Faro Nell and Her Friends Part 21

"'That's whatever,' coincides Nell.

"'Also,' breaks in Enright, 'should old Parks go to stampin' the sod or shakin' his horns, you-all are to put up with them deemonstrations an' not make no aggrevatin' reemarks. No one knows better than you by now, how much cause you gives that proud old gent to feel harrowed.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: WE SEES THE TURNER PERSON ABOARD AN' WISHES HIM ALL KINDS OF LUCK. p. 222.]

"Of course all of us is preyed on by anxiety to know whatever awful thing it is the Turner person does. In the end it's Missis Rucker who smokes Enright out.

"'Sam Enright,' says this yere intrepid lady, her manner plenty darklin', 'you mustn't forget that whenever the impulse moves me I can shet down utter on your grub. Likewise, as a lady, I not only knows my p'sition, but keenly feels my rights. Which I don't aim to coerce you, but onless you comes through with the trooth about this yere Turner person's felonies, some drastic steps is on their way.'

"'You will see, Missis Rucker,' says Enright, who's to be excoosed for turnin' a bit white, 'that no present reason exists for threatenin' me when I a.s.sh.o.r.es you that as far back as last evenin' I fully decides to lay bar' everything. I do this, onderstand, not through fear; but lest some folks go surmisin' round to the inj'ry of the innocent. As I recollects back, too, I can see how the Turner person slumps into that mistake, him first talkin' dog to that canine party in Battle Row, an' then askin' whar does he go for the weddin' license.'

"'Sam Enright,' interrupts Missis Rucker, whose flas.h.i.+n' eyes shows she's growin' hysterical, 'don't hara.s.s me with no p'intless speeches.

You say flat what it is he does, or take the consequences.'

"'Why, my dear Missis Rucker,' an' Enright makes haste with his reply, 'the thing is easily grasped. The paper he gives the preacher sharp is a dog license. Which that Turner person is seekin' to wed the belle of Sni-a-bar on a permit to keep a dog! The canine party he meets in Battle Row misonderstands a sityooation.'

"'All the same,' observes Texas to Boggs, as the two meets that evenin' in the Noo York store, 'thar's one feachure to a dog license, not perceivable in a marriage license, which is worth gold an'

precious stones. Said docyooment runs out in a year.'"

IX

RED MIKE

"Mebby you-all recalls about that Polish artist person?" suggested the old cattleman, tentatively; "him I speaks of former?" My gray old _campanero_ was measuring out what he called his "forty drops," and, since this ceremony necessitated keeping one eye on his gla.s.s, while he endeavored to keep the other eye on me, the contradictory effort resulted in a wavering and uncertain expression, not at all in harmony with his usual positive air. By way of helping conversation, I confessed to a clear remembrance of the "Polish artist person," and wound up by urging him to give the particulars concerning that interesting exile.

"Well," he cautiously returned, "thar ain't nothin' so mighty thrillin' in his Wolfville c'reer. You see he ain't, for the most, no pop'lar figure--him bein' a furriner, that a-way, an' a artist, an'

sufferin' besides from conceit in so acoote a form as to make it no exaggeration to say he's locoed. On account of these yere divers an'

sundry handicaps, he don't achieve no social success, an' while he's with us, you'd hardly call him of us.

"Not that I objects to this deescendant of Warsaw's last champion, personal. Which I'm a heap like Enright in sech reespects, an'

sh.o.r.e tol'rant. I finds out long ago that the reason we-all goes fault-findin' about people, mostly is because we don't onderstand concernin' them folk's surroundin's. Half the things we arches our necks over, an' for which mebby we feels like killin' 'em a whole lot, they can't he'p none. If we only savvys what they're reely up ag'inst, it's four for one we pities 'em instead.

"It's like one time 'way back yonder, when me an' Steve Stevenson has a sudden an' abrupt diff.u.kulty with a buffalo bull. We're camped out on the edge of the Rockies near the Spanish Peaks, an' me an' Steve, in the course of a little _pa.s.sear_ we're takin', is jest roundin' a bunch of plum bushes when, as onexpected as a gun play in a Bible cla.s.s, that devil's son an' heir of a bull--who's been hid by the bushes--ups an charges. Which you should have seen me an' Steve scatter! We certainly do onbuckle in some hasty moves! He's bigger 'n a baggage wagon, an' as we leaves our guns ten rods away in camp, thar's nothin' for it but to dig out.

"Nigh whar I'm at is a measley _pinon_ tree, an' the way I swarms aloft among that vegetable's boughs an' branches comes mighty clost to bein' a lesson to mountain lions. Steve, who's the onluckiest sport west of the Missouri, an' famed as sech, ain't got no tree. The best he can do is go divin' into a hole he sees in some rocks, same as if he's a jack-rabbit with a coyote in hot pursoote.

"Me an' Steve both bein' safe, an' reegyardin' that bull as baffled, I draws a breath of relief. That is, to be ackerate, I starts to draw it; but before I so much as gets it started, yere that inordinate Steve comes b'ilin' out of his hole ag'in like he ain't plumb satisfied about that bull. The bull's done give him up, too, an'

switchin' his tail some thoughtful has started to go away, when, as I tells you, that fool Steve comes surgin' out upon his reetreatin'

hocks.

"Nacherally, what could any se'f-respectin' bull do but wheel an'

chase Steve back? It's no use, though; Steve won't have it. No sooner does the bull get him hived that a-way, an' make ready to reetire to private life ag'in, than, bing! yere Steve comes bulgin' like a cork out of a bottle. An' so it continyoos, a reg'lar see-saw between Steve an' the bull. Steve'll go into his cave of refooge, prairie-dog fas.h.i.+on, a foot ahead of the bull's horns, only to be a foot behind the bull's tail as that painstakin' anamile is arrangin' to deepart.

