Wolfville Days Part 15

"An' this yere lazy Grief Mudlow keeps on layin' thar. It ain't no time when the branch begins to raise; the water crawls up about Grief's feet. So his pard shouts at him some more:

"'Whoopee, you Grief ag'in!' he says. 'If you don't pull your freight, the branch'll get you. It's done riz over the stock of your rifle.'

"'Water won't hurt the wood none,' says Grief.

"'You Grief over thar!' roars the other after awhile; 'your feet an'

laigs is half into the branch, an' the water's got up to the lock of your gun.'

"'Thar's no load in the gun,' says Grief, still a-layin', 'an'

besides she needs was.h.i.+n' out. As for them feet an' laigs, I never catches cold.'

"An' thar that ornery Grief reposes, too plumb lazy to move, while the branch creeps up about him. It's crope up so high, final, that his y'ears an' the back of his head is in it. All Grief does is sort o' lift his chin an' lay squar', to keep his nose out so's he can breathe.

An' he sh.o.r.ely beats the game; for the rain ceases, an' the branch don't rise no higher. This yere Grief lays thar ontil the branch runs down an' he's high an' dry ag'in, an' then the sun s.h.i.+nes out an' dries his clothes. It's that same night when Grief has drug himse'f home to supper, he says to his wife, 'Thar's nothin' like exercise,' an' then counsels that lady over his corn pone an'

chitlins to take in was.h.i.+n' like I relates."

We walked on in mute consideration of the extraordinary indolence of the worthless Mudlow. Our silence obtained for full ten minutes.

Then I proposed "courage" as a subject, and put a question.

"Thar's fifty kinds of courage," responded my companion, "an' a gent who's plumb weak an' craven, that a-way, onder certain circ.u.mstances, is as full of sand as the bed of the Arkansaw onder others. Thar's hoss-back courage an' thar's foot courage, thar's day courage an' night courage, thar's gun courage an' knife courage, an'

no end of courages besides. An' then thar's the courage of vanity.

More'n once, when I'm younger, I'm swept down by this last form of heroism, an' I even recalls how in a sperit of vainglory I rides a buffalo bull. I tells you, son, that while that frantic buffalo is squanderin' about the plains that time, an' me onto him, he feels a mighty sight like the ridge of all the yooniverse. How does it end?

It's too long a tale to tell walkin' an' without reecooperatifs; suffice it that it ends disastrous. I shall never ride no buffalo ag'in, leastwise without a saddle, onless its a speshul o'casion.

"No, indeed, that word 'courage' has to be defined new for each case. Thar's old Tom Harris over on the Canadian. I beholds Tom one time at Tascosa do the most b'ar-faced trick; one which most sports of common sens'bilities would have shrunk from. Thar's a warrant out for Tom, an' Jim East the sheriff puts his gun on Tom when Tom's lookin' t'other way.

"'See yere, Harris!' says East, that a-way.

"Tom wheels, an' is lookin' into the mouth of East's six-shooter not a yard off.

"'Put up your hands!' says East.

"But Tom don't. He looks over the gun into East's eye; an' he freezes him. Then slow an' delib'rate, an' glarin' like a mountain lion at East, Tom goes back after his Colt's an' pulls it. He lays her alongside of East's with the muzzle p'intin' at East's eye. An'

thar they stands. "'You don't dar' shoot!' says Tom; an' East don't.

"They breaks away an' no powder burned; Tom stands East off.

"'Warrant or no warrant,' says Tom, 'all the sheriffs that ever jingles a spur in the Panhandle country, can't take me! Nor all the rangers neither!' An' they sh.o.r.e couldn't. "Now this yere break-away of Tom's, when East gets the drop that time, takes courage. It ain't one gent in a thousand who could make that trip but Tom. An' yet this yere Tom is feared of a dark room. "Take Injuns;--give 'em their doo, even if we ain't got room for them miscreants in our hearts. On his lines an' at his games, a Injun is as clean strain as they makes. He's got courage, an' can die without battin' an eye or waggin' a y'ear, once it's come his turn. An' the squaws is as cold a prop'sition as the bucks. After a fight with them savages, when you goes 'round to count up an' skin the game, you finds most as many squaws lyin' about, an' bullets through 'em, as you finds bucks.

