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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12197 ***
+
+MR. SCRAGGS
+
+INTRODUCED BY RED SAUNDERS
+
+
+
+By
+
+HENRY WALLACE PHILLIPS
+
+
+Author of "Red Saunders," "Plain Mary Smith," etc.
+
+
+
+
+THE GRAFTON PRESS
+
+PUBLISHERS                       NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1903, 1904, 1905, by The Curtis Publishing Co.
+Copyright, 1903, by S. S. McClure Co.  Copyright, 1905, by The
+Grafton Press
+
+Published January, 1906 Second edition February, 1906
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   I.  BY PROXY
+  II.  IN THE TOILS
+ III.  ST. NICHOLAS SCRAGGS
+  IV.  THE SIEGE OF THE DRUG STORE
+   V.  THE MOURNFUL NUMBER
+  VI.  MR. SCRAGGS INTERVENES
+ VII.  THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+"Made any other human countenance I ever see look like a
+nigger-minstrel show"
+
+"He was disappointed in love--he had to be"
+
+"Scraggsy looked like a forlorn hope lost in a fog"
+
+"'Dearly beloved Brethren,' says I"
+
+"Put up a high-grade article of cat-fight"
+
+"You will talk to my ol' man like that, will you?"
+
+"So we rode in, right cheerful"
+
+"I was all over that Injun"
+
+
+
+
+MR. SCRAGGS
+
+INTRODUCED BY RED SAUNDERS
+
+
+
+BY PROXY
+
+I had met Mr. Scraggs, shaken him by the hand, and, in the shallow
+sense of the word, knew him.  But a man is more than clothes and a
+bald head.  It is also something of a trick to find out more about
+him--particularly in the cow country.  One needs an interpreter.
+Red furnished the translation.  After that, I nurtured Mr.
+Scraggs's friendship, for the benefit of humanity and philosophy.
+Saunders and I lay under a bit of Bad Lands, soaking in the spring
+sun, and enjoying the first cigarette since breakfast.  In regard
+to things in general, he said:
+
+"Now, there was the time I worked for the Ellis ranch.  A ranch is
+like a man: it has something that belongs to it, that don't belong
+to no other ranch, same as I have just the same number of eyes and
+noses and so forth that you drew on your ticket, yet you ain't me
+no more'n I'm you.  This was a kind of sober-minded concern; it was
+a thoughtful sort of a ranch, where everybody went about his work
+quiet.  I guess it was because the boys was mostly old-timers,
+given to arguing about why was this and how come that.  Argue!
+Caesar!  It was a regular debating society.  Wind-river Smith
+picked up a book in the old man's room that told about the Injuns
+bein' Jews 'way back before the big high-water, and how one gang of
+'em took to the prairie and the other gang to the bad clothes
+business.  Well, he and Chawley Tawmson--'member Chawley and his
+tooth?  And you'd have time to tail-down and burn a steer before
+Chawley got the next word out--well, they got arguin' about whether
+this was so, or whether it weren't so.  Smithy was for the book,
+havin' read it, and Chawley scorned it.  The argument lasted a
+month, and as neither one of 'em knew anything about an Injun,
+except what you can gather from looking at him over a rifle sight,
+and as the only Jew either one of 'em ever said two words to was
+the one that sold Windriver a hat that melted in the first
+rain-storm, and then him and Chawley went to town and made the
+Hebrew eat what was left of the hat, after refunding the price, you
+can imagine what a contribution to history I listened to.  That's
+the kind of place the Ellis ranch was, and a nice old farm she was,
+too.
+
+"I'd been working there about three months, when along come a man
+that looked like old man Trouble's only son.  Of all the sorrowful
+faces you ever see, his was the longest and thinnest.  It made any
+other human countenance I ever see look like a nigger-minstrel show.
+
+[Illustration: Made any other human countenance I ever see look
+like a nigger-minstrel show.]
+
+"We was short-handed, as the old man had begun to put up hay and
+work some of the stock in corrals for the winter, so we took our
+new brother on.  His name was Ezekiel George Washington
+Scraggs--tuneful number for a cow-outfit!--and his name didn't come
+anywhere near doin' him justice at that.  Ezekiel knew his biz and
+turned in a day's work right straight along, but when you'd say,
+'Nice day, Scraggs?' he'd heave such a sigh you could feel the
+draft all the way acrost the bull-pen, and only shake his head.
+
+"Up to this time Wind-river had enjoyed a cinch on the mournful
+act.  He'd had a girl sometime durin' the Mexican war, and she'd
+borrowed Smith's roll and skipped with another man.  So, if we
+crowded Smithy too hard in debate, he used to slip behind that girl
+and say, 'Oh, well!  You fellers will know better when you've had
+more experience," although we might have been talkin' about what's
+best for frost-bite at the time.
+
+"He noticed this new man Scraggs seemed to hold over him a trifle
+in sadness, and he thought he'd find out why.
+
+"'You appear to me like a man that's seen trouble,' says he.
+
+"'Trouble!' says Scraggs.  'Trouble!'  Then he spit out of the door
+and turned his back deliberate, like there wasn't any use
+conversin' on the subject, unless in the presence of an equal.
+
+"Scraggs was a hard man to break into, but Smithy scratched his
+head and took a brace.
+
+"'I've met with misfortune myself,' says he.
+
+"'Ah?' says Scraggs.  'What's happened to you?'  He sounded as if
+he didn't believe it amounted to much, and Smithy warmed up.  He
+ladled out his woes like a catalogue.  How he'd been blew up in
+mines; squizzled down a mountain on a snow-slide; chawed by a bear;
+caught under a felled tree; sunk on a Missouri River steamboat, and
+her afire, so you couldn't tell whether to holler for the
+life-savers or the fire-engine; shot up by Injuns and personal
+friends; mistook for a horse-thief by the committee, and much else,
+closing the list with his right bower.  'And, Mr. Scraggs, I have
+put my faith in woman, and she done me to the tune of all I had.'
+
+"'_Have_ you?' says Scraggs, still perfectly polite and
+uninterested.  "'_Have_ you?' says he, removin' his pipe and
+spitting carefully outdoors again.  And then he slid the joker
+a'top of Smithy's play.  'Well, _I_ have been a Mormon,' says he.
+
+"'What?' says all of us.
+
+"'Yessir!' says Mr. Scraggs, getting his feet under him, and with a
+mournful pride I can't give you the least idea of.  'A Mormon; none
+of your tinkerin' little Mormonettes.  I was ambitious; hence E. G.
+W. Scraggs as you now behold him.  In most countries a man's
+standin' is regulated by the number of wives he ain't got; in Utah
+it's just the reverse--and a fair test, too, when you come to think
+of it.  I wanted to be the head of the hull Mormon kingdom, so I
+married right and left.  Every time I added to the available supply
+of Mrs. Scraggs, I went up a step in the government.  I ain't all
+the persimmons for personal beauty, so I had to take what was
+willin' to take me, and they turned out to be mostly black-eyed
+women with peculiar dispositions.  Gentlemen, I was once as lively
+and happy a little boy as ever did chores on a farm.  See me now!
+This is the result of mixin' women and politics.  If I should tell
+you all the kinds of particular and general devilment (to run 'em
+alphabetically, as I did to keep track of 'em) that Ann Eliza
+Scraggs, and Bridget Scraggs, and Belle Scraggs, and Fanny Scraggs,
+and Honoria and Helen Scraggs, and Isabelle Scraggs, and so on up
+to zed, raised with me, it would go through any little germs of joy
+you may have in your constitutions like Sittin' Bull's gang of
+dog-soldiers through an old ladies' sewing bee.  Look at me!  For
+all them years that cussed ambition of mine held me in its deadly
+toils.  I never heard the sound of blessed silence.  Trouble!  I'm
+bald as a cake of ice; my nerves is ruined.  If the wind makes a
+noise in the grass like the swish of skirts, I'm a mile up the
+track before I get my wits back, sweatin' coldly and profusely,
+like a water-cooler.
+
+"'I ain't got anything to tie to but all them women by the name of
+Scraggs, and them ties I cut by travelin' fast between daylights.
+Wisht I could introduce you to Mrs. Scraggs as she inhabits the
+territory of Utah--you'd understand a power of things that may seem
+a little misty to you at present.  However, I can't do that, nor I
+wouldn't neither, if I was to be made general superintendent of the
+whole show for my pains.  I'll leave the aggregated Mrs. Scraggs in
+the hands of Providence, as bein' the only power capable of
+handling her.  Yet I don't believe in Providence.  I don't believe
+in no Hereafter, nor Heretofore, nor no Now; I don't believe in no
+East nor West, nor Up nor Down, nor Sideways, Lengthways,
+'Cross-the-center, Top, Bottom, or Middle.  I have lost my faith in
+every ram-butted thing a man can hear, see, or touch, includin'
+everything I've left out.  That's me, Joe Bush.' He stopped a
+minute.  'Trouble--' says he.  'Trouble--I wisht nobody'd mention
+that word in my hearin' again.'
+
+"Well, he had us gummed fast, all right.  Nobody in our outfit
+could push up against such a world-without-end experience as that.
+
+"But Scraggs was a gentleman; he didn't crowd us because we broke.
+In fact, now that he'd had his say, he loosened up considerable,
+and every now and then he'd even smile.
+
+"Then come to us the queerest thing in that whole curiosity-shop of
+a ranch.  Its name was Alexander Fulton.  I reckon Aleck was about
+twenty-one by the almanac, and anywhere's from three to ninety by
+the way you figure a man.  Aleck stood six foot high _as_ he stood,
+but if you ran the tape along his curves he was about six-foot-four.
+
+"He weighed one hundred and twenty pounds, of which twenty-five
+went to head and fifty to feet.  Feet!  You never saw such feet.
+They were the grandest feet that ever wore a man; long and high and
+wide, and all that feet should be.  Chawley said that Alexander had
+ground plan enough for a company of nigger soldiers.  And hung to
+Aleck's running gear, they reminded you of the swinging jigger in a
+clock.  They almost make me forget his hands.  When Aleck laid a
+flipper on a cayuse's back, you'd think the critter was blanketed.
+And then there was his Adam's apple--he had so many special
+features, it's hard to keep track of them.  About a foot of Aleck's
+protrudin' into air was due to neck.  In the center of that neck
+was an Adam's apple that any man might be proud of.
+
+"His complexion consisted of freckles; when you spoke to him sudden
+he blushed, and then he looked for all the world like a stormy
+sunset.  His eyes were white, and so was his hair, and so was poor
+old Aleck--as white a kid as they make 'em, and, beyond guessing,
+the skeeriest--not relatin' to things, but to people.  How he come
+to drift out into our country was a story all by itself.  He was
+disappointed in love--he _had_ to be.  One look at him and you'd
+know why.  So he sailed out to the wild West, where he was about as
+useful as a trimmed nighty.  We always stood between Aleck and the
+old man, until the boy got so he'd make straight once out of a
+possible five.
+
+[Illustration: He was disappointed in love--he _had_ to be.]
+
+"First off, he was still; then, findin' himself in a confidential
+crowd, and bustin' to let us know, his trouble, he told us all
+about it.  He'd never spoke to the girl, it seems, more'n to say,
+'How-d'ye-do, ma'am,' and blush, and sit on his hat, and make
+curious moves with them hands and feet; but there come another
+feller along, and Alexander quit.
+
+"'You got away?' says Scraggs.  'Permit me to congratulate you,
+sir!'  And he took hold of as much of Aleck's right wing as he
+could gather, and shook it hard.  'Alas!' says he, 'how different
+is the tale I have to tell.'
+
+"'But I didn't want to come away!' stutters Alexander.
+
+"'Didn't want to?' cries Scraggs, letting the pipe fall out of his
+mouth.  Then he turns to me and taps his brow with his finger,
+casting a pitying eye on Aleck.
+
+"As time went on Aleck got worse and worse.  He had a case of
+ingrowing affection; it cut his weight down to ninety pounds.  With
+him leaving himself at that rate, you could take pencil and paper
+and figure to the minute when Alexander Fulton was booked to cross
+the big divide.  And we liked the kid.  In spite of his magnificent
+feet, and his homeliness, and his thumb-handsidedness, I got to
+feel sort of as if he was my boy--though if ever I have a boy like
+Aleck, I put in my vote for marriage being a failure, and
+everything lost, honor and all.  Probably it was more as if he was
+a puppy-dog, or some other little critter that couldn't take care
+of itself.  Anyhow, we got worked up about the matter, and talked
+it over considerable when he was out of hearing.  It come to this:
+there was no earthly use in trying to get Aleck to go back and make
+a play at the girl.  He'd ha' fell dead at the thought of it.  That
+left nothing but to bring the girl to Aleck.  You see, we thought
+if we told the young woman that here was a decent honest
+man--hurrying over the rest of the description--just evaporating
+for love of her, that she might be persuaded to come out and marry
+him.  We weren't going to let our pardner slip away without an
+effort anyhow.  We couldn't do no less than try.  Then come the
+problem of who was the proper party to act as messenger.  The rest
+of us, without bothering him by taking him into our confidence,
+decided that Scraggs was the proper man, because, if he didn't know
+Women and her Ways, the subject belonged to the lost arts.
+
+"But, man! Didn't he r'ar when we told him!
+
+"'ME go after a woman!' says he.  '_ME_!!!--Take another drink!'
+But we labored with him.  Told about what a horrible time he'd
+had--he always liked to hear about it--and how there wasn't anybody
+else fit to handle his discard in the little game of matrimony--and
+what was the use of sending a man that would break at the first
+wire fence?  If we was going to do the thing, we wanted to do it;
+and so forth and so forth, till we had him saddled and bridled and
+standing in the corner of the corral as peaceful as a soldier's
+monument, for he was the best-hearted old cuss under his crust that
+ever lived.
+
+"'All right,' says he.  'I'll do it, and it's "Get there, Eli!"
+when I hook dirt.  Poor old Aleck is as good as married, and the
+Lord have mercy on his soul!  But there's one thing I wish to
+state: I'm running the job, and I run it my own way.  I don't want
+any interfering nor no talk afterward--'s that understood?
+
+"It was.  He was to cut loose.
+
+"'All right,' says he.  'Poor Aleck!'  So that night E. G. W.
+Scraggs took his cayuse and made for the railroad station, bound
+east.
+
+"Aleck had give us full details.  We knew all about his little town
+and about that house in particular; just how the morning-glories
+grew over the back porch, looking out on the garden patch, and
+where the cistern was, which, with his usual good luck, Aleck had
+managed to fall into, whilst they were putting a new cover on it.
+Yessir; we knew that little East Dakota town as well as if we'd
+been raised there; but we were some shy on details concerning the
+girl.  I swear I don't believe Aleck had ever looked her full in
+the face.  She was medium height, plump, blue eyes, brown hair, and
+that ended the description,
+
+"We suffered any quantity from impatience before E. G. W. showed
+up.  You see, there ain't such a lot that happens to other people
+occurrin' on a ranch, and we was really more excited over Aleck and
+his girl than a tenderfoot would be over a gun fight, and for the
+same reason; it was out of our ordinary.
+
+"Scraggsy didn't keep us on the anxious seat.  He was the surest
+thing I ever saw.  Often I've watched him rope a critter; he never
+whirled his rope, even when riding--always snapped.  And he never
+made a quick move--that is, a move that looked in a hurry--all the
+same, every time he let go of the rope, there was his meat on the
+other end of it.  Women was the only thing that did E. G. W.
+Scraggs, and that's because he wholesaled the business.  That
+ambition of his wrecked him.  When he trotted around the track for
+fun, nobody else in the heat could see him for the dust.
+
+"One evening about half-past eight, when the glow was still strong,
+here come Scraggs, prompt to the schedule.  He was riding and a
+buggy trailed behind him.
+
+"We chased Aleck over to the main house, where the old man, who
+stood in on the play, was to keep him busy until called for.
+
+"Then up pulls E. G. W. and the buggy.  In the buggy was a young
+woman, and a man.
+
+"'Here we are,' says Scraggs, in the tone of one who has done his
+painful duty.  'Check the outfit--one girl and one splicer--have
+you kept holt of Aleck?'
+
+"'Yes,' I says.  'We've got him--come in, folks.'  I was crazy to
+hear how he'd pulled it off.  Soon's they got inside I lugged him
+to the corner, leaving the other boys to welcome the guests.  'Tell
+me about it,' I says.
+
+"'Short story,' says he.  'Moment I got off the choo-choo I spotted
+the house--couldn't mistake it.  Laid low in the daytime and
+scouted around as soon as night come.  Girl goes down to the barn
+and comes back with a pail of milk.  I grabbed her and put my hand
+over her mouth so's she couldn't holler.  "Now listen," I says to
+her.  "There's a friend of mine wants to marry you.  When I let you
+go, you'll skip into the house and pick up what clothes is handy,
+and you'll vamoose this ranch at quarter of eleven, sharp, so we
+can make the next train west.  If you ain't there, or if you say a
+single word to a human being--you see this?" and I stuck the end of
+my hoss-pistol under her nose.  "Well, I'll blow the head clean off
+your shoulders with it."  Then I laid back my ears and rolled my
+eyes around.  Well, sir, she was scart so's she didn't know
+anything but what I said.  I hated to treat a lady like that, but
+if I've learned anything concerning handlin' the sect, it's
+this--you got to be firm.  There's where I made my mistake
+formerly.  Then I let go of her and went back to the deppo.  What
+she thought I couldn't even guess, but I knew I was goin' to have
+company, and, sure enough, 'bout three minutes before train time,
+here comes our friend.  When I got her safe aboard I told her she
+needn't be scart.  Lots worse things could happen to her than
+marryin' Aleck, and she says "yessir," and she kept on sayin'
+"yessir" to all I told her.--Wisht I could have found one like
+that, instead of eighty of 'em that stood ready to jump down my
+throat the minute I opened my mouth.--She told me she'd had a
+middlin' hard time of it and didn't mind a change.  That surprised
+me a little, because I jedged from Aleck's talk she was an
+upstandin' critter--but, pshaw!  Aleck would think a worm was a
+sassy thing if it squirmed in his direction.  Then I telegraphed
+Con Foster to have me a buggy and a minister ready for the three
+o'clock train, and to keep his yawp calked up.  So as soon as I hit
+land again, there was the rig complete; we hopped in and started
+a-coming at once and fast, and here we are; for which I raise
+thanks, and all the curses of the Mormon gods be on the head of the
+man that gets me into such a play as this again!  Snake old Aleck
+out and get the misery done with.  That minister's chargin' me
+fifty cents an hour, and I don't know whether he's the real thing
+or not, at that.  Con whispered in my ear that he worked in a
+grocery when he first struck town, dealt stud-poker for Johnny
+Early, quit that and took to school-teachin', then threw that up
+and preached.  But what's the difference out here?  He's expensive,
+anyhow, and all Con could find.'
+
+"So I wagged my legs for the house and trotted Aleck down to the
+bull-pen.
+
+"'Friend of yours there,' I told him.
+
+"'That so?' says he.  'Who is it?'
+
+"'Lady,' I says, kind of gay, thinkin' he'd be pleased.
+
+"He stopped in his tracks.  Then I remembered who I was talkin' to.
+
+"'Come along, here, now!' says I, and nailed him by the neck.  'You
+ain't goin' to miss your happiness if main strength can give it to
+you.'  His toes touched about once to the rod.  I run him into the
+pen.
+
+"'There,' says I, 'is somebody you know.'
+
+"Well, sir, old Aleck looked at the gal, and the gal looked at
+Aleck, and the rest of us looked at each other.  Soon's the kid got
+his breath from the shock he yells, 'I never laid eyes on that lady
+before!'
+
+"Oh, Hivins, Maria!  That was the awfullest minute I ever lived
+through.  Poor old E. G. W. S.!  We all turned away from him, out
+of pity.  He had the expression of a man that's fell down a
+hundred-foot prospect hole and been struck by lightning before he
+touched bottom.  He grabbed aholt of the minister and swallered and
+swallered, unable to chirp.
+
+"At last he rallied.  'You mean to tell me, Aleck,' he says, in a
+voice hardly strong enough to get through his mustache, 'that I've
+made a mistake?'
+
+"Aleck was always willing to believe he was wrong.  'I'm _pretty_
+sure, Zeke--I ain't never seen you, have I, Miss?'
+
+"'No, sir--not that I know of,' answers the girl, with her eyes on
+the ground.
+
+"E. G. W. rubbed his brow.
+
+"'Will you make good, anyhow, Aleck?' he coaxed.  'I got the
+minister and all right here--it won't take a minute.'
+
+"I'd let go of Aleck in the excitement.  At these words he made one
+step from where he stood in the house, through the window, to ten
+foot out of doors, and a few more steps like that, and he was out
+of the question.
+
+"Then the girl put her face in her hands and begun to cry.  She was
+a mighty pretty, innocent, plump little thing, and we'd rather have
+had most anything than that she should stand there cryin'.  But we
+were all hung by the feet and wandering in our minds.  The simple
+life of the cow-puncher doesn't fit him to grapple with problems
+like that.
+
+"Then, sir, up gets Ezekiel George Washington Scraggs, master of
+himself and the situation.
+
+"'Young lady,' says he, 'I have got you out here under false
+pretenses.  I'm as homely as a hedge fence, and my record is dotted
+with marriages worse than a 'Pache outbreak with corpses and
+burning homes.  I ain't any kind of proposition to tie up to a nice
+girl like you, and I swear by my honor that nothing was further
+from my thoughts than matrimony--not meanin' any slur on you, for
+if I'd found you before, I might have been a happy man--Well, here
+I stand: if you'll marry me, say the word!'  By thunder, we gave
+him a cheer that shook the roof.  You can laugh if you like, but it
+was a noble deed.
+
+"The girl reached out her left hand--so help me Moses!  She liked
+him!  I took a careful squint at old Scraggsy, in this new light,
+and I want to tell you that there was something kind of fine in
+that long lean face of his, and when he took the girl's hand he
+looked like a gentleman.
+
+"You wouldn't think that holding a gun to her head, and threatenin'
+to blow her brains out was just the touch that would set a maiden's
+heart tremblin' for a man, but if a woman takes a fancy to you,
+your habits and customs, manners and morals, disposition, personal
+appearance, financial standing and way of doing things generally is
+only a little matter of detail.
+
+"'How will this figger out legally?' E. G. W. asked the minister.
+
+"The minister, he was a cheerful, practical sort of lad, ready to
+indorse anything that would smooth the rugged road of life.
+
+"'Do you renounce the Mormon religion?' he asks.
+
+"'Bet your life,' says Scraggs.  'And all its works.'
+
+"'That settles it,' says the minister.  'Besides, I don't think
+anybody will ever come poking out here to make trouble--whenever
+you say the word.'
+
+"'One minute,' says Scraggs, and he turned to the girl very gentle.
+'Are you doing this of your own free will, and not because I lugged
+you out here?'
+
+"'Yessir,' says she.
+
+"'You want me, just as I stand?'
+
+"'Yessir.'
+
+"'Keno.  I won't forget it.'  Then he put his hand on her head,
+took off his hat, and raised his face.  'O God!' he prays, 'you
+know what a miserable time I've had in this line before.  I admit
+it was nine-tenths my fault, but now I call for an honest deck and
+the hands played above the table.  And make me act decent for the
+sake of this nice little girl.  Amen.'  Then he pulled a
+twenty-dollar gold piece out of his pocket and plunked her down
+before the minister, 'Shoot,' says he.  'You're faded.'
+
+"Well.  there old Scraggs--I say 'old,' but the man weren't more
+than forty--celebrated his eighty-first marriage in that old
+bull-pen, and they lived as happy ever after as any story book.
+Which knocks general principles.  Probably it was because that no
+man was ever treated whiter than she treated him, and no woman was
+ever treated whiter than he treated her; he had the knack of bein'
+awful good and loving to her, without being foolish.  Experience
+will tell, and he'd experienced a heap of the other side.
+
+"And now, what do you think of Aleck?  The scare we threw into him
+that night wound up his moanin' and grievin' about the other girl.
+He never cheeped once after that, but got fat and hearty, and when
+I left the ranch he was makin' up to a widow with four children, as
+bold as brass.  There was more poetry in E. G. W, than there was in
+Aleck, after all."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+IN THE TOILS
+
+Mr. Ezekiel George Washington Scraggs, late of Missouri, later of
+Utah, and latest of North Dakota, stood an even six-foot unshod.
+He had an air of leanness, almost emaciation, not borne out by any
+fact of anatomy.  We make our hasty estimates from the face.
+Brother Scraggs's face was gaunt.  Misfortune had written there, in
+a large, angular hand, "It might have been"--those saddest words of
+tongue or pen.  The pensive sorrow of E. G. W.'s countenance had
+misled many people--not but what the sorrow was genuine enough
+(Scraggsy explained it in four words, "I've been a Mormon"), but
+the expression of a blighted, helpless youth carried into early
+middle age was an appearance only: I mean it was nothing to bank on
+in dealing with Zeke.  Still, if you could see those eyes, dimmed
+with a settled melancholy; those mustachios, which, absorbing all
+the capillary possibilities of his head, drooped like weeping
+willows from his upper lip; and above, the monumental nose--that
+springing prow that once so grandly parted the waves of adverse
+circumstance, until, blown by the winds of ambition, his bark was
+cast ruined on the shores of matrimony--you would not so much blame
+the man who mistook E. G. Washington Scraggs for a something not
+too difficult.  Red Saunders said that Scraggsy looked like a
+forlorn hope lost in a fog, but when you came to cash in on that
+basis it was most astonishing.  In general a man of few words, on
+occasions he would tip back his chair, insert the stem of his
+corncob pipe in an opening provided by nature at the cost of a
+tooth, and tell us about it.
+
+[Illustration: "Scraggsy looked like a forlorn hope lost in a fog."]
+
+"Why can't people be honest?" said Mr. Scraggs--_Silence_!
+
+"Charley!" cried Red, reproachfully, "why don't you tell the
+gentleman?"
+
+"No, no, no!" replied Charley.  "You be older'n me, Red--you
+explain."
+
+"Well," said Red, "I suppose the loss of their hair kind of
+discourages 'em."
+
+"I had rather," meditated Mr. Scraggs, "I had much rather wear the
+top of my head a smooth white record of a well-spent life than go
+amblin' around the country like the Chicago fire out for a walk,
+and I repeat: Why can't people be honest?"
+
+"I begin to pity somebody an awful lot," said Red.  "Did you send
+him home barefoot?"
+
+"You go on!" retorted Mr. Scraggs.  "I fell into the hands of the
+Filly-steins oncet, and they put the trail of the serpent all over
+me.  I run into the temple of them twin false gods, Mammon and
+Gammon, and I stood to draw one suit of sack-cloth and a four-mule
+wagon-load of ashes."
+
+"Is them the close you got on now?" said Charley.  "And what did
+you get for the ashes?"
+
+"The play come up like this," said Scraggs.  "After my eighteenth
+bestowin' of the honored name of Scraggs upon a person that didn't
+appreciate it the Mormon Church see fit to assume a few duties on
+me.  I was put in a position of importance in a placer minin'
+districk inhabited by jack-rabbits, coyotes, Chinamen, and Mrs.
+Scraggses.  And still I wasn't happy.  Them jack-rabbits et up my
+little garding patch; the coyotes gathered at nights and sung me
+selections from the ghost dance; the Chinamen sprung every
+con-cussed trick on me that a man who wears his whiskers down his
+back can think of; and day and night alike, Mrs. Scraggs, from one
+to eighteen, informed me what I'd ort to do.
+
+"I tried to strike up a little friendly conversation with the
+Chinks, for variety, but it weren't no use.  A Chinaman'll be a
+Mormon, or a Democrat, or a cannibal, or any other durn thing for
+five cents, sixty days from date.  He ain't got any more natural
+convictions than a Missouri River catfish.  They'd just keep
+a-watchin' my face so's they could agree with me.  Now, I didn't
+want that.  I wanted to get up an argument with somebody I could
+sass back, because in my own house, where I was lord and master, if
+I happened to remark it was a nice, bright day everybody swore you
+couldn't see your hand before your face, and I let the subject drop
+right there.  Mrs. Scraggs quar'led some among herself, but when I
+come in her motto was, 'United we stand him on his head, and
+divided we fall upon his neck.'  When she done the last, of a still
+day, you could hear the crack of my cervycal vertybree three mile.
+
+"So, at last, I wearied.  I writ a letter to the Elders tellin' 'em
+I enjoyed the work, but thought it was time for my spirit of
+self-sacrifice to exercise himself a little.  So would they mind
+givin' me another job?  Somethin' like lyin' on a board and havin'
+a doctor rip-saw chunks out of me for the benefit of Science, and
+let him lose the pieces, for all I cared.
+
+"The Mormon Church, she come to my relief by sendin' me out on a
+proselytin' expedition to York State.  But I wasn't built proper to
+lead errin' sheep into the fold.  Most of the sheep they hollered
+'Baa!' when they see me, and gathered distance with both feet.  If
+I did get a chance to talk to a man he always asked me awkward
+questions.  Like one old farmer, whilest I was explainin' the
+advantages of havin' as many helpmates and cheerful companions and
+domestic joys as possible, busts into me by takin' holt of my coat
+and askin' so confidential I couldn't lie to him, 'How do you find
+it yourself?'
+
+"'The Lord be good to fools!' says I.  'You got _one_ now, ain't
+you?'
+
+"''M ya-a-as,' says he, without anything you could figger as wild
+enthusiasm in his voice; 'I hev.'
+
+"'Well,' says I, 'multiply one by eighteen, and let's have a drink.'
+
+"'I had to send word to the Elders that Books of Mormon weren't
+looked upon as popular readin' in the outlyin' districts, so should
+I come home, or try New York City?  They sends me word back,
+wishin' my work to prosper, to try New York City, but not to draw
+on 'em for any more funds until I had a saved sinner or two to show
+for it.  Well, sir, this last clause jolted me.  I had spent money
+free among them farmers, to boom trade, and for the purchasin' of
+fancy clothes, more to look at than be comfortable in, the idee
+bein' to show how good a thing the Church of Mormon was to the
+first glance of the eye.  And now, after side-trackin' my railroad
+fare home, I weren't wadin' in wealth, by no means.  More'n that, I
+understood that the city of New York was a much more expensive
+place than St. Looey.  So I writ a letter back, tellin' 'em I was
+scatterin' seed so's you could hardly see across the street.  There
+weren't no hope for a crop unless I had more plain sowin'
+material--please remit.
+
+"And then they come back at me, sayin' I'd already cost the
+community about four hundred and fifty dollars, and not even a
+Dutchman by way of results.  That I'd understand this weren't said
+in no mercenary spirit, but just as a matter of business.  They
+would hold a prayer-meetin', they said, which, no doubt, would
+bring the end aimed at, and for me to go forth strong in the faith
+and gather 'em up from the wayside.
+
+"I let fly oncet more, sayin' that I was strong in the faith but
+feeble in the pocket; that sinners were costly luxuries in a big
+town like New York.  How was I goin' to play the Prophet and stand
+the man off for my board?
+
+"Elder Stimmins wrote back pussonally, exhortin' me to be of good
+heart, sayin' further that the days of miracles weren't past; at
+any moment the unrepentant might get it in the conscience--and
+signed himself my friend and brother in the church, with a P. S.
+readin':
+
+
+_Dear Zeke_: My wife Susan Ann will continner to have high-stukes
+till I produce a grand pianny.  Mary's after a dimint neclas, and
+my beluvid spous Eliza (that's the carut-heded one lives down by
+the rivver) will put sumthin' in my food if she don't git a gol
+watch and chane.  Tomlinson's fust three ar rasin' Ned fur new
+housis, hors and kerige, and the like.  The new ones is more
+amable, but yellin' fur close and truck.  Uncle Peter Haskins'
+latest is on the warpath fur a seleskin sak, and so on and so
+forth.  You know how it is yourself, dear frend and bro., and we ar
+broke, so I incurrige you to keep your hart stout, your faith
+intack, and hunt up a poker-game sumwheres, becus we honest ain't
+got the money.
+
+  SAUL STIMMINS.
+
+
+"'Well!' says the cookee, when he heaved the egg into the coffee,
+'that settles it!'  And that settled me.  I sure did know how it
+was myself.  If there was any man in or out of the Territory of
+Utah that knew how it was myself, I and him was the same indivijool.
+
+"I took thought of Mrs. Scraggs out there all alone by herself,
+with her darlin' Zeke entirely out of reach, and while I don't
+recommend the idee of jollyin' yourself by gloatin' over the
+misfortunes of others, I thinks this here state of affairs could be
+worse, and I went forth strong in the faith to New York City,
+feelin' I might encounter some kind of quick action, like Brother
+Stimmins prophesied.
+
+"And there, you see, is where sinful feelin' in me turned me over
+to the enemy, bound hand and foot, gagged and blindfolded.  Who was
+I to exalt myself agin the smart young men of New York City?  How
+come it the foolish notion buzzed in my cockloft that, like Samson
+of old, I might fall upon the adversary, hip, hurrah, and thigh,
+and of the fragments that remained gather seven bushels?  Pride
+goeth before destruction and a naughty spirit before a fall.  Up I
+sasshays to my hotel bedroom to take account of resources.  Mighty
+slim they was.  In the false bottom of the trunk was a pocketbook
+that looked like the wheel of progress had passed over it, and a
+little sack of nuggets--that was all.  Them nuggets was the pride
+of my life.  I didn't buy 'em from the Chinaman that offered, but I
+come horrible near it.  And yet that Chink had the innocentest face
+in Utah; he might ha' stood for a picture of Adam before Eve cast a
+shadder on his manly brow.  I don't recall anything that's more
+deceivin' than appearances, yet what in the world's a man to go by?
+Well, them nuggets ort to said to me, 'Young man, beware!  Be
+warier than John H. Devilkins himself!  All that's heavy and yaller
+is not gold.  Sometimes a patient Chinaman, flappin' of the flies
+with his pigtail, will industrusly manufacture that same per
+schedule out of common, ordinary lead, and, by exercisin' the art
+of gildin', almost whip-saw people by the name of Scraggs, if so it
+hadn't 'a' been their gardeen angel moved 'em to try a sample with
+the edge of a knife.'
+
+"Was I warned?  Well, I dunno, anyhow, I trotted myself out to the
+street to see what this here Metropolus business had to offer
+different from just plain St. Looey.
+
+"And I found out.  Dear friends and brothers, I wonder have you
+ever seen a man reachin', reachin' for a playin'-card layin'
+prostrate on the table before him, when his last chip is in the
+pile, his last cent in the chip, all manners and kinds of bills
+comin' due tomorrow, the house to close in fifteen minutes, and
+hopin' that card is just one more little two-spot?  Are you
+familiar with the lines of anggwish on his face?  Well, of all the
+hullabaloo, skippin', flyin', pushin', haulin', rompin', tearin',
+maulin' and scratchin' messes I ever got into, that street was the
+worst.  At the end of fifteen minutes I had no life in me above my
+feet, and they was simply slidin', the one before the other,
+without any aim or purpose.  I stood on a corner clawin' hunks of
+fog off my intellect.  In two minutes more I'd ha' yearned for Mrs.
+Scraggs and Home.  I lost all intention of drawin' sustenance out
+of the inhabitants, when all of a suddent up steps one of these
+brisk, smart, zippee-zippee-zizoo-ketch-me-if-you-kin young city
+fellers, the kind of lu-lu joker to go through a countryman like a
+lightnin' express through a tunnel, leavin' nothin' but the hole
+and a little smoke, and says he, in a hurry:
+
+"'Sorry to have kept you waitin', Mr. Johnson, but knowin' how much
+it meant to both of us, I----Oh, I beg your pardon!' says he; 'I
+mistook you for a friend of mine--no offense, I hope?'
+
+"Now, this same person had on a soup-pot hat that looked borrowed,
+and he wore his clothes like he used 'em for a hiding-place, but
+how was a plain jaybird like me to notice that?  I was almighty
+lonesome, too, so I told him there weren't no offense at all.