"Which sech wretched strategy arouses my contempt.

"'You dad-binged Siwash,' I yells down at Steve, 'whyever don't you-all stay in that hole, ontil the bull forgets whar you're at?'

"'Go on!' Steve shouts back, as in he dives, head-first, for mebby it's the twentieth time; 'it's as simple as suckin' aiggs, ain't it, for you up in your tree? You-all don't know nothin' about this hole; thar's a b'ar in this hole!'

"Which I allers remembers about that dilemmy of Steve's. An' now, when I beholds a gent makin' some rannikaboo break, an' everybody's scoffin' at him an' deenouncin' him for a loonatic or worse, I reeflects that mighty likely if we-all was to go examine the hole he's in, we'd find it plumb full of b'ar.

"Returnin' to the orig'nal proposition, the same bein' that Polack, let me begin by sayin' that whenever it comes to any utterances of his'n, I'm nacherally onable to quote him exact. What with him rollin'

his 'Rs' ontil they sounds like one of them snare drums, an' the jiggerty-jerkety fas.h.i.+on wharin he chops up his English, a gent might as soon try to quote a planin' mill exact.

"That I'm able to give you-all his troo name is doo wholly to him pa.s.sin' round his kyard a heap profoose, when he first comes ramblin'

in, said cognomen as printed bein' 'Orloff Ivan Mitzkowanski, Artist and Painter of Portraits.' We perooses this yere fulm'nation two or three times, an' Peets even reads it out loud; but since the tongue of no ordinary gent is capable of ropin' an' throwin' it, to say nothin'

of tyin' it down, we cuts the gordian knot in the usual way by re-christenin' him _pro bono publico_ as Red Mike, which places him within the verbal reach of all.

"'Yes,' he says, as he ladles out them kyards, an' all with the manner of a prince conferrin' favors--'yes, I'm a artist come to you, seekin' subjects an' color. As you probably observes by my name, I'm a gallant Pole, one whose n.o.ble ancestors shrieks when Kosciusko fell.'

"Him bein' a stranger that a-way, an' no one, onless it's Peets, ever havin' heard about Poland, or Kosciusko, or whoever does that shriekin' the time when Kosciusko finds himse'f b.u.mped off, we lets Mike get by with this yere bluff. Besides, his name of itse'f sort o'

holds us. That anyone, an' specially any furriner, could come as far as he has, flauntin' a name like that in the sensitive face of mankind, an' yet live to tell the tale, is sh.o.r.e plenty preepar'tory to believin' anything.

"When we lets it go that owin' to local conditions we'll be obleeged to call him 'Red Mike,' he's agree'ble.

"'As you will, my friends,' he cries, bulgin' out his breast an'

thumpin' it. 'What care I, who am destined for immortality, that barbarians should hail me as Red Mike? It is enough that I am not destroyed, enough that I still move an' have my bein'!'

"'Mike,' interjecks Tutt, bristlin' a little, 'don't cut loose in no offensive flights. It's a heap onadvisable when addressin' us to overwork that word "barbarian." As you says yourself, you're lucky to be alive; which, bein' conceded, it'd be plenty proodent on your part not to go doin' nothin' to change your luck.'

"'Steady thar, Dave,' says Enright, 'don't go exhibitin' your teeth to a pore benighted furriner, an' him not onto our curves.'

"'Him bein' a furriner,' retorts Tutt, 'is but a added argyooment in favor of him takin' heed. Speakin' for myse'f, I in partic'lar don't want no furriner to step on my tail an' stand thar, same as if my feelin's ain't goin' to count.'

"'Be composed, my friend,' says Mike, tryin' to follow Enright out an'

squar' himse'f with Tutt--'be composed. I reetract the "barbarians"

an' suggest a drink.'

"'That's all right, Mike,' returns Tutt, who's easy mollified; 'still I onreservedly says ag'in that in Arizona thar's nothin' in becomin'

too difoose. All that this time lets you out, Mike, is that havin'

jest had our feed we're happ'ly lethargic. Which if you'd let fly that crack about barbarians, an' us not fed none, some gent not otherwise employed 'd have seized upon you as a mop-rag wharwith to wipe up the floor.'

"Thar's allers a dispoote as to whether or no Mike reely commits sooicide that time. Tutt an' Texas holds to the last that his light gettin' blowed out like it does is accidental. Peets, however, insists it's a sh.o.r.e-enough sooicide. Of course, Boggs goes with Peets.

Whatever's the question at bay, Boggs never fails to string his play with the Doc's; it's Boggs's system. All you has to do to get a rise out o' Boggs is get some opinion out o' Peets. Once the Doc declar's himse'f, Boggs is right thar to back said declaration for his last dollar every time.

"As sustainin' his claim of sooicide, Peets p'ints out that thar's no gent, not a howlin' eediot complete, but knows s'fficient of giant powder to be dead on to how it's cap'ble of bein' fired by friction.

"'Why,' he says, eloocidatin' his p'sition, 'even darkened savages is posted as to that. I once sees a South Sea Islander, in a moose-yum East, who sets a bunch of shavin's in a blaze by rubbin' together two sticks. An' this yere Mike is a eddycated sharp, eddicated at a Dutch outfit called Heidelberg. Do you-all reckon a gradyooate of sech a sem'nary ever walks out on a cold collar, him not wise, an' performs in the numbskull fas.h.i.+ons as this yere Mike?'

"'That's whatever!' chimes in Boggs.

"As I tells you, any emphatic idee laid down by Peets instantly sets Boggs to strikin' same as one of them cuckoo clocks.

"Enright?