"Courage is sometimes knowledge, sometimes ignorance; sometimes courage is desp'ration, an' then ag'in it's innocence. "Once, about two miles off, when I'm on the Staked Plains, an' near the aige where thar's pieces of broken rock, I observes a Mexican on foot, frantically chunkin' up somethin'. He's left his pony standin' off a little, an' has with him a mighty noisy form of some low kind of mongrel dog, this latter standin' in to worry whatever it is the Mexican's chunkin' at, that a-way. I rides over to investigate the war-jig; an' I'm a mesquite digger! if this yere transplanted Castillian ain't done up a full-grown wild cat! It's jest coughin'

its last when I arrives. Son, I wouldn't have opened a game on that feline--the same bein' as big as a coyote, an' as thoroughly organized for trouble as a gatling--with anythin' more puny than a Winchester. An' yet that guileless Mexican lays him out with rocks, and regyards sech feats as trivial. An American, too, by merely growlin' towards this Mexican, would make him quit out like a jack rabbit. "As I observes prior, courage is frequent the froots of what a gent don't know. Take grizzly b'ars. Back fifty years, when them squirrel rifles is preevalent; when a acorn sh.e.l.l holds a charge of powder, an' bullets runs as light an' little as sixty-four to the pound, why son! you-all could shoot up a grizzly till sundown an'

hardly gain his disdain. It's a fluke if you downs one. That sport who can show a set of grizzly b'ar claws, them times, has fame.

They're as good as a bank account, them claws be, an' ent.i.tles said party to credit in dance hall, bar room an' store, by merely slammin' 'em on the counter. "At that time the grizzly b'ar has courage. Whyever does he have it, you asks? Because you couldn't stop him; he's out of hoomanity's reach--a sort o' Alexander Selkirk of a b'ar, an' you couldn't win from him. In them epocks, the grizzly b'ar treats a gent contemptuous. He swats him, or he claws him, or he hugs him, or he crunches him, or he quits him accordin'

to his moods, or the number of them engagements which is pressin' on him at the time. An' the last thing he considers is the feelin's of that partic'lar party he's dallyin' with. Now, however, all is changed. Thar's rifles, burnin' four inches of this yere fulminatin'

powder, that can chuck a bullet through a foot of green oak. Wisely directed, they lets suns.h.i.+ne through a grizzly b'ar like he's a pane of gla.s.s. An', son, them b'ars is plumb onto the play.

"What's the finish? To-day you can't get clost enough to a grizzly to hand him a ripe peach. Let him glimpse or smell a white man, an'

he goes scatterin' off across hill an' canyon like a quart of licker among forty men. They're sh.o.r.e apprehensife of them big bullets an'

hard-hittin' guns, them b'ars is; an' they wouldn't listen to you, even if you talks nothin' but bee-tree an' gives a bond to keep the peace besides. Yes, sir; the day when the grizzly b'ar will stand without hitchin' has deeparted the calendar a whole lot. They no longer attempts insolent an' coa.r.s.e familiar'ties with folks.

Instead of regyardin' a rifle as a rotton cornstalk in disguise, they're as gun-shy as a female inst.i.toote. Big b'ars an' little bars, it's all sim'lar; for the old ones tells it to the young, an'

the lesson is spread throughout the entire nation of b'ars. An'

yere's where you observes, enlightenment that a-way means a- weakenin' of grizzly-b'ar courage.

"What's that, son? You-all thinks my stories smell some tall! You expresses doubts about anamiles conversin' with one another? That's where you're ignorant. All anamiles talks; they commoonicates the news to one another like hoomans. When I've been freightin' from Dodge down towards the Canadian, I had a eight-mule team. As sh.o.r.e as we're walkin'--as sh.o.r.e as I'm pinin' for a drink, I've listened to them mules gossip by the hour as we swings along the trail. Lots of times I saveys what they says. Once I hears the off-leader tell his mate that the jockey stick is sawin' him onder the chin. I investigates an' finds the complaint troo an' relieves him. The nigh swing mule is a wit; an' all day long he'd be throwin' off remarks that keeps a ripple of laughter goin' up an' down the team. You-all finds trouble creditin' them statements. Fact, jest the same. I've laughed at the jokes of that swing mule myse'f; an' even Jerry, the off wheeler, who's a cynic that a-way, couldn't repress a smile.

Sh.o.r.e! anamiles talks all the time; it's only that we-all hoomans ain't eddicated to onderstand.

"Speakin' of beasts talkin', let me impart to you of what pa.s.ses before my eyes over on the Caliente. In the first place, I'll so far illoomine your mind as to tell you that cattle, same as people--an'

speshully mountain cattle, where the winds an snows don't get to drive 'em an' drift 'em south--lives all their lives in the same places, year after year; an' as you rides your ranges, you're allers meetin' up with the same old cattle in the same canyons. They never moves, once they selects a home.