+Well, he apologized again, and then he begun to laugh, it was so
+ridiklus, his mistakin' me for Johnson, that he'd knew all his
+life, and he says, 'I'll tell you what I'll do; we'll step across
+the street and tone up our systems at my expense, thereby wipin'
+out any animosity.'  So, of course, rather than be peevish, I done
+it.  Then I tried to wipe out some animosity, but he wouldn't have
+it.  Nobody must buy but him.  I explained--givin' myself dead
+away--that I was a stranger, with nothin' to do but hate myself to
+death, and he was defraudin' me of a rightful joy.  But no, says
+he.  I might be a stranger, or I might not.  Personally he thought
+I'd resided some time in New York City, by my looks; if that was so
+I knew perfectly well he was only follerin' the customs of the
+place, and if I _was_ a stranger it was up to him to do right by
+me, anyhow.  So we grew one degree stronger with no cost to Utah.
+And we stayed there, gettin' powerful as anything, and kind of
+confidential, too, till finally he felt called upon to explain his
+business with this man Johnson.  He took me into a back room to do
+it.
+
+"'Mr. Scraggs,' says he, 'there's things betwixt Heaven and Earth
+that ain't dreamt of on your velocipede, Horatio.'
+
+"'Ya-a-as,' says I.
+
+"'Sh-h-h,' says he, 'not so loud.  Here's the opportunity of a
+lifetime goin' on the loose for want of a man.  That durn Johnson
+has lost his golden show.  It's a very strange story,' says he.
+
+"'Ya-a-as,' says I.  He looked at me a minute, but Lord!  How was a
+poor Mormon to hold suspicions?  So he goes on.
+
+"'At first,' he says, 'you might git the idee there was somethin'
+jubeeous in these preceedin's, but there ain't.  I knew a man that
+once upon a time was the honestest man ever lived.  Honest?  Why,
+I've known that man to go to bed weepin', he felt so bad to learn
+George Washington stole a march on the enemy.  "I never would have
+believed it of George if it hadn't been in the book," he says.
+That's the kind of a man he was--just your sort to a dot.  Well,
+sir, he has an honest claim agin these United States for damage and
+raisin' the divil with his farm durin' the Civil War.  And do you
+suppose these here United States, _E Pluribus Unum_, In God We
+Trust, paid that bill?  Not on the tintype of your grandfather.
+When he goes to Washington with it, the President he says, "Now,
+I'd pay you this in a minute, Billy," he says, "but think of them
+Congressmen!" and the President he shakes his head and Billy comes
+home again.  And from that time on, before his very eyes, he has to
+see his widder and eighteen helpless children die of starvation
+through not havin' enough to eat, right in front of his face--ain't
+that fierce?' says he.
+
+"'Ya-a-as,' says I.
+
+"'Well, at last this man gets a job in the Treasury; it didn't pay
+much--just enough to live on.  He had charge of the banknotes
+before the Secretary signs 'em, to make good.  Now, here comes in
+the curious part of it: my friend's handwritin' and the Secretary's
+handwritin' was that much alike neither man could tell one from
+t'other.  This gives my friend the idee of how to break even with
+Uncle Sam.  He just naturally laid his hooks on ten thousand
+dollars' worth of one-hundred-dollar notes and flew the coop,
+waitin' to sign 'em and dispose of 'em at leisure, thus payin' his
+own claim.  But here comes a hitch; after he done it his conscience
+bit him; the notes was good; he passed a lot of 'em with no
+trouble, but he quit on the play.  Now, if some good, honest man,
+yet not quite so honest as all that, wanted to turn a dollar, he
+could buy two thousand dollars' worth of them bills for one hundred
+ordinary cold money.  It's this way, too,' says he.  'It ain't only
+conscience; the old man's mortal scart; he's always dreamin' of
+Secret Service men comin' in on rubbers.  Now, ain't that an
+opportunity?'
+
+"'Ya-a-as,' says I.
+
+"'Well,' says he, lookin' at his watch, 'it's now my time to eat,
+Mr. Scraggs, and I've took up so much of your valuable time
+chinnin' here, I don't feel I could do less than share my simple
+repast with you.  I'm a stock-broker myself,' he says, 'but none of
+these durned rich ones, so if you can stand for once to eat a meal
+not exceedin' five dollars in price, why, come along!' says he.
+
+"Then we went into a high-toned vittel dispensary, I bet you.
+Jeemima! but she was gold and white paint to knock your eye out.
+I'll never tell you what I et, but it was good food.  And to wind
+up, come little cups of coffee and big seegars.  It was beautiful.
+Then says my man, 'Well, this is a day in a hundred.  I can't tell
+you how good it makes me feel in this city of sin to come across a
+square man like yourself--what do you say to a bottle of wine?'
+
+"'Ya-a-as,' says I.  With life ripplin' along like this I was
+endorsin' the whole time-table.
+
+"Wine is a mawker.  The first small glass of it hadn't gone
+whistlin' down afore she begun to mawk me.  'Ezekiel!' says she,
+'be merry; disport yourself--where's your game blood?  Try a fall
+with this gentleman.'
+
+"'Ya-a-as,' says I to myself.  And then I says aloud and hearty,
+'My friend, you've used me right.  It ain't that I want to make
+money, but just to help your friend along; I haven't any greenbacks
+much in my possession, but,' I says, 'if you're willin' to arrange
+a dicker, whereby I exchange eighteen ounces of nuggets--the
+present market value of Chink Creek gold bein' seventeen dollars
+and forty cents per ounce--for two thousand dollars of your
+friend's bills, it bein' herein stated and provided that you can
+pass 'em like you say you can to my satisfaction, why, I'm your
+little huckleberry, waitin' to get picked.'
+
+"'I got you,' says he, and we shook hands.  'You go to your hotel
+and bring the dust,' says he, 'and I'll slide along and make the
+old man sign the bills.  I'll meet you on the corner where we met
+before.'
+
+"So I met him on the corner, and we went up-stairs to a room where
+a little old man was signin' bills fast and furious.
+
+"'Slide out one,' says my friend, 'till I take Mr. Scraggs out and
+prove I'm no liar.'
+
+"The old man carefully blotted a hundred-dollar green and away we
+goes to a bank.  It was a sure-enough bank.  Outside was the name
+in big letters and inside was the man called 'teller' that won't
+tell you nothin' and looks as if he hated you, like all good banks
+has.
+
+"'Fives and tens for this, please,' says my friend.  That teller
+never quit thinkin' of his dyspepsy, but chucked the stuff right
+over the counter.
+
+"'How's that?' says my friend, when we got outside.
+
+"'All right,' says I.  'And here's my plunder.'  I let him heft the
+bag.
+
+"'Heavy truck, ain't it?' he said.  'But we can always stand the
+weight, can't we?'  He picked out one of them glitterin' Chinese
+works of art and regarded it real lovin'.  'Yes,' says he, 'it's
+sure nice stuff.  Hurry along and we'll close the dicker.'
+
+"Up-stairs the old gent had the money ready for me to count.
+
+"'Correct?' says he.
+
+"'Ya-a-as,' says I.
+
+"'Well, I'll put 'em in a neat bundle for you,' says he.  When that
+was done I handed my precious gold over.
+
+"'Now, come here and have one last drink of satisfaction,' says my
+friend.  I turned to the table and imbibed my last tonic at his
+expense.
+
+"'Here you are, sir,' says the little old man, handin' me my
+package.  'And much obliged to you; only remember this: Secret
+Service men is all about; don't open her till you get safely in
+your room--mind that, now!  Good-day.'
+
+"Down the steps I goes, ker-thump, ker-thump.  But when I reached
+the street I begun to wonder to myself if I hadn't better just see
+what those fellers would do next--no harm in ketchin' on to as many
+city ways as possible--so I hid under the stoop till they come out,
+glancin' sharp this way and that, but missin' Ezekiel George
+Washington.
+
+"Up the street they skips; me after 'em, soon's I could, safe.
+Round the corner they goes.  Me, too.  And then they sasshays into
+a joolry shop.  Here I thought I'd stay outside.
+
+"My friend, after some talk, passes a big nugget over the counter.
+The joolryman he bores into it with a file and hands it back.  You
+never see a face more contemshus than his'n.  Then some kind of
+argyment broke out, arms a-wavin'; windin' up by the joolryman
+raspin' pretty near every nugget in the heap.  Each pass his face
+got more contemshus yet.  Finally he swept the whole business back
+in the bag, throws it at 'em and intimates they can leave at any
+time.
+
+"They left.  I never heard such language in my life!  It ortn't be
+allowed in a large city.  Why, that friend of mine, he heaved the
+bag of nuggets in the gutter and he raised up his hands, and just
+as sure as I sit here tellin' you about it, friends and brothers,
+he made a Fourth-of-July speech five minutes long, and never
+repeated himself once!  I wouldn't go near him, feelin' in his
+excited state of mind it might lead to trouble.  The little old man
+at last dragged him away.
+
+"I picked up them poor mishandled treasures in the gutter, for old
+acquaintance sake.  And surmisin' it probably wouldn't hardly be
+worth my while to wait till I got to the hotel to sample my
+prize-package, I opened her on the spot.
+
+"Well, there's no use in talkin'.  Them fellers were a pair of
+scoundrels.  Instead of anything that looked or smelt or sounded
+like money in that parcel, was nothin' but a lot of newspapers cut
+into strips, with a note on top of 'em bearin' these insultin'
+words:
+
+  "'_There's a sucker born every minute_.'
+
+"Then I counted up on my fingers fourteen drinks and one
+five-dollar dinner, and says I to myself:
+
+"'Ya-a-as,' says I, 'I don't reckon but what that's true.'"
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+ST. NICHOLAS SCRAGGS
+
+"I have read some'ers," said Mr. Scraggs, "that some man whose name
+was a durned sight more important to him than it is to me, for I've
+plumb forgot it, said that he never begun nothin' unless he could
+see the end of it."
+
+"His wife's family must have owned real estate," suggested Red
+Saunders.
+
+"He didn't specify which end," excused Mr. Scraggs.  "Maybe 'twas
+the front end he meant; then the proverb 'ud read that he never
+begun anythin' unless he could see the commencement of it; which is
+a wise and thoughtful statement, because had it been otherwise, and
+therefore essentially different, why, how could he?"
+
+"Of course not," assented Red.
+
+"I s'pose," said the visitor, "that you mean what you say and
+understand what you mean, but d----d if I do.  Is there any right
+or left bower in this game?"
+
+"No," said Mr. Scraggs.  "But this is the twenty-fourth of
+December, and I was thinkin' of another twenty-fourth of December.
+I began something then that come out rather different from what
+you'd naturally expect.  That ain't so remarkable, for nothin' I
+ever had any hand in ever come out as anybody expected--barrin'
+Mrs. Scraggs, who, individuool, cool, calm, and collectively,
+always says, 'Just what I expected, exactly,' and any man that says
+any one or all of the Mrs. Scraggses bound to me by ties of
+matrimony by the Mormon Church, party of the first part, Mrs.
+Scraggs, party of the second part, and E. G. W. Scraggs, party of
+the third, last, and of no consequence whatsomever part--any man, I
+repeat, who says Mrs. Scraggs would lie is no friend of her'n and
+ought to be told so.  But to restrain a nateral indignation at the
+hint of such a charge and to proceed: I want to say that this
+particular twenty-fourth of December I'm talkin' about came out so
+much entirely different from what I expected that I can't seem to
+forget it.
+
+"There's something about Christmas that warms the heart and makes
+the noblest and best of our sentiments to come to the surface for a
+breath of fresh air.  Yes, sir, there is, and they passed it around
+in Peg-leg's place that afternoon so hot, sweet, and plentiful that
+I hadn't been there more'n two hours before my feelin's had rose to
+such a pitch that I went out and bought each' and every Mrs.
+Scraggs a pair of number ten rubber boots, a pound of raisins, and
+an accordion.  The boots was useful; the raisins, of course, stood
+for Christmas cheer; but what in thunder I bought the accordions
+for I never knew afterward.  I'd give a ten-dollar bill this minute
+to know.  It was a tremenjus idee at the time, but that's all I
+recall of it.  I sent the hull shootin'-match around to the house
+by a small boy with a hand sleigh and a card sayin' 'Peace on
+Earth' on top of it.
+
+"After this, havin' done my duty by my fambly, as I saw it at the
+time, I wandered into Mr. George Hewlitt's emporium of chance,
+armed with six iron dollars and a gold collar-button.  They took my
+six dollars away from me as though I wasn't fit to be trusted with
+'em, and then I sprung my collar-button for another stack.  As far
+as I could see, that collar-button was all that stood between me
+and a long, wide, thick, and cold winter.  Hows'mever, there was no
+unmanly tears in the eyes of the support of the noble house of
+Scraggs when he plunked the lot on the corner.
+
+"'Slave,' says I to the dealer in the language I learned shiftin'
+scenes for a week, back in old St. Looey.  'Slave!' says I.  'I've
+stacked my life agin the cast in your eye, and I will stand the
+razzle of your dyestuff.  Shoot!  You're faded!'
+
+"And he was, too.  I caught that turn and about every other in the
+deal; split him in half on the last card, and from that on I ripped
+him up the back and knocked chunks off'n him until everybody got
+interested.
+
+"The game grew too small for both of us.  I had four hundred
+dollars in checks before me, and my original collar-button.  I
+asked him for his limit.  He replied that notwithstandin' the
+enormous and remarkable growth of institutions of learning
+throughout the country and the widespread interest in arithmetic,
+it hadn't been figured out yet.
+
+"'Make good,' says I, tappin' the table with the finger of
+authority.
+
+"'I got you,' says he, and slams his roll upon the table.  'There's
+eight hundred dollars.'
+
+"'Well,' says I, 'I shall descend upon it in two flies, not
+counting odd chips.  Shall we cut?'
+
+"He shoved out a deck.  I cut a four-spot.  It come to me all of a
+sudden how futeel is human endeavors, how fleetin' is man's hopes,
+for we was playin' it high man wins.  And then he cut a
+three-specker, and talked unwisely.  Then he cut a king, and a soft
+smile lighted his face.  I cut an ace.  He looked at it, reached
+up, and took down a sign:
+
+  ACE IS ALWAYS
+  HIGH IN THIS HOUSE.
+
+--a sign he'd made with his own fair hands, and he says to me, 'You
+don't mind if I keep this as a sooveneer of the joyful occasion, do
+you?  You can have the rest of the place, for I move after two
+beats like that.'
+
+"So then the crowd was uproarious, and I treated several times for
+Mrs. Scraggs and several times for myself, divided the money
+square, wrapped her half in a parcel with 'God Bless our Home'
+marked on it and sent it around to her.
+
+"It then occurred to me I weren't dressed according to my
+prosperity.  So I cut the boys and ambled around to Eichenstein's
+to get some clothes.
+
+"Old Eichy clasped his hands with innocent glee.
+
+"'I have got id!' says he, clawing out some black duds.  'You
+remember dat 'biscobal mineesder who beat der sheriff to der drain?
+Dat is der close he orter t' und didn't bay for--dey fid you like a
+finger in der mud.'
+
+"I tried to explain to Eichy that I didn't need no minister
+clothes, but he was shocked at the idea, so I bought 'em and put
+'em on.
+
+"It next occurred to me that with a new soot of clothes and money
+in my pocket I'd orter travel and see a little of the world once
+more, so I gathers the boys and four members of the Dogtown band,
+and we went eight miles to the station in good shape.  It made the
+people look to see us marchin' in.
+
+"'Gimme a ticket,' says I to the station man.
+
+"'Where are you going to?' says he.
+
+"If there's one thing I can't put up with it's impudence from a
+railroad man.
+
+"'What in the hereafter business is that of yours?' says I.  'You
+gimme a ticket, quick, or there'll be a wreckin' train due at this
+spot.'
+
+"'Well, how can I tell what to do?' says he.  'Pay me for the
+ticket, and you get it.'
+
+"'Sir!' says I.  'Do you mean to insinooate that I can't or won't
+pay for a dirty little railroad ticket?  There you are--gimme a
+ticket!'
+
+"I slapped what I had loose on the counter; he counted it careful
+and give me my paste-board, just as the engine come a-hissin' and
+a-roarin' in.  Gee, she did look bully to me!  I hadn't seen a
+train of cars for two years.  We detained 'em no longer than was
+necessary to treat the engineer and the rest of the crew proper in
+the matter of drinks, and I was off, leanin' back comfortable in
+the smoker, puffin' huge and prosperous puffs of real seegar smoke
+into the air, and with the careless thumb of wealth tucked into the
+armpit of my vest.  I reckoned I must have dozed, for bimeby the
+conductor shook me by the arm and says, respectful, 'We're nearin'
+your station, sir.'
+
+"I looked out, and I see down the track the most lonesome inhabited
+spot on the face of this earth.  If houses has ghosts I should say
+that the ghosts of some forty houses that had committed the crime
+of not bein' properly built had collected themselves there--why,
+even the snow around the cussed things looked second-hand.
+
+"I made up my mind on the instant that I'd never really intended to
+go there.  But it was too late now.  I didn't propose to back down
+before that conductor.
+
+"'The names of all these little towns is so much alike,' says I,
+'that I've forgot the name of this one already.'
+
+"'Yes?' says he, raisin' his eyebrows.  Of course, as a matter of
+fact, I hadn't thought to look at my ticket; but having started on
+this line I meant to buck through.
+
+"'Yes,' says I.  'Would you mind giving it to me?'
+
+"'Oggsouash,' says he.
+
+"There was silence for a second.
+
+"'Hog's wash,' says I, musin'.  'Don't seem like I ort to have
+forgot that, does it?'
+
+"'No,' says he; 'it don't.'
+
+"There come a kind of awkward silence again, me thanking the Lord
+that we was almost there.
+
+"'Injun name,' says the conductor.
+
+"'Sure,' says I; 'of course; certainly; I remember now distinctly.
+What saloon do you recommend?'
+
+"'Saloon?' says he, steppin' back.
+
+"'Saloon,' says I, wonderin' where he found the queerness of my
+words.
+
+"'Saloon?' says he.  'Why, man, it's a Prohibition, Presbyterian,
+Vegetarian Colony.  I didn't know what to make of your actions when
+you got aboard, but from your face and clothes I supposed you was
+one of them ministers coming to scare the kids to death for a
+Christmas present.  Ain't you one of 'em?'
+
+"'I'm a sort--sort of connection,' says I with my expirin' breath.
+
+"He looked at me as if he couldn't quite see the connection.
+'Well,' says he, 'here we are, and they're expectin' you, for
+there's a lady waitin' on the platform.'
+
+"'A lady?' says I, risin' from my tomb.  I'd begun to think before
+there was truth in the sayin', 'You can't win at two games on the
+same day,' but when I heard there was a lady waitin' for me--well,
+if there's any man in this here bull-pen can think what I thought,
+let him whisper it in confidence, and I'll make it right with him.
+
+"I never knew how I got off that train of cars.
+
+"Well, I oughtn't to have been scart--it was the littlest,
+thinnest, palest, tremblingest woman you ever saw--why, there
+wasn't a Mrs. Scraggs on the face of the earth that couldn't 'a'
+dandled her in her arms like a baby.
+
+"'Is this the Reverend Silas Hardcrop?' says she.
+
+"'Yes, madam,' says I, thinkin' it best to humor her, even if she
+was small.
+
+"'I wanted to meet you first--I wanted to say--to speak--there's
+something I felt I must tell you,' she says.
+
+"Thinks I: 'No, you don't.  So long's I've got a gun in each hind
+pocket I reckon the men folks and me will get long all right, but
+private conversations with ladies is off the bill-of-fare.'  So I
+says:
+
+"'Y-a-a-s?' in a tone of voice to put out a bonfire.
+
+"'Oh, it doesn't matter,' she said quick and shaky; 'it was silly
+of me.  I only thought----'  Well, she was tremblin' with cold or
+somethin', and kind of near cryin', too--one of them women that
+wears themselves out by botherin' to be good, and if they are good,
+botherin' about what ought to be done next.  In short, as the
+saying is, I forgot my part.
+
+"'Why, you poor little critter,' says I; 'you're near froze to
+death--take a drop of this,' pullin' out a flask of Peg-leg's best.
+
+"'What?' she says, starting back in horror.  'Can that be _whisky_?'
+
+"'Madam!' says I, rememberin', 'how dast you?  That's a
+prescription put up by my favorite physician--a small dose will do
+you a large good.  Try a piece, and we'll go in the station, where
+it's warmer, I hope, and talk it over.'
+
+"She strangled some, but downed a trifle.
+
+"There was a good old lignite fire blazin' away 'n the station.
+
+"'Now that you've been _so_ kind to me,' she says, 'I dare tell you
+what I thought.'
+
+"She had stopped shiverin'--Peg-leg's best knocked shivers quick.
+
+"'I don't want you to think I do not believe in our tenets, because
+I do, I _do_!' says she; 'but it's been such a hard and weary year,
+with no brightness in it, and the old times come to me so, and they
+haven't had anything--really, you know, and it's awful to think of
+Christmas going by without--without--I know it's a Pagan festival,
+and that Christians should pass the day in meditation and fasting,
+but--don't you see?'
+
+"'Certainly,' says I.  'If there ever was a guilty party that
+didn't do it, why, she's not him--you and me agree there, entirely.'
+
+"'I beg your pardon?' says she, lookin' at me with them scart-deer
+eyes of hers.  'I don't quite understand--I'm so stupid.'
+
+"'Yes, that's what's apt to come of vegetables,' says I.  'But tell
+me more about the Pagan festival.'
+
+"I fancy Peg-leg's best couraged her up some.
+
+"'I don't think it's a Pagan festival for children to have fun and
+toys for Christmas.  I don't,' she says, 'I can't.  And to think of
+them sitting there in that cold church for hours to-morrow--ugh!'
+she says.
+
+"Well, dear friends and brothers, I did think of 'em sittin' in
+that cold church.  There was a time when I uset to behave fine for
+a month previous to December twenty-fifth, for the priv'lige of
+seein' Uncle Santy Claus tumble down the chimbley; and I want to
+say right here that all the good times I have seen sence ain't got
+near enough to them good times to catch their dust.  Besides which,
+the merry Christmas in glassified form with which I had encouraged
+myself at Peg-leg's, and the wad of that beautiful sensitive plant,
+the long green, which was reposin' on my heart, says to me:
+'Scraggsy, spring yourself--jump, boy, jump!'
+
+"And furthermore, in the wildest dreams of my youth I had never
+figgered on spendin' a cold and cloudy Christmas in the bosom of a
+Presbyterian, Prohibition, Vegetarian Colony.  It stood to reason
+if I didn't do something to that colony the colony would do a thing
+to Scraggs.  I made up my mind that right here was where I jarred
+Oggsouash to a finish.
+
+"And further still, that poor little deluded, cold-potato-fed woman
+was on my mind.
+
+"'You mean,' says I to her--my eddication in the Mormon Church, and
+what I learned about play-actin' in St. Looey, standin' me in handy
+for manners--'that these here children, the offspring of cold water
+and vegetables, is expected to pass to-morrow in prayer and
+meditation, and be better for it?'
+
+"'Yes, sir!' says she, impressed by my manners.
+
+"'Well, then, madam,' says I, 'if you'll excuse my onprofessional
+language, I'll say that that's a low-down, Scandahoovian outrage.'
+
+"'Now,' says she, eager, 'that's just what I think.'
+
+"'Madam,' says I, bowin', 'I'm enchanted to see such a spirit--I'll
+think kindly of turnips from this day on.  Let us prescribe for
+ourselves once more--the directions say take one every three
+minutes until you feel better.  Besides, you got to help me, and
+you'll need your strength.  My duties demand that I leave here by
+the night freight, but before that----'  And I give her her
+directions.  She jumped up and hustled out, as young as ever she
+was.
+
+"Then I went up to the telegrapher.  'Where can I buy some toys and
+truck, to come out on Number Three?' says I.
+
+"He didn't pay no attention.
+
+"I reached in and took him gently by the hair, drawin' him part way
+through his cubby-hole so's he could hear plain.
+
+"'My young friend,' says I, 'is it any part of your notion that I
+grew up on cabbages?  Does it please your youthful fancy to picture
+me picketed out to grass, and chewin' my cud on a sunny slope?'
+
+"'Ow!' says he.  'Leggo m' hair!'
+
+"'You are now in the hands of E. G. W. Scraggs,' says I, 'an honor
+which I shall give you cause to appreciate if you don't lend me
+your ears to what I say.  Do you think you can hear me now?'
+
+"'Yes, sir.  Oh, yessir, yessir,' says he.
+
+"'Good,' says I.  'Then telegraph to the first place east to send
+one hundred dollars' worth of toys out here on Number Three.
+Here's your money.'
+
+"Well, he picked away, and then we waited.  Bimeby we got the
+foolishest kind of answer: 'What sort of toys?  How much of each?'
+etc.
+
+"'Michael and the Archangels all,' says I, 'how am I supposed to
+know?  Ain't that part of a toy-shop man's business?  Here, young
+man, you tick-tack 'em that I want toys--children's toys--to use up
+one hundred plunks--I want 'em on Number Three--and if they don't
+arrive I will.  I will arrive in their little old toy-shop and play
+with them till they holler for ma.  Tell 'em I never felt more
+impatient in my life than I am this minute, and that I'm getting
+more so per each and every clock tick.  Mention the name of Zeke
+Scraggs, so they won't think it's Mr. Anonymous behavin' frivolous.
+Tell 'em I mean every word of it.  Go on; do it.'
+
+"So he did.
+
+"Then comes a sensible answer: 'Goods go forward by Number Three.'
+
+"'Sure,' says I.  'ill you join me?'
+
+"'I certainly will,' says he, and bimeby he cried because I looked
+so like his father, who was just the same kind of short, thick-set,
+hairy kind of person I was.
+
+"Then my poor little deer-eyed woman come back with a roll of
+cotton-battin'; at the same minute Number Three pulled in.  'You
+get Jimmy, there,' says I to her, 'to help you whack up the
+play-toys, whilst I disguise myself as Santy Claus."
+
+"She stopped and looked at me, then she says in a scart whisper,
+'Are you _really_ the Reverend Silas Hardcrop?'
+
+"'I'm just as near bein' the Reverend Silas Hardcrop as I shall
+ever get,' says I.
+
+"There come a twinkle of somethin' almost like fun in her eye.  'I
+told them.' says she, 'that you would address them at seven, sharp.'
+
+"She and me an Jimmy finished Jimmy's lunch and sat around, whilst
+I told 'em anecdotes concernin' life as it was lived outside the
+bonds of Oggsouash, till quarter to seven rolled around.  Then we
+took the back way to the church.
+
+"I don't think it has ever been my privilege to gaze on one hundred
+and fifty faces all so astonished at one and the same time as when
+I stepped forward to the center of the stage at Oggsouash and
+addressed the meetin', me bein' clad as Santy Claus, in flowin'
+white whiskers, hair to match.  Jimmy's coat that come down almost
+to my waist, a baggage-truck of toys behind me, and a gun in each
+hand.
+
+"'Dearly beloved brethren,' says I, 'I shall try to interest you
+for a few minutes, and I urge and beg and pray of you that if any
+male member of your number here assembled feels in any way nervous
+or fidgety during the course of my remarks that he will conceal it
+with all possible haste and discreshun, because otherwise I ain't
+goin' to have the bill for the consequences in my mail.
+
+[Illustration: "'Dearly beloved brethren,' says I."]
+
+"'How Oggsouash and I come together is neither here nor there,
+although I could find it in my heart to wish it was,' I says.  'But
+now that the worst has happened, let us meet the consequences like
+men--you, like men raised and prostrated by such things as
+cauliflower, sweet potatoes, and hay, washed down by the water
+which flows in all its glistening uselessness among the hop-toads
+and mud-turtles of Oggsouash Creek; and me, like men that pick the
+hindleg of an ox at a sittin' and make the spirits in Peg-leg's
+place go down like the approach of Arctic breezes.
+
+"'To resume,' says I.  'It may be that there ain't a man drifted
+further from what the standards of this here place is than I be,
+but I'm willin' to put my hand to an affydavit statin' it never
+crossed my mind to draft a set of rules as an improvement on the
+Almighty's.  There's where you put it all over me.  I have held up
+a train to hear what the passengers would say, but lackin' the
+advantages that has doubtless been yours, I duck when it comes to
+reformin' Heaven.
+
+"'It struck me with the force of a revelation when I arrived at
+your glowin' mertroppollus this afternoon that to make any human
+bein', particlerly children, forget for a time that they lived in
+Oggsouash was a religious duty.  I have therefore furnished a few
+trifles for the purpose.  I move you, ladies and gentlemen, that we
+turn this Christmas Eve into a Pagan festival.  All in favor of
+this motion will keep their seats--contrary minded will please
+rise,' and I cocked both guns.
+
+"'Carried, unanimous,' says I.  'Now, please let each young person
+come forward as his, her, or its name is called.  I shall be
+severely displeased if you don't.'
+
+"Then I read from the list the lady had furnished me, and the kids
+come up.  The last party on the list was a little gal that had been
+poppin' up an' down like a prairie-dog, fearin' she was goin' to
+git left, and when at last I sings out 'Annabella Angelina
+Hugginswat!' here she come, her eyes snatched wide open by the two
+little pigtails that stuck out behind, walkin' knock-kneed and
+circular, as some little girls does, and stiff er'n a poker in her
+j'ints from scart-to-death and gladness.
+
+"'Angelina,' says I, pickin' up the big doll-baby I'd saved for
+her, 'you must be the fond parient of this child,' says I.  'Raise
+it kindly; teach it that it's been damned since the year of our
+Lord B. C. 7604; feed it vegetables, Angelina, and keep it away
+from strong drink, even if you have to use force.'
+
+"Angelina, she didn't mind my pursyflage, but she just stood there
+quiverin' all over, lookin' at her prize.
+
+"'Ith that my dolly?' she says.
+
+"'That's your sure-enough dolly, little gal,' I says.
+
+"She took hold of it--her little arms was stiff as railroad ties
+and her hands was cold.
+
+"She looked at me again and whispered: "'Ith that my dolly,
+_really_, _truly_, mithter?'
+
+"She looked so darned funny standin' there that I grabbed her right
+up and kissed her.
+
+"'If anybody tries to take that dolly away from you, you let _me_
+know--skip!' says I, and down the aisle she runs hollerin': 'Oh,
+papa, papa!  Thee my dolly!'  Seems she didn't have no mother, poor
+little thing.
+
+"Well, sir, old human nature is human nature, after all--elsewise
+it would be a darned funny state of affairs--but anyhow, that
+little gal's holler did something to my friends, the Oggsouashers.
+I don't think I overstep the mark when I say some of 'em smiled a
+kindly smile.
+
+"'But I didn't have no time to study it.  If I missed my freight I
+stayed in Oggsouash over night, so, reasonin' thus, the tall form
+of E. G. W. Scraggs might 'a' been seen proceedin' toward the
+railroad track at the rate of seventeen statute miles per hour.
+Just as I hooked on to the caboose comes a feller pastin' after me.
+
+"'Say!' he whoops.  'Say! We want to thank you!'
+
+"'Turn it in to the kids,' says I.  'Good-night, Oggsouash,
+good-night,' I says, 'Partin' is such sweet sorrow that I could say
+good-night as long as my wind held out.'
+
+"Well, sir, it was nigh three in the mornin' when I hit Castle
+Scraggs agin, after the coldest walk to be found anywhere outdoors;
+but when Mrs. Scraggs come to the door--and it was one of the
+blackest-eyed and snappiest of the race--and she says, 'Zeke
+Scraggs!  Where you been?'  I just fell into her arms.
+
+"'Bear with me, Susan, or Mary Ann, or whatever your name is,' says
+I, 'for I've had a ter'ble time.'
+
+"'You behave yourself, you old idiot, or I'll do you personal
+harm,' says she.
+
+"'Thank you, thank you for them sweet words, spoke by somebody
+_alive_, anyhow,' says I.  'And this much more, Mrs. Scraggs,' says
+I, 'before we part.  If ever you hear me complain of anythin'
+concernin' you ladies just you say "Oggsouash" to me and hold your
+hand, so, to indicate an empty glass.
+
+"'Good-night, Susanna--Merry Christmas,' says I.  'On my word of
+honor, there has been one moment of my life when I was glad to see
+you.'
+
+"And I left her standin' there, with the candle in her hand,
+paralyzed.
+
+"And I can conclood, as I suggested in the beginning, that I had
+not foresaw one item of these occurrences when I risked that
+collar-button."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE SIEGE OF THE DRUG STORE
+
+"Once upon a time, when I was scarcely married at all, you might
+say," began Mr. Scraggs, "I quit workin' for a livin' and started a
+scientific school."
+
+"_You_ did?" cried Red, after one astonished second vanished in the
+past.
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Mr. Scraggs, "I did.  _It_ was for the
+investigation and pursuit of this, here doctrine of chances.  The
+idee was to put a little box full of playin'-cards on the table,
+and draw them forth one at a time, to see just how they'd fall.
+Some of the students got that interested they bet on the results."
+
+"Oh!" said Charley, "I took a course in that one winter myself.
+Did you always draw _one_ card at a time out'n that box, Zeke?"
+
+"So help me, Bob!  I did," returned Mr. Scraggs most earnestly.
+"Hence I didn't get rich.  It sometimes happened that a Wild Wolf
+from Up the Creek would breeze in, full of rum, plumb foolishness,
+and money.  Oh, man!  High or low, red or black, odd or even,
+coppered or open, on the corner or let her rip, last turn and in
+the middle, from soda-card to hock, them brier-whiskered
+sons-of-guns would whipsaw my poor little bank till there wasn't
+much left of her but sawdust.  Yes, sir," mourned Mr. Scraggs, "I
+made enough out of the early birds to eat, but them Roarin' Bears
+from Bruindale uset sometimes to apply the flat of their hands to
+my seat of learning till the sparks flew out of my eyes.  In short,
+this sportin' life was too much up and down hill for me.  No sooner
+would I git ready to declare a dividend than one of my outside
+customers would come in and take that dividend and wipe both feet
+on it, roll on it, stomp it, fly ten foot in the air and come down
+on it, bite chunks out of it, and then I'd light a match, gather
+the crumbs from the floor, and wisht I could git holt of something
+at once easy and reliable.
+
+"Well, there was a friend of mine lived at the Transcontinental
+Hotel.  The partition between his room and mine didn't come clear
+to the ceiling, so when I arrived home late I uset to heave a boot
+over on top of him and have a chin.  He was a nice feller, Hadds.
+A pale, thin sort of man, very red-headed--that is to say, not
+red-headed like some parties I have known, but a sort of bashful
+red, that would ha' been different if it could; and he wore eight
+large freckles on his face.  There would have been more if there
+had been more room.  Hadds was then workin' for the railroad
+company, but not happy.  He was in the dispatcher's office, and I'd
+hear him holler in his nightmares, 'There they go!  Bang!
+Everybody killed!  I always expected it!'
+
+"You see, he lived in fear of running two excursion trains
+together.  Nervous cuss--oh, awful!  Not without reason, neither.
+Seems when he was at college he studied chemistry.   Always
+experimentin'.   Mixed two things that was born to live apart.
+Hadds left simooltaniously with that corner of the buildin'.  He
+didn't stop till he reached the Transcontinental Hotel.
+
+"Hadds worked at me to start a drug store with him.  He'd saved
+some out of his wages, and he knew I had a fluctuatin' roll.  He
+says, 'You're goin' bust some day, young man--why don't you quit
+it?  You come with me and we'll make a decent thing.  It's mighty
+lucky for the gang that they swill patent medicines instead of
+lettin' that Jones up the street give' em a quick finish over the
+prescription counter.  That pill-wrangler couldn't tell the
+difference between an auger-hole riffle-board and a porous plaster
+if there wasn't a label on the box.  Jeeminnetticus!' says Hadds,
+'when he mixes coffin varnish for a man you'd think he was
+scramblin' eggs.  Come on, Washy,' he says, 'while you got the
+price.  You'd like the business.'
+
+"One night it happened Bitter Water Simpson was borne on the wings
+of evening to my place of business, and he calculated that the last
+two cards in the box would come out, queen first, trey next.  He
+was so sure he inquired about the theory of limits.
+
+"'The limit,' says I, 'is the clothes and contents, body and
+immortal soul of E. G. W. Scraggs.  You slam your wad down and I'll
+cash it.'
