more separate and distinct noises in uh short space uh time than
anything I ever heard.
We hears somebody cuss out on the porch, and then me and Telescope meets
at the window, and both tries to go out together. The theory was all
wrong. We might uh made it in single file but not in uh bunch thataway.
We claws at that window in the dark, with female screams spurring us on,
but all we managed to do was to shut the danged thing.
I drops to the floor and rolls under uh bed, and I feels that Telescope
is right with me. Them females is in the last stages of hysterics when
the door opens and in comes the old man and Muley Bowles.
* * * * *
I reckon the old man is carrying uh lamp, but all I can see is their
boots, and the muzzles of two rifles.
“They were here!” yelps uh female, and the noise starts all over again.
“Wait uh minute!” howls the old man. “Shut up and give me uh chance to
get head or tail to all this noise. Do yuh mean to say that them crazy
men was in this room?”
“I seen ’em!” yelps uh female. “They lit uh match. Must have come in the
window.”
“——!” snorts the old man. “Somebody sure must be crazy. The window is
shut.”
“Sherlock Holmes again,” I whispers, pinching Telescope on the leg.
“_Yeow-w-w-w_!”
What I thought was Telescope wasn’t him—not any! It was uh female, who,
following her natural impulse, went under the bed for safety. Anyway she
sure went out from under there like uh streak, and lights right into the
multitude.
“Oh-o-o-o-o!” she yelps. “Something bit me!”
“Dog,” pronounces the old man. “That Airedale will bite. Here, Booze!
Come on out, you whiskered cow-chaser! Come out uh that! Well, stay
there then—I don’t blame yuh!”
“Make uh noise like uh Airedale, Hen,” comes uh strangled whisper from
the other bed, and I knows that Telescope is still with me.
“What seems to be the trouble?” asks uh voice at the door, and we
recognizes it as belonging to Chuck Warner. “What’s all the fuss about?”
“These here ladies opines that them crazy men invades their sanctuary uh
while ago,” replies the old man, and Chuck roars.
“Haw! Haw! Haw! Did, eh? Well, well! Somebody sure must be seeing
things. Them two fellers never got off that train. They went out of that
express car, but they just crawled on top of the coach and they caught
’em at Warm Springs. McFee just got uh wire, telling all about it.”
There ain’t uh word said for some time, and then the old man busts
loose:
“Gol dingle dang uh woman! Here we got the whole danged country aroused
and hunting for something what ain’t! Making uh female refuge out uh my
house! Ain’t that uh —— of uh note? Chuck, you hitch up and take some uh
these females home, and Muley can take the rest. Take ’em home, take ’em
to the dance or any other danged place they wants to go. Get ’em away
from the Cross J.
“Gol dingle dang! Don’t know uh coyote from uh naked man. Gosh A’mighty,
woman, why don’t yuh study physiology and learn the human shape? Harelip
Hansen ain’t no better, but yuh can’t blame him—he’s uh goat-herder.
Dang everybody!”
They all leaves, while the old man fusses and splutters, and when there
ain’t nobody left in sight me and Telescope hauls our weary carcasses
out from under and sets down on uh bed. We looks foolish like at each
other, and just then the old man walks back into the room, still
spluttering.
He shuts the door before he sees us. He’s just lighting his pipe, and
when he sees us he stops dead still, leans against the wall, weak like,
throws his pipe on the floor and puffs solemn like on that match.
“——!” he gasps. “I might—uh—knowed—that—Chuck—lied—about—that—telegram!”
and just then Muley sticks his head inside the door.
“Say, are you—holy—suffering—cinch-rings!”
He looks us over with eyes the size uh two-bit pieces, and then begins
to shake like uh sack uh jelly. He gets his breath after a while, and
examines us some close like, and recites:
“They roamed the prairie wild and free
Without uh single stitch.
They gathered cactus with their feet
And got the dobie itch.
They scared the women all to ——,
And bathed in alkali.
They had no brains—so _crazy_ men
Had to prove their alibi.”
“You fellers expect to get to that dance?” asks the old man, still
sucking on that match. “You both better take uh bath and ——”
“You answer him, Telescope,” says I. “I ain’t got the heart.”
“No,” says Telescope. “Uh man what ain’t got no more sense than to give
uh man advice like that ain’t worth answering.”
“You fellers can’t go to no dance with all that mud—” begins Muley, but
Telescope rises to his full height, and sets his jaws hard.
“Shut up! Me and Hen may be crazy but we ain’t clean crazy! From now on
I’m going to keep my hat on when I washes my face. How about you, Hen?”
“Me? Telescope, I’ll raise your ante uh little. From now on I’m going to
wear gloves when I washes my hands.”
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in Adventure Magazine,
May 18, 1918. It is believed to be in the public domain in the
United States; copyright status may differ in other countries.]
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