"As I observes, I've got a camp on the Caliente. Thar's ten ponies in my bunch, as I'm saddlin' three a day an' coverin' a considerable deal of range in my ridin'. Seein' as I'm camped yere some six months, I makes the aquaintance of the cattle for over twenty miles 'round. Among others, thar's a giant bull in Long's Canyon--he's sh.o.r.eiy as big as a log house. Him an' me is partic'lar friends, cnly I don't track up on him more frequent than once a week, as he's miles from my camp. I almost forgets to say that with this yere Goliath bull is a milk-white steer, with long, slim horns an' a face which is the combined home of vain conceit an' utter witlessness.

This milky an' semi-ediotic steer is a most abject admirer of the Goliath bull, an' they're allers together. As I states, this mountain of a bull an' his weak-minded follower lives in Long's Canyon.

"Thar's two more bulls, the same bein', as Colonel Sterett would say, also 'persons of this yere dramy.' One is a five-year-old who abides on the upper Red River; an' the other, who is only a three- year-old, hangs out on the Caliente in the vicinity of my camp.

"Which since I've got to talk of an' concernin' them anamiles, I might as well give 'em their proper names. They gets these last all reg'lar from a play-actor party who comes swarmin' into the hills while I'm thar to try the pine trees on his 'tooberclosis,' as he describes said malady, an' whose weakness is to saw off cognomens on everythin' he sees. As fast as he's introdooced to 'em, this actor sport names the Long's Canyon bull 'Falstaff'; the Red River five- year-old 'Hotspur,' bein' he's plumb b'lligerent an' allers makin'

war medicine; while the little three-year-old, who inhabits about my camp in the Caliente, he addresses as 'Prince Hal.' The fool of a white steer that's wors.h.i.+ppin' about 'Falstaff' gets named 'Pistol,'

although thar's mighty little about the weak-kneed humbug to remind you of anythin' as vehement as a gun. Falstaff, Pistol, Hotspur an'

Prince Hal; them's the t.i.tles this dramatist confers on said cattle.

"Which the West is a great place to dig out new appellations that a- way. Thar's a gentle-minded party comes soarin' down on Wolfville one evenin'. No, he don't own no real business to transact; he's out to have a heart-to-heart interview with the great Southwest, is the way he expounds the objects of his search.

"'An' he's plenty tender,' says Black Jack, who's barkeep at the Red Light. 'He cornes pus.h.i.+n' along in yere this mornin'; an' wliat do you-all reckon now he wants. Asks for ice! Now whatever do you make of it! Ice in August, an' within forty miles of the Mexico line at that. "Pard," I says, "we're on the confines of the tropics; an'

while old Arizona is some queer, an' we digs for wood an' climbs for water, an' indulges in much that is morally an' physically the teetotal reverse of right-side-up-with-care, so far in our meanderin's we ain't oncovered no glaciers nor cut the trail of any ice. Which if you've brought snowshoes with you now, or been figgerin' on a Arizona sleighride, you're settin' in hard luck."'

"Jest as Black Jack gets that far in them statements, this yere tenderfoot shows in the door.

"'Be you a resident of Wolfville?' asks this shorthorn of Dave Tutt.

"'I'm one of the seven orig'nal wolves,' says Tutt.

"'Yere's my kyard,' says the shorthorn, an' he beams on Dave in a wide an' balmy way.

"'Archibald Willingham De Graffenreid b.u.t.t,' says Dave, readin' off the kyard. Then Dave goes up to the side, an' all solemn an' grave, pins the kyard to the board with his bowie-knife. 'Archibald Willingham De Graffenreid b.u.t.t,' an' Dave repeats the words plumb careful. 'That's your full an' c'rrect name, is it?'

"The shorthorn allows it is, an' surveys Dave in a woozy way like he ain't informed none of the meanin' of these yere manoovers.

"'Did you-all come through Tucson with this name?' asks Dave.

"He says he does.

"'An' wasn't nothin' said or done about it?' demands Dave; 'don't them Tucson sports take no action?'

"He says nothin' is done.

"'It's as I fears,' says Dave, shakin' his head a heap loogubrious, 'that Tucson outfit is morally goin' to waste. It's worse than careless; it's callous. That's whatever; that camp is callous. Was you aimin' to stay for long in Wolfville with this yere t.i.tle?' asks Dave at last.

"The shorthorn mentions a week.

"'This yere Wolfville,' explains Dave, 'is too small for all that name. Archibald Willingham De Graffenreid b.u.t.t! It sh.o.r.ely sounds like a hoss in a dance hall. But it's too long for Wolfville, an'

Wolfville even do her best. One end of that name is bound to protrood. Or else it gets all brunkled up like along n.i.g.g.e.r in a short bed. However,' goes on Dave, as he notes the shorthorn lookin'