+
+"It had occurred to me there was no use foolin' longer.  If I
+busted this gun-fighter I went into the drug business; if he busted
+me I'd take a walk.
+
+"He laid down one thousand dollars' worth of Government promises,
+and I took a long breath, drew forth, first trey, next queen,
+removed his money from the table with a light, sure touch, threw
+the layout in the stove, blew out the lamp, remarked that the bank
+was closed, and stood prepared to deal in chemicals instead of
+playin'-cards.
+
+"Simpson was surprised.  'Ain't I goin' to get satisfaction?' says
+he.
+
+"'If it's to be had on the prescription counter you do,' says I.
+'Otherwise, I prefer to stay satisfied myself.'
+
+"It would have been better if he'd refrained from abusing me.  I
+was younger then, and while not in the least quarrelsome, yet such
+talk as Simpson talked to me was entirely uncalled for.  Besides
+that, he got festive with guns.  I relieved him of his guns and sat
+him on the stove till he promised to behave.  Nobody ever heard me
+kick when them fellers nailed me to the burnin' oak for anywhere's
+up to five hundred a night.  Howsomever, it wound up amiable; I
+staked Simmy to a new pair of pants, and kept him in spendin' money
+till ridin' again appeared among the possibilities.  I never could
+get used to people pullin' guns on me.
+
+"So, then, there was a drug store goin' in no time.  Both me and
+Hadds was happy as could be, and workin' like a pair of mules.
+When we had things fixed, and a sign 'Hadds & Scraggs' in gold
+letters four foot high, I felt I really was a prominent citizen.
+But dear friends and brothers, always there's somebody handy with a
+fly to stick in your ointment.  Once I went down street to see how
+that sign looked a little ways off, and up rides a puncher.
+
+"'Hadds & Scraggs!' says he: 'I wonder what kind of merchandise
+them is?  Well, I must take a Hadds and a Scraggs home to show the
+boys.'
+
+"He knocked every bit of poetry out of that sign.  Howsomever,
+poetry ain't the chief business of a drug store, and when you come
+to the practical side we done mighty well.  We got in a line of
+patent medicines with pretty red and blue labels that took the
+popular taste.  As there was a minin' boom over the hill, our line
+of gold pans and gunpowder went well.  A new seeder brought in some
+money, and with rubber boots, snowshoes, baseballs, carpenters'
+tools, spectacles, lumber, and an agency for a self-binder as side
+issues, I see myself getting on in the world.
+
+"'Tweren't long before nobody'd think of buyin' a faro layout or a
+deck of cards elsewhere than at our store, and as for perfumed soap
+and perfumery, why, I think our feller-citizens must have et the
+one and drunk the other, for we unloaded by the box and pailful.
+When we'd count the kitty nights, 'Didn't I tell you?' Hadds would
+holler.  'Put your feet in my tracks and you'll wear diamonds!'
+
+"And I guess I would if it hadn't been for a lady.  There's a woman
+in it, nine times out of ten, when a man's ruined; and the other
+time there's a man in it.  If neither one nor t'other's in it it's
+a durned uninterestin' occurrence, anyhow.  Yes, sir; we come under
+the double-cross kindness of a female major.
+
+"One night--Sufferin' Ichabod! but that was a night.'--we were
+jerried to a standstill in one half-hour, or thirty minutes, by the
+clock.
+
+"Things was slack this evening nobody in the store but Hadds, Keno
+Jim and me, throwin' poker dice for cigars, when the door opens and
+here come Major Pumpey and his wife from the army post.  We were
+not glad to see the Major.  He was a little, pussy, red-faced,
+pop-eyed man, pompous as a banty rooster, with black whiskers and a
+mustache like a cat.  He had a voice on him like barrels rolling in
+a brewery vault.  It would surprise you quite a little to hear that
+number ten voice come a-roarin' out of that number two man.  The
+Major used to corral everything he wanted and say, 'Charge it!' two
+octaves below a bull's beller, Bein' a military person, he was fond
+of charges; me and Hadds, bein' plain civilians, weren't.  We
+charged it and we charged it, but that there Major's defenses were
+impregnerville.  I had told Hadds that the next time Pumpey said
+'Charge it' I was goin' to take him at his word, then and there,
+and rush him along on his ear till I felt better.  But, of course,
+now his wife was along I couldn't.
+
+"She was just as different from the Major as anything could be: a
+tall, pale, rangey woman, kind-hearted and good-natured as they
+make 'em, but with a pair of nose-grabber specks, and a way of
+letting her hands flop at the wrist, whilest she talked in a high
+gobbley-gobble style, like singin' a tuneless tune.  They made a
+pair to draw to.  The Lord only knows what you'd got if you filled.
+My!  And the general effect of that lady!  She wore her hair in an
+omelet, and looked as if she'd been put in her clothes by a boiler
+explosion.
+
+"There was another powerful difference between them two.  The Major
+he gazed on the wine when it was any color at all.  He didn't care
+so much for decoration as he did for quantity.  He passed his time
+in bein' tee'd, tee-heed, or teeterin'.  On the other hand, his
+lady couldn't stand plain raw water.  Honest, friends and brothers!
+I ain't stringin'!  I have it on the word of their striker that
+Mrs. Pumpey couldn't be induced to take a drink of water unless it
+was boiled, and as for spirited liquors--Oh, murder!  Don't mention
+it!
+
+"As the Major entered I observed upon his person a kind of
+uprightness that no sober man ever had, varied with quick little
+steps sideways, for no good visible reason, and when he comes up to
+the counter he grabs it with both hands and says, 'How do--gla'
+meecher--hot, ain't it?'
+
+"I admitted it was hot, told him I was glad to meet him, too, and
+as this last wasn't no more than a plain lie I asked the lady quick
+what we could do for her.
+
+"Perfumery was wanted, so I passed the bottles out.  Mrs. Major
+would take a lady-like sniff and say, 'Dee-lee-shus!  Ha-oow do
+eeyou lieek that, Ma-JAW?'
+
+"And when de major laid his hands on the right one of the numerous
+bottles floatin' in the atmosphere about him he'd hold it a yard
+off, give a snort like a buzz-saw striking a knot, and after a
+minute's silence roar, 'Ain't that nice, b-y-y-y GOSH!' and slam
+the bottle down.
+
+"It was tryin' on the nerves.  First place, the way he come out
+with that 'b-y-y-y Gosh!' hit you in the pit of the stomach like
+standin' alongside a bass-drum, and it was only a question of time
+when he slammed one of them bottles through the show case.  So I
+flagged Hadds for help, and the two of us plied the lady with
+perfumery so fast that the Major couldn't get his oar in, at which
+he cut loose for himself, wanderin' around behind the counter,
+smellin' of every bottle on the shelves.
+
+"It ain't everything in a drug store has as pleasant a greetin' for
+your nose as perfumery, and once or twice, when I looked around, to
+kind of keep cases on him, I see the Major had struck a shock.  But
+at last he come across a sample that pleased him.  I saw him swig a
+good lungful of it, and his mouth opened wide with delight.
+
+"'Well, I guess you'll be amused for a while,' thinks I.  So I paid
+no more attention.
+
+"The next thing Hadds looks up.  'Here!' he yells; 'drop that!
+That's chloroform, you bull-head!'
+
+"The call come too late--leastways, to work as intended.  The Major
+dropped the bottle, but he also dropped himself, two shelves, and
+about six dozen glass jars of everything you ever heard of.  Powers
+of darkness!  Flat on his back laid the hero of many charges,
+whilest over his manly form and face trickled cough mixture, Canady
+balsam, liniment, sugar syrup, castor oil, and more sticky, oily,
+messy kinds of stuff than I'll ever tell you.  The worst of it was
+that a bottle of carmine had landed last in the wreck and, bustin',
+flew over everything.  As there wasn't a dry spot for a rod it
+looked like the Major had done a turn of bleedin' at every vein
+same as the young man we used to read about at school.  In fact it
+was much worse than that.  It appeared to be the most awful tragedy
+any one man ever was concerned in.
+
+"Before we got our wits about us poor Mrs. Pumpey see her Major
+afloat on a gory sea, and without askin' for explanations she give
+a loud holler and fainted on our stock of fancy dishes.
+
+"'Here's where we make a lot of money, I don't think,' screeches
+Hadds--he was an excitable person, that Hadds.  'Come!' he hollers,
+'help me get 'em out of here!  There's enough chloroform loose to
+sleep the bunch of us!'
+
+"We lugged the Major and his wife to the back of the store.  I made
+a piller for her out'n some rolls of wall-paper, but the Major had
+to get along as best he could.  There he lay, his little round
+stummick stickin' in the air, breathin' like a wind-broken horse.
+
+"Keno Jim and me looked after the lady whilest Hadds pranced around
+the Major and cussed scientific cuss-words.  Of course, Keno and me
+didn't know no more what to do than a photograft of the Wild Man of
+Borneo when there was a fain tin' woman in the question.  As I
+said, I hadn't been married enough to learn, and the present line
+of Mrs. Scraggses was healthy, whatever other faults they might
+have.  Hadds 'ud come over and tell us half of something, and then
+rush back to the Major, tearin' his hair.
+
+"'Blast it, Hadds!' says Keno, 'quit callin' the man names and let
+us know what to do for this woman.'
+
+"'Give her a drink of whisky!' yells Hadds.  'Come here, Zeke, and
+see what ails this beggar now!'
+
+"If he hadn't called me off like that lots of things wouldn't
+happened.  'Look at him!' says Hadds, and grinds his teeth.  'Forty
+dollars' worth of stuff smashed--charge it, of course.  Prob'ly
+he's goin' to die on our hands--'twould be just like his unmerciful
+nerve.  Pass me that bottle of ammonia, Zeke.'
+
+"Then Keno hollered for me.  He'd pried the Majoress' mouth open,
+stuck a cork in to it keep it so, and then fed her the revivifier.
+She wasn't a handsome woman at the best, but with that cork in her
+mouth----!
+
+"'I gave her to there of whisky,' says Keno, indicatin' about four
+Swede fingers on a water tumbler.  'Do you think that'll bring her
+to ?'
+
+"'Like a bear trap,' says I.  'Do you mean to say you sluiced that
+much raw jump-and-holler into a woman that can't stand uncooked
+water?  Well, you are an allotropic modification of the genus
+jackass, like Hadds says of the Major.'
+
+"Keno got purple in the face.  He slammed the glass down and walked
+out.  'Now you can look after your own women,' says he, bitter.
+Them scientific cuss-words cut him to the heart.
+
+"I looked at the lady.  The color was coming back to her face.
+Evidently she'd be around in a minute or two.  Then Hadds fairly
+whoops at me:
+
+"'Come here!  Come 'here!  You're a nice pardner, you are, standin'
+there with your hands in your pockets!'
+
+"'Well, what'll I do, Hadds?' says I.
+
+"'Do?  I don't care what you do, so long's you don't look so
+aggravatin' useless.  D'yer think this specimen of an officer and
+gentleman appears to be--what in blazes is he doin' now?'
+
+"'Don't abuse the poor cuss,' says I.  'He really couldn't help
+it.'  Then I had an inspiration.  Several times in my life I've
+been afflicted that way.  'See here,' says I, 'he took his dose
+through the nose.  Why don't you give him the remedy the same way?
+Try a pinch of that Scotch snuff.'
+
+"'Why, sure!' says Hadds.  He'd tried anythin' at that stage of the
+game.
+
+"Well, dear friends and brothers, it ain't down in the
+farmer-coop-here, nor no other agriculcheral reports, and I dunno
+as you could bank on it in every case, but from what I see on this
+occasion, if you ever happen to have a friend or relative that's
+over-indulged in choreform and can't seem to recall himself, wait
+till he takes a deep breath, and mix about an ounce of Scotch snuff
+in his air supply.  It may work wonders.
+
+"'Hoor-rash-o!' says the Major, comin' to a sittin' position.
+'Hoor-rash-o!' says he again, and then he went off like a pack of
+firecrackers.  A sneeze wouldn't more'n get fairly started before
+another'd explode in the middle of it.  And the Major was as
+powerful a sneezer as he was talker.  Gee! them bass sneezes of his
+sounded like a freight-engine exhaust.  Mind you, he didn't open
+his eyes; just sat there, covered with carmine and soothin' syrup,
+rockin' backward and forrard and sneezin' like George Washington.
+There was somethin' kind of horrible about it.  Me 'n' Hadds looked
+on petrified.
+
+"Then, 'Oh, my poor husband!  What are they doin' to you?' says a
+v'ice behind us, and the Majoress skipped across the floor and fell
+on the Major.  That's the word for it; she let go all holts an'
+dropped, gatherin' him up in her arms.
+
+"'What did you say, Willie?' she asks.
+
+"'Hoor-rash-o!' says the Major.  'A-kissh-uuu!  ha-ha-hrrrum-pah!
+A-ketcheer!  Aketcher-hisssh-hoor-rash-o!'
+
+"Now, Hadds, when he see the lady weepin' that way, was all broke
+up.  He didn't know about Keno's goblet full of whiskey, so he
+thought it was genuine emotion.
+
+"'Don't cry, ma'am,' says he.  ''Twill be all right in a minute.
+That red's nothin' but carmine and simple syrup--it'll all come out
+in the wash, and sneezin's good for the man.'
+
+"The Mayoress she rose and looked at Hadds.  There was a glare in
+her eye more'n human.  I read in a book once about the tremenjous
+dignity of the lady the trouble was all about.  It didn't seem
+reasonable any female person could act that way till I see the
+Majoress.  She had dignity enough for two maiden ladies at a
+niece's weddin' and a nigger head-waiter.  The way she laid holt of
+Hadds' collar was impressive a great deal more than I'm able to
+tell you.  Poor Hadds was faded.  He looked like a pup caught with
+a chicken in his mouth.  They made a grand march to the general
+goods counter, the Majoress still resemblin' a foreign queen.
+Arrived there, she took up a hairbrush, and with a motion the
+grandest I ever see in a human bein' she brought it down atop of
+Hadds' head.  Whacko!--Christmas, what a crack.
+
+"'_Now_, will you let my Willie alone?' says she.
+
+"Hadds jumped up and down and rubbed his head.
+
+"'What ails you?' says he, near cryin'.
+
+"'Hadds!' I remonstrated to him, 'remember you're speakin' to a
+lady.'
+
+"'Lady!' yells Hadds.  'Lady!  Look at the lump on my head!'
+
+"It was at this unfortunate minute a young feller see fit to come
+into the store to buy some matches.  He stopped a minute, as he
+took a general view.  There was the Major, apparently bleedin'
+profusely, yet not carin' a great deal, seemin' more concerned in
+rockin' bac'ard and forrard and sneezin'.  His manner seemed to
+say, 'So long as you don't interfere with the innocent pleasures of
+a sneeze I don't care what breaks.'  There was Hadds rubbin' his
+head: there was me with my mouth open; and there was the Majoress,
+leanin' over the counter and smilin' a dark, mysterious smile.
+
+"The customer didn't know what to do.
+
+"'Well?' says the Majoress, sharp and businesslike.
+
+"The young feller jumped.
+
+"'I beg your pardon,' says he.  'I'd like a box of matches.'
+
+"The Majoress shook her head.
+
+"'People don't always get what they like in this world,' says she.
+
+"'No,' says the young feller.  'No, ma'am.' And then come an
+awkward silence.
+
+"The Majoress still shook her head.
+
+"'This is a sad world,' she says.
+
+"'Yes, ma'am,' says the young feller, edgin' for the door.
+
+"'But you can have the matches,' says she.
+
+"With that she hit him square between the eyes with a ten-cent box.
+The young feller drew himself up proud.
+
+"'I don't come in here to get insulted,' says he.
+
+"The Majoress resumed her mysterious smile.
+
+"'Why not?' says she.
+
+"The young feller opened his mouth twice, but nothin' to suit the
+occasion seemed to occur to him.  He wheeled and tried to walk off
+dignified, but the matches snappin' under his feet spoiled the
+effect.
+
+"'By-by!' says the Majoress; 'come again!'
+
+"She grabbed a tray of mouth-organs and heaved it after him; they
+scattered like a shrapnel shell.  The young feller didn't wait to
+close the door.  We heard him gallopin' up the board walk like he
+was needin' fresh air.  We stood stock still for a matter of five
+seconds, I reckon; Hadds and me scart to move, and the Majoress
+with her brow wrinkled in thought.  All of a suddent, with no more
+warnin' than a streak of lightnin', she burst out cryin'.  'Oh, oh,
+oh!' says she, 'how I have been deceived in men!'  Then to relieve
+her feelin's she got to work with both hands.
+
+"There was a genuine Sand-hill cloudburst of hair-brushes and
+combs, porous plasters, tooth-powder, tooth-brushes, pomade, soap,
+Jew's-harps, playin'-cards and the old Boy knows what all.  It
+struck me then what a waste of time it was for a citizen to get
+loaded and tear the linin' out of a saloon; the place where you can
+really get the worth of your time and money is a drug store.  Hadds
+and me made one desp'rate plunge for her through the terrific fire
+she kept up.  I don't suppose that lady could hit a barn with a
+rock, unless she was inside of it, under ordinary conditions; but
+I'll bet she didn't miss one out of a possible ten that night.  She
+caught me under the eye with a mouth-organ, on top of the head with
+a jar of tooth-powder, whilest smaller articles flew off'n me in
+all directions.
+
+"Hadds took holt of her hands and talked implorin'.
+
+"'Please, ma'am!' says he, 'please?  Don't throw things around like
+that!  Remember they cost money!  We can't sell tooth-brushes after
+you've strewed the floor with 'em!  I ask you please!  Please!'
+
+"'Villain!' says she haughtily.  'How dast you put your evil hands
+on me?'
+
+"'Hadds,' says I, 'leggo the lady.  We pass.  Let us retire behind
+the prescription counter and bear up like men.  There's only one
+thing on earth that E. G. W. Scraggs is willin' to admit has him
+trimmed to a peak, and you see that same before you now.  'Twas
+ever thus since childhood's hour, when my maiden Aunt Susan took
+the raisin' of me.  Take any form thou wilt but this, and my firm
+nerve ain't goin' to tremble; but stacked again this form, my nerve
+is floppin' like a hotel wash in a hurricane.'
+
+"So I slung Hadds over my shoulder and we went behind the
+prescription counter.
+
+"I tried to distract his mind by tellin' him a funny story.
+However, the rip-split-smash outside kind of jumbled three yarns
+into one.  Besides, Hadds was foamin' so it was all I could do to
+keep him from goin' over and kickin' the Major, who still was
+oblivious to surroundings, and enwrapped in the gentle art of
+sneezin'.  Then there come a fearful bump from outside.  I knew by
+that a showcase was no more.
+
+"'Zeke!' yells Hadds, 'think of somethin' before that woman has us
+all in.'
+
+"'Haddsy, old horse,' I says, 'we've only got one show.  If we can
+create a diversion we win.  My head's that rumpled, the only thing
+strikes me is for us to go out there and play cat-fight.  Holler,
+and meaowl, and spit, and screech, and jump around till she can't
+help but look at us.  That's the way I uset to amuse the twins when
+they needed killin'; of course we'll look like a pair of fools----'
+
+"'Yes!' hollers Hadds.  'What do we look like now?  You get three
+guesses!'
+
+"'Come along!' says I.
+
+"Well, dear friends and brothers, our hearts was in that diversion,
+let alone the stake we'd invested in the store.  If you don't think
+one bald-headed E. G. W. Scraggs and one red-headed Tommy Hadds put
+up a high-grade article of cat-fight I don't know how I'm goin' to
+prove to the contrary; but it was so.
+
+[Illustration: "Put up a high-grade article of cat-fight."]
+
+"Why, we buck-jumped four foot in the air, sideways, edgeways and
+straight pitch-and-teeter; we mi-auwed, and scratched, and tore and
+rolled over, and kicked with our hind legs, and such yells was
+never heard in a human habitation before nor since.
+
+"It worked.  The Mayoress stopped and leaned over the counter.
+
+"'Warm it up, Hadds!' I whispers.  'We got her lookin'!'
+
+"So then we rollicked for a ramps.  I see the Majoress smile; she
+p'inted her finger toward us.
+
+"'S-sick 'em!' says she.  'Sick 'em, Towser!'
+
+"It would have been all right; we was playin' on velvet, and could
+have led that woman out of the store as easy as anything if that
+concussed Major hadn't 'a' come to in the wrong place.
+
+"I caught one glimpse of him holdin' tight with both hands to a
+shelf, with his eyes jumpin' out of his head and his face as white
+as flour.
+
+"Of course no man would really believe that the spectacle of two
+grown men playin' cat-fight in the ruins of a drug store, whilest
+his own wife looked on and said 'Sick 'em!' was anything but an
+optickle delusion, caused by reasons he was familiar with.
+
+"'It's never come like this before!' hollers the Major, and then he
+goes down backward for the final touch, carryin' away a kerosene
+lamp, and the same landin' in a barrel of varnish.
+
+"Well, sir, what with the stuff that was loose around there and the
+varnish, my coat tails was afire when I lugged the Major out to
+where Hadds was industriously savin' the Mayoress' life.
+
+"The two hose companies got out in good shape, but a most
+unforchinit dispute over who was to claim first water on the fire
+led 'em to use axes and spanner wrenches and sections of hose on
+each other whilst our drug store burned green and purple and pink,
+neglected.  Inside of ten minutes eight firemen was ready for the
+hospital; a good citizen took the Major and Majoress in for the
+night, and all that was left of our promisin' business enterprise
+was a small heap of wood ashes and a very bad smell.
+
+"'Well,' says I, 'shake, Hadds; it's all over.'
+
+"He grabbed my hand, weepin'.
+
+"'No, it ain't, Scraggsy, Old Man Rocks,' says he.  'You stood by
+me noble, and I'll do the same by you.'  He fumbled in his pocket.
+'I've saved a complete equipment from the wreck,' says he, and with
+that he hauls out a couple of decks of cards and a box of poker
+chips.  'All is lost save honor, Zeke," says he, 'but I reckon we
+can raise a dollar or two on that.'
+
+"I was so moved in my feelin's I could only shake his manly hand.
+
+"When I could speak, says I, 'We'll rise like a couple of them
+Fenian birds from the ashes, pard.'
+
+"And hope springin' eternal once more in our chests, we took a
+little drink at Jimmy's place and went to bed happy."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE MOURNFUL NUMBER
+
+"It's a great misfortune to be superstishyous," said Mr. Scraggs.
+"Such a thing would never have troubled me if I hadn't a-learnt
+from experience that facts carried out the idee.  Now, you take
+that number thirteen.  There's reason for believin' it's unlucky.
+One reason is, when things is all walkin' backwards folks says
+they're at sixes and sevens.  Well, six and seven makes thirteen,
+so there you are."
+
+"I ain't much more than arrived," replied Red, rubbing his head
+dubiously.
+
+"I'm comin' fast," said Charley; "but don't wait for me, Zeke."
+
+"Well, that's only speculation, anyhow," continued Mr. Scraggs
+indulgently; "and speculation has made heaps of trouble for piles
+of people if I'm to believe what I read, which I don't.  But here's
+cold facts.  I was born on the thirteenth of April, at a time when
+me and the country was both younger than we are now.  Hadn't been
+for that I'd dodged considerable mishaps.  It was on the thirteenth
+of October last, in the early mornin', that I mistook that
+rattlesnake for a chunk of wood and heaved him in the stove."
+
+"Well, where's the bad luck in that?" asked Charley.
+
+"Inquire of the snake," said Mr. Scraggs; "besides, he smelt awful.
+I don't seem to be able to bring back any mornin' I cared less for
+breakfast than that one.  Suppose you was a happy rattlesnake,
+Charley, with a large and promisin' fambly; suppose, now, on a
+frosty thirteenth of October you crawled under the cook-stove to
+get warm the minute the camp cook opened the door, and, before you
+limbered up enough to bite him, cooky lays cold and unfeelin' hands
+upon you and Jams you into the stove--ain't the number thirteen
+goin' to carry unpleasant recollections for you from that on?  Bet
+your life.  Howsomever, these are only small details.  My main
+proof that the number thirteen ain't any better than it orter be
+lies in the fact that one day I married the thirteenth in Mrs.
+Scraggs.  If I'd never'd hearn of such a thing I'd know'd thirteen
+was no good from that time on.  This ain't to cast reflections on
+the other Mrs. Scraggses, neither.  I will say for them wimmen that
+anything simple-heartedness could do to prepare a man to meet his
+end cheerful they done.  But Mehitabel the Thirteenth, of the
+reignin' family of Scraggs, was a genius.  Uncle Peter Paisley uset
+to say that a genius was a person that could take a cork and a
+dryness of the throat, and with them simple ingrejents construct a
+case of jim-jams.  More than one-quarter of the time Uncle Pete
+knew what he was talkin' about, too, and the rest of it he was too
+happy to care.  Mehitabel was a sure-enough genius: she could make
+a domestic difficulty out of a shoestring, she could draw a fambly
+jar through a hole in a sock, and she could bring on civil war over
+the question of whether there was anything to quar'l about,
+
+"Come Christmastime, I thought I'd leave home for a spell.  There
+was an old friend of mine holdin' down a mine out in the hills.  I
+knew he wouldn't have no company around, and I pined for solitude.
+There is a time in the affairs of men, as Shakespeare says, when a
+pair of cold feet beats any hands in the deck.  Keno Jim said
+Shakespeare said so, and Shakespeare's too dead to argue.
+
+"'So I puts on a pair of them long, slidin' snowshoes they call
+'skees' and slips for William Pemberton and the lonesome mountains.
+People don't call a thing 'skee' unless they hev good reason for
+it.  Before I caught the hang of them durn disconnected bob-sleds I
+saw where the 'skee' come in.  The feller that loaned 'em to me
+kindly explained that you slid down the hills on 'em, and it was
+great sport.  When I clumb the first hill and stood perspirin' on
+top I felt entitled to a little sport.  'Hooray!' says I, and
+pushed loose.  It was a long, wide, high hill with trees and things
+on it.  Some time after I started, say about three seconds, I
+thought I'd like to slack a bit and view the scenery.  The way I
+was travelin' the scenery looked like the spokes of a flywheel.  I
+left my stummick and my immortal soul about ten rods behind me.
+You could play checkers on my coat-tail, as the sayin' is.  Man!
+And I pushed up a hurricane.  It cut my eyes so I cried icicles a
+foot long.  _Roar-row-roor-s-s-wish_! we went in the open, and
+_me-a-arrr_! we ripped through the timber.  I crossed a downed log
+unexpected and flew thirty foot in the air.  Whilst aloft I see a
+creek dead ahead of me.  There wasn't nothin' to do but jump when I
+come to it, so I jumped.  I don't care a cuss whether you believe
+me or not, dear friends and brothers, but I want to tell you right
+now that I cleared the creek with something like one hundred and
+eighty feet to spare!  At which I took to throwin' summersaults.  I
+threw one solid quarter-mile of summersaults before that suddent
+cravin' was satisfied.
+
+"'Y-a-as,' says I when I picked myself up.  'Well, I reckon I've
+done enough of this here skeedaddlin' for one mornin'.  So after
+that I went along quiet and dignified to William Pemberton's.
+
+"I hit his cabin on Christmas Eve, findin' him very low-spirited.
+It seems that he was expectin' an attack from some people anxious
+to jump the claims, thereby gettin' the mill standin' on the
+property.  The feller that hired Billy as watchman promised him
+everything and forgot it.  Billy was almighty faithful but
+hot-tempered'
+
+"'Think of it!' says he to me.  'I gets word two days ago that the
+gang is comin' to hop me, and old man Davis ain't even sent me a
+rifle, like he agreed.  What does he expect?  Does he have
+illusions that when they come squirtin' lead at me I'm goin' to peg
+at 'em with snowballs?'
+
+"Then he laid back, fightin' for breath, and kickin' out with his
+legs till I loosened his collar.  It was a terrible strain, bein'
+watchman of a mill under them conditions, with a disposition like
+this.  I pitched in to make him feel better.  After I'd narrated
+some incidents that went to make up livin' with Mrs. Scraggs he
+chirped up considerable.  'Well, sir!  This _is_ a gay world, ain't
+it?' says he.  'I wisht I could offer you something to drown your
+sorrers in, Zeke, but unless you happen to have brought along the
+makings of a flowing bowl we can't put an end to 'em at this ranch.'
+
+"Well, now, that was sorrerful tidin's.  I reckon William took
+notice of my face--Christmas Eve, alone on top of a God-forsaken
+mountain and not a smell of anything to make the sun rise in our
+souls--oh, murder!
+
+"'I feel awful bad about this, Zeke,' says he.
+
+"'Don't mention it,' says I as soon's I could tune my pipes to a
+cheerful lie.  'Your presence is sufficient.'
+
+"'But I have an idee,' says he, pushing his finger agin my ribs.
+'Don't git excited, Zeke, only to be cast down the harder, but
+there's a chance.  All last summer we had stockholders'
+investigation meetings, and the way old man Davis led 'em to make
+investigations through a glass darkly was a sin and a scandal.  The
+altytood was too altytoodinous for strangers, says old man Davis,
+and therefore they must take a drink; and it was too cold and too
+hot, too wet and too dry, and if everything else failed it was too
+cussed mejium for them to live through it without takin' a drink.
+The consequence was that all I remember about a stockholder is that
+he's a kind of man with wibbly-wabbly knees and feet that wants to
+swap sides, who spends his time hiccupin' up and down the mine
+trails, findin' specimens when and where old man Davis wills.'
+
+"William Pemberton smote his forehead with the flat of his
+hand--everything took hold of William _so_ vi'lent.  'I give you my
+word, Zeke,' says he, 'that them horse-car busters picked hunks of
+red serpentine, loaded with gold from the Texas Star, out of our
+white quartz ledges that never see gold since Adam played tag, and
+believed it was all right--just the same as the gent pulls a rabbit
+out of your hat at the show, and you're convinced that rabbit was
+there all the time unbeknownst to you.  And to think--' he says.
+
+"'Sit down, William, sit down,' says I.  'I don't know what to do
+for appleplexy.'
+
+"'Well, I'll sit down to oblige you, Zeke; but to think of them
+flappy-footed yawps puttin' away good liquor by the
+pailful--pailful?' yells William scornful.
+'Barrelful--steam-enjine b'ilerful--
+
+"'Well,' says I hastily, 'you was sayin' you had an idee?'
+
+"'Oh, yes!' says he.  'It don't stand in reason they rounded up
+every last bottle, so it occurred to me that if we hunted we might
+make discoveries.'
+
+"'Why, so we could!' I hollers loud and hearty, with more notion of
+creatin' a diversion, however, than any rank faith in my havin' a
+good time off what old man Davis overlooked.  'It'll be like
+hide-and-go-seek of a Christmas Eve when we was kids, William.'
+
+"So we scrimmaged round here and there till there was only one
+closet in the cabin left.
+
+"'I saved it till the last--it's the most likely,' says William.
+'Shine a light on our departing hopes, Ezekiel.'
+
+"He put his hand very careful toward the back.  'E. G. W., says
+he,' 'my fingers have teched something cold and smooth, just like a
+bottle--pull hard, Ezekiel.'
+
+"I took a long breath and pulled hard.
+
+"'It _is_ round,' says William Pemberton.  'It _is_ a bottle.'
+
+"Nothin' could be heard but the beatin' of our hearts.
+
+"'Is it--is it--_heavy_, William?' I falters.  Then you couldn't
+hear nothin', for our hearts had cease to beat.  He let loose of a
+roar same as a lion that's skipped atop of his prey.
+
+'Ezekiel G. W. Scraggs!' he shrieks, 'she's full!'
+
+"'I wish no better luck myself,' says I.  'Trot her out!'
+
+"When the light of the lantern fell upon that bottle we got a
+shock.  Instead of the cheerin' color that usually fills useful
+bottles, the contents of this here one was green--green as grass
+off a June hillside.
+
+"'Well!' says William, 'what in--where in--why, it's perfumery!' he
+hollers, and raises it for a smash.
+
+"'Hold, William!  Hold!' says I.  'It's got red sealin'-wax on the
+top.  If you break it before we take a sample you and me is the
+best of friends parted in the middle, not to mention the
+disturbance we'll make in this room.'
+
+"So I took it away from him and looked at it in the candle-light.
+Sure enough, there was the inspirin' words on it, 'Liqueur--Creme
+de Menthe.'  A furreign way of spellin' liquor, to be sure, but
+what's a letter or two out of the way, so long as the results is in
+sight?
+
+"'William,' says I, 'L-i-q, lick, u-e-u-r, er--licker.  Get
+glasses, William, and let us be joyful.'
+
+"William mumbled somethin' about green not bein' a joyful color,
+but he went and did as I told him.
+
+"That stuff smelt of perpemint, fearful.  It was a young ladies'
+bevridge if ever I hit one.  We sot opposite each other, filled a
+tumbler apiece, says, 'Here's how,' and waited.  We waited quite
+some time.
+
+"'Ezekiel, do you notice anythin'?' says William.  Well, to tell
+the truth, I hadn't; yet it might only been fancy, so I says,
+'Seems to me I _do_, William--nothin' vi'lent, nor musical, nor
+humorous--but a kind of a tranquil, preliminary,
+what-you-might-call-indication of somethin' to follow.'
+
+"'Huh,' says William, 'let's try another.
+
+"We was careful to load to the brim this time.  After five minutes
+I says, 'Are you sure you don't notice nothin,' William?'  I
+observed a risin' color in his face.
+
+"'U-m-m--y-a-as,' says he most sarcastical; 'I notice somethin',
+Ezekiel--a strong smell of peppermint--not escaped you, perhaps?
+Well, there's just one more swig of green paint goin' to force
+itself into the midst of William Pemberton, and if there ain't more
+to show for it than the present odor and a sensation 'sif I'd been
+turned inside out and exposed to the wintry blasts you'll hear from
+me, Ezekiel.  I've stood,' says William, 'about all I'm prepared to
+stand.  The next act will be for me to proceed to get a move on.'
+
+"Knowin' what a powerful disposition he had I most sincerely hoped
+our next glass would bring about satisfactory conclusions.  I
+downed her, but it had got to be all I could do, I felt a freezin'
+cold in my vitals, like William had complained of, instead of the
+warmth and comfort for which I looked.  Y-a-as, I swallered that
+glass by main strength, like a snake would a hop-toad--kinder
+lengthened myself until I was outside of it.
+
+"'Tick-tick-tick,' remarks William's clock on the wall.  When it
+had arranged its hands before its mild countenance in such a way as
+to inform me that twenty minutes, mountain time, had done all the
+elapsin' possible, I slid my anxious gaze on William.  He held to
+his chair with both hands, and white spots showed in his cheeks,
+the way he chawed his teeth together.
+
+"'Ahem,' says I, clearin' my throat, 'Hum--ah, do you--er--do you
+no--'
+
+"I got no farther.  William leant over and bent his finger double
+agin my chest.  'Full well,' says he in a tone of v'ice not loud
+but so loaded with meanin' it bumped on his teeth--'full well,
+Ezekiel George Washington Scraggs, do I assimerlate what the
+results of such a course will be, but if you should persume to ast
+me any more if I notice anything I shall at once arise and bat you
+in the eye--I am beyond carin' for conserquences.'
+
+"'Now, now, now!  What is the use of gettin' so excited?  Take a
+drink of water--you'll bust your b'iler, foamin' like that,' I says.
+
+"'Water!' says William.  'Ha, ha, ha.'  It wasn't no giggle, that
+laugh of his.  It was one of them blood-curdlers you read about.
+
+"'All right," says he, brisk, 'to oblige you--remember that.'  He
+turned the dipper upside down, then heaved it through the window.
+'Sufferin' Ike'' says he, "I can't even taste it--nothin' but cold,
+cold.  Went down my gullet like a buckshot down a ten-foot shaft.'
+He struggled for air and continued; 'Here am I,' says he, 'William
+Pemberton, celebratin' Christmas by dyeing my linin' green and
+smellin' like a recess in a country school.' His ventilation give
+out again, whilest he worked his face into knots and flew his hands
+around.  'You come along with me,' says he, 'and I'll show you a
+Christmas celebration.'
+
+"I grabbed him.  'William,' I says, 'your eye is desperate.  You
+explain to me before you scuff a foot.'
+
+"'Leggo me,' he says; 'I tell you, leggo me, Zeke Scraggs.  I'm
+goin' to have my revenge.  I'm goin' to take ten cases of giant
+powder and blow the mill of Honorable John Lawson Davis, Member of
+Congress, Champion Double-Jointed, Ground-and-Lofty,
+Collar-and-Elbow, Skin and Liar, so high in the air that folks'll
+think there's a new comet, predictin' war and trouble.'
+
+"'William,' I says 'you ain't goin' to do no such thing--that's
+wicked, that is.'  I tried to speak stern, but this here Christmas
+hadn't amounted to much so far, and I never had seen a stamp mill
+blew up, so I couldn't help wonderin' how it would look.
+
+"'See here!' says he, 'I'll admit many a time you've licked me in a
+friendly way, Ezekiel, and I'm obliged to you; but, now, be you, or
+ben't you, my guest?'
+
+"'I be,' says I.
+
+"'Then don't let's hear no more out of you,' he says, 'but come
+along.'
+
+"'The powder'll be friz,' I hints, still tryin' to switch him off.
+
+"'Not much,' he says.  'She's down a cellar twenty foot deep--come
+on.'
+
+"'Just as you say, William,' I remarks--the only thing to do.
+
+"So we toted ten cases of giant to the bottom of the mill, fixed
+the cap and fuse careful, touched her off, and walked away from
+there.
+
+"Whilest I wouldn't have you think for a minute, dear friends and
+brothers, that I uphold any conduct like that, for my part I'm
+willin' to admit there's things less exhileratin' than standin' on
+a small rise, of a clear, fine, moonlight winter night, waitin' to
+see a fifty-stamp mill go off,
+
+"And she went.  Let me repeat it: she went.  We first ketched a
+smack on the soles of our feet, and then that mill flew to a fiery
+finish.  Jeehoopidderammity!  It was simply gorgeous.
+
+"We didn't have time to take it all in, howsomever, for after the
+first blast a big, black thing sailed over our heads with the
+fearfullest screech that ever scart a man to death.
+
+"'Zeke,' says William, hangin' on to my neck, 'did I hear
+somethin', or is it that cussed green ink workin'?'
+
+"'I thought I observed a sound,' says I; 'and whatever it was lit
+yonder.  Let's go see.
+
+"William hadn't intended to go and see at all.  In fact, I dragged
+him by the hair and belt the hull distance--not that I was exactly
+afraid, but nothin' is so lonesome when you have company.
+
+"There was a hole in a snowbank where whatever it was went in.  I
+started to paw down, but William was for bunchin' it.
+
+"'I tell you, let it be and hump yourself out'n here,' says he.
+'It's after me because I blew up the mill; it's the devil, that's
+what it is.'
+
+"'Is it?' says I.  'Well, let's have a look at him.  My veins is
+full of cream de menthy, and I'll knock his horns off'n him if he
+gives me any lip.'
+
+"Just then the snowbank heaved up.  It wasn't no devil--that is,
+not exactly.  It was a lady.  I'd a bet on it if I'd had time to
+think.  I might have known there was no place on top of this
+footstool where E. G. W. Scraggs could rest his weary feet without
+some female happenin' in the same spot at the same time.  I should
+have took William's advice, but it was now too late.
+
+"We stood around kinder awk'ard, with her brushin' snow from
+herself, till I says, 'Well, good-evenin', ma'am.'
+
+"First off she says good-evenin', too, out of surprise.  Then she
+begun to talk altogether different.  She described William and me
+by sections, goin' into particulars, and nobuddy'd loaned us money
+on her recommend.  I was used to this at home, so I spoke up nice
+and silent in our defense.  There ain't quite so much noise when
+only one is talkin.'
+
+"Finally, when her breath give out, William says very humble,
+'Would you mind informin' us, ma'am, how you come to be in these
+parts just now?'
+
+"She explained fully that, in answer to an advertisement in the
+paper, she was slidin' over to Squaw Creek.  The advertisement
+called for a wife for a farmer, to be forty years old, or
+thereabouts, able to cook, plow, do washing and light blacksmith's
+work, and to have a capital of five hundred dollars to invest in
+the concern.
+
+"'An' now,' says she, beginning to weep, 'I'd camped in that mill,
+an' I was only for steppin' out to git a bit of a stick to cook me
+soopper, an' I was on me way back, when a-r-rur-BOOMP!  it ses, an'
+where's the five hoondred dollars that I left there, I dunno?
+Agghh woosha-woosha the day, ye divils, ye!  An' me hoopled t'rough
+the air like a ol' hat--bad cess to yer ugly faces!  The cuss o'
+Crom'll lie heavy on ye for mistreatin' a poor, lone widdy woman!'
+
+"'Well, ma'am,' says I, 'I wouldn't take the loss of the money to
+heart.  When the gentleman sees your face he won't care.'  Usually,
+you can kinder edge around the rough places with that game of talk.
+But it didn't go here.
+
+"'Aggh, g'wan, ye bald-headed ol' pepper-mint lozenger!' she
+hollers.  'D'ye s'pose I niwer see a lookin'-glass?   Where's the
+man'll marry me widout me money?  "Me face is me forchune, sor,"
+sez she.  "Tek it to the gravel bank an' have it cashed, then," sez
+he.  Where's the man that'll have me, face an' all, lackin' the
+coin?  Woora, woora, answer me that!'
+
+"Well, as usual, it was up to me.  There wasn't no escapin' it.  A
+man might just as well meet his fate smilin' as trailin' his lip on
+the ground, for my experiences teaches, dear friends and brothers,
+that Fate just naturally don't care a wooden-legged tinker's dam.
+
+"'Madam,' says I, removin' my hat and bowin', 'the honorable name
+of Scraggs is at your disposal.'
+
+"'Eh?' says she.  'What's that you're sayin'?'
+
+"'I repeat, plainly and sadly, ma'am, that one-fourteenth of my
+heart and hands is at your disposal.'
+
+"'Heh?' says she again.  'An' what's the one-foorteeneth mane?'
+
+"'I have now,' I replies, 'thirteen wives--'Before I could get
+another word out she was ra'rin.'
+
+"'Oh!' she yells, 'ye villyan!  Ye long-legged blaggard!  Ye
+hairless ol' scoundrel of the world!  How dast ye?'  She begun
+lookin' around for a club, so I talked fast.
+
+"'It's my religion, ma'am,' says I.  'I'm a Mormon by profession,
+mixed with accident.  Think a minute before you do somethin'
+that'll cause general regret.'
+
+"'Well,' she says, calmin' down, 'is there e'er an Oirish leddy in
+the lot?'
+
+"'Not one, up till this joyful present,' I answers.  'I don't
+rightly know what country they hail from, but I can truthfully add
+that I'm not thinkin' of takin' up homestead rights there.'
+
+"'Aggh, g'long wid yer jokin',' says she, as kittenish as anything.
+'Yer only foolin', ye are.' "'Ma'am,' says I, 'if you say the word
+I shall at once proceed to get my fiery, untamed skees and go
+gallopin' over the mountains to make you the fourteenth Mrs.
+Scraggs with all speed and celery possible.  You have only to speak
+to turn this dreadful uncertainty into a horrible fact.  I pay for
+what I break; that's me, Jo Bush.'
+
+"'Well, ain't this suddent!' she says.  'But I'll not stop ye from
+yer intentions--men is that set in their ways!  Run along, now,
+loike a good choild!'
+
+"'Well, good-by, William!' I says when we started, 'You see how it
+is yourself!"
+
+"He cried on my coat collar.  I honest believe that grass-juice had
+a jump or two in it, so darned insijous a man wouldn't notice.
+
+"'To think it was me brought this on,' he hollers.  'Me an' my
+revengeful nature!  You try to forgive me, Ezekiel.  And we
+everlastingly did wind up that mill, anyhow!'
+
+"'William,' says I, 'take no heed.  No man is above what happens to
+him, unless like he'd been atop of the mill when she dispersed.  I
+forgive you--good-by.'"
+
+Mr. Scraggs puffed his pipe thoughtfully.  "Thirteen," he
+ruminated, and shook his head.  "Tell me not them mournful numbers."
+
+"But," interrupted Charley, "I don't see as you was any worse off
+than before?"
+
+"Me?" replied Mr. Scraggs in surprise.  "Me?  No, _I_ wasn't any
+worse off.  But, as I said before, inquire of the snake.
+
+"Mrs. Mehitabel Thirteenth Scraggs opened up on me a few mornings
+after that, and my latest acquisition instantly laid hold of her by
+the hair of her head and beat her with a fryin'-pan till Number
+Thirteen had to take to her feet and stay that way for a week.
+
+"'You _will_ talk to my ol' man like that, will _you_?' says
+Bridget.  'Well, mind you this, now!  If he nades batin' _I'll_
+bate him, but fur anny skimpy, yaller critter like yerself to so
+much as give him a sassy look I'll construe as a mortial offense.
+Run along, now, run along, and git him his breakfas', or I'll
+strangle ye with me foot!'
+
+[Illustration: "You _will_ talk to my ol' man like that, will
+_you_?"]
+
+"No," said Mr. Scraggs, sadly.  "I wasn't no worse off.  If so it
+hadn't 'a' been Bridget took a drop too much at the drug-store one
+night, and another drop too much over the edge of the canon on the
+way home, I reckon I'd had some good out of life.  But it wasn't to
+be, it wasn't to be.  Drowned in the bud by the inflooence of that
+cussed unlucky number, thirteen."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+MR. SCRAGGS INTERVENES
+
+"There was a man," said Mr. Scraggs, "who said, 'Deliver me from my
+friends.'  Now, I ain't goin' so far as to say I indorse that
+statement, nor I ain't standin' still so strong as to say I don't.
+But I know this: An enemy will do something for you every time,
+whilest most friends won't, and, moreover, I ain't ever had any
+enemy who furnished me with as much light entertainment as my
+friend Pete.
+
+"I am speakin' from this here point of view.  The real joyousness
+of life consists of being busy.  We won't take no vote on the
+subjeck; we'll just admit it.  Hence an enemy, that is an enemy,
+when you be in good health and able for to look after the enemy
+part from your side, is a great source of innercent amusement.  A
+man gets so durn practical, he don't take no interest in all the
+pleasant rocks and bushes strewed over the country by the
+beneficent hand of Providence.  He shacks along on his little old
+cayuse, with his mind occupied on how many things he can't do next,
+and he gits plumb disgusted.  But suppose there's a chance of an
+able-bodied enemy, aided and abetted with a gun, a-hidin' behind
+each and every one of them rocks and bushes?  Don't life take on an
+interest?  I bet you money!  The imaginations of that man's mind
+gets started up.  Life becomes full of chances.  The man, he's
+interested in his life because the other feller wants to take it
+away from him.  A good enemy in a lonesome country means more to
+that man than her best friend's widower means to a maiden aunt.
+You bet.
+
+"Red and me differs there, I know, but his idees gets sifted
+through that crop of red alfalfa he wears, whilest I present a
+clean proposition to any idee that comes boundin' o'er the lee, or
+to wind'ard, or any direction she chooses to bound.  Yessir; when I
+begin to feel that life ain't worth livin' give me an enemy or a
+friend like Pete Douglass.
+
+"It ain't for me to poke no fun at Pete's looks.  There's a place
+where a humarious turn of mind orter stop.  Pete's looks was too
+serious for any man to get comic about.  It appeared as if his
+features had been blowed on to his face by a gale of wind; his
+whiskers had a horrified expression, like they'd made their escape
+if they hadn't been fastened on, and he was double-jointed in every
+point of the compass.  When he stood up straight he give you more
+the impression of sittin' down then a man sick a-bed could.  I
+dunno how it come, but everything old Pete looked like, seemed
+precisely the reverse.
+
+"The way I got acquainted with Pete was when he put his hard coin
+agin a French tin-horn's race-track game.  There was little horses
+running around a board, and you put your money where you thought it
+would win, but you never thought right, because the Dago had a
+stick under the table that pulled them races to suit his fancy.
+
+"It stood to reason that taking money off'n a man who'd play such a
+game was inhumanity in the first degree, so when Pete's last dollar
+departed I entered that horse-race with a gun, just as I had no
+business to, and I says to the tin-horn, 'Look-a-here, you put that
+money across the board, or I'll play a tune on you,' and so he
+shouldn't think I was interferin' out of an idle curiosity, I
+pointed the weapon at him.
+
+"'O-rrr righ'!' says he; 'Tooty-sweet.'  I lost a good deal of
+patience on the spot.  You see, it seemed like he was tryin' to be
+entertaining.  I say, by way of an amoosin' remark, that I'm goin'
+to play a tune on that tin-horn, and he gayly tells me to toot
+sweet!  Well, I don't want to harrow your feelin's.  Anyway, Pete
+got his money and Frenchy returned to the land where his style of
+remarks was more appreciated, a little later.
+
+"So Pete, he grasps my hand with tears in his eyes and considerable
+blood on his nose, where I'd accidently hit him with the Dago, and
+he says I'm his friend forever, and he'll show me what friendship
+really means.  That's why I'm inclined to say that for rest and
+recreation I'll take an enemy.  Whether our friend and brother, Mr.
+Douglass, was the luckiest or unluckiest man on earth, I've never
+been able to figger out.  He personally explored the bottom of
+every old prospeck hole in the country.  He was romantic by
+disposition, Pete was, and loved to go for walks at night.  If he
+didn't turn up for breakfast I took down the coil of rope and
+proceeded until I found the right hole, because you could bet as
+safe that he was at the bottom of one of 'em as you could that the
+bottom itself was there.
+
+"When I asked him, 'How come you to do it, Pete?' he allus
+answered, 'I dunno; I got to thinkin' about somethin'.'  If
+anything valooable had occurred to Pete, whilest he was in one of
+them thinking spells, he'd have been one of these here geniuses.
+
+"When a saw mill sent a slab sailin', or bust a belt, Pete was at
+the center of the disturbed districk.  He fell off every foot log
+in ten miles; why, he was drowned fourteen times in three weeks!
+
+"The bar we was workin' had a tunnel about a hundred foot long.
+Follerin' the pay streak made us turn at right angles, so it was
+dark back there.  One day Mr. Pete was pushin' the car whilest I
+got dinner and his candle burned out.  He takes a stick of giant
+powder, puts cap and fuse on it, lights it careful, jabs it in a
+frame for a candle, and trots for outdoors with the car--never
+knowin' anything onusual had took place.  Just as I slapped the
+last flapjack and straightened up to yell, 'Come and get it!' here
+come Pete and the car like magic right acrosst the creek, followed
+by the most dust I ever see in my life.
+
+"I watched him end-over-ending as he come, and I couldn't get near
+enough to the happenings to even wonder why.
+
+"He landed on top of a quakin' asp and the car rolled over the
+dinner.
+
+"I ain't declarin' that I was perfectly reasonable; I was
+surprised.  When I was young and soople I've done twenty-odd foot
+in a running jump, but to see a man jump two hundred foot and carry
+a hand-car along with him was a branch of sport new to me, and
+perticler when done by a man like Pete.
+
+"'Why,' says I, as I climb the tree and helped him down, 'however
+did you come to do it?'
+
+"'I dunno, Zeke,' says he, 'honest to Gosh'--Pete never used a
+cuss-word--'honest to Gosh,' says he; 'I dunno.  The last I
+remember was thinkin' why this here law of gravitation couldn't be
+made to work as a man wanted it, when "bump" says somethin' behind
+me, and I went right along, as you see.  I tried to figger it out,
+comin', but turning handsprings made me dizzy.'
+
+"These are points to show life as lived by my friend Pete Douglass.
+His autogeography would be plumb full of happenin's.  At first
+sight, lookin' careless, you'd say, 'Why, here's the most
+unforchinit cuss I ever heard about,' but on a sober thought, to a
+man accustomed to havin' sober thoughts, it seemed as if there was
+luck in the bank, to pull through such performances and live to
+tell the tale.
+
+"I mentioned this idee to Pete.
+
+"'Why'' says he, 'I should holler horray every time I'm most
+killed,' he says.  'Is that what you mean?'
+
+"'Look-a-here,' says I, 'I'm able to mean all I'm capable of
+meanin' without any outside help.  I mean you're the great human
+paradox--less human and more paradox then I've seen advertised at a
+circus--and whilest you're perpetual dodging one horn or t'other of
+a dilemma, any friend of yours is getting bunked square between the
+two.  If anything 'ud keep a man from being selfish, you would,'
+says I.  'D----d if I ain't spent two-thirds of my time and drawed
+some on the last, fishin' you out of messes.  Now,' I says to him,
+'why don't you get married and settle up?'
+
+"Dear friends and brothers, that was just a piece of pursyflage.  I
+know women better than any man I ever met that I felt knew less.
+I've seen wimmen so foolish I wouldn't believe anything more
+foolish could exist, if it hadn't a-been I'd seen still more
+foolish wimmen with these same eyes.  But a woman who'd marry Pete
+was beyond my expectations.  It took a lady with a turble
+brain-power and a deliberate intention to arrive at that state of
+mind; so when Pete says to me, 'That's just what I be goin' to do,
+Zeke,' he had me swallowing my breath.
+
+"I gathered my fadin' strength and gained perticlers.
+
+"Seems there was a lady 'bout thirty or forty years older than she
+oncet had been, who did plain washin' for the Royal Soverign Prince
+boys.  The R. S. P. mine was run rather irregular.  The boys took
+the clean-ups for wages, and the owner took the proceeds from stock
+he sold as dividends.  I may mention there was less in clean-ups
+than there was in stock, so the future Mrs. P. Douglass was buckin'
+fate in the shape of a brace game.  They was an awful nice set of
+boys, the Royal Soverign Princes, but when you divide thirty
+dollars and fifty cents amongst fifteen men for a month's wages,
+the washer-lady can't expect city prices.
+
+"Pete had gained a holt on this lady's affections by falling into
+the flume and allowin' himself to be piped over the waste-gate.
+She took care of him for three weeks, at the end of which time Pete
+arose, renewed, refreshed, and more full of determined uselessness
+than ever.  Any woman will love any man that bothers her enough.  A
+man's idee of romance is to do what he wants to, or to be
+comfortable; a woman's idee of romance is to feel that she's
+obliged to do what she really wants to do, under such circumstances
+as will allow her to call it a great sackerfice, or to be made
+uncomfortable, which is her real notion of comfort.  You have only
+to look at a woman's housekeepin' to reelize the restfulness she
+finds in keepin' things disturbed all the time.  I have looked upon
+the housekeepin' of enough Mrs. Scraggses to be able to speak with
+the v'ice of experience, if not the v'ice of wisdom.
+
+"So Mrs. Maggy Watson, the lady of which I heretofore speak, become
+unamored of Pete during the time he was such a pesky nuisance
+around the place, an' when he writ her, later, that he thought
+they'd orter form a close corporation an' issue the holy bonds of
+matrimony, why, she writ him straight back again that the scheme
+had been in her mind for some time, and she'd 'a' mentioned it to
+him only it seemed like meddlin' in his personal affairs.
+
+"First off, it seems a-kind of unjustitude that a man like me
+should have a load of Mrs. Scraggses forced on him, whilest a man
+like Pete gets the kindest and obliginest sort of woman; but after
+all, I was able to take care of myself, and that bunch of wild
+cats, too, for a while, and Pete certainly needed a lady with a
+good disposition.  You'll allus find, on investigatin' things, that
+they ain't a mite worse than you thought they was.  Mighty often it
+is the horny-handed foot of misfortune that kicks a man into the
+green pastures of prosperity--the only question is: kin he eat
+grass?
+
+"So it come about with Pete, all along the line.  He'd gone and got
+married so ordinary it wouldn't attracted nobuddy's attention, only
+he was so overjoyed to find that I took sides with him that he
+sasshayed gayly forth for firewood and cut himself in the small of
+the back with the ax.  Don't ask me how he done it, It's the only
+case on record.  Pete was thinkin' of somethin' at the time, and
+could only remember a sudden pain in the back.  So Pete was laid on
+the bed of sufferin' oncet more, him bein' so uset to it he took it
+without a holler, only this time he thought it was prutty serious.
+
+"'Zeke,' says he, 'I've come to the cash-up so frequent I dunno
+just what's about to happen, but if it should be I was goin' to die
+for fair this time, I want Maggy to git my money, and I want you to
+take it to her.'
+
+"'All right, Pete, I will,' says I.
+
+"'Shack along, then,' says he.
+
+"Pete mixed me some.  'I ain't goin' to leave you like this,' I
+says.
+
+"'Yes, you be, too,' he says, sassy as thunder.  'The only time I
+kin git what I want is when I'm sick a-bed.  I ain't goin' to rest
+happy nor do nothin'--not eat nor drink--till I know that woman has
+the chink.  I can't say I've made a great job of livin', but I'm
+goin' to die like a house a-fire, if so the play comes that way,'
+he says.  'You put a little grub and water nigh me, and I'll just
+figger on being a full-sized man for oncet; you don't understand
+what a power of good it does me to think about it,' says he.
+
+"Well, he had me to a standstill.  It was cussed to leave a hurt
+man all alone, but I could easy appreciate the way he felt.  If a
+man can't take no pride in himself the hull blamed business comes
+down to shovelin' dirt for nothin'.
+
+"'Pete, I'll do it,' I says, and I shook hands with him.
+
+"'Now, see that!' says he.  'That's the first time you've ever
+treated me like an ekal, Zeke; and I can tell you I don't like to
+be pitied no more'n any other man.  God knows there wouldn't 'a'
+been a perter monkey in the bunch, if so it hadn't come I was
+scart, or thinkin' of somethin' else, when a hot-box arrived.  The
+good Lord took the trouble to make me, and it seems kind of
+onjustifiable for me to prove He plumb wasted His time.  You tell
+Maggy I done it for her.  I ain't hidin' my light under a bushel,
+because I need it to see by.  Ouch!' says he.  'This racket hurts!'
+
+"I reckon it did.  I sewed him up with a piece of deer-sinew and a
+darning-needle.  Never was a great hand at tailorin', nohow, and
+Pete's hide was that tough I mostly had to pound the needle through
+with a chunk of wood.
+
+"Well, I fixed him comfortable as I could, and prepared to start.
+
+"'Zeke,' says he, 'don't'--he kinder swallered hard--'don't be no
+longer'n you kin help,' says he.  There come a tear in his eye.
+'An' take my respects to Maggy,' says he.
+
+"'Shaw, Pete!' says I.  'Now, don't you go borrowin' no
+trouble--that's so easy to git without collaterial, it ain't worth
+the time.  I'll be back imejate.'  I patted him on the shoulder and
+he squeezed my hand hard.
+
+"'No man could be a better pardner than you be, Zeke,' says he.  'I
+ain't a mite afraid of nothin' when that bald head of your'n is in
+sight, an' you understand a feller--it's a tough play for a rooster
+that don't come by sand natural.'
+
+"'You got plenty of sand, Pete,' says I, 'all the trouble is, you
+let it git choked in your hoppers.  By-by.'  And away I went,
+slopin' fast, with Pete's forty-eight dollars down in my jeans.
+
+"I was so took up with his affairs I didn't watch out careful, and
+that ain't wise in a hard-luck country.  All of a suddent I hears a
+v'ice say, 'Puttee hands light uppee!'  Sounds like I'd struck a
+day nursery, but that ain't so, for just before I hears them words
+there popped out from behind a rock a Chinaman--not, by no means,
+one of these here little Charlie-boys that does your wash and gives
+you a ticket with picters of strange insecks painted on it, but a
+whoopin', smashin' old Tartar pirate, seven foot by three, with
+mustaches like two tails of a small hoss, and cheekbones you could
+hang your hat on.  More'n that, he was armed and equipped with two
+hoss-pistols as required by circumstances.
+
+"That tired feelin' come over me, and I stretched; yessir, the
+hands of E. G. W. Scraggs went up toward the sky.
+
+"My yaller friend next requested me to produce.  Well, now, that
+was Pete's money.  I'd 'a' took a chance at v'ilent physicule
+exercises, but I see the time had come to talk.
+
+"'My Christian friend and brother,' says I, 'before we converse
+upon the root of all evil, let me put you on to the fact that my
+name is E. G. W. Scraggs.'
+
+"'Ah!' says he, backin' up, 'Sclaggsee!'
+
+"'Sclaggsee!' I hollers, and we near met on the spot.  'Don't you
+say that agin!'
+
+"'Ah!' says he.
+
+"I noticed his guns was wobblin'.
+
+"'Ah!' says I.  'You're darned right.  Now, I'll make you this
+proposition.  I got forty-eight dollars in my pocket that don't
+belong to me.  If we let things slide by as if they had not
+happened I'll give you two dollars for the use of that money until
+Tuesday next--pay you fifty dollars next Tuesday, at Jimmy Holt's
+place--get me?'
+
+"'Gettee money now,' says he, cunnin'.
+
+"'_P'raps_,' says I, 'but you won't be in condition to spend it for
+some time.'  He rolled his eye off'n me, and at that instant Mary
+Ann, the faithfullest gun that ever stood between me and a
+gentleman whose intentions weren't good, appeared upon the scene.
+
+"'Don'tee shootee, Sclaggsee!' he screeches.
+
+"'You call me "Sclaggsee" oncet more, and I won't leave nothin' of
+you but a rim,' says I.  'As for the other proposition, it
+goes--Tuesday next.  Jimmy Holt's place, I put you in hand fifty
+dollars, you cock-eyed, yaller, mispronouncin' blasphemy on a
+heathen idol!  Although I ain't been near enough to a cherry tree
+to cut one down, the word of Ezekiel George Washington Scraggs is
+as good as the Father of his Country,' says I.  'He beat me at that
+last game, but I can stick to my sayin' like a porous plaster.  You
+get the money; I will lie for the fun of the thing, but not for no
+dirty fifty dollars,' says I.  'You goin' toward town?'
+
+"'Yes,' says he.
+
+"'Well, git your plug, and we'll amble along together.'
+
+"So we rode in, right cheerful, instead of quar'lin'.  I made him
+come along to Maggy's cabin, to show it weren't a bluff about the
+money.
+
+[Illustration: "So we rode in, right cheerful."]
+
+"Poor Maggy, she wipes her eye on her apron, and says she'll start
+for our camp at oncet.
+
+"I called the Chinaman aside, confidential.  "'You take care of
+lady!' I shrieks at him.  'Lady--you take care!'  I dunno why it is
+you think if you holler loud enough you can make a man understand
+anything, but it's a fact.
+
+"My chink bobs his head.  'Take clare laly,' he says.
+
+"'Yaas!' says I.  'I rustley monnellee!'
+
+"He bobs his head again.
+
+"'Lusselleemonellee!' he answers, kind of vacant.
+
+"I sot down.  'Twas clear he didn't have no idee of my
+conversation.  So we went over it for two hours, me drawin' maps
+and wigglin' my fingers, and makin' faces to illustrate a man with
+an ax-cut in the small of his back, and a lone widder-woman takin'
+care of him, till at last, by bringin' hands, face, and feet all
+into the game, with a small hunk of kerfoozled English language
+here and there, a light broke on his heathen soul.  He near bobbed
+his head off.
+
+"'Me makee all lightee for Sclaggsee, you bettee, hellee dammee!'
+says he.
+
+"He was that earnest I overlooked the name.  'Good,' says I.  'Now,
+Charlie, you cut wood, haul water, and keep things goin' out there
+and your fifty is waitin' for you on Tuesday.'
+
+"Maggy did a crow-hop when she found she had to travel with the
+chink, but I told her it was O.K., so she got aboard an Injin pony
+and off they goes to Pete.
+
+"Well, dear friends and brothers, I sincerely hope you've never had
+to raise fifty dollars in a busted camp.  The boys done the best
+they could, but a can of corn had to stand for fifty cents, and a
+pair of pants that would take Tartar Charlie somewheres about the
+knees drew a credit of two-fifty.  Four iron knives and a busted
+coffee-pot stood for a case, and a pair of scissors with one blade
+broke half off, and a mouth-organ that only sounded in spots, was
+equal to two iron dollars.  I got eighteen fifty in cash and the
+balance was junk.
+
+"'Well,' says I, 'he's no better'n a road-agent, and I can't help
+it, nohow.'
+
+"For all that, I sot in Jim Holt's place of a Tuesday afternoon
+feelin' low-spirited when I looked at the heap, when who comes
+sailin' in at the door but Tartar Charlie, wearin' a grin that took
+two turns and a half around his face.
+
+"'Laly comee!' says he.  'Petee comee!'
+
+"'On what?' says I, ashamed to show surprise to a yaller Chinaman.
+
+"'Joss man fetchee!' says he.
+
+"'Certainly!' says I.  'That's what he ought to do; don't get
+excited.'  I did my wonderin' about the joss man in private.  'Sit
+down, Charlie.'
+
+"So Charlie, he sot down and watched me rifflin' the cards.
+
+"'Playee poker?' says he.
+
+"'As a relaxiation, Charles,' says I.  'Poker is a business for
+gentlemen of means--gottee nomonee!'
+
+"'Me stakee you,' says he.  'Likee poker.'
+
+"So Jim and some of the other boys come over, and Charlie and me
+begun to draw cards.  After we dubbed through a few deals, gettin'
+on to each other's play, I see Charlie stow away a pair of aces.
+Now, ordinarly, I'd complained, but, under the circumstances, it
+didn't appear to me to be the decent thing to do, so I motioned to
+Jim, and he slid me a pack with the same sort of backs.
+
+"After that you never in all your borned days see such hands on a
+poker table.  Why, a king-full wasn't worth raisin' back on.  A set
+of fours was the least a man could have confidence in, and only if
+it was on his own deal, at that.
+
+"Howsomever, havin' a hull pack at my disposal, whilest Charlie
+could only use his hold-outs, I worked him down to tin cans of
+vegetables, the busted coffee-pot, and the pants.
+
+"He, bein' as game as any white man, jack-potted the lot.  It was
+just draw cards and show down for the money.  Darned if he didn't
+get the best of me.'  How I come to pick out the queen of diamonds
+to match a straight club flush is one of them things that won't be
+revealed till Judgment Day.  There wasn't nobuddy more surprised
+than me.  This brought us down to even Stevens, and I felt
+irritated, so I come back at him with one play for the bunch.  He
+agreed, and I dealt him four aces, pat.  I was going to draw to
+fill my straight color.  I snaked out the three I had on my knee,
+and was just goin' to insert 'em where they'd do the most good,
+when Pete's v'ice says: 'Well, Zeke!'
+
+"It was a joyful v'ice, but I knowed he'd seen my play.  I dropped
+them cards.
+
+"'One minute, Pete,' says I.  I called across the table to Charlie,
+'Show openers and win!' And when he laid down them bullets I'd give
+him with my own hands, my heart broke inside me.  But I couldn't
+stand for a crooked play seen by Old Pete.
+
+"I hopped up from the table and shook his hand, I shook Maggy's
+hand, where she stood, smilin' bashful, and then I shook the hand
+of a strange gent in black clothes, whose name was Mr.
+Somethin'-or-other.
+
+"Pete explained to me that the gent was a minister travelin'
+through the country, who'd offered him and Maggy a ride to town.
+'We thought we might as well get hitched at the same time,' says
+Pete, 'and I sure wanted to see you, Zeke.'
+
+"'Yes,' says Maggy.  'It wouldn't seem right to get married without
+you bein' there, Mr. Scraggs.  To think of what you've done for
+Pete!  And that Charley High-ball there is just the blessedest
+angel that ever was!  Why, he got some stuff in the woods and put
+it on Pete's back, and made him well in a minute, you might say.
+And there warn't nothin' he wouldn't do for us.  And I'm just the
+happiest woman ever was,' says Maggy, wipin' her eyes on her apron
+some more.
+
+"'Well!' says I, brisk, tryin' to forgit that lost fifty.  'Why
+don't you and Pete sign the pledge right here and now?--how's that,
+friend?' I asks the minister.
+
+"'Why, ah! says he.  'Ah! It doesn't seem quite the proper place--'
+
+"'What's the matter with this place?' says Jim.  He took a great
+pride in his saloon.  He had glass mirrors up that cost him a
+hundred plunks apiece.  'If you think,' says he, 'that there's a
+prettier little joint in town than this, why, don't let me keep
+you.'
+
+"That minister was cut out fer the business.  He hedged his bet so
+quick, I admired him.
+
+"'That's just it,' he says loud and hearty.  'I look upon matrimony
+as a solemn affair, and I was afraid our friends would be
+distracted from the seriousness of the ceremony by the
+surroundings.'
+
+"'Don't say a word!' says Jim, wavin' his hand.  'You have put the
+next round on me; but I guess Pete and Maggy has had seriousnesses
+enough, just as she slides--heh?'
+
+"'You're talkin' blue checks, Jim,' says Maggy, through her apron.
+'I don't reckon I'll ever get too gay to hurt me, nor Pete, nuther.'
+
+"'Very well,' says the minister--and we had the weddin'.  Charlie
+High-ball burnt punk that smelled strong but fine, and swung his
+arms, Jim and the rest of the boys sayin' 'amen' every time there
+come a stop, and all the proceedin's goin' on grand, till the
+preacher got to the last of it, and then Pete broke in:
+
+"'I copper that statement,' says he.  'I wouldn't run against you
+for the world, old man, but here I got to.  We ain't "man" and
+wife, for I ain't never been a man since I growed up: Maggy, she's
+the man and wife both.  Say "husband and wife," to oblige.'
+
+"The preacher looked at Pete mighty kind.
+
+"'Husband and wife,' says he.  Then Maggy busted out, 'He's the
+best man that ever lived!' says she.
+
+"'May you live long and happy years together,' says the preacher,
+and he had a different look on his face--more's if it was a
+pleasure instead of business he was attendin' to.
+
+"Whilest we stood there, kinder awk'ard, Charley made a high play.
+He gathered all his winnings in a heap.  'For laly,' says he,
+makin' her a bow.
+
+"Maggy, she cried.  Everybody'd been so good to her, she said, and
+she weren't able to turn a hand for her part, and so forth, and we
+was all kind of pleasantly miserable for a while, till Jim sings
+out, 'Here, this ain't no weddin' hilarity--guide right to the bar!'
+
+"There we all lined up, Charlie High-ball and all.
+
+"'What'll you have, sir?' says Jim, askin' the minister first out
+of manners.
+
+"'The same as the rest,' says the minister like a man.
+
+"'Mr. Scraggs?' says Jim.
+
+"'Ginger ale, says I.  And every man and woman took ginger ale,
+which is a beverage that 'ud drive a man to drink.  Howsomever, we
+showed that preacher he didn't hold over us, speck nor color, when
+it come to a showdown.  And he savvied the play, too.  He watched
+the line drinkin' its ginger ale.
+
+"'Gentlemen,' says he, 'I'm glad to know you--I think I'll stay in
+your town a while, but now'--and he kind of twinkled around the
+eyes--'I hope you will excuse me.'  With that he vanished, leaving
+us to take a little antidote for that there ginger ale.
+
+"And Pete and Maggy?  Well, dear friends and brothers, you never
+saw nothin' like it--they think as much of each other as two men
+would!  And the way Pete can iron a b'iled shirt is a wonder. . . .
+Yaas; he found his job at last; plain and decorative ironin'.
+Often I've seen Maggy, holdin' up a batch of clo's, with pride just
+oozin' out of her, and heard her say, 'There ain't a person in
+these here United States that kin slip a flatiron over dry-goods
+the way my Pete kin.'"
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
+
+"Once upon a time," said Mr. Scraggs, "there come a profound peace
+on my household.  It was 'Zeke, what kin I give you for dinner
+to-day?' and 'Zeke' this and that, until I says to myself, 'We're
+going to have cyclones followed by a heavy frost if I tarry here,'
+so I pulled my freight to Arizona, till this unnatural condition of
+things passed away.  I understand Mrs. Scraggs in her war-paint,
+but Mrs. Scraggs with her eyes uprolled to Heaven and a white dove
+perched on each and every ear is a thing I'm not goin' to witness
+the spoilin' of, if I kin help it.
+
+"I loafed around a little town, wearin' the counters shiny,
+entertainin' myself every minute by wonderin' what in thunder I'd
+do with the next one, till Fate, that's always seemed ready and
+eager to butt into my affairs, sent me down to the railroad station
+one morning.
+
+"There got off'n the train a little stout man, with a clean baby
+skin and clean baby eyes.  He looked as if he'd got born into this
+wicked world with a bald spot, gray side-whiskers and a pair of
+gold-rimmed specks.  He made me feel sad--not that he weren't
+cheerful enough, but his rig was that of a parson, and a parson
+naturally reminded me of matrimony, and there was only one thing
+worse than loafing around Jim Creek, and that was matrimony.
+'Yes,' I says to myself, lookin' at that nice, clean old gentleman,
+'he little knows the trouble he's made in this world.  And yet,'
+thinks I, willing to be square, 'I don't know as you could have
+kept 'em apart, even if there weren't no ministers.  Man is born to
+trouble as a powder-mill is to fly upward.  Male and female He made
+'em, after their kind; and it's only reasonable that they've been
+after their kind ever since.  And more'n that, that gentleman would
+have checked my wild career--he'd have held me down to one.  So why
+should I wish to walk on his collar?'
+
+"Whilest I was Hamlettin' to myself like that the old boy talked to
+the station agent.  Billy leaned on the truck and pointed to me.
+'There's your man right now,' says he; 'Mr. E. G. Washington
+Scraggs, the most famous guide and hunter in Arizona.  I ain't got
+a doubt you can secure his services,' and off goes Billy.
+
+"Railroad men get used to takin' life on the run, from eatin' to
+jokes.  Bill never waited to see the effect of his little spring on
+me.
+
+"My friend comes up to me.  'Is this Mr. Scraggs?' he says.
+
+"'I am a modest man by nature,' says I; 'and yet I cannot deny it.'
+
+"He made me a bow.  I made him a bow.
+
+"'I am told, Mr. Scraggs,' says he, 'that you are a celebrated
+guide and hunter?'
+
+"'If you go through this land believing all that's told you,' says
+I, 'you'll have a queer sensation in your head.  However, I can do
+plain guiding and hunting, all right.  What am I to guide, and who
+am I to hunt?'
+
+"'I shall explain to you," says he, taking off his specks and
+tapping his hand with 'em--he was a nice, home-raised old
+gentleman, but he sure did think his own affairs was interesting.
+'It is this way,' says he: 'my ministerial labors
+have--er--exhausted, that is to say, prostrated me.  My physician
+insisted I should come to this climate, where I am told it is
+exceedingly dry and healthful, and live entirely out-of-doors; to
+return to our healing mother, Nature; to salute the rosy youth of
+Morning from a couch of sod, to bid farewell to Day from some
+yearning height, far from the petty madness of cities--what did you
+say, Mr. Scraggs?'
+
+"'I said "Ya-a-s,"' says I, quick, because I'd forgot myself a
+trifle.
+
+"'Ah!' says he, waving his specks in enthusiasm.  'The abiding
+peace of a life like yours!--I beg your pardon?'
+
+"'I have an attack of this here bronco-kitus,' says I.  'I cough
+almost like conversation--go on.'
+
+"'To live,' says he, 'in the great peace of these enormous
+spaces--to spread God's clean sky above you and pass into a sleep
+where this sweet air shall hush me through the night, like the wind
+from angels' wings.  With what a sick longing have I looked for
+this!
+
+"'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 vanishin' 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 cucumber 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 glasses, 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 Bloody
+Hand, and he was askin' me if I'd met any of his enemies.
+
+"'He didn't look fierce,' says Percival.
+
+"'That's his lay,' says I; 'he goes up to a man and don't look
+fierce, and the first thing you know there's a funeral.'
+
+"About sunset we hit the place we aimed for: a nice, high spot with
+a pool of water, overlooking the valley for miles.  It was straight
+on three sides, and a hard pull for the mules on the other; but a
+patch of grass to the back, timber handy, and the lookout it gave
+you, together with the water, made it worth the climb.  Besides, it
+was the very spot where the Roosian Prince Porkandbeansky camped,
+time I guided him ten years before.  I told Percival all about the
+Prince whilest I was cooking supper, thus giving him a line on the
+proper way to behave.  It was enough to say the Prince done
+so-and-so--or didn't--to bring Percival into line easy for the rest
+of the trip.
+
+"Well, we couldn't get under that blue coverlid of Percival's any
+too quick that night.  I didn't mind a blanket thrown in, nor him,
+neither, for it was colder'n sin.  We was good and tired.  Broad
+sun-up when we woke.
+
+"Percival, he flew around like a cock-sparrer.  Happy!  The Lord
+save us!  He sung little hymns, and trotted every step he took, his
+sun-burnt little nose gleamin' with joy.  It done you good to look
+at him.  I took as much pride in him as though he was my sister's
+eldest--taught him to do this and that, till he was fit to bust
+with the glory of bein' such a camper.  And forty times a day he'd
+explain to me how glad he was that I'd been his guide; how much
+he'd have missed otherwise.  I suppose them yarns I told him had
+added to his romantic ideas about living uncomfortably
+out-of-doors, but every time he said it I felt mean again.
+
+"Still, Satan mischief always finds for idle hands to do.  After
+about five days of loafin' I turned the conversation to the
+uncertainty of things in general; we talked a good deal about it.
+I gradual come to particulars, and producin' a pack of
+playin'-cards, proceeded to show Percival how odd five of 'em dealt
+at a time would come out.  He was interested, and I suggested that
+he sh'd take five, too, and he did; and the first thing you know I
+had everything that Percival owned, owin' to his misjudging the way
+them cards would fall.  Then we divided again and went at it.  At
+the end of the next week I was proud of Percival.  He fronted me
+out of a plump jackpot without a tremble of a gray whisker, but, to
+save me, I couldn't get him to play cards.  He said it was wicked
+and led to gamblin'--I dunno but what he's right at that.  We had
+lots of fun with the Uncertainty of Things, anyhow, and saved our
+morals.
+
+"At the end of three weeks us two was twin brothers.  Old Percy
+told me in confidence he hadn't had a real friend for years before.
+And I liked him, you bet.  We all has got our faults--why, even
+Mrs. Scraggs isn't free from 'em--but you scratch them off the top
+of Percival and you found a white man--the most trusting little
+critter in God and man, the kindest-hearted and the best-natured
+that ever lived.  Honest, I couldn't sleep nights sometimes,
+thinking of the lies I told him, and if I'd never slept I couldn't
+'a' quit--it was like leaving a starvin' nigger in charge of a
+hencoop.
+
+"So things ambled along--not a jar.  No rain, no crawling thing to
+spoil our fun, till one day just before dinner--Percy and me
+sittin' there with the blankets between us and our beans counted
+out at the side, raisin' and cross-liftin' each other, him having
+drawed one card whilest I took two to a pair of tens and a kicker,
+and made four tens--a shadder fell on the blanket.  Percy was too
+busy wondering whether he'd better see my last raise to notice, but
+your Uncle Zeke has lived so long in lonesome and sometimes
+unhealthy places that the chill of that shadder, comin' so
+noiseless and unexpected, fell on his soul.  Before I raised my
+eyes I looked at the shadder close; yes, there was a gun, and it
+was also an Injun.
+
+"There ain't anything an Injun likes better than to sit tight and
+enjoy a cinch.  He won't kill you as long as he can get some fun
+out of you.
+
+"I ain't savin' what I felt, but old pink-and-white Percival was
+there, babe in the woods dependin' on me, and me covered by an
+Apache rifle!
+
+"'How!' says I, throwin' it careless over my shoulder.
+
+"There was a still second.  Then the Injun answers, 'Huh!'
+
+"Percy looked up, pleased and surprised.
+
+"'Why, there's an Indian!' says he.
+
+"'Go on with the game,' says I, cross.  'Don't stare at him--he has
+feelin's.'
+
+"Percy got red.  'I beg your pardon!' he says to the Injun--then to
+me: 'What does he want?'
+
+"I made up my mind Percy wasn't goin' to be scart if I could help
+it.  If he _had_ to go let him go quick, without waiting.  They
+made me wait once, and while it didn't come to nothing, I don't
+think I should ever really care for it.
+
+"'He wants to rassel me,' I answers.  'Great people for sports,
+Injuns, and curious how they go at it.  He expects me to surprise
+him--let's see, how many have you got there?'
+
+"I bent over, to get my legs loose, so I could jump, and also to
+get a quick peep at circumstances.  There wasn't but the lone buck.
+I worked the cat racket.  You know how a cat does?  She sits still,
+thinkin' 'I'm goin' to move fast in a minute--I sure _am_ goin' to
+move fast in a minute,' until she gets such a head of steam on,
+she's off before she knows it.  That's just what I done, exactly.
+I was all over that Injun, kicked his gun out of reach and heaved
+him over the steepest side before you could say 'Keno.'
+
+[Illustration: "I was all over that Injun."]
+
+"Percy was surprised and displeased.  He put on his specks and
+trotted quick to the edge.
+
+"'Washington,' says he, 'you have hurt that man!'
+
+"'Oh, I guess not,' says I.  'He's used to this country.'
+
+"I hadn't hurt him half as much as I'd liked.  If you slapped a
+white man straight down a hundred foot on top of a pile of rocks
+he'd depart like a Christian, but my red friend and brother
+promptly wriggled off behind the boulders.
+
+"I dassen't shoot.  There might be a twenty of 'em in hearing, and,
+besides, no need of worryin' poor Percy, trustin' E. G. W., any
+sooner than I had to.
+
+"'It seems to me, Washington,' says Percy, 'that's _very_ rough
+play.'
+
+"'Percy,' says I, 'as you may have read, an Injun don't care so
+much about being hurt as he does for supportin' his family pride.
+If I'd only chucked him fifteen foot or so he'd thought I didn't
+respect his powers of endurance proper, and like enough wouldn't
+'a' spoke to me if we met.'
+
+"'Well, of course, _you_ know all about these things,' he says.
+'But to me it is very surprising.'
+
+"'Percy,' says I to him again, real earnest, 'if a man took note of
+all the things in this world that are surprisin' it wouldn't be no
+time before every tree in the forest looked like an exclamation
+mark to him.'
+
+"'I suppose,' says Percy, waggin' his head, wise, 'that's quite
+true.'
+
+"And if there'd been fifty million Injuns ready to fricassee us the
+next minute I couldn't 'a' helped havin' another attack of that
+bronco-kitus that troubled me so.
+
+"But your Uncle Zeke wasn't so cussed hilarious for the next four
+days.  I expected that Injun back with his friends every minute,
+and what with watchin' all night and joshin' Percy all day I was
+plumb wore out.  He made me kind of mad by not noticin' things was
+wrong, although that's the impression I'd labored to create upon
+him, as he'd say.
+
+"The Injun didn't come, and he didn't come till I got mad at him,
+too.  How was I to know that he finished up my idee by fallin'
+over, further down?  So I fumed and I fussed, and I yearned inside
+of me to get square with somebody.  And at last my chance come.
+
+"Afternoon, hot and clear as usual.  Percy asleep under a rock, and
+then, horses' footsteps!  I jumped for the edge, and, boys, for a
+minute my sight give out.  It wasn't Injuns; it was a lot of Uncle
+Sam's durned soldiers.  I never expected to be so glad to see a
+soldier; I thought I despised 'em.
+
+"I looked at 'em for a full half minute, thinking,' God bless old
+Percy's blistered nose, he's safe!' and then I done what I hadn't
+orter did out of that, desire to get even.   I slid down the
+mountain and whanged away over their heads.  It was like pokin'
+your finger in a hornets' nest.  Up comes them soldiers, workin'
+the finest of Injun sneaks up the hill.  If there ever was a grand
+sight in Nature it's a two-hundred-pound soldier entirely concealed
+by a rock twice the size of my fist.
+
+"Y-a-as, here they come; and I flitted my red handkercher like it
+was a 'Pache's head-dress, leadin' 'em on to where Percy was.  I
+got there first and crawled into a cave where I could watch.  I
+looked at Percy, sleeping, remarkin' 'whooo-whisssh!' at regular
+intervals, his little baby face surrounded by his white
+handkercher, his little fat hands folded on his little fat stomach,
+and I could scarcely wait for the time when them soldiers' eyes
+should fall upon their treacherous, fierce, and implackibble foe.
+
+"The lieutenant was a kid, just gradooated--one of the kind that
+thinks it's glorious to get killed and read about it in the papers.
+He led his men into the simple quiet of our camp, crouched and
+tur'ble, a gun in each hand . . .  and there was the United States
+army and there was the sleepin' Percy, face to face!
+
+"'What . . . !' says the lieutenant, falling back ten foot.  'What
+. . . !' says he, falling back twenty feet and losin' his voice.
+'What . . . !'says he, gatherin'himself; 'what is this?
+
+"And then I come out of the cave and rolled on the ground.
+
+"The lieutenant walked over and patted me on the back with a
+rifle-butt.
+
+"'What d'ye mean, you s-c-c-coundrel!' he says.  'Stop that
+laughing or I'll shoot the pair of you!'
+
+"I come to quick when I heard that.  'Look a' here, young feller,'
+I says, 'you can beat me as much as you feel like, but if you make
+a crooked play at Percy I'll wrap you up in your diploma and send
+you home to your ma.'
+
+"It just happened their half-breed scout knew me.
+
+"'I wouldn't rile Mr. Scraggs, Lieutenant,' says he; 'it's bad
+luck.'
+
+"Of course there was more talk, but the lieutenant was a good
+enough kid, and when he see all the boys laughin' he give in and
+smiled himself.
+
+"'Well, you long-legged statue of melancholy,' says he, 'I suppose
+I'll have to let it go, but I'll shoot you, sure as there is
+shootin', if you ever play a trick like that on me again.  What
+kind of a fool are you to stay here in the middle of an outbreak,
+anyhow?  Now wake up your friend and come with us.'
+
+"'Thanky,' says I; 'but hold--is the road safe to town?'
+
+'"Sure; we've cleaned 'em, all but one bunch.'
+
+"'Well,' says I, 'then Percy and me'll just amble back together the
+way we come.  I don't want him to know nothing about any trouble.'
+
+"After chewin' for a while he consented, and away went the army.
+
+"So bimeby Percy woke up and said he'd had a nice nap and felt
+refreshed and--um--invigorated, and him and me went back to town,
+and he never suspicioned ther'd been an Injun risin', soldiers nor
+nothin'.  I have felt like offering one hundred dollars' reward to
+the person who'd produce something that Percy would suspect.  And
+whenever I think of that my spirits lift to that extent I could
+almost go out and get married again.
+
+"And this here ticker I set great store by, because it come from
+Percy and says inside of it, 'To E. G. Washington Scraggs, in
+memory of our beautiful friendship, from Percival Mervin'--and that
+to a tough old Mormon like me!  Well, he was one darned nice little
+man."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mr. Scraggs, by Henry Wallace Phillips
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12197 ***
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #12197 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12197)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mr. Scraggs, by Henry Wallace Phillips
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mr. Scraggs
+
+Author: Henry Wallace Phillips
+
+Release Date: April 29, 2004 [EBook #12197]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. SCRAGGS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MR. SCRAGGS
+
+INTRODUCED BY RED SAUNDERS
+
+
+
+By
+
+HENRY WALLACE PHILLIPS
+
+
+Author of "Red Saunders," "Plain Mary Smith," etc.
+
+
+
+
+THE GRAFTON PRESS
+
+PUBLISHERS                       NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1903, 1904, 1905, by The Curtis Publishing Co.
+Copyright, 1903, by S. S. McClure Co.  Copyright, 1905, by The
+Grafton Press
+
+Published January, 1906 Second edition February, 1906
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   I.  BY PROXY
+  II.  IN THE TOILS
+ III.  ST. NICHOLAS SCRAGGS
+  IV.  THE SIEGE OF THE DRUG STORE
+   V.  THE MOURNFUL NUMBER
+  VI.  MR. SCRAGGS INTERVENES
+ VII.  THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+"Made any other human countenance I ever see look like a
+nigger-minstrel show"
+
+"He was disappointed in love--he had to be"
+
+"Scraggsy looked like a forlorn hope lost in a fog"
+
+"'Dearly beloved Brethren,' says I"
+
+"Put up a high-grade article of cat-fight"
+
+"You will talk to my ol' man like that, will you?"
+
+"So we rode in, right cheerful"
+
+"I was all over that Injun"
+
+
+
+
+MR. SCRAGGS
+
+INTRODUCED BY RED SAUNDERS
+
+
+
+BY PROXY
+
+I had met Mr. Scraggs, shaken him by the hand, and, in the shallow
+sense of the word, knew him.  But a man is more than clothes and a
+bald head.  It is also something of a trick to find out more about
+him--particularly in the cow country.  One needs an interpreter.
+Red furnished the translation.  After that, I nurtured Mr.
+Scraggs's friendship, for the benefit of humanity and philosophy.
+Saunders and I lay under a bit of Bad Lands, soaking in the spring
+sun, and enjoying the first cigarette since breakfast.  In regard
+to things in general, he said:
+
+"Now, there was the time I worked for the Ellis ranch.  A ranch is
+like a man: it has something that belongs to it, that don't belong
+to no other ranch, same as I have just the same number of eyes and
+noses and so forth that you drew on your ticket, yet you ain't me
+no more'n I'm you.  This was a kind of sober-minded concern; it was
+a thoughtful sort of a ranch, where everybody went about his work
+quiet.  I guess it was because the boys was mostly old-timers,
+given to arguing about why was this and how come that.  Argue!
+Caesar!  It was a regular debating society.  Wind-river Smith
+picked up a book in the old man's room that told about the Injuns
+bein' Jews 'way back before the big high-water, and how one gang of
+'em took to the prairie and the other gang to the bad clothes
+business.  Well, he and Chawley Tawmson--'member Chawley and his
+tooth?  And you'd have time to tail-down and burn a steer before
+Chawley got the next word out--well, they got arguin' about whether
+this was so, or whether it weren't so.  Smithy was for the book,
+havin' read it, and Chawley scorned it.  The argument lasted a
+month, and as neither one of 'em knew anything about an Injun,
+except what you can gather from looking at him over a rifle sight,
+and as the only Jew either one of 'em ever said two words to was
+the one that sold Windriver a hat that melted in the first
+rain-storm, and then him and Chawley went to town and made the
+Hebrew eat what was left of the hat, after refunding the price, you
+can imagine what a contribution to history I listened to.  That's
+the kind of place the Ellis ranch was, and a nice old farm she was,
+too.
+
+"I'd been working there about three months, when along come a man
+that looked like old man Trouble's only son.  Of all the sorrowful
+faces you ever see, his was the longest and thinnest.  It made any
+other human countenance I ever see look like a nigger-minstrel show.
+
+[Illustration: Made any other human countenance I ever see look
+like a nigger-minstrel show.]
+
+"We was short-handed, as the old man had begun to put up hay and
+work some of the stock in corrals for the winter, so we took our
+new brother on.  His name was Ezekiel George Washington
+Scraggs--tuneful number for a cow-outfit!--and his name didn't come
+anywhere near doin' him justice at that.  Ezekiel knew his biz and
+turned in a day's work right straight along, but when you'd say,
+'Nice day, Scraggs?' he'd heave such a sigh you could feel the
+draft all the way acrost the bull-pen, and only shake his head.
+
+"Up to this time Wind-river had enjoyed a cinch on the mournful
+act.  He'd had a girl sometime durin' the Mexican war, and she'd
+borrowed Smith's roll and skipped with another man.  So, if we
+crowded Smithy too hard in debate, he used to slip behind that girl
+and say, 'Oh, well!  You fellers will know better when you've had
+more experience," although we might have been talkin' about what's
+best for frost-bite at the time.
+
+"He noticed this new man Scraggs seemed to hold over him a trifle
+in sadness, and he thought he'd find out why.
+
+"'You appear to me like a man that's seen trouble,' says he.
+
+"'Trouble!' says Scraggs.  'Trouble!'  Then he spit out of the door
+and turned his back deliberate, like there wasn't any use
+conversin' on the subject, unless in the presence of an equal.
+
+"Scraggs was a hard man to break into, but Smithy scratched his
+head and took a brace.
+
+"'I've met with misfortune myself,' says he.
+
+"'Ah?' says Scraggs.  'What's happened to you?'  He sounded as if
+he didn't believe it amounted to much, and Smithy warmed up.  He
+ladled out his woes like a catalogue.  How he'd been blew up in
+mines; squizzled down a mountain on a snow-slide; chawed by a bear;
+caught under a felled tree; sunk on a Missouri River steamboat, and
+her afire, so you couldn't tell whether to holler for the
+life-savers or the fire-engine; shot up by Injuns and personal
+friends; mistook for a horse-thief by the committee, and much else,
+closing the list with his right bower.  'And, Mr. Scraggs, I have
+put my faith in woman, and she done me to the tune of all I had.'
+
+"'_Have_ you?' says Scraggs, still perfectly polite and
+uninterested.  "'_Have_ you?' says he, removin' his pipe and
+spitting carefully outdoors again.  And then he slid the joker
+a'top of Smithy's play.  'Well, _I_ have been a Mormon,' says he.
+
+"'What?' says all of us.
+
+"'Yessir!' says Mr. Scraggs, getting his feet under him, and with a
+mournful pride I can't give you the least idea of.  'A Mormon; none
+of your tinkerin' little Mormonettes.  I was ambitious; hence E. G.
+W. Scraggs as you now behold him.  In most countries a man's
+standin' is regulated by the number of wives he ain't got; in Utah
+it's just the reverse--and a fair test, too, when you come to think
+of it.  I wanted to be the head of the hull Mormon kingdom, so I
+married right and left.  Every time I added to the available supply
+of Mrs. Scraggs, I went up a step in the government.  I ain't all
+the persimmons for personal beauty, so I had to take what was
+willin' to take me, and they turned out to be mostly black-eyed
+women with peculiar dispositions.  Gentlemen, I was once as lively
+and happy a little boy as ever did chores on a farm.  See me now!
+This is the result of mixin' women and politics.  If I should tell
+you all the kinds of particular and general devilment (to run 'em
+alphabetically, as I did to keep track of 'em) that Ann Eliza
+Scraggs, and Bridget Scraggs, and Belle Scraggs, and Fanny Scraggs,
+and Honoria and Helen Scraggs, and Isabelle Scraggs, and so on up
+to zed, raised with me, it would go through any little germs of joy
+you may have in your constitutions like Sittin' Bull's gang of
+dog-soldiers through an old ladies' sewing bee.  Look at me!  For
+all them years that cussed ambition of mine held me in its deadly
+toils.  I never heard the sound of blessed silence.  Trouble!  I'm
+bald as a cake of ice; my nerves is ruined.  If the wind makes a
+noise in the grass like the swish of skirts, I'm a mile up the
+track before I get my wits back, sweatin' coldly and profusely,
+like a water-cooler.
+
+"'I ain't got anything to tie to but all them women by the name of
+Scraggs, and them ties I cut by travelin' fast between daylights.
+Wisht I could introduce you to Mrs. Scraggs as she inhabits the
+territory of Utah--you'd understand a power of things that may seem
+a little misty to you at present.  However, I can't do that, nor I
+wouldn't neither, if I was to be made general superintendent of the
+whole show for my pains.  I'll leave the aggregated Mrs. Scraggs in
+the hands of Providence, as bein' the only power capable of
+handling her.  Yet I don't believe in Providence.  I don't believe
+in no Hereafter, nor Heretofore, nor no Now; I don't believe in no
+East nor West, nor Up nor Down, nor Sideways, Lengthways,
+'Cross-the-center, Top, Bottom, or Middle.  I have lost my faith in
+every ram-butted thing a man can hear, see, or touch, includin'
+everything I've left out.  That's me, Joe Bush.' He stopped a
+minute.  'Trouble--' says he.  'Trouble--I wisht nobody'd mention
+that word in my hearin' again.'
+
+"Well, he had us gummed fast, all right.  Nobody in our outfit
+could push up against such a world-without-end experience as that.
+
+"But Scraggs was a gentleman; he didn't crowd us because we broke.
+In fact, now that he'd had his say, he loosened up considerable,
+and every now and then he'd even smile.
+
+"Then come to us the queerest thing in that whole curiosity-shop of
+a ranch.  Its name was Alexander Fulton.  I reckon Aleck was about
+twenty-one by the almanac, and anywhere's from three to ninety by
+the way you figure a man.  Aleck stood six foot high _as_ he stood,
+but if you ran the tape along his curves he was about six-foot-four.
+
+"He weighed one hundred and twenty pounds, of which twenty-five
+went to head and fifty to feet.  Feet!  You never saw such feet.
+They were the grandest feet that ever wore a man; long and high and
+wide, and all that feet should be.  Chawley said that Alexander had
+ground plan enough for a company of nigger soldiers.  And hung to
+Aleck's running gear, they reminded you of the swinging jigger in a
+clock.  They almost make me forget his hands.  When Aleck laid a
+flipper on a cayuse's back, you'd think the critter was blanketed.
+And then there was his Adam's apple--he had so many special
+features, it's hard to keep track of them.  About a foot of Aleck's
+protrudin' into air was due to neck.  In the center of that neck
+was an Adam's apple that any man might be proud of.
+
+"His complexion consisted of freckles; when you spoke to him sudden
+he blushed, and then he looked for all the world like a stormy
+sunset.  His eyes were white, and so was his hair, and so was poor
+old Aleck--as white a kid as they make 'em, and, beyond guessing,
+the skeeriest--not relatin' to things, but to people.  How he come
+to drift out into our country was a story all by itself.  He was
+disappointed in love--he _had_ to be.  One look at him and you'd
+know why.  So he sailed out to the wild West, where he was about as
+useful as a trimmed nighty.  We always stood between Aleck and the
+old man, until the boy got so he'd make straight once out of a
+possible five.
+
+[Illustration: He was disappointed in love--he _had_ to be.]
+
+"First off, he was still; then, findin' himself in a confidential
+crowd, and bustin' to let us know, his trouble, he told us all
+about it.  He'd never spoke to the girl, it seems, more'n to say,
+'How-d'ye-do, ma'am,' and blush, and sit on his hat, and make
+curious moves with them hands and feet; but there come another
+feller along, and Alexander quit.
+
+"'You got away?' says Scraggs.  'Permit me to congratulate you,
+sir!'  And he took hold of as much of Aleck's right wing as he
+could gather, and shook it hard.  'Alas!' says he, 'how different
+is the tale I have to tell.'
+
+"'But I didn't want to come away!' stutters Alexander.
+
+"'Didn't want to?' cries Scraggs, letting the pipe fall out of his
+mouth.  Then he turns to me and taps his brow with his finger,
+casting a pitying eye on Aleck.
+
+"As time went on Aleck got worse and worse.  He had a case of
+ingrowing affection; it cut his weight down to ninety pounds.  With
+him leaving himself at that rate, you could take pencil and paper
+and figure to the minute when Alexander Fulton was booked to cross
+the big divide.  And we liked the kid.  In spite of his magnificent
+feet, and his homeliness, and his thumb-handsidedness, I got to
+feel sort of as if he was my boy--though if ever I have a boy like
+Aleck, I put in my vote for marriage being a failure, and
+everything lost, honor and all.  Probably it was more as if he was
+a puppy-dog, or some other little critter that couldn't take care
+of itself.  Anyhow, we got worked up about the matter, and talked
+it over considerable when he was out of hearing.  It come to this:
+there was no earthly use in trying to get Aleck to go back and make
+a play at the girl.  He'd ha' fell dead at the thought of it.  That
+left nothing but to bring the girl to Aleck.  You see, we thought
+if we told the young woman that here was a decent honest
+man--hurrying over the rest of the description--just evaporating
+for love of her, that she might be persuaded to come out and marry
+him.  We weren't going to let our pardner slip away without an
+effort anyhow.  We couldn't do no less than try.  Then come the
+problem of who was the proper party to act as messenger.  The rest
+of us, without bothering him by taking him into our confidence,
+decided that Scraggs was the proper man, because, if he didn't know
+Women and her Ways, the subject belonged to the lost arts.
+
+"But, man! Didn't he r'ar when we told him!
+
+"'ME go after a woman!' says he.  '_ME_!!!--Take another drink!'
+But we labored with him.  Told about what a horrible time he'd
+had--he always liked to hear about it--and how there wasn't anybody
+else fit to handle his discard in the little game of matrimony--and
+what was the use of sending a man that would break at the first
+wire fence?  If we was going to do the thing, we wanted to do it;
+and so forth and so forth, till we had him saddled and bridled and
+standing in the corner of the corral as peaceful as a soldier's
+monument, for he was the best-hearted old cuss under his crust that
+ever lived.
+
+"'All right,' says he.  'I'll do it, and it's "Get there, Eli!"
+when I hook dirt.  Poor old Aleck is as good as married, and the
+Lord have mercy on his soul!  But there's one thing I wish to
+state: I'm running the job, and I run it my own way.  I don't want
+any interfering nor no talk afterward--'s that understood?
+
+"It was.  He was to cut loose.
+
+"'All right,' says he.  'Poor Aleck!'  So that night E. G. W.
+Scraggs took his cayuse and made for the railroad station, bound
+east.
+
+"Aleck had give us full details.  We knew all about his little town
+and about that house in particular; just how the morning-glories
+grew over the back porch, looking out on the garden patch, and
+where the cistern was, which, with his usual good luck, Aleck had
+managed to fall into, whilst they were putting a new cover on it.
+Yessir; we knew that little East Dakota town as well as if we'd
+been raised there; but we were some shy on details concerning the
+girl.  I swear I don't believe Aleck had ever looked her full in
+the face.  She was medium height, plump, blue eyes, brown hair, and
+that ended the description,
+
+"We suffered any quantity from impatience before E. G. W. showed
+up.  You see, there ain't such a lot that happens to other people
+occurrin' on a ranch, and we was really more excited over Aleck and
+his girl than a tenderfoot would be over a gun fight, and for the
+same reason; it was out of our ordinary.
+
+"Scraggsy didn't keep us on the anxious seat.  He was the surest
+thing I ever saw.  Often I've watched him rope a critter; he never
+whirled his rope, even when riding--always snapped.  And he never
+made a quick move--that is, a move that looked in a hurry--all the
+same, every time he let go of the rope, there was his meat on the
+other end of it.  Women was the only thing that did E. G. W.
+Scraggs, and that's because he wholesaled the business.  That
+ambition of his wrecked him.  When he trotted around the track for
+fun, nobody else in the heat could see him for the dust.
+
+"One evening about half-past eight, when the glow was still strong,
+here come Scraggs, prompt to the schedule.  He was riding and a
+buggy trailed behind him.
+
+"We chased Aleck over to the main house, where the old man, who
+stood in on the play, was to keep him busy until called for.
+
+"Then up pulls E. G. W. and the buggy.  In the buggy was a young
+woman, and a man.
+
+"'Here we are,' says Scraggs, in the tone of one who has done his
+painful duty.  'Check the outfit--one girl and one splicer--have
+you kept holt of Aleck?'
+
+"'Yes,' I says.  'We've got him--come in, folks.'  I was crazy to
+hear how he'd pulled it off.  Soon's they got inside I lugged him
+to the corner, leaving the other boys to welcome the guests.  'Tell
+me about it,' I says.
+
+"'Short story,' says he.  'Moment I got off the choo-choo I spotted
+the house--couldn't mistake it.  Laid low in the daytime and
+scouted around as soon as night come.  Girl goes down to the barn
+and comes back with a pail of milk.  I grabbed her and put my hand
+over her mouth so's she couldn't holler.  "Now listen," I says to
+her.  "There's a friend of mine wants to marry you.  When I let you
+go, you'll skip into the house and pick up what clothes is handy,
+and you'll vamoose this ranch at quarter of eleven, sharp, so we
+can make the next train west.  If you ain't there, or if you say a
+single word to a human being--you see this?" and I stuck the end of
+my hoss-pistol under her nose.  "Well, I'll blow the head clean off
+your shoulders with it."  Then I laid back my ears and rolled my
+eyes around.  Well, sir, she was scart so's she didn't know
+anything but what I said.  I hated to treat a lady like that, but
+if I've learned anything concerning handlin' the sect, it's
+this--you got to be firm.  There's where I made my mistake
+formerly.  Then I let go of her and went back to the deppo.  What
+she thought I couldn't even guess, but I knew I was goin' to have
+company, and, sure enough, 'bout three minutes before train time,
+here comes our friend.  When I got her safe aboard I told her she
+needn't be scart.  Lots worse things could happen to her than
+marryin' Aleck, and she says "yessir," and she kept on sayin'
+"yessir" to all I told her.--Wisht I could have found one like
+that, instead of eighty of 'em that stood ready to jump down my
+throat the minute I opened my mouth.--She told me she'd had a
+middlin' hard time of it and didn't mind a change.  That surprised
+me a little, because I jedged from Aleck's talk she was an
+upstandin' critter--but, pshaw!  Aleck would think a worm was a
+sassy thing if it squirmed in his direction.  Then I telegraphed
+Con Foster to have me a buggy and a minister ready for the three
+o'clock train, and to keep his yawp calked up.  So as soon as I hit
+land again, there was the rig complete; we hopped in and started
+a-coming at once and fast, and here we are; for which I raise
+thanks, and all the curses of the Mormon gods be on the head of the
+man that gets me into such a play as this again!  Snake old Aleck
+out and get the misery done with.  That minister's chargin' me
+fifty cents an hour, and I don't know whether he's the real thing
+or not, at that.  Con whispered in my ear that he worked in a
+grocery when he first struck town, dealt stud-poker for Johnny
+Early, quit that and took to school-teachin', then threw that up
+and preached.  But what's the difference out here?  He's expensive,
+anyhow, and all Con could find.'
+
+"So I wagged my legs for the house and trotted Aleck down to the
+bull-pen.
+
+"'Friend of yours there,' I told him.
+
+"'That so?' says he.  'Who is it?'
+
+"'Lady,' I says, kind of gay, thinkin' he'd be pleased.
+
+"He stopped in his tracks.  Then I remembered who I was talkin' to.
+
+"'Come along, here, now!' says I, and nailed him by the neck.  'You
+ain't goin' to miss your happiness if main strength can give it to
+you.'  His toes touched about once to the rod.  I run him into the
+pen.
+
+"'There,' says I, 'is somebody you know.'
+
+"Well, sir, old Aleck looked at the gal, and the gal looked at
+Aleck, and the rest of us looked at each other.  Soon's the kid got
+his breath from the shock he yells, 'I never laid eyes on that lady
+before!'
+
+"Oh, Hivins, Maria!  That was the awfullest minute I ever lived
+through.  Poor old E. G. W. S.!  We all turned away from him, out
+of pity.  He had the expression of a man that's fell down a
+hundred-foot prospect hole and been struck by lightning before he
+touched bottom.  He grabbed aholt of the minister and swallered and
+swallered, unable to chirp.
+
+"At last he rallied.  'You mean to tell me, Aleck,' he says, in a
+voice hardly strong enough to get through his mustache, 'that I've
+made a mistake?'
+
+"Aleck was always willing to believe he was wrong.  'I'm _pretty_
+sure, Zeke--I ain't never seen you, have I, Miss?'
+
+"'No, sir--not that I know of,' answers the girl, with her eyes on
+the ground.
+
+"E. G. W. rubbed his brow.
+
+"'Will you make good, anyhow, Aleck?' he coaxed.  'I got the
+minister and all right here--it won't take a minute.'
+
+"I'd let go of Aleck in the excitement.  At these words he made one
+step from where he stood in the house, through the window, to ten
+foot out of doors, and a few more steps like that, and he was out
+of the question.
+
+"Then the girl put her face in her hands and begun to cry.  She was
+a mighty pretty, innocent, plump little thing, and we'd rather have
+had most anything than that she should stand there cryin'.  But we
+were all hung by the feet and wandering in our minds.  The simple
+life of the cow-puncher doesn't fit him to grapple with problems
+like that.
+
+"Then, sir, up gets Ezekiel George Washington Scraggs, master of
+himself and the situation.
+
+"'Young lady,' says he, 'I have got you out here under false
+pretenses.  I'm as homely as a hedge fence, and my record is dotted
+with marriages worse than a 'Pache outbreak with corpses and
+burning homes.  I ain't any kind of proposition to tie up to a nice
+girl like you, and I swear by my honor that nothing was further
+from my thoughts than matrimony--not meanin' any slur on you, for
+if I'd found you before, I might have been a happy man--Well, here
+I stand: if you'll marry me, say the word!'  By thunder, we gave
+him a cheer that shook the roof.  You can laugh if you like, but it
+was a noble deed.
+
+"The girl reached out her left hand--so help me Moses!  She liked
+him!  I took a careful squint at old Scraggsy, in this new light,
+and I want to tell you that there was something kind of fine in
+that long lean face of his, and when he took the girl's hand he
+looked like a gentleman.
+
+"You wouldn't think that holding a gun to her head, and threatenin'
+to blow her brains out was just the touch that would set a maiden's
+heart tremblin' for a man, but if a woman takes a fancy to you,
+your habits and customs, manners and morals, disposition, personal
+appearance, financial standing and way of doing things generally is
+only a little matter of detail.
+
+"'How will this figger out legally?' E. G. W. asked the minister.
+
+"The minister, he was a cheerful, practical sort of lad, ready to
+indorse anything that would smooth the rugged road of life.
+
+"'Do you renounce the Mormon religion?' he asks.
+
+"'Bet your life,' says Scraggs.  'And all its works.'
+
+"'That settles it,' says the minister.  'Besides, I don't think
+anybody will ever come poking out here to make trouble--whenever
+you say the word.'
+
+"'One minute,' says Scraggs, and he turned to the girl very gentle.
+'Are you doing this of your own free will, and not because I lugged
+you out here?'
+
+"'Yessir,' says she.
+
+"'You want me, just as I stand?'
+
+"'Yessir.'
+
+"'Keno.  I won't forget it.'  Then he put his hand on her head,
+took off his hat, and raised his face.  'O God!' he prays, 'you
+know what a miserable time I've had in this line before.  I admit
+it was nine-tenths my fault, but now I call for an honest deck and
+the hands played above the table.  And make me act decent for the
+sake of this nice little girl.  Amen.'  Then he pulled a
+twenty-dollar gold piece out of his pocket and plunked her down
+before the minister, 'Shoot,' says he.  'You're faded.'
+
+"Well.  there old Scraggs--I say 'old,' but the man weren't more
+than forty--celebrated his eighty-first marriage in that old
+bull-pen, and they lived as happy ever after as any story book.
+Which knocks general principles.  Probably it was because that no
+man was ever treated whiter than she treated him, and no woman was
+ever treated whiter than he treated her; he had the knack of bein'
+awful good and loving to her, without being foolish.  Experience
+will tell, and he'd experienced a heap of the other side.
+
+"And now, what do you think of Aleck?  The scare we threw into him
+that night wound up his moanin' and grievin' about the other girl.
+He never cheeped once after that, but got fat and hearty, and when
+I left the ranch he was makin' up to a widow with four children, as
+bold as brass.  There was more poetry in E. G. W, than there was in
+Aleck, after all."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+IN THE TOILS
+
+Mr. Ezekiel George Washington Scraggs, late of Missouri, later of
+Utah, and latest of North Dakota, stood an even six-foot unshod.
+He had an air of leanness, almost emaciation, not borne out by any
+fact of anatomy.  We make our hasty estimates from the face.
+Brother Scraggs's face was gaunt.  Misfortune had written there, in
+a large, angular hand, "It might have been"--those saddest words of
+tongue or pen.  The pensive sorrow of E. G. W.'s countenance had
+misled many people--not but what the sorrow was genuine enough
+(Scraggsy explained it in four words, "I've been a Mormon"), but
+the expression of a blighted, helpless youth carried into early
+middle age was an appearance only: I mean it was nothing to bank on
+in dealing with Zeke.  Still, if you could see those eyes, dimmed
+with a settled melancholy; those mustachios, which, absorbing all
+the capillary possibilities of his head, drooped like weeping
+willows from his upper lip; and above, the monumental nose--that
+springing prow that once so grandly parted the waves of adverse
+circumstance, until, blown by the winds of ambition, his bark was
+cast ruined on the shores of matrimony--you would not so much blame
+the man who mistook E. G. Washington Scraggs for a something not
+too difficult.  Red Saunders said that Scraggsy looked like a
+forlorn hope lost in a fog, but when you came to cash in on that
+basis it was most astonishing.  In general a man of few words, on
+occasions he would tip back his chair, insert the stem of his
+corncob pipe in an opening provided by nature at the cost of a
+tooth, and tell us about it.
+
+[Illustration: "Scraggsy looked like a forlorn hope lost in a fog."]
+
+"Why can't people be honest?" said Mr. Scraggs--_Silence_!
+
+"Charley!" cried Red, reproachfully, "why don't you tell the
+gentleman?"
+
+"No, no, no!" replied Charley.  "You be older'n me, Red--you
+explain."
+
+"Well," said Red, "I suppose the loss of their hair kind of
+discourages 'em."
+
+"I had rather," meditated Mr. Scraggs, "I had much rather wear the
+top of my head a smooth white record of a well-spent life than go
+amblin' around the country like the Chicago fire out for a walk,
+and I repeat: Why can't people be honest?"
+
+"I begin to pity somebody an awful lot," said Red.  "Did you send
+him home barefoot?"
+
+"You go on!" retorted Mr. Scraggs.  "I fell into the hands of the
+Filly-steins oncet, and they put the trail of the serpent all over
+me.  I run into the temple of them twin false gods, Mammon and
+Gammon, and I stood to draw one suit of sack-cloth and a four-mule
+wagon-load of ashes."
+
+"Is them the close you got on now?" said Charley.  "And what did
+you get for the ashes?"
+
+"The play come up like this," said Scraggs.  "After my eighteenth
+bestowin' of the honored name of Scraggs upon a person that didn't
+appreciate it the Mormon Church see fit to assume a few duties on
+me.  I was put in a position of importance in a placer minin'
+districk inhabited by jack-rabbits, coyotes, Chinamen, and Mrs.
+Scraggses.  And still I wasn't happy.  Them jack-rabbits et up my
+little garding patch; the coyotes gathered at nights and sung me
+selections from the ghost dance; the Chinamen sprung every
+con-cussed trick on me that a man who wears his whiskers down his
+back can think of; and day and night alike, Mrs. Scraggs, from one
+to eighteen, informed me what I'd ort to do.
+
+"I tried to strike up a little friendly conversation with the
+Chinks, for variety, but it weren't no use.  A Chinaman'll be a
+Mormon, or a Democrat, or a cannibal, or any other durn thing for
+five cents, sixty days from date.  He ain't got any more natural
+convictions than a Missouri River catfish.  They'd just keep
+a-watchin' my face so's they could agree with me.  Now, I didn't
+want that.  I wanted to get up an argument with somebody I could
+sass back, because in my own house, where I was lord and master, if
+I happened to remark it was a nice, bright day everybody swore you
+couldn't see your hand before your face, and I let the subject drop
+right there.  Mrs. Scraggs quar'led some among herself, but when I
+come in her motto was, 'United we stand him on his head, and
+divided we fall upon his neck.'  When she done the last, of a still
+day, you could hear the crack of my cervycal vertybree three mile.
+
+"So, at last, I wearied.  I writ a letter to the Elders tellin' 'em
+I enjoyed the work, but thought it was time for my spirit of
+self-sacrifice to exercise himself a little.  So would they mind
+givin' me another job?  Somethin' like lyin' on a board and havin'
+a doctor rip-saw chunks out of me for the benefit of Science, and
+let him lose the pieces, for all I cared.
+
+"The Mormon Church, she come to my relief by sendin' me out on a
+proselytin' expedition to York State.  But I wasn't built proper to
+lead errin' sheep into the fold.  Most of the sheep they hollered
+'Baa!' when they see me, and gathered distance with both feet.  If
+I did get a chance to talk to a man he always asked me awkward
+questions.  Like one old farmer, whilest I was explainin' the
+advantages of havin' as many helpmates and cheerful companions and
+domestic joys as possible, busts into me by takin' holt of my coat
+and askin' so confidential I couldn't lie to him, 'How do you find
+it yourself?'
+
+"'The Lord be good to fools!' says I.  'You got _one_ now, ain't
+you?'
+
+"''M ya-a-as,' says he, without anything you could figger as wild
+enthusiasm in his voice; 'I hev.'
+
+"'Well,' says I, 'multiply one by eighteen, and let's have a drink.'
+
+"'I had to send word to the Elders that Books of Mormon weren't
+looked upon as popular readin' in the outlyin' districts, so should
+I come home, or try New York City?  They sends me word back,
+wishin' my work to prosper, to try New York City, but not to draw
+on 'em for any more funds until I had a saved sinner or two to show
+for it.  Well, sir, this last clause jolted me.  I had spent money
+free among them farmers, to boom trade, and for the purchasin' of
+fancy clothes, more to look at than be comfortable in, the idee
+bein' to show how good a thing the Church of Mormon was to the
+first glance of the eye.  And now, after side-trackin' my railroad
+fare home, I weren't wadin' in wealth, by no means.  More'n that, I
+understood that the city of New York was a much more expensive
+place than St. Looey.  So I writ a letter back, tellin' 'em I was
+scatterin' seed so's you could hardly see across the street.  There
+weren't no hope for a crop unless I had more plain sowin'
+material--please remit.
+
+"And then they come back at me, sayin' I'd already cost the
+community about four hundred and fifty dollars, and not even a
+Dutchman by way of results.  That I'd understand this weren't said
+in no mercenary spirit, but just as a matter of business.  They
+would hold a prayer-meetin', they said, which, no doubt, would
+bring the end aimed at, and for me to go forth strong in the faith
+and gather 'em up from the wayside.
+
+"I let fly oncet more, sayin' that I was strong in the faith but
+feeble in the pocket; that sinners were costly luxuries in a big
+town like New York.  How was I goin' to play the Prophet and stand
+the man off for my board?
+
+"Elder Stimmins wrote back pussonally, exhortin' me to be of good
+heart, sayin' further that the days of miracles weren't past; at
+any moment the unrepentant might get it in the conscience--and
+signed himself my friend and brother in the church, with a P. S.
+readin':
+
+
+_Dear Zeke_: My wife Susan Ann will continner to have high-stukes
+till I produce a grand pianny.  Mary's after a dimint neclas, and
+my beluvid spous Eliza (that's the carut-heded one lives down by
+the rivver) will put sumthin' in my food if she don't git a gol
+watch and chane.  Tomlinson's fust three ar rasin' Ned fur new
+housis, hors and kerige, and the like.  The new ones is more
+amable, but yellin' fur close and truck.  Uncle Peter Haskins'
+latest is on the warpath fur a seleskin sak, and so on and so
+forth.  You know how it is yourself, dear frend and bro., and we ar
+broke, so I incurrige you to keep your hart stout, your faith
+intack, and hunt up a poker-game sumwheres, becus we honest ain't
+got the money.
+
+  SAUL STIMMINS.
+
+
+"'Well!' says the cookee, when he heaved the egg into the coffee,
+'that settles it!'  And that settled me.  I sure did know how it
+was myself.  If there was any man in or out of the Territory of
+Utah that knew how it was myself, I and him was the same indivijool.
+
+"I took thought of Mrs. Scraggs out there all alone by herself,
+with her darlin' Zeke entirely out of reach, and while I don't
+recommend the idee of jollyin' yourself by gloatin' over the
+misfortunes of others, I thinks this here state of affairs could be
+worse, and I went forth strong in the faith to New York City,
+feelin' I might encounter some kind of quick action, like Brother
+Stimmins prophesied.
+
+"And there, you see, is where sinful feelin' in me turned me over
+to the enemy, bound hand and foot, gagged and blindfolded.  Who was
+I to exalt myself agin the smart young men of New York City?  How
+come it the foolish notion buzzed in my cockloft that, like Samson
+of old, I might fall upon the adversary, hip, hurrah, and thigh,
+and of the fragments that remained gather seven bushels?  Pride
+goeth before destruction and a naughty spirit before a fall.  Up I
+sasshays to my hotel bedroom to take account of resources.  Mighty
+slim they was.  In the false bottom of the trunk was a pocketbook
+that looked like the wheel of progress had passed over it, and a
+little sack of nuggets--that was all.  Them nuggets was the pride
+of my life.  I didn't buy 'em from the Chinaman that offered, but I
+come horrible near it.  And yet that Chink had the innocentest face
+in Utah; he might ha' stood for a picture of Adam before Eve cast a
+shadder on his manly brow.  I don't recall anything that's more
+deceivin' than appearances, yet what in the world's a man to go by?
+Well, them nuggets ort to said to me, 'Young man, beware!  Be
+warier than John H. Devilkins himself!  All that's heavy and yaller
+is not gold.  Sometimes a patient Chinaman, flappin' of the flies
+with his pigtail, will industrusly manufacture that same per
+schedule out of common, ordinary lead, and, by exercisin' the art
+of gildin', almost whip-saw people by the name of Scraggs, if so it
+hadn't 'a' been their gardeen angel moved 'em to try a sample with
+the edge of a knife.'
+
+"Was I warned?  Well, I dunno, anyhow, I trotted myself out to the
+street to see what this here Metropolus business had to offer
+different from just plain St. Looey.
+
+"And I found out.  Dear friends and brothers, I wonder have you
+ever seen a man reachin', reachin' for a playin'-card layin'
+prostrate on the table before him, when his last chip is in the
+pile, his last cent in the chip, all manners and kinds of bills
+comin' due tomorrow, the house to close in fifteen minutes, and
+hopin' that card is just one more little two-spot?  Are you
+familiar with the lines of anggwish on his face?  Well, of all the
+hullabaloo, skippin', flyin', pushin', haulin', rompin', tearin',
+maulin' and scratchin' messes I ever got into, that street was the
+worst.  At the end of fifteen minutes I had no life in me above my
+feet, and they was simply slidin', the one before the other,
+without any aim or purpose.  I stood on a corner clawin' hunks of
+fog off my intellect.  In two minutes more I'd ha' yearned for Mrs.
+Scraggs and Home.  I lost all intention of drawin' sustenance out
+of the inhabitants, when all of a suddent up steps one of these
+brisk, smart, zippee-zippee-zizoo-ketch-me-if-you-kin young city
+fellers, the kind of lu-lu joker to go through a countryman like a
+lightnin' express through a tunnel, leavin' nothin' but the hole
+and a little smoke, and says he, in a hurry:
+
+"'Sorry to have kept you waitin', Mr. Johnson, but knowin' how much
+it meant to both of us, I----Oh, I beg your pardon!' says he; 'I
+mistook you for a friend of mine--no offense, I hope?'
+
+"Now, this same person had on a soup-pot hat that looked borrowed,
+and he wore his clothes like he used 'em for a hiding-place, but
+how was a plain jaybird like me to notice that?  I was almighty
+lonesome, too, so I told him there weren't no offense at all.
+Well, he apologized again, and then he begun to laugh, it was so
+ridiklus, his mistakin' me for Johnson, that he'd knew all his
+life, and he says, 'I'll tell you what I'll do; we'll step across
+the street and tone up our systems at my expense, thereby wipin'
+out any animosity.'  So, of course, rather than be peevish, I done
+it.  Then I tried to wipe out some animosity, but he wouldn't have
+it.  Nobody must buy but him.  I explained--givin' myself dead
+away--that I was a stranger, with nothin' to do but hate myself to
+death, and he was defraudin' me of a rightful joy.  But no, says
+he.  I might be a stranger, or I might not.  Personally he thought
+I'd resided some time in New York City, by my looks; if that was so
+I knew perfectly well he was only follerin' the customs of the
+place, and if I _was_ a stranger it was up to him to do right by
+me, anyhow.  So we grew one degree stronger with no cost to Utah.
+And we stayed there, gettin' powerful as anything, and kind of
+confidential, too, till finally he felt called upon to explain his
+business with this man Johnson.  He took me into a back room to do
+it.
+
+"'Mr. Scraggs,' says he, 'there's things betwixt Heaven and Earth
+that ain't dreamt of on your velocipede, Horatio.'
+
+"'Ya-a-as,' says I.
+
+"'Sh-h-h,' says he, 'not so loud.  Here's the opportunity of a
+lifetime goin' on the loose for want of a man.  That durn Johnson
+has lost his golden show.  It's a very strange story,' says he.
+
+"'Ya-a-as,' says I.  He looked at me a minute, but Lord!  How was a
+poor Mormon to hold suspicions?  So he goes on.
+
+"'At first,' he says, 'you might git the idee there was somethin'
+jubeeous in these preceedin's, but there ain't.  I knew a man that
+once upon a time was the honestest man ever lived.  Honest?  Why,
+I've known that man to go to bed weepin', he felt so bad to learn
+George Washington stole a march on the enemy.  "I never would have
+believed it of George if it hadn't been in the book," he says.
+That's the kind of a man he was--just your sort to a dot.  Well,
+sir, he has an honest claim agin these United States for damage and
+raisin' the divil with his farm durin' the Civil War.  And do you
+suppose these here United States, _E Pluribus Unum_, In God We
+Trust, paid that bill?  Not on the tintype of your grandfather.
+When he goes to Washington with it, the President he says, "Now,
+I'd pay you this in a minute, Billy," he says, "but think of them
+Congressmen!" and the President he shakes his head and Billy comes
+home again.  And from that time on, before his very eyes, he has to
+see his widder and eighteen helpless children die of starvation
+through not havin' enough to eat, right in front of his face--ain't
+that fierce?' says he.
+
+"'Ya-a-as,' says I.
+
+"'Well, at last this man gets a job in the Treasury; it didn't pay
+much--just enough to live on.  He had charge of the banknotes
+before the Secretary signs 'em, to make good.  Now, here comes in
+the curious part of it: my friend's handwritin' and the Secretary's
+handwritin' was that much alike neither man could tell one from
+t'other.  This gives my friend the idee of how to break even with
+Uncle Sam.  He just naturally laid his hooks on ten thousand
+dollars' worth of one-hundred-dollar notes and flew the coop,
+waitin' to sign 'em and dispose of 'em at leisure, thus payin' his
+own claim.  But here comes a hitch; after he done it his conscience
+bit him; the notes was good; he passed a lot of 'em with no
+trouble, but he quit on the play.  Now, if some good, honest man,
+yet not quite so honest as all that, wanted to turn a dollar, he
+could buy two thousand dollars' worth of them bills for one hundred
+ordinary cold money.  It's this way, too,' says he.  'It ain't only
+conscience; the old man's mortal scart; he's always dreamin' of
+Secret Service men comin' in on rubbers.  Now, ain't that an
+opportunity?'
+
+"'Ya-a-as,' says I.
+
+"'Well,' says he, lookin' at his watch, 'it's now my time to eat,
+Mr. Scraggs, and I've took up so much of your valuable time
+chinnin' here, I don't feel I could do less than share my simple
+repast with you.  I'm a stock-broker myself,' he says, 'but none of
+these durned rich ones, so if you can stand for once to eat a meal
+not exceedin' five dollars in price, why, come along!' says he.
+
+"Then we went into a high-toned vittel dispensary, I bet you.
+Jeemima! but she was gold and white paint to knock your eye out.
+I'll never tell you what I et, but it was good food.  And to wind
+up, come little cups of coffee and big seegars.  It was beautiful.
+Then says my man, 'Well, this is a day in a hundred.  I can't tell
+you how good it makes me feel in this city of sin to come across a
+square man like yourself--what do you say to a bottle of wine?'
+
+"'Ya-a-as,' says I.  With life ripplin' along like this I was
+endorsin' the whole time-table.
+
+"Wine is a mawker.  The first small glass of it hadn't gone
+whistlin' down afore she begun to mawk me.  'Ezekiel!' says she,
+'be merry; disport yourself--where's your game blood?  Try a fall
+with this gentleman.'
+
+"'Ya-a-as,' says I to myself.  And then I says aloud and hearty,
+'My friend, you've used me right.  It ain't that I want to make
+money, but just to help your friend along; I haven't any greenbacks
+much in my possession, but,' I says, 'if you're willin' to arrange
+a dicker, whereby I exchange eighteen ounces of nuggets--the
+present market value of Chink Creek gold bein' seventeen dollars
+and forty cents per ounce--for two thousand dollars of your
+friend's bills, it bein' herein stated and provided that you can
+pass 'em like you say you can to my satisfaction, why, I'm your
+little huckleberry, waitin' to get picked.'
+
+"'I got you,' says he, and we shook hands.  'You go to your hotel
+and bring the dust,' says he, 'and I'll slide along and make the
+old man sign the bills.  I'll meet you on the corner where we met
+before.'
+
+"So I met him on the corner, and we went up-stairs to a room where
+a little old man was signin' bills fast and furious.
+
+"'Slide out one,' says my friend, 'till I take Mr. Scraggs out and
+prove I'm no liar.'
+
+"The old man carefully blotted a hundred-dollar green and away we
+goes to a bank.  It was a sure-enough bank.  Outside was the name
+in big letters and inside was the man called 'teller' that won't
+tell you nothin' and looks as if he hated you, like all good banks
+has.
+
+"'Fives and tens for this, please,' says my friend.  That teller
+never quit thinkin' of his dyspepsy, but chucked the stuff right
+over the counter.
+
+"'How's that?' says my friend, when we got outside.
+
+"'All right,' says I.  'And here's my plunder.'  I let him heft the
+bag.
+
+"'Heavy truck, ain't it?' he said.  'But we can always stand the
+weight, can't we?'  He picked out one of them glitterin' Chinese
+works of art and regarded it real lovin'.  'Yes,' says he, 'it's
+sure nice stuff.  Hurry along and we'll close the dicker.'
+
+"Up-stairs the old gent had the money ready for me to count.
+
+"'Correct?' says he.
+
+"'Ya-a-as,' says I.
+
+"'Well, I'll put 'em in a neat bundle for you,' says he.  When that
+was done I handed my precious gold over.
+
+"'Now, come here and have one last drink of satisfaction,' says my
+friend.  I turned to the table and imbibed my last tonic at his
+expense.
+
+"'Here you are, sir,' says the little old man, handin' me my
+package.  'And much obliged to you; only remember this: Secret
+Service men is all about; don't open her till you get safely in
+your room--mind that, now!  Good-day.'
+
+"Down the steps I goes, ker-thump, ker-thump.  But when I reached
+the street I begun to wonder to myself if I hadn't better just see
+what those fellers would do next--no harm in ketchin' on to as many
+city ways as possible--so I hid under the stoop till they come out,
+glancin' sharp this way and that, but missin' Ezekiel George
+Washington.
+
+"Up the street they skips; me after 'em, soon's I could, safe.
+Round the corner they goes.  Me, too.  And then they sasshays into
+a joolry shop.  Here I thought I'd stay outside.
+
+"My friend, after some talk, passes a big nugget over the counter.
+The joolryman he bores into it with a file and hands it back.  You
+never see a face more contemshus than his'n.  Then some kind of
+argyment broke out, arms a-wavin'; windin' up by the joolryman
+raspin' pretty near every nugget in the heap.  Each pass his face
+got more contemshus yet.  Finally he swept the whole business back
+in the bag, throws it at 'em and intimates they can leave at any
+time.
+
+"They left.  I never heard such language in my life!  It ortn't be
+allowed in a large city.  Why, that friend of mine, he heaved the
+bag of nuggets in the gutter and he raised up his hands, and just
+as sure as I sit here tellin' you about it, friends and brothers,
+he made a Fourth-of-July speech five minutes long, and never
+repeated himself once!  I wouldn't go near him, feelin' in his
+excited state of mind it might lead to trouble.  The little old man
+at last dragged him away.
+
+"I picked up them poor mishandled treasures in the gutter, for old
+acquaintance sake.  And surmisin' it probably wouldn't hardly be
+worth my while to wait till I got to the hotel to sample my
+prize-package, I opened her on the spot.
+
+"Well, there's no use in talkin'.  Them fellers were a pair of
+scoundrels.  Instead of anything that looked or smelt or sounded
+like money in that parcel, was nothin' but a lot of newspapers cut
+into strips, with a note on top of 'em bearin' these insultin'
+words:
+
+  "'_There's a sucker born every minute_.'
+
+"Then I counted up on my fingers fourteen drinks and one
+five-dollar dinner, and says I to myself:
+
+"'Ya-a-as,' says I, 'I don't reckon but what that's true.'"
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+ST. NICHOLAS SCRAGGS
+
+"I have read some'ers," said Mr. Scraggs, "that some man whose name
+was a durned sight more important to him than it is to me, for I've
+plumb forgot it, said that he never begun nothin' unless he could
+see the end of it."
+
+"His wife's family must have owned real estate," suggested Red
+Saunders.
+
+"He didn't specify which end," excused Mr. Scraggs.  "Maybe 'twas
+the front end he meant; then the proverb 'ud read that he never
+begun anythin' unless he could see the commencement of it; which is
+a wise and thoughtful statement, because had it been otherwise, and
+therefore essentially different, why, how could he?"
+
+"Of course not," assented Red.
+
+"I s'pose," said the visitor, "that you mean what you say and
+understand what you mean, but d----d if I do.  Is there any right
+or left bower in this game?"
+
+"No," said Mr. Scraggs.  "But this is the twenty-fourth of
+December, and I was thinkin' of another twenty-fourth of December.
+I began something then that come out rather different from what
+you'd naturally expect.  That ain't so remarkable, for nothin' I
+ever had any hand in ever come out as anybody expected--barrin'
+Mrs. Scraggs, who, individuool, cool, calm, and collectively,
+always says, 'Just what I expected, exactly,' and any man that says
+any one or all of the Mrs. Scraggses bound to me by ties of
+matrimony by the Mormon Church, party of the first part, Mrs.
+Scraggs, party of the second part, and E. G. W. Scraggs, party of
+the third, last, and of no consequence whatsomever part--any man, I
+repeat, who says Mrs. Scraggs would lie is no friend of her'n and
+ought to be told so.  But to restrain a nateral indignation at the
+hint of such a charge and to proceed: I want to say that this
+particular twenty-fourth of December I'm talkin' about came out so
+much entirely different from what I expected that I can't seem to
+forget it.
+
+"There's something about Christmas that warms the heart and makes
+the noblest and best of our sentiments to come to the surface for a
+breath of fresh air.  Yes, sir, there is, and they passed it around
+in Peg-leg's place that afternoon so hot, sweet, and plentiful that
+I hadn't been there more'n two hours before my feelin's had rose to
+such a pitch that I went out and bought each' and every Mrs.
+Scraggs a pair of number ten rubber boots, a pound of raisins, and
+an accordion.  The boots was useful; the raisins, of course, stood
+for Christmas cheer; but what in thunder I bought the accordions
+for I never knew afterward.  I'd give a ten-dollar bill this minute
+to know.  It was a tremenjus idee at the time, but that's all I
+recall of it.  I sent the hull shootin'-match around to the house
+by a small boy with a hand sleigh and a card sayin' 'Peace on
+Earth' on top of it.
+
+"After this, havin' done my duty by my fambly, as I saw it at the
+time, I wandered into Mr. George Hewlitt's emporium of chance,
+armed with six iron dollars and a gold collar-button.  They took my
+six dollars away from me as though I wasn't fit to be trusted with
+'em, and then I sprung my collar-button for another stack.  As far
+as I could see, that collar-button was all that stood between me
+and a long, wide, thick, and cold winter.  Hows'mever, there was no
+unmanly tears in the eyes of the support of the noble house of
+Scraggs when he plunked the lot on the corner.
+
+"'Slave,' says I to the dealer in the language I learned shiftin'
+scenes for a week, back in old St. Looey.  'Slave!' says I.  'I've
+stacked my life agin the cast in your eye, and I will stand the
+razzle of your dyestuff.  Shoot!  You're faded!'
+
+"And he was, too.  I caught that turn and about every other in the
+deal; split him in half on the last card, and from that on I ripped
+him up the back and knocked chunks off'n him until everybody got
+interested.
+
+"The game grew too small for both of us.  I had four hundred
+dollars in checks before me, and my original collar-button.  I
+asked him for his limit.  He replied that notwithstandin' the
+enormous and remarkable growth of institutions of learning
+throughout the country and the widespread interest in arithmetic,
+it hadn't been figured out yet.
+
+"'Make good,' says I, tappin' the table with the finger of
+authority.
+
+"'I got you,' says he, and slams his roll upon the table.  'There's
+eight hundred dollars.'
+
+"'Well,' says I, 'I shall descend upon it in two flies, not
+counting odd chips.  Shall we cut?'
+
+"He shoved out a deck.  I cut a four-spot.  It come to me all of a
+sudden how futeel is human endeavors, how fleetin' is man's hopes,
+for we was playin' it high man wins.  And then he cut a
+three-specker, and talked unwisely.  Then he cut a king, and a soft
+smile lighted his face.  I cut an ace.  He looked at it, reached
+up, and took down a sign:
+
+  ACE IS ALWAYS
+  HIGH IN THIS HOUSE.
+
+--a sign he'd made with his own fair hands, and he says to me, 'You
+don't mind if I keep this as a sooveneer of the joyful occasion, do
+you?  You can have the rest of the place, for I move after two
+beats like that.'
+
+"So then the crowd was uproarious, and I treated several times for
+Mrs. Scraggs and several times for myself, divided the money
+square, wrapped her half in a parcel with 'God Bless our Home'
+marked on it and sent it around to her.
+
+"It then occurred to me I weren't dressed according to my
+prosperity.  So I cut the boys and ambled around to Eichenstein's
+to get some clothes.
+
+"Old Eichy clasped his hands with innocent glee.
+
+"'I have got id!' says he, clawing out some black duds.  'You
+remember dat 'biscobal mineesder who beat der sheriff to der drain?
+Dat is der close he orter t' und didn't bay for--dey fid you like a
+finger in der mud.'
+
+"I tried to explain to Eichy that I didn't need no minister
+clothes, but he was shocked at the idea, so I bought 'em and put
+'em on.
+
+"It next occurred to me that with a new soot of clothes and money
+in my pocket I'd orter travel and see a little of the world once
+more, so I gathers the boys and four members of the Dogtown band,
+and we went eight miles to the station in good shape.  It made the
+people look to see us marchin' in.
+
+"'Gimme a ticket,' says I to the station man.
+
+"'Where are you going to?' says he.
+
+"If there's one thing I can't put up with it's impudence from a
+railroad man.
+
+"'What in the hereafter business is that of yours?' says I.  'You
+gimme a ticket, quick, or there'll be a wreckin' train due at this
+spot.'
+
+"'Well, how can I tell what to do?' says he.  'Pay me for the
+ticket, and you get it.'
+
+"'Sir!' says I.  'Do you mean to insinooate that I can't or won't
+pay for a dirty little railroad ticket?  There you are--gimme a
+ticket!'
+
+"I slapped what I had loose on the counter; he counted it careful
+and give me my paste-board, just as the engine come a-hissin' and
+a-roarin' in.  Gee, she did look bully to me!  I hadn't seen a
+train of cars for two years.  We detained 'em no longer than was
+necessary to treat the engineer and the rest of the crew proper in
+the matter of drinks, and I was off, leanin' back comfortable in
+the smoker, puffin' huge and prosperous puffs of real seegar smoke
+into the air, and with the careless thumb of wealth tucked into the
+armpit of my vest.  I reckoned I must have dozed, for bimeby the
+conductor shook me by the arm and says, respectful, 'We're nearin'
+your station, sir.'
+
+"I looked out, and I see down the track the most lonesome inhabited
+spot on the face of this earth.  If houses has ghosts I should say
+that the ghosts of some forty houses that had committed the crime
+of not bein' properly built had collected themselves there--why,
+even the snow around the cussed things looked second-hand.
+
+"I made up my mind on the instant that I'd never really intended to
+go there.  But it was too late now.  I didn't propose to back down
+before that conductor.
+
+"'The names of all these little towns is so much alike,' says I,
+'that I've forgot the name of this one already.'
+
+"'Yes?' says he, raisin' his eyebrows.  Of course, as a matter of
+fact, I hadn't thought to look at my ticket; but having started on
+this line I meant to buck through.
+
+"'Yes,' says I.  'Would you mind giving it to me?'
+
+"'Oggsouash,' says he.
+
+"There was silence for a second.
+
+"'Hog's wash,' says I, musin'.  'Don't seem like I ort to have
+forgot that, does it?'
+
+"'No,' says he; 'it don't.'
+
+"There come a kind of awkward silence again, me thanking the Lord
+that we was almost there.
+
+"'Injun name,' says the conductor.
+
+"'Sure,' says I; 'of course; certainly; I remember now distinctly.
+What saloon do you recommend?'
+
+"'Saloon?' says he, steppin' back.
+
+"'Saloon,' says I, wonderin' where he found the queerness of my
+words.
+
+"'Saloon?' says he.  'Why, man, it's a Prohibition, Presbyterian,
+Vegetarian Colony.  I didn't know what to make of your actions when
+you got aboard, but from your face and clothes I supposed you was
+one of them ministers coming to scare the kids to death for a
+Christmas present.  Ain't you one of 'em?'
+
+"'I'm a sort--sort of connection,' says I with my expirin' breath.
+
+"He looked at me as if he couldn't quite see the connection.
+'Well,' says he, 'here we are, and they're expectin' you, for
+there's a lady waitin' on the platform.'
+
+"'A lady?' says I, risin' from my tomb.  I'd begun to think before
+there was truth in the sayin', 'You can't win at two games on the
+same day,' but when I heard there was a lady waitin' for me--well,
+if there's any man in this here bull-pen can think what I thought,
+let him whisper it in confidence, and I'll make it right with him.
+
+"I never knew how I got off that train of cars.
+
+"Well, I oughtn't to have been scart--it was the littlest,
+thinnest, palest, tremblingest woman you ever saw--why, there
+wasn't a Mrs. Scraggs on the face of the earth that couldn't 'a'
+dandled her in her arms like a baby.
+
+"'Is this the Reverend Silas Hardcrop?' says she.
+
+"'Yes, madam,' says I, thinkin' it best to humor her, even if she
+was small.
+
+"'I wanted to meet you first--I wanted to say--to speak--there's
+something I felt I must tell you,' she says.
+
+"Thinks I: 'No, you don't.  So long's I've got a gun in each hind
+pocket I reckon the men folks and me will get long all right, but
+private conversations with ladies is off the bill-of-fare.'  So I
+says:
+
+"'Y-a-a-s?' in a tone of voice to put out a bonfire.
+
+"'Oh, it doesn't matter,' she said quick and shaky; 'it was silly
+of me.  I only thought----'  Well, she was tremblin' with cold or
+somethin', and kind of near cryin', too--one of them women that
+wears themselves out by botherin' to be good, and if they are good,
+botherin' about what ought to be done next.  In short, as the
+saying is, I forgot my part.
+
+"'Why, you poor little critter,' says I; 'you're near froze to
+death--take a drop of this,' pullin' out a flask of Peg-leg's best.
+
+"'What?' she says, starting back in horror.  'Can that be _whisky_?'
+
+"'Madam!' says I, rememberin', 'how dast you?  That's a
+prescription put up by my favorite physician--a small dose will do
+you a large good.  Try a piece, and we'll go in the station, where
+it's warmer, I hope, and talk it over.'
+
+"She strangled some, but downed a trifle.
+
+"There was a good old lignite fire blazin' away 'n the station.
+
+"'Now that you've been _so_ kind to me,' she says, 'I dare tell you
+what I thought.'
+
+"She had stopped shiverin'--Peg-leg's best knocked shivers quick.
+
+"'I don't want you to think I do not believe in our tenets, because
+I do, I _do_!' says she; 'but it's been such a hard and weary year,
+with no brightness in it, and the old times come to me so, and they
+haven't had anything--really, you know, and it's awful to think of
+Christmas going by without--without--I know it's a Pagan festival,
+and that Christians should pass the day in meditation and fasting,
+but--don't you see?'
+
+"'Certainly,' says I.  'If there ever was a guilty party that
+didn't do it, why, she's not him--you and me agree there, entirely.'
+
+"'I beg your pardon?' says she, lookin' at me with them scart-deer
+eyes of hers.  'I don't quite understand--I'm so stupid.'
+
+"'Yes, that's what's apt to come of vegetables,' says I.  'But tell
+me more about the Pagan festival.'
+
+"I fancy Peg-leg's best couraged her up some.
+
+"'I don't think it's a Pagan festival for children to have fun and
+toys for Christmas.  I don't,' she says, 'I can't.  And to think of
+them sitting there in that cold church for hours to-morrow--ugh!'
+she says.
+
+"Well, dear friends and brothers, I did think of 'em sittin' in
+that cold church.  There was a time when I uset to behave fine for
+a month previous to December twenty-fifth, for the priv'lige of
+seein' Uncle Santy Claus tumble down the chimbley; and I want to
+say right here that all the good times I have seen sence ain't got
+near enough to them good times to catch their dust.  Besides which,
+the merry Christmas in glassified form with which I had encouraged
+myself at Peg-leg's, and the wad of that beautiful sensitive plant,
+the long green, which was reposin' on my heart, says to me:
+'Scraggsy, spring yourself--jump, boy, jump!'
+
+"And furthermore, in the wildest dreams of my youth I had never
+figgered on spendin' a cold and cloudy Christmas in the bosom of a
+Presbyterian, Prohibition, Vegetarian Colony.  It stood to reason
+if I didn't do something to that colony the colony would do a thing
+to Scraggs.  I made up my mind that right here was where I jarred
+Oggsouash to a finish.
+
+"And further still, that poor little deluded, cold-potato-fed woman
+was on my mind.
+
+"'You mean,' says I to her--my eddication in the Mormon Church, and
+what I learned about play-actin' in St. Looey, standin' me in handy
+for manners--'that these here children, the offspring of cold water
+and vegetables, is expected to pass to-morrow in prayer and
+meditation, and be better for it?'
+
+"'Yes, sir!' says she, impressed by my manners.
+
+"'Well, then, madam,' says I, 'if you'll excuse my onprofessional
+language, I'll say that that's a low-down, Scandahoovian outrage.'
+
+"'Now,' says she, eager, 'that's just what I think.'
+
+"'Madam,' says I, bowin', 'I'm enchanted to see such a spirit--I'll
+think kindly of turnips from this day on.  Let us prescribe for
+ourselves once more--the directions say take one every three
+minutes until you feel better.  Besides, you got to help me, and
+you'll need your strength.  My duties demand that I leave here by
+the night freight, but before that----'  And I give her her
+directions.  She jumped up and hustled out, as young as ever she
+was.
+
+"Then I went up to the telegrapher.  'Where can I buy some toys and
+truck, to come out on Number Three?' says I.
+
+"He didn't pay no attention.
+
+"I reached in and took him gently by the hair, drawin' him part way
+through his cubby-hole so's he could hear plain.
+
+"'My young friend,' says I, 'is it any part of your notion that I
+grew up on cabbages?  Does it please your youthful fancy to picture
+me picketed out to grass, and chewin' my cud on a sunny slope?'
+
+"'Ow!' says he.  'Leggo m' hair!'
+
+"'You are now in the hands of E. G. W. Scraggs,' says I, 'an honor
+which I shall give you cause to appreciate if you don't lend me
+your ears to what I say.  Do you think you can hear me now?'
+
+"'Yes, sir.  Oh, yessir, yessir,' says he.
+
+"'Good,' says I.  'Then telegraph to the first place east to send
+one hundred dollars' worth of toys out here on Number Three.
+Here's your money.'
+
+"Well, he picked away, and then we waited.  Bimeby we got the
+foolishest kind of answer: 'What sort of toys?  How much of each?'
+etc.
+
+"'Michael and the Archangels all,' says I, 'how am I supposed to
+know?  Ain't that part of a toy-shop man's business?  Here, young
+man, you tick-tack 'em that I want toys--children's toys--to use up
+one hundred plunks--I want 'em on Number Three--and if they don't
+arrive I will.  I will arrive in their little old toy-shop and play
+with them till they holler for ma.  Tell 'em I never felt more
+impatient in my life than I am this minute, and that I'm getting
+more so per each and every clock tick.  Mention the name of Zeke
+Scraggs, so they won't think it's Mr. Anonymous behavin' frivolous.
+Tell 'em I mean every word of it.  Go on; do it.'
+
+"So he did.
+
+"Then comes a sensible answer: 'Goods go forward by Number Three.'
+
+"'Sure,' says I.  'ill you join me?'
+
+"'I certainly will,' says he, and bimeby he cried because I looked
+so like his father, who was just the same kind of short, thick-set,
+hairy kind of person I was.
+
+"Then my poor little deer-eyed woman come back with a roll of
+cotton-battin'; at the same minute Number Three pulled in.  'You
+get Jimmy, there,' says I to her, 'to help you whack up the
+play-toys, whilst I disguise myself as Santy Claus."
+
+"She stopped and looked at me, then she says in a scart whisper,
+'Are you _really_ the Reverend Silas Hardcrop?'
+
+"'I'm just as near bein' the Reverend Silas Hardcrop as I shall
+ever get,' says I.
+
+"There come a twinkle of somethin' almost like fun in her eye.  'I
+told them.' says she, 'that you would address them at seven, sharp.'
+
+"She and me an Jimmy finished Jimmy's lunch and sat around, whilst
+I told 'em anecdotes concernin' life as it was lived outside the
+bonds of Oggsouash, till quarter to seven rolled around.  Then we
+took the back way to the church.
+
+"I don't think it has ever been my privilege to gaze on one hundred
+and fifty faces all so astonished at one and the same time as when
+I stepped forward to the center of the stage at Oggsouash and
+addressed the meetin', me bein' clad as Santy Claus, in flowin'
+white whiskers, hair to match.  Jimmy's coat that come down almost
+to my waist, a baggage-truck of toys behind me, and a gun in each
+hand.
+
+"'Dearly beloved brethren,' says I, 'I shall try to interest you
+for a few minutes, and I urge and beg and pray of you that if any
+male member of your number here assembled feels in any way nervous
+or fidgety during the course of my remarks that he will conceal it
+with all possible haste and discreshun, because otherwise I ain't
+goin' to have the bill for the consequences in my mail.
+
+[Illustration: "'Dearly beloved brethren,' says I."]
+
+"'How Oggsouash and I come together is neither here nor there,
+although I could find it in my heart to wish it was,' I says.  'But
+now that the worst has happened, let us meet the consequences like
+men--you, like men raised and prostrated by such things as
+cauliflower, sweet potatoes, and hay, washed down by the water
+which flows in all its glistening uselessness among the hop-toads
+and mud-turtles of Oggsouash Creek; and me, like men that pick the
+hindleg of an ox at a sittin' and make the spirits in Peg-leg's
+place go down like the approach of Arctic breezes.
+
+"'To resume,' says I.  'It may be that there ain't a man drifted
+further from what the standards of this here place is than I be,
+but I'm willin' to put my hand to an affydavit statin' it never
+crossed my mind to draft a set of rules as an improvement on the
+Almighty's.  There's where you put it all over me.  I have held up
+a train to hear what the passengers would say, but lackin' the
+advantages that has doubtless been yours, I duck when it comes to
+reformin' Heaven.
+
+"'It struck me with the force of a revelation when I arrived at
+your glowin' mertroppollus this afternoon that to make any human
+bein', particlerly children, forget for a time that they lived in
+Oggsouash was a religious duty.  I have therefore furnished a few
+trifles for the purpose.  I move you, ladies and gentlemen, that we
+turn this Christmas Eve into a Pagan festival.  All in favor of
+this motion will keep their seats--contrary minded will please
+rise,' and I cocked both guns.
+
+"'Carried, unanimous,' says I.  'Now, please let each young person
+come forward as his, her, or its name is called.  I shall be
+severely displeased if you don't.'
+
+"Then I read from the list the lady had furnished me, and the kids
+come up.  The last party on the list was a little gal that had been
+poppin' up an' down like a prairie-dog, fearin' she was goin' to
+git left, and when at last I sings out 'Annabella Angelina
+Hugginswat!' here she come, her eyes snatched wide open by the two
+little pigtails that stuck out behind, walkin' knock-kneed and
+circular, as some little girls does, and stiff er'n a poker in her
+j'ints from scart-to-death and gladness.
+
+"'Angelina,' says I, pickin' up the big doll-baby I'd saved for
+her, 'you must be the fond parient of this child,' says I.  'Raise
+it kindly; teach it that it's been damned since the year of our
+Lord B. C. 7604; feed it vegetables, Angelina, and keep it away
+from strong drink, even if you have to use force.'
+
+"Angelina, she didn't mind my pursyflage, but she just stood there
+quiverin' all over, lookin' at her prize.
+
+"'Ith that my dolly?' she says.
+
+"'That's your sure-enough dolly, little gal,' I says.
+
+"She took hold of it--her little arms was stiff as railroad ties
+and her hands was cold.
+
+"She looked at me again and whispered: "'Ith that my dolly,
+_really_, _truly_, mithter?'
+
+"She looked so darned funny standin' there that I grabbed her right
+up and kissed her.
+
+"'If anybody tries to take that dolly away from you, you let _me_
+know--skip!' says I, and down the aisle she runs hollerin': 'Oh,
+papa, papa!  Thee my dolly!'  Seems she didn't have no mother, poor
+little thing.
+
+"Well, sir, old human nature is human nature, after all--elsewise
+it would be a darned funny state of affairs--but anyhow, that
+little gal's holler did something to my friends, the Oggsouashers.
+I don't think I overstep the mark when I say some of 'em smiled a
+kindly smile.
+
+"'But I didn't have no time to study it.  If I missed my freight I
+stayed in Oggsouash over night, so, reasonin' thus, the tall form
+of E. G. W. Scraggs might 'a' been seen proceedin' toward the
+railroad track at the rate of seventeen statute miles per hour.
+Just as I hooked on to the caboose comes a feller pastin' after me.
+
+"'Say!' he whoops.  'Say! We want to thank you!'
+
+"'Turn it in to the kids,' says I.  'Good-night, Oggsouash,
+good-night,' I says, 'Partin' is such sweet sorrow that I could say
+good-night as long as my wind held out.'
+
+"Well, sir, it was nigh three in the mornin' when I hit Castle
+Scraggs agin, after the coldest walk to be found anywhere outdoors;
+but when Mrs. Scraggs come to the door--and it was one of the
+blackest-eyed and snappiest of the race--and she says, 'Zeke
+Scraggs!  Where you been?'  I just fell into her arms.
+
+"'Bear with me, Susan, or Mary Ann, or whatever your name is,' says
+I, 'for I've had a ter'ble time.'
+
+"'You behave yourself, you old idiot, or I'll do you personal
+harm,' says she.
+
+"'Thank you, thank you for them sweet words, spoke by somebody
+_alive_, anyhow,' says I.  'And this much more, Mrs. Scraggs,' says
+I, 'before we part.  If ever you hear me complain of anythin'
+concernin' you ladies just you say "Oggsouash" to me and hold your
+hand, so, to indicate an empty glass.
+
+"'Good-night, Susanna--Merry Christmas,' says I.  'On my word of
+honor, there has been one moment of my life when I was glad to see
+you.'
+
+"And I left her standin' there, with the candle in her hand,
+paralyzed.
+
+"And I can conclood, as I suggested in the beginning, that I had
+not foresaw one item of these occurrences when I risked that
+collar-button."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE SIEGE OF THE DRUG STORE
+
+"Once upon a time, when I was scarcely married at all, you might
+say," began Mr. Scraggs, "I quit workin' for a livin' and started a
+scientific school."
+
+"_You_ did?" cried Red, after one astonished second vanished in the
+past.
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Mr. Scraggs, "I did.  _It_ was for the
+investigation and pursuit of this, here doctrine of chances.  The
+idee was to put a little box full of playin'-cards on the table,
+and draw them forth one at a time, to see just how they'd fall.
+Some of the students got that interested they bet on the results."
+
+"Oh!" said Charley, "I took a course in that one winter myself.
+Did you always draw _one_ card at a time out'n that box, Zeke?"
+
+"So help me, Bob!  I did," returned Mr. Scraggs most earnestly.
+"Hence I didn't get rich.  It sometimes happened that a Wild Wolf
+from Up the Creek would breeze in, full of rum, plumb foolishness,
+and money.  Oh, man!  High or low, red or black, odd or even,
+coppered or open, on the corner or let her rip, last turn and in
+the middle, from soda-card to hock, them brier-whiskered
+sons-of-guns would whipsaw my poor little bank till there wasn't
+much left of her but sawdust.  Yes, sir," mourned Mr. Scraggs, "I
+made enough out of the early birds to eat, but them Roarin' Bears
+from Bruindale uset sometimes to apply the flat of their hands to
+my seat of learning till the sparks flew out of my eyes.  In short,
+this sportin' life was too much up and down hill for me.  No sooner
+would I git ready to declare a dividend than one of my outside
+customers would come in and take that dividend and wipe both feet
+on it, roll on it, stomp it, fly ten foot in the air and come down
+on it, bite chunks out of it, and then I'd light a match, gather
+the crumbs from the floor, and wisht I could git holt of something
+at once easy and reliable.
+
+"Well, there was a friend of mine lived at the Transcontinental
+Hotel.  The partition between his room and mine didn't come clear
+to the ceiling, so when I arrived home late I uset to heave a boot
+over on top of him and have a chin.  He was a nice feller, Hadds.
+A pale, thin sort of man, very red-headed--that is to say, not
+red-headed like some parties I have known, but a sort of bashful
+red, that would ha' been different if it could; and he wore eight
+large freckles on his face.  There would have been more if there
+had been more room.  Hadds was then workin' for the railroad
+company, but not happy.  He was in the dispatcher's office, and I'd
+hear him holler in his nightmares, 'There they go!  Bang!
+Everybody killed!  I always expected it!'
+
+"You see, he lived in fear of running two excursion trains
+together.  Nervous cuss--oh, awful!  Not without reason, neither.
+Seems when he was at college he studied chemistry.   Always
+experimentin'.   Mixed two things that was born to live apart.
+Hadds left simooltaniously with that corner of the buildin'.  He
+didn't stop till he reached the Transcontinental Hotel.
+
+"Hadds worked at me to start a drug store with him.  He'd saved
+some out of his wages, and he knew I had a fluctuatin' roll.  He
+says, 'You're goin' bust some day, young man--why don't you quit
+it?  You come with me and we'll make a decent thing.  It's mighty
+lucky for the gang that they swill patent medicines instead of
+lettin' that Jones up the street give' em a quick finish over the
+prescription counter.  That pill-wrangler couldn't tell the
+difference between an auger-hole riffle-board and a porous plaster
+if there wasn't a label on the box.  Jeeminnetticus!' says Hadds,
+'when he mixes coffin varnish for a man you'd think he was
+scramblin' eggs.  Come on, Washy,' he says, 'while you got the
+price.  You'd like the business.'
+
+"One night it happened Bitter Water Simpson was borne on the wings
+of evening to my place of business, and he calculated that the last
+two cards in the box would come out, queen first, trey next.  He
+was so sure he inquired about the theory of limits.
+
+"'The limit,' says I, 'is the clothes and contents, body and
+immortal soul of E. G. W. Scraggs.  You slam your wad down and I'll
+cash it.'
+
+"It had occurred to me there was no use foolin' longer.  If I
+busted this gun-fighter I went into the drug business; if he busted
+me I'd take a walk.
+
+"He laid down one thousand dollars' worth of Government promises,
+and I took a long breath, drew forth, first trey, next queen,
+removed his money from the table with a light, sure touch, threw
+the layout in the stove, blew out the lamp, remarked that the bank
+was closed, and stood prepared to deal in chemicals instead of
+playin'-cards.
+
+"Simpson was surprised.  'Ain't I goin' to get satisfaction?' says
+he.
+
+"'If it's to be had on the prescription counter you do,' says I.
+'Otherwise, I prefer to stay satisfied myself.'
+
+"It would have been better if he'd refrained from abusing me.  I
+was younger then, and while not in the least quarrelsome, yet such
+talk as Simpson talked to me was entirely uncalled for.  Besides
+that, he got festive with guns.  I relieved him of his guns and sat
+him on the stove till he promised to behave.  Nobody ever heard me
+kick when them fellers nailed me to the burnin' oak for anywhere's
+up to five hundred a night.  Howsomever, it wound up amiable; I
+staked Simmy to a new pair of pants, and kept him in spendin' money
+till ridin' again appeared among the possibilities.  I never could
+get used to people pullin' guns on me.
+
+"So, then, there was a drug store goin' in no time.  Both me and
+Hadds was happy as could be, and workin' like a pair of mules.
+When we had things fixed, and a sign 'Hadds & Scraggs' in gold
+letters four foot high, I felt I really was a prominent citizen.
+But dear friends and brothers, always there's somebody handy with a
+fly to stick in your ointment.  Once I went down street to see how
+that sign looked a little ways off, and up rides a puncher.
+
+"'Hadds & Scraggs!' says he: 'I wonder what kind of merchandise
+them is?  Well, I must take a Hadds and a Scraggs home to show the
+boys.'
+
+"He knocked every bit of poetry out of that sign.  Howsomever,
+poetry ain't the chief business of a drug store, and when you come
+to the practical side we done mighty well.  We got in a line of
+patent medicines with pretty red and blue labels that took the
+popular taste.  As there was a minin' boom over the hill, our line
+of gold pans and gunpowder went well.  A new seeder brought in some
+money, and with rubber boots, snowshoes, baseballs, carpenters'
+tools, spectacles, lumber, and an agency for a self-binder as side
+issues, I see myself getting on in the world.
+
+"'Tweren't long before nobody'd think of buyin' a faro layout or a
+deck of cards elsewhere than at our store, and as for perfumed soap
+and perfumery, why, I think our feller-citizens must have et the
+one and drunk the other, for we unloaded by the box and pailful.
+When we'd count the kitty nights, 'Didn't I tell you?' Hadds would
+holler.  'Put your feet in my tracks and you'll wear diamonds!'
+
+"And I guess I would if it hadn't been for a lady.  There's a woman
+in it, nine times out of ten, when a man's ruined; and the other
+time there's a man in it.  If neither one nor t'other's in it it's
+a durned uninterestin' occurrence, anyhow.  Yes, sir; we come under
+the double-cross kindness of a female major.
+
+"One night--Sufferin' Ichabod! but that was a night.'--we were
+jerried to a standstill in one half-hour, or thirty minutes, by the
+clock.
+
+"Things was slack this evening nobody in the store but Hadds, Keno
+Jim and me, throwin' poker dice for cigars, when the door opens and
+here come Major Pumpey and his wife from the army post.  We were
+not glad to see the Major.  He was a little, pussy, red-faced,
+pop-eyed man, pompous as a banty rooster, with black whiskers and a
+mustache like a cat.  He had a voice on him like barrels rolling in
+a brewery vault.  It would surprise you quite a little to hear that
+number ten voice come a-roarin' out of that number two man.  The
+Major used to corral everything he wanted and say, 'Charge it!' two
+octaves below a bull's beller, Bein' a military person, he was fond
+of charges; me and Hadds, bein' plain civilians, weren't.  We
+charged it and we charged it, but that there Major's defenses were
+impregnerville.  I had told Hadds that the next time Pumpey said
+'Charge it' I was goin' to take him at his word, then and there,
+and rush him along on his ear till I felt better.  But, of course,
+now his wife was along I couldn't.
+
+"She was just as different from the Major as anything could be: a
+tall, pale, rangey woman, kind-hearted and good-natured as they
+make 'em, but with a pair of nose-grabber specks, and a way of
+letting her hands flop at the wrist, whilest she talked in a high
+gobbley-gobble style, like singin' a tuneless tune.  They made a
+pair to draw to.  The Lord only knows what you'd got if you filled.
+My!  And the general effect of that lady!  She wore her hair in an
+omelet, and looked as if she'd been put in her clothes by a boiler
+explosion.
+
+"There was another powerful difference between them two.  The Major
+he gazed on the wine when it was any color at all.  He didn't care
+so much for decoration as he did for quantity.  He passed his time
+in bein' tee'd, tee-heed, or teeterin'.  On the other hand, his
+lady couldn't stand plain raw water.  Honest, friends and brothers!
+I ain't stringin'!  I have it on the word of their striker that
+Mrs. Pumpey couldn't be induced to take a drink of water unless it
+was boiled, and as for spirited liquors--Oh, murder!  Don't mention
+it!
+
+"As the Major entered I observed upon his person a kind of
+uprightness that no sober man ever had, varied with quick little
+steps sideways, for no good visible reason, and when he comes up to
+the counter he grabs it with both hands and says, 'How do--gla'
+meecher--hot, ain't it?'
+
+"I admitted it was hot, told him I was glad to meet him, too, and
+as this last wasn't no more than a plain lie I asked the lady quick
+what we could do for her.
+
+"Perfumery was wanted, so I passed the bottles out.  Mrs. Major
+would take a lady-like sniff and say, 'Dee-lee-shus!  Ha-oow do
+eeyou lieek that, Ma-JAW?'
+
+"And when de major laid his hands on the right one of the numerous
+bottles floatin' in the atmosphere about him he'd hold it a yard
+off, give a snort like a buzz-saw striking a knot, and after a
+minute's silence roar, 'Ain't that nice, b-y-y-y GOSH!' and slam
+the bottle down.
+
+"It was tryin' on the nerves.  First place, the way he come out
+with that 'b-y-y-y Gosh!' hit you in the pit of the stomach like
+standin' alongside a bass-drum, and it was only a question of time
+when he slammed one of them bottles through the show case.  So I
+flagged Hadds for help, and the two of us plied the lady with
+perfumery so fast that the Major couldn't get his oar in, at which
+he cut loose for himself, wanderin' around behind the counter,
+smellin' of every bottle on the shelves.
+
+"It ain't everything in a drug store has as pleasant a greetin' for
+your nose as perfumery, and once or twice, when I looked around, to
+kind of keep cases on him, I see the Major had struck a shock.  But
+at last he come across a sample that pleased him.  I saw him swig a
+good lungful of it, and his mouth opened wide with delight.
+
+"'Well, I guess you'll be amused for a while,' thinks I.  So I paid
+no more attention.
+
+"The next thing Hadds looks up.  'Here!' he yells; 'drop that!
+That's chloroform, you bull-head!'
+
+"The call come too late--leastways, to work as intended.  The Major
+dropped the bottle, but he also dropped himself, two shelves, and
+about six dozen glass jars of everything you ever heard of.  Powers
+of darkness!  Flat on his back laid the hero of many charges,
+whilest over his manly form and face trickled cough mixture, Canady
+balsam, liniment, sugar syrup, castor oil, and more sticky, oily,
+messy kinds of stuff than I'll ever tell you.  The worst of it was
+that a bottle of carmine had landed last in the wreck and, bustin',
+flew over everything.  As there wasn't a dry spot for a rod it
+looked like the Major had done a turn of bleedin' at every vein
+same as the young man we used to read about at school.  In fact it
+was much worse than that.  It appeared to be the most awful tragedy
+any one man ever was concerned in.
+
+"Before we got our wits about us poor Mrs. Pumpey see her Major
+afloat on a gory sea, and without askin' for explanations she give
+a loud holler and fainted on our stock of fancy dishes.
+
+"'Here's where we make a lot of money, I don't think,' screeches
+Hadds--he was an excitable person, that Hadds.  'Come!' he hollers,
+'help me get 'em out of here!  There's enough chloroform loose to
+sleep the bunch of us!'
+
+"We lugged the Major and his wife to the back of the store.  I made
+a piller for her out'n some rolls of wall-paper, but the Major had
+to get along as best he could.  There he lay, his little round
+stummick stickin' in the air, breathin' like a wind-broken horse.
+
+"Keno Jim and me looked after the lady whilest Hadds pranced around
+the Major and cussed scientific cuss-words.  Of course, Keno and me
+didn't know no more what to do than a photograft of the Wild Man of
+Borneo when there was a fain tin' woman in the question.  As I
+said, I hadn't been married enough to learn, and the present line
+of Mrs. Scraggses was healthy, whatever other faults they might
+have.  Hadds 'ud come over and tell us half of something, and then
+rush back to the Major, tearin' his hair.
+
+"'Blast it, Hadds!' says Keno, 'quit callin' the man names and let
+us know what to do for this woman.'
+
+"'Give her a drink of whisky!' yells Hadds.  'Come here, Zeke, and
+see what ails this beggar now!'
+
+"If he hadn't called me off like that lots of things wouldn't
+happened.  'Look at him!' says Hadds, and grinds his teeth.  'Forty
+dollars' worth of stuff smashed--charge it, of course.  Prob'ly
+he's goin' to die on our hands--'twould be just like his unmerciful
+nerve.  Pass me that bottle of ammonia, Zeke.'
+
+"Then Keno hollered for me.  He'd pried the Majoress' mouth open,
+stuck a cork in to it keep it so, and then fed her the revivifier.
+She wasn't a handsome woman at the best, but with that cork in her
+mouth----!
+
+"'I gave her to there of whisky,' says Keno, indicatin' about four
+Swede fingers on a water tumbler.  'Do you think that'll bring her
+to ?'
+
+"'Like a bear trap,' says I.  'Do you mean to say you sluiced that
+much raw jump-and-holler into a woman that can't stand uncooked
+water?  Well, you are an allotropic modification of the genus
+jackass, like Hadds says of the Major.'
+
+"Keno got purple in the face.  He slammed the glass down and walked
+out.  'Now you can look after your own women,' says he, bitter.
+Them scientific cuss-words cut him to the heart.
+
+"I looked at the lady.  The color was coming back to her face.
+Evidently she'd be around in a minute or two.  Then Hadds fairly
+whoops at me:
+
+"'Come here!  Come 'here!  You're a nice pardner, you are, standin'
+there with your hands in your pockets!'
+
+"'Well, what'll I do, Hadds?' says I.
+
+"'Do?  I don't care what you do, so long's you don't look so
+aggravatin' useless.  D'yer think this specimen of an officer and
+gentleman appears to be--what in blazes is he doin' now?'
+
+"'Don't abuse the poor cuss,' says I.  'He really couldn't help
+it.'  Then I had an inspiration.  Several times in my life I've
+been afflicted that way.  'See here,' says I, 'he took his dose
+through the nose.  Why don't you give him the remedy the same way?
+Try a pinch of that Scotch snuff.'
+
+"'Why, sure!' says Hadds.  He'd tried anythin' at that stage of the
+game.
+
+"Well, dear friends and brothers, it ain't down in the
+farmer-coop-here, nor no other agriculcheral reports, and I dunno
+as you could bank on it in every case, but from what I see on this
+occasion, if you ever happen to have a friend or relative that's
+over-indulged in choreform and can't seem to recall himself, wait
+till he takes a deep breath, and mix about an ounce of Scotch snuff
+in his air supply.  It may work wonders.
+
+"'Hoor-rash-o!' says the Major, comin' to a sittin' position.
+'Hoor-rash-o!' says he again, and then he went off like a pack of
+firecrackers.  A sneeze wouldn't more'n get fairly started before
+another'd explode in the middle of it.  And the Major was as
+powerful a sneezer as he was talker.  Gee! them bass sneezes of his
+sounded like a freight-engine exhaust.  Mind you, he didn't open
+his eyes; just sat there, covered with carmine and soothin' syrup,
+rockin' backward and forrard and sneezin' like George Washington.
+There was somethin' kind of horrible about it.  Me 'n' Hadds looked
+on petrified.
+
+"Then, 'Oh, my poor husband!  What are they doin' to you?' says a
+v'ice behind us, and the Majoress skipped across the floor and fell
+on the Major.  That's the word for it; she let go all holts an'
+dropped, gatherin' him up in her arms.
+
+"'What did you say, Willie?' she asks.
+
+"'Hoor-rash-o!' says the Major.  'A-kissh-uuu!  ha-ha-hrrrum-pah!
+A-ketcheer!  Aketcher-hisssh-hoor-rash-o!'
+
+"Now, Hadds, when he see the lady weepin' that way, was all broke
+up.  He didn't know about Keno's goblet full of whiskey, so he
+thought it was genuine emotion.
+
+"'Don't cry, ma'am,' says he.  ''Twill be all right in a minute.
+That red's nothin' but carmine and simple syrup--it'll all come out
+in the wash, and sneezin's good for the man.'
+
+"The Mayoress she rose and looked at Hadds.  There was a glare in
+her eye more'n human.  I read in a book once about the tremenjous
+dignity of the lady the trouble was all about.  It didn't seem
+reasonable any female person could act that way till I see the
+Majoress.  She had dignity enough for two maiden ladies at a
+niece's weddin' and a nigger head-waiter.  The way she laid holt of
+Hadds' collar was impressive a great deal more than I'm able to
+tell you.  Poor Hadds was faded.  He looked like a pup caught with
+a chicken in his mouth.  They made a grand march to the general
+goods counter, the Majoress still resemblin' a foreign queen.
+Arrived there, she took up a hairbrush, and with a motion the
+grandest I ever see in a human bein' she brought it down atop of
+Hadds' head.  Whacko!--Christmas, what a crack.
+
+"'_Now_, will you let my Willie alone?' says she.
+
+"Hadds jumped up and down and rubbed his head.
+
+"'What ails you?' says he, near cryin'.
+
+"'Hadds!' I remonstrated to him, 'remember you're speakin' to a
+lady.'
+
+"'Lady!' yells Hadds.  'Lady!  Look at the lump on my head!'
+
+"It was at this unfortunate minute a young feller see fit to come
+into the store to buy some matches.  He stopped a minute, as he
+took a general view.  There was the Major, apparently bleedin'
+profusely, yet not carin' a great deal, seemin' more concerned in
+rockin' bac'ard and forrard and sneezin'.  His manner seemed to
+say, 'So long as you don't interfere with the innocent pleasures of
+a sneeze I don't care what breaks.'  There was Hadds rubbin' his
+head: there was me with my mouth open; and there was the Majoress,
+leanin' over the counter and smilin' a dark, mysterious smile.
+
+"The customer didn't know what to do.
+
+"'Well?' says the Majoress, sharp and businesslike.
+
+"The young feller jumped.
+
+"'I beg your pardon,' says he.  'I'd like a box of matches.'
+
+"The Majoress shook her head.
+
+"'People don't always get what they like in this world,' says she.
+
+"'No,' says the young feller.  'No, ma'am.' And then come an
+awkward silence.
+
+"The Majoress still shook her head.
+
+"'This is a sad world,' she says.
+
+"'Yes, ma'am,' says the young feller, edgin' for the door.
+
+"'But you can have the matches,' says she.
+
+"With that she hit him square between the eyes with a ten-cent box.
+The young feller drew himself up proud.
+
+"'I don't come in here to get insulted,' says he.
+
+"The Majoress resumed her mysterious smile.
+
+"'Why not?' says she.
+
+"The young feller opened his mouth twice, but nothin' to suit the
+occasion seemed to occur to him.  He wheeled and tried to walk off
+dignified, but the matches snappin' under his feet spoiled the
+effect.
+
+"'By-by!' says the Majoress; 'come again!'
+
+"She grabbed a tray of mouth-organs and heaved it after him; they
+scattered like a shrapnel shell.  The young feller didn't wait to
+close the door.  We heard him gallopin' up the board walk like he
+was needin' fresh air.  We stood stock still for a matter of five
+seconds, I reckon; Hadds and me scart to move, and the Majoress
+with her brow wrinkled in thought.  All of a suddent, with no more
+warnin' than a streak of lightnin', she burst out cryin'.  'Oh, oh,
+oh!' says she, 'how I have been deceived in men!'  Then to relieve
+her feelin's she got to work with both hands.
+
+"There was a genuine Sand-hill cloudburst of hair-brushes and
+combs, porous plasters, tooth-powder, tooth-brushes, pomade, soap,
+Jew's-harps, playin'-cards and the old Boy knows what all.  It
+struck me then what a waste of time it was for a citizen to get
+loaded and tear the linin' out of a saloon; the place where you can
+really get the worth of your time and money is a drug store.  Hadds
+and me made one desp'rate plunge for her through the terrific fire
+she kept up.  I don't suppose that lady could hit a barn with a
+rock, unless she was inside of it, under ordinary conditions; but
+I'll bet she didn't miss one out of a possible ten that night.  She
+caught me under the eye with a mouth-organ, on top of the head with
+a jar of tooth-powder, whilest smaller articles flew off'n me in
+all directions.
+
+"Hadds took holt of her hands and talked implorin'.
+
+"'Please, ma'am!' says he, 'please?  Don't throw things around like
+that!  Remember they cost money!  We can't sell tooth-brushes after
+you've strewed the floor with 'em!  I ask you please!  Please!'
+
+"'Villain!' says she haughtily.  'How dast you put your evil hands
+on me?'
+
+"'Hadds,' says I, 'leggo the lady.  We pass.  Let us retire behind
+the prescription counter and bear up like men.  There's only one
+thing on earth that E. G. W. Scraggs is willin' to admit has him
+trimmed to a peak, and you see that same before you now.  'Twas
+ever thus since childhood's hour, when my maiden Aunt Susan took
+the raisin' of me.  Take any form thou wilt but this, and my firm
+nerve ain't goin' to tremble; but stacked again this form, my nerve
+is floppin' like a hotel wash in a hurricane.'
+
+"So I slung Hadds over my shoulder and we went behind the
+prescription counter.
+
+"I tried to distract his mind by tellin' him a funny story.
+However, the rip-split-smash outside kind of jumbled three yarns
+into one.  Besides, Hadds was foamin' so it was all I could do to
+keep him from goin' over and kickin' the Major, who still was
+oblivious to surroundings, and enwrapped in the gentle art of
+sneezin'.  Then there come a fearful bump from outside.  I knew by
+that a showcase was no more.
+
+"'Zeke!' yells Hadds, 'think of somethin' before that woman has us
+all in.'
+
+"'Haddsy, old horse,' I says, 'we've only got one show.  If we can
+create a diversion we win.  My head's that rumpled, the only thing
+strikes me is for us to go out there and play cat-fight.  Holler,
+and meaowl, and spit, and screech, and jump around till she can't
+help but look at us.  That's the way I uset to amuse the twins when
+they needed killin'; of course we'll look like a pair of fools----'
+
+"'Yes!' hollers Hadds.  'What do we look like now?  You get three
+guesses!'
+
+"'Come along!' says I.
+
+"Well, dear friends and brothers, our hearts was in that diversion,
+let alone the stake we'd invested in the store.  If you don't think
+one bald-headed E. G. W. Scraggs and one red-headed Tommy Hadds put
+up a high-grade article of cat-fight I don't know how I'm goin' to
+prove to the contrary; but it was so.
+
+[Illustration: "Put up a high-grade article of cat-fight."]
+
+"Why, we buck-jumped four foot in the air, sideways, edgeways and
+straight pitch-and-teeter; we mi-auwed, and scratched, and tore and
+rolled over, and kicked with our hind legs, and such yells was
+never heard in a human habitation before nor since.
+
+"It worked.  The Mayoress stopped and leaned over the counter.
+
+"'Warm it up, Hadds!' I whispers.  'We got her lookin'!'
+
+"So then we rollicked for a ramps.  I see the Majoress smile; she
+p'inted her finger toward us.
+
+"'S-sick 'em!' says she.  'Sick 'em, Towser!'
+
+"It would have been all right; we was playin' on velvet, and could
+have led that woman out of the store as easy as anything if that
+concussed Major hadn't 'a' come to in the wrong place.
+
+"I caught one glimpse of him holdin' tight with both hands to a
+shelf, with his eyes jumpin' out of his head and his face as white
+as flour.
+
+"Of course no man would really believe that the spectacle of two
+grown men playin' cat-fight in the ruins of a drug store, whilest
+his own wife looked on and said 'Sick 'em!' was anything but an
+optickle delusion, caused by reasons he was familiar with.
+
+"'It's never come like this before!' hollers the Major, and then he
+goes down backward for the final touch, carryin' away a kerosene
+lamp, and the same landin' in a barrel of varnish.
+
+"Well, sir, what with the stuff that was loose around there and the
+varnish, my coat tails was afire when I lugged the Major out to
+where Hadds was industriously savin' the Mayoress' life.
+
+"The two hose companies got out in good shape, but a most
+unforchinit dispute over who was to claim first water on the fire
+led 'em to use axes and spanner wrenches and sections of hose on
+each other whilst our drug store burned green and purple and pink,
+neglected.  Inside of ten minutes eight firemen was ready for the
+hospital; a good citizen took the Major and Majoress in for the
+night, and all that was left of our promisin' business enterprise
+was a small heap of wood ashes and a very bad smell.
+
+"'Well,' says I, 'shake, Hadds; it's all over.'
+
+"He grabbed my hand, weepin'.
+
+"'No, it ain't, Scraggsy, Old Man Rocks,' says he.  'You stood by
+me noble, and I'll do the same by you.'  He fumbled in his pocket.
+'I've saved a complete equipment from the wreck,' says he, and with
+that he hauls out a couple of decks of cards and a box of poker
+chips.  'All is lost save honor, Zeke," says he, 'but I reckon we
+can raise a dollar or two on that.'
+
+"I was so moved in my feelin's I could only shake his manly hand.
+
+"When I could speak, says I, 'We'll rise like a couple of them
+Fenian birds from the ashes, pard.'
+
+"And hope springin' eternal once more in our chests, we took a
+little drink at Jimmy's place and went to bed happy."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE MOURNFUL NUMBER
+
+"It's a great misfortune to be superstishyous," said Mr. Scraggs.
+"Such a thing would never have troubled me if I hadn't a-learnt
+from experience that facts carried out the idee.  Now, you take
+that number thirteen.  There's reason for believin' it's unlucky.
+One reason is, when things is all walkin' backwards folks says
+they're at sixes and sevens.  Well, six and seven makes thirteen,
+so there you are."
+
+"I ain't much more than arrived," replied Red, rubbing his head
+dubiously.
+
+"I'm comin' fast," said Charley; "but don't wait for me, Zeke."
+
+"Well, that's only speculation, anyhow," continued Mr. Scraggs
+indulgently; "and speculation has made heaps of trouble for piles
+of people if I'm to believe what I read, which I don't.  But here's
+cold facts.  I was born on the thirteenth of April, at a time when
+me and the country was both younger than we are now.  Hadn't been
+for that I'd dodged considerable mishaps.  It was on the thirteenth
+of October last, in the early mornin', that I mistook that
+rattlesnake for a chunk of wood and heaved him in the stove."
+
+"Well, where's the bad luck in that?" asked Charley.
+
+"Inquire of the snake," said Mr. Scraggs; "besides, he smelt awful.
+I don't seem to be able to bring back any mornin' I cared less for
+breakfast than that one.  Suppose you was a happy rattlesnake,
+Charley, with a large and promisin' fambly; suppose, now, on a
+frosty thirteenth of October you crawled under the cook-stove to
+get warm the minute the camp cook opened the door, and, before you
+limbered up enough to bite him, cooky lays cold and unfeelin' hands
+upon you and Jams you into the stove--ain't the number thirteen
+goin' to carry unpleasant recollections for you from that on?  Bet
+your life.  Howsomever, these are only small details.  My main
+proof that the number thirteen ain't any better than it orter be
+lies in the fact that one day I married the thirteenth in Mrs.
+Scraggs.  If I'd never'd hearn of such a thing I'd know'd thirteen
+was no good from that time on.  This ain't to cast reflections on
+the other Mrs. Scraggses, neither.  I will say for them wimmen that
+anything simple-heartedness could do to prepare a man to meet his
+end cheerful they done.  But Mehitabel the Thirteenth, of the
+reignin' family of Scraggs, was a genius.  Uncle Peter Paisley uset
+to say that a genius was a person that could take a cork and a
+dryness of the throat, and with them simple ingrejents construct a
+case of jim-jams.  More than one-quarter of the time Uncle Pete
+knew what he was talkin' about, too, and the rest of it he was too
+happy to care.  Mehitabel was a sure-enough genius: she could make
+a domestic difficulty out of a shoestring, she could draw a fambly
+jar through a hole in a sock, and she could bring on civil war over
+the question of whether there was anything to quar'l about,
+
+"Come Christmastime, I thought I'd leave home for a spell.  There
+was an old friend of mine holdin' down a mine out in the hills.  I
+knew he wouldn't have no company around, and I pined for solitude.
+There is a time in the affairs of men, as Shakespeare says, when a
+pair of cold feet beats any hands in the deck.  Keno Jim said
+Shakespeare said so, and Shakespeare's too dead to argue.
+
+"'So I puts on a pair of them long, slidin' snowshoes they call
+'skees' and slips for William Pemberton and the lonesome mountains.
+People don't call a thing 'skee' unless they hev good reason for
+it.  Before I caught the hang of them durn disconnected bob-sleds I
+saw where the 'skee' come in.  The feller that loaned 'em to me
+kindly explained that you slid down the hills on 'em, and it was
+great sport.  When I clumb the first hill and stood perspirin' on
+top I felt entitled to a little sport.  'Hooray!' says I, and
+pushed loose.  It was a long, wide, high hill with trees and things
+on it.  Some time after I started, say about three seconds, I
+thought I'd like to slack a bit and view the scenery.  The way I
+was travelin' the scenery looked like the spokes of a flywheel.  I
+left my stummick and my immortal soul about ten rods behind me.
+You could play checkers on my coat-tail, as the sayin' is.  Man!
+And I pushed up a hurricane.  It cut my eyes so I cried icicles a
+foot long.  _Roar-row-roor-s-s-wish_! we went in the open, and
+_me-a-arrr_! we ripped through the timber.  I crossed a downed log
+unexpected and flew thirty foot in the air.  Whilst aloft I see a
+creek dead ahead of me.  There wasn't nothin' to do but jump when I
+come to it, so I jumped.  I don't care a cuss whether you believe
+me or not, dear friends and brothers, but I want to tell you right
+now that I cleared the creek with something like one hundred and
+eighty feet to spare!  At which I took to throwin' summersaults.  I
+threw one solid quarter-mile of summersaults before that suddent
+cravin' was satisfied.
+
+"'Y-a-as,' says I when I picked myself up.  'Well, I reckon I've
+done enough of this here skeedaddlin' for one mornin'.  So after
+that I went along quiet and dignified to William Pemberton's.
+
+"I hit his cabin on Christmas Eve, findin' him very low-spirited.
+It seems that he was expectin' an attack from some people anxious
+to jump the claims, thereby gettin' the mill standin' on the
+property.  The feller that hired Billy as watchman promised him
+everything and forgot it.  Billy was almighty faithful but
+hot-tempered'
+
+"'Think of it!' says he to me.  'I gets word two days ago that the
+gang is comin' to hop me, and old man Davis ain't even sent me a
+rifle, like he agreed.  What does he expect?  Does he have
+illusions that when they come squirtin' lead at me I'm goin' to peg
+at 'em with snowballs?'
+
+"Then he laid back, fightin' for breath, and kickin' out with his
+legs till I loosened his collar.  It was a terrible strain, bein'
+watchman of a mill under them conditions, with a disposition like
+this.  I pitched in to make him feel better.  After I'd narrated
+some incidents that went to make up livin' with Mrs. Scraggs he
+chirped up considerable.  'Well, sir!  This _is_ a gay world, ain't
+it?' says he.  'I wisht I could offer you something to drown your
+sorrers in, Zeke, but unless you happen to have brought along the
+makings of a flowing bowl we can't put an end to 'em at this ranch.'
+
+"Well, now, that was sorrerful tidin's.  I reckon William took
+notice of my face--Christmas Eve, alone on top of a God-forsaken
+mountain and not a smell of anything to make the sun rise in our
+souls--oh, murder!
+
+"'I feel awful bad about this, Zeke,' says he.
+
+"'Don't mention it,' says I as soon's I could tune my pipes to a
+cheerful lie.  'Your presence is sufficient.'
+
+"'But I have an idee,' says he, pushing his finger agin my ribs.
+'Don't git excited, Zeke, only to be cast down the harder, but
+there's a chance.  All last summer we had stockholders'
+investigation meetings, and the way old man Davis led 'em to make
+investigations through a glass darkly was a sin and a scandal.  The
+altytood was too altytoodinous for strangers, says old man Davis,
+and therefore they must take a drink; and it was too cold and too
+hot, too wet and too dry, and if everything else failed it was too
+cussed mejium for them to live through it without takin' a drink.
+The consequence was that all I remember about a stockholder is that
+he's a kind of man with wibbly-wabbly knees and feet that wants to
+swap sides, who spends his time hiccupin' up and down the mine
+trails, findin' specimens when and where old man Davis wills.'
+
+"William Pemberton smote his forehead with the flat of his
+hand--everything took hold of William _so_ vi'lent.  'I give you my
+word, Zeke,' says he, 'that them horse-car busters picked hunks of
+red serpentine, loaded with gold from the Texas Star, out of our
+white quartz ledges that never see gold since Adam played tag, and
+believed it was all right--just the same as the gent pulls a rabbit
+out of your hat at the show, and you're convinced that rabbit was
+there all the time unbeknownst to you.  And to think--' he says.
+
+"'Sit down, William, sit down,' says I.  'I don't know what to do
+for appleplexy.'
+
+"'Well, I'll sit down to oblige you, Zeke; but to think of them
+flappy-footed yawps puttin' away good liquor by the
+pailful--pailful?' yells William scornful.
+'Barrelful--steam-enjine b'ilerful--
+
+"'Well,' says I hastily, 'you was sayin' you had an idee?'
+
+"'Oh, yes!' says he.  'It don't stand in reason they rounded up
+every last bottle, so it occurred to me that if we hunted we might
+make discoveries.'
+
+"'Why, so we could!' I hollers loud and hearty, with more notion of
+creatin' a diversion, however, than any rank faith in my havin' a
+good time off what old man Davis overlooked.  'It'll be like
+hide-and-go-seek of a Christmas Eve when we was kids, William.'
+
+"So we scrimmaged round here and there till there was only one
+closet in the cabin left.
+
+"'I saved it till the last--it's the most likely,' says William.
+'Shine a light on our departing hopes, Ezekiel.'
+
+"He put his hand very careful toward the back.  'E. G. W., says
+he,' 'my fingers have teched something cold and smooth, just like a
+bottle--pull hard, Ezekiel.'
+
+"I took a long breath and pulled hard.
+
+"'It _is_ round,' says William Pemberton.  'It _is_ a bottle.'
+
+"Nothin' could be heard but the beatin' of our hearts.
+
+"'Is it--is it--_heavy_, William?' I falters.  Then you couldn't
+hear nothin', for our hearts had cease to beat.  He let loose of a
+roar same as a lion that's skipped atop of his prey.
+
+'Ezekiel G. W. Scraggs!' he shrieks, 'she's full!'
+
+"'I wish no better luck myself,' says I.  'Trot her out!'
+
+"When the light of the lantern fell upon that bottle we got a
+shock.  Instead of the cheerin' color that usually fills useful
+bottles, the contents of this here one was green--green as grass
+off a June hillside.
+
+"'Well!' says William, 'what in--where in--why, it's perfumery!' he
+hollers, and raises it for a smash.
+
+"'Hold, William!  Hold!' says I.  'It's got red sealin'-wax on the
+top.  If you break it before we take a sample you and me is the
+best of friends parted in the middle, not to mention the
+disturbance we'll make in this room.'
+
+"So I took it away from him and looked at it in the candle-light.
+Sure enough, there was the inspirin' words on it, 'Liqueur--Creme
+de Menthe.'  A furreign way of spellin' liquor, to be sure, but
+what's a letter or two out of the way, so long as the results is in
+sight?
+
+"'William,' says I, 'L-i-q, lick, u-e-u-r, er--licker.  Get
+glasses, William, and let us be joyful.'
+
+"William mumbled somethin' about green not bein' a joyful color,
+but he went and did as I told him.
+
+"That stuff smelt of perpemint, fearful.  It was a young ladies'
+bevridge if ever I hit one.  We sot opposite each other, filled a
+tumbler apiece, says, 'Here's how,' and waited.  We waited quite
+some time.
+
+"'Ezekiel, do you notice anythin'?' says William.  Well, to tell
+the truth, I hadn't; yet it might only been fancy, so I says,
+'Seems to me I _do_, William--nothin' vi'lent, nor musical, nor
+humorous--but a kind of a tranquil, preliminary,
+what-you-might-call-indication of somethin' to follow.'
+
+"'Huh,' says William, 'let's try another.
+
+"We was careful to load to the brim this time.  After five minutes
+I says, 'Are you sure you don't notice nothin,' William?'  I
+observed a risin' color in his face.
+
+"'U-m-m--y-a-as,' says he most sarcastical; 'I notice somethin',
+Ezekiel--a strong smell of peppermint--not escaped you, perhaps?
+Well, there's just one more swig of green paint goin' to force
+itself into the midst of William Pemberton, and if there ain't more
+to show for it than the present odor and a sensation 'sif I'd been
+turned inside out and exposed to the wintry blasts you'll hear from
+me, Ezekiel.  I've stood,' says William, 'about all I'm prepared to
+stand.  The next act will be for me to proceed to get a move on.'
+
+"Knowin' what a powerful disposition he had I most sincerely hoped
+our next glass would bring about satisfactory conclusions.  I
+downed her, but it had got to be all I could do, I felt a freezin'
+cold in my vitals, like William had complained of, instead of the
+warmth and comfort for which I looked.  Y-a-as, I swallered that
+glass by main strength, like a snake would a hop-toad--kinder
+lengthened myself until I was outside of it.
+
+"'Tick-tick-tick,' remarks William's clock on the wall.  When it
+had arranged its hands before its mild countenance in such a way as
+to inform me that twenty minutes, mountain time, had done all the
+elapsin' possible, I slid my anxious gaze on William.  He held to
+his chair with both hands, and white spots showed in his cheeks,
+the way he chawed his teeth together.
+
+"'Ahem,' says I, clearin' my throat, 'Hum--ah, do you--er--do you
+no--'
+
+"I got no farther.  William leant over and bent his finger double
+agin my chest.  'Full well,' says he in a tone of v'ice not loud
+but so loaded with meanin' it bumped on his teeth--'full well,
+Ezekiel George Washington Scraggs, do I assimerlate what the
+results of such a course will be, but if you should persume to ast
+me any more if I notice anything I shall at once arise and bat you
+in the eye--I am beyond carin' for conserquences.'
+
+"'Now, now, now!  What is the use of gettin' so excited?  Take a
+drink of water--you'll bust your b'iler, foamin' like that,' I says.
+
+"'Water!' says William.  'Ha, ha, ha.'  It wasn't no giggle, that
+laugh of his.  It was one of them blood-curdlers you read about.
+
+"'All right," says he, brisk, 'to oblige you--remember that.'  He
+turned the dipper upside down, then heaved it through the window.
+'Sufferin' Ike'' says he, "I can't even taste it--nothin' but cold,
+cold.  Went down my gullet like a buckshot down a ten-foot shaft.'
+He struggled for air and continued; 'Here am I,' says he, 'William
+Pemberton, celebratin' Christmas by dyeing my linin' green and
+smellin' like a recess in a country school.' His ventilation give
+out again, whilest he worked his face into knots and flew his hands
+around.  'You come along with me,' says he, 'and I'll show you a
+Christmas celebration.'
+
+"I grabbed him.  'William,' I says, 'your eye is desperate.  You
+explain to me before you scuff a foot.'
+
+"'Leggo me,' he says; 'I tell you, leggo me, Zeke Scraggs.  I'm
+goin' to have my revenge.  I'm goin' to take ten cases of giant
+powder and blow the mill of Honorable John Lawson Davis, Member of
+Congress, Champion Double-Jointed, Ground-and-Lofty,
+Collar-and-Elbow, Skin and Liar, so high in the air that folks'll
+think there's a new comet, predictin' war and trouble.'
+
+"'William,' I says 'you ain't goin' to do no such thing--that's
+wicked, that is.'  I tried to speak stern, but this here Christmas
+hadn't amounted to much so far, and I never had seen a stamp mill
+blew up, so I couldn't help wonderin' how it would look.
+
+"'See here!' says he, 'I'll admit many a time you've licked me in a
+friendly way, Ezekiel, and I'm obliged to you; but, now, be you, or
+ben't you, my guest?'
+
+"'I be,' says I.
+
+"'Then don't let's hear no more out of you,' he says, 'but come
+along.'
+
+"'The powder'll be friz,' I hints, still tryin' to switch him off.
+
+"'Not much,' he says.  'She's down a cellar twenty foot deep--come
+on.'
+
+"'Just as you say, William,' I remarks--the only thing to do.
+
+"So we toted ten cases of giant to the bottom of the mill, fixed
+the cap and fuse careful, touched her off, and walked away from
+there.
+
+"Whilest I wouldn't have you think for a minute, dear friends and
+brothers, that I uphold any conduct like that, for my part I'm
+willin' to admit there's things less exhileratin' than standin' on
+a small rise, of a clear, fine, moonlight winter night, waitin' to
+see a fifty-stamp mill go off,
+
+"And she went.  Let me repeat it: she went.  We first ketched a
+smack on the soles of our feet, and then that mill flew to a fiery
+finish.  Jeehoopidderammity!  It was simply gorgeous.
+
+"We didn't have time to take it all in, howsomever, for after the
+first blast a big, black thing sailed over our heads with the
+fearfullest screech that ever scart a man to death.
+
+"'Zeke,' says William, hangin' on to my neck, 'did I hear
+somethin', or is it that cussed green ink workin'?'
+
+"'I thought I observed a sound,' says I; 'and whatever it was lit
+yonder.  Let's go see.
+
+"William hadn't intended to go and see at all.  In fact, I dragged
+him by the hair and belt the hull distance--not that I was exactly
+afraid, but nothin' is so lonesome when you have company.
+
+"There was a hole in a snowbank where whatever it was went in.  I
+started to paw down, but William was for bunchin' it.
+
+"'I tell you, let it be and hump yourself out'n here,' says he.
+'It's after me because I blew up the mill; it's the devil, that's
+what it is.'
+
+"'Is it?' says I.  'Well, let's have a look at him.  My veins is
+full of cream de menthy, and I'll knock his horns off'n him if he
+gives me any lip.'
+
+"Just then the snowbank heaved up.  It wasn't no devil--that is,
+not exactly.  It was a lady.  I'd a bet on it if I'd had time to
+think.  I might have known there was no place on top of this
+footstool where E. G. W. Scraggs could rest his weary feet without
+some female happenin' in the same spot at the same time.  I should
+have took William's advice, but it was now too late.
+
+"We stood around kinder awk'ard, with her brushin' snow from
+herself, till I says, 'Well, good-evenin', ma'am.'
+
+"First off she says good-evenin', too, out of surprise.  Then she
+begun to talk altogether different.  She described William and me
+by sections, goin' into particulars, and nobuddy'd loaned us money
+on her recommend.  I was used to this at home, so I spoke up nice
+and silent in our defense.  There ain't quite so much noise when
+only one is talkin.'
+
+"Finally, when her breath give out, William says very humble,
+'Would you mind informin' us, ma'am, how you come to be in these
+parts just now?'
+
+"She explained fully that, in answer to an advertisement in the
+paper, she was slidin' over to Squaw Creek.  The advertisement
+called for a wife for a farmer, to be forty years old, or
+thereabouts, able to cook, plow, do washing and light blacksmith's
+work, and to have a capital of five hundred dollars to invest in
+the concern.
+
+"'An' now,' says she, beginning to weep, 'I'd camped in that mill,
+an' I was only for steppin' out to git a bit of a stick to cook me
+soopper, an' I was on me way back, when a-r-rur-BOOMP!  it ses, an'
+where's the five hoondred dollars that I left there, I dunno?
+Agghh woosha-woosha the day, ye divils, ye!  An' me hoopled t'rough
+the air like a ol' hat--bad cess to yer ugly faces!  The cuss o'
+Crom'll lie heavy on ye for mistreatin' a poor, lone widdy woman!'
+
+"'Well, ma'am,' says I, 'I wouldn't take the loss of the money to
+heart.  When the gentleman sees your face he won't care.'  Usually,
+you can kinder edge around the rough places with that game of talk.
+But it didn't go here.
+
+"'Aggh, g'wan, ye bald-headed ol' pepper-mint lozenger!' she
+hollers.  'D'ye s'pose I niwer see a lookin'-glass?   Where's the
+man'll marry me widout me money?  "Me face is me forchune, sor,"
+sez she.  "Tek it to the gravel bank an' have it cashed, then," sez
+he.  Where's the man that'll have me, face an' all, lackin' the
+coin?  Woora, woora, answer me that!'
+
+"Well, as usual, it was up to me.  There wasn't no escapin' it.  A
+man might just as well meet his fate smilin' as trailin' his lip on
+the ground, for my experiences teaches, dear friends and brothers,
+that Fate just naturally don't care a wooden-legged tinker's dam.
+
+"'Madam,' says I, removin' my hat and bowin', 'the honorable name
+of Scraggs is at your disposal.'
+
+"'Eh?' says she.  'What's that you're sayin'?'
+
+"'I repeat, plainly and sadly, ma'am, that one-fourteenth of my
+heart and hands is at your disposal.'
+
+"'Heh?' says she again.  'An' what's the one-foorteeneth mane?'
+
+"'I have now,' I replies, 'thirteen wives--'Before I could get
+another word out she was ra'rin.'
+
+"'Oh!' she yells, 'ye villyan!  Ye long-legged blaggard!  Ye
+hairless ol' scoundrel of the world!  How dast ye?'  She begun
+lookin' around for a club, so I talked fast.
+
+"'It's my religion, ma'am,' says I.  'I'm a Mormon by profession,
+mixed with accident.  Think a minute before you do somethin'
+that'll cause general regret.'
+
+"'Well,' she says, calmin' down, 'is there e'er an Oirish leddy in
+the lot?'
+
+"'Not one, up till this joyful present,' I answers.  'I don't
+rightly know what country they hail from, but I can truthfully add
+that I'm not thinkin' of takin' up homestead rights there.'
+
+"'Aggh, g'long wid yer jokin',' says she, as kittenish as anything.
+'Yer only foolin', ye are.' "'Ma'am,' says I, 'if you say the word
+I shall at once proceed to get my fiery, untamed skees and go
+gallopin' over the mountains to make you the fourteenth Mrs.
+Scraggs with all speed and celery possible.  You have only to speak
+to turn this dreadful uncertainty into a horrible fact.  I pay for
+what I break; that's me, Jo Bush.'
+
+"'Well, ain't this suddent!' she says.  'But I'll not stop ye from
+yer intentions--men is that set in their ways!  Run along, now,
+loike a good choild!'
+
+"'Well, good-by, William!' I says when we started, 'You see how it
+is yourself!"
+
+"He cried on my coat collar.  I honest believe that grass-juice had
+a jump or two in it, so darned insijous a man wouldn't notice.
+
+"'To think it was me brought this on,' he hollers.  'Me an' my
+revengeful nature!  You try to forgive me, Ezekiel.  And we
+everlastingly did wind up that mill, anyhow!'
+
+"'William,' says I, 'take no heed.  No man is above what happens to
+him, unless like he'd been atop of the mill when she dispersed.  I
+forgive you--good-by.'"
+
+Mr. Scraggs puffed his pipe thoughtfully.  "Thirteen," he
+ruminated, and shook his head.  "Tell me not them mournful numbers."
+
+"But," interrupted Charley, "I don't see as you was any worse off
+than before?"
+
+"Me?" replied Mr. Scraggs in surprise.  "Me?  No, _I_ wasn't any
+worse off.  But, as I said before, inquire of the snake.
+
+"Mrs. Mehitabel Thirteenth Scraggs opened up on me a few mornings
+after that, and my latest acquisition instantly laid hold of her by
+the hair of her head and beat her with a fryin'-pan till Number
+Thirteen had to take to her feet and stay that way for a week.
+
+"'You _will_ talk to my ol' man like that, will _you_?' says
+Bridget.  'Well, mind you this, now!  If he nades batin' _I'll_
+bate him, but fur anny skimpy, yaller critter like yerself to so
+much as give him a sassy look I'll construe as a mortial offense.
+Run along, now, run along, and git him his breakfas', or I'll
+strangle ye with me foot!'
+
+[Illustration: "You _will_ talk to my ol' man like that, will
+_you_?"]
+
+"No," said Mr. Scraggs, sadly.  "I wasn't no worse off.  If so it
+hadn't 'a' been Bridget took a drop too much at the drug-store one
+night, and another drop too much over the edge of the canon on the
+way home, I reckon I'd had some good out of life.  But it wasn't to
+be, it wasn't to be.  Drowned in the bud by the inflooence of that
+cussed unlucky number, thirteen."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+MR. SCRAGGS INTERVENES
+
+"There was a man," said Mr. Scraggs, "who said, 'Deliver me from my
+friends.'  Now, I ain't goin' so far as to say I indorse that
+statement, nor I ain't standin' still so strong as to say I don't.
+But I know this: An enemy will do something for you every time,
+whilest most friends won't, and, moreover, I ain't ever had any
+enemy who furnished me with as much light entertainment as my
+friend Pete.
+
+"I am speakin' from this here point of view.  The real joyousness
+of life consists of being busy.  We won't take no vote on the
+subjeck; we'll just admit it.  Hence an enemy, that is an enemy,
+when you be in good health and able for to look after the enemy
+part from your side, is a great source of innercent amusement.  A
+man gets so durn practical, he don't take no interest in all the
+pleasant rocks and bushes strewed over the country by the
+beneficent hand of Providence.  He shacks along on his little old
+cayuse, with his mind occupied on how many things he can't do next,
+and he gits plumb disgusted.  But suppose there's a chance of an
+able-bodied enemy, aided and abetted with a gun, a-hidin' behind
+each and every one of them rocks and bushes?  Don't life take on an
+interest?  I bet you money!  The imaginations of that man's mind
+gets started up.  Life becomes full of chances.  The man, he's
+interested in his life because the other feller wants to take it
+away from him.  A good enemy in a lonesome country means more to
+that man than her best friend's widower means to a maiden aunt.
+You bet.
+
+"Red and me differs there, I know, but his idees gets sifted
+through that crop of red alfalfa he wears, whilest I present a
+clean proposition to any idee that comes boundin' o'er the lee, or
+to wind'ard, or any direction she chooses to bound.  Yessir; when I
+begin to feel that life ain't worth livin' give me an enemy or a
+friend like Pete Douglass.
+
+"It ain't for me to poke no fun at Pete's looks.  There's a place
+where a humarious turn of mind orter stop.  Pete's looks was too
+serious for any man to get comic about.  It appeared as if his
+features had been blowed on to his face by a gale of wind; his
+whiskers had a horrified expression, like they'd made their escape
+if they hadn't been fastened on, and he was double-jointed in every
+point of the compass.  When he stood up straight he give you more
+the impression of sittin' down then a man sick a-bed could.  I
+dunno how it come, but everything old Pete looked like, seemed
+precisely the reverse.
+
+"The way I got acquainted with Pete was when he put his hard coin
+agin a French tin-horn's race-track game.  There was little horses
+running around a board, and you put your money where you thought it
+would win, but you never thought right, because the Dago had a
+stick under the table that pulled them races to suit his fancy.
+
+"It stood to reason that taking money off'n a man who'd play such a
+game was inhumanity in the first degree, so when Pete's last dollar
+departed I entered that horse-race with a gun, just as I had no
+business to, and I says to the tin-horn, 'Look-a-here, you put that
+money across the board, or I'll play a tune on you,' and so he
+shouldn't think I was interferin' out of an idle curiosity, I
+pointed the weapon at him.
+
+"'O-rrr righ'!' says he; 'Tooty-sweet.'  I lost a good deal of
+patience on the spot.  You see, it seemed like he was tryin' to be
+entertaining.  I say, by way of an amoosin' remark, that I'm goin'
+to play a tune on that tin-horn, and he gayly tells me to toot
+sweet!  Well, I don't want to harrow your feelin's.  Anyway, Pete
+got his money and Frenchy returned to the land where his style of
+remarks was more appreciated, a little later.
+
+"So Pete, he grasps my hand with tears in his eyes and considerable
+blood on his nose, where I'd accidently hit him with the Dago, and
+he says I'm his friend forever, and he'll show me what friendship
+really means.  That's why I'm inclined to say that for rest and
+recreation I'll take an enemy.  Whether our friend and brother, Mr.
+Douglass, was the luckiest or unluckiest man on earth, I've never
+been able to figger out.  He personally explored the bottom of
+every old prospeck hole in the country.  He was romantic by
+disposition, Pete was, and loved to go for walks at night.  If he
+didn't turn up for breakfast I took down the coil of rope and
+proceeded until I found the right hole, because you could bet as
+safe that he was at the bottom of one of 'em as you could that the
+bottom itself was there.
+
+"When I asked him, 'How come you to do it, Pete?' he allus
+answered, 'I dunno; I got to thinkin' about somethin'.'  If
+anything valooable had occurred to Pete, whilest he was in one of
+them thinking spells, he'd have been one of these here geniuses.
+
+"When a saw mill sent a slab sailin', or bust a belt, Pete was at
+the center of the disturbed districk.  He fell off every foot log
+in ten miles; why, he was drowned fourteen times in three weeks!
+
+"The bar we was workin' had a tunnel about a hundred foot long.
+Follerin' the pay streak made us turn at right angles, so it was
+dark back there.  One day Mr. Pete was pushin' the car whilest I
+got dinner and his candle burned out.  He takes a stick of giant
+powder, puts cap and fuse on it, lights it careful, jabs it in a
+frame for a candle, and trots for outdoors with the car--never
+knowin' anything onusual had took place.  Just as I slapped the
+last flapjack and straightened up to yell, 'Come and get it!' here
+come Pete and the car like magic right acrosst the creek, followed
+by the most dust I ever see in my life.
+
+"I watched him end-over-ending as he come, and I couldn't get near
+enough to the happenings to even wonder why.
+
+"He landed on top of a quakin' asp and the car rolled over the
+dinner.
+
+"I ain't declarin' that I was perfectly reasonable; I was
+surprised.  When I was young and soople I've done twenty-odd foot
+in a running jump, but to see a man jump two hundred foot and carry
+a hand-car along with him was a branch of sport new to me, and
+perticler when done by a man like Pete.
+
+"'Why,' says I, as I climb the tree and helped him down, 'however
+did you come to do it?'
+
+"'I dunno, Zeke,' says he, 'honest to Gosh'--Pete never used a
+cuss-word--'honest to Gosh,' says he; 'I dunno.  The last I
+remember was thinkin' why this here law of gravitation couldn't be
+made to work as a man wanted it, when "bump" says somethin' behind
+me, and I went right along, as you see.  I tried to figger it out,
+comin', but turning handsprings made me dizzy.'
+
+"These are points to show life as lived by my friend Pete Douglass.
+His autogeography would be plumb full of happenin's.  At first
+sight, lookin' careless, you'd say, 'Why, here's the most
+unforchinit cuss I ever heard about,' but on a sober thought, to a
+man accustomed to havin' sober thoughts, it seemed as if there was
+luck in the bank, to pull through such performances and live to
+tell the tale.
+
+"I mentioned this idee to Pete.
+
+"'Why'' says he, 'I should holler horray every time I'm most
+killed,' he says.  'Is that what you mean?'
+
+"'Look-a-here,' says I, 'I'm able to mean all I'm capable of
+meanin' without any outside help.  I mean you're the great human
+paradox--less human and more paradox then I've seen advertised at a
+circus--and whilest you're perpetual dodging one horn or t'other of
+a dilemma, any friend of yours is getting bunked square between the
+two.  If anything 'ud keep a man from being selfish, you would,'
+says I.  'D----d if I ain't spent two-thirds of my time and drawed
+some on the last, fishin' you out of messes.  Now,' I says to him,
+'why don't you get married and settle up?'
+
+"Dear friends and brothers, that was just a piece of pursyflage.  I
+know women better than any man I ever met that I felt knew less.
+I've seen wimmen so foolish I wouldn't believe anything more
+foolish could exist, if it hadn't a-been I'd seen still more
+foolish wimmen with these same eyes.  But a woman who'd marry Pete
+was beyond my expectations.  It took a lady with a turble
+brain-power and a deliberate intention to arrive at that state of
+mind; so when Pete says to me, 'That's just what I be goin' to do,
+Zeke,' he had me swallowing my breath.
+
+"I gathered my fadin' strength and gained perticlers.
+
+"Seems there was a lady 'bout thirty or forty years older than she
+oncet had been, who did plain washin' for the Royal Soverign Prince
+boys.  The R. S. P. mine was run rather irregular.  The boys took
+the clean-ups for wages, and the owner took the proceeds from stock
+he sold as dividends.  I may mention there was less in clean-ups
+than there was in stock, so the future Mrs. P. Douglass was buckin'
+fate in the shape of a brace game.  They was an awful nice set of
+boys, the Royal Soverign Princes, but when you divide thirty
+dollars and fifty cents amongst fifteen men for a month's wages,
+the washer-lady can't expect city prices.
+
+"Pete had gained a holt on this lady's affections by falling into
+the flume and allowin' himself to be piped over the waste-gate.
+She took care of him for three weeks, at the end of which time Pete
+arose, renewed, refreshed, and more full of determined uselessness
+than ever.  Any woman will love any man that bothers her enough.  A
+man's idee of romance is to do what he wants to, or to be
+comfortable; a woman's idee of romance is to feel that she's
+obliged to do what she really wants to do, under such circumstances
+as will allow her to call it a great sackerfice, or to be made
+uncomfortable, which is her real notion of comfort.  You have only
+to look at a woman's housekeepin' to reelize the restfulness she
+finds in keepin' things disturbed all the time.  I have looked upon
+the housekeepin' of enough Mrs. Scraggses to be able to speak with
+the v'ice of experience, if not the v'ice of wisdom.
+
+"So Mrs. Maggy Watson, the lady of which I heretofore speak, become
+unamored of Pete during the time he was such a pesky nuisance
+around the place, an' when he writ her, later, that he thought
+they'd orter form a close corporation an' issue the holy bonds of
+matrimony, why, she writ him straight back again that the scheme
+had been in her mind for some time, and she'd 'a' mentioned it to
+him only it seemed like meddlin' in his personal affairs.
+
+"First off, it seems a-kind of unjustitude that a man like me
+should have a load of Mrs. Scraggses forced on him, whilest a man
+like Pete gets the kindest and obliginest sort of woman; but after
+all, I was able to take care of myself, and that bunch of wild
+cats, too, for a while, and Pete certainly needed a lady with a
+good disposition.  You'll allus find, on investigatin' things, that
+they ain't a mite worse than you thought they was.  Mighty often it
+is the horny-handed foot of misfortune that kicks a man into the
+green pastures of prosperity--the only question is: kin he eat
+grass?
+
+"So it come about with Pete, all along the line.  He'd gone and got
+married so ordinary it wouldn't attracted nobuddy's attention, only
+he was so overjoyed to find that I took sides with him that he
+sasshayed gayly forth for firewood and cut himself in the small of
+the back with the ax.  Don't ask me how he done it, It's the only
+case on record.  Pete was thinkin' of somethin' at the time, and
+could only remember a sudden pain in the back.  So Pete was laid on
+the bed of sufferin' oncet more, him bein' so uset to it he took it
+without a holler, only this time he thought it was prutty serious.
+
+"'Zeke,' says he, 'I've come to the cash-up so frequent I dunno
+just what's about to happen, but if it should be I was goin' to die
+for fair this time, I want Maggy to git my money, and I want you to
+take it to her.'
+
+"'All right, Pete, I will,' says I.
+
+"'Shack along, then,' says he.
+
+"Pete mixed me some.  'I ain't goin' to leave you like this,' I
+says.
+
+"'Yes, you be, too,' he says, sassy as thunder.  'The only time I
+kin git what I want is when I'm sick a-bed.  I ain't goin' to rest
+happy nor do nothin'--not eat nor drink--till I know that woman has
+the chink.  I can't say I've made a great job of livin', but I'm
+goin' to die like a house a-fire, if so the play comes that way,'
+he says.  'You put a little grub and water nigh me, and I'll just
+figger on being a full-sized man for oncet; you don't understand
+what a power of good it does me to think about it,' says he.
+
+"Well, he had me to a standstill.  It was cussed to leave a hurt
+man all alone, but I could easy appreciate the way he felt.  If a
+man can't take no pride in himself the hull blamed business comes
+down to shovelin' dirt for nothin'.
+
+"'Pete, I'll do it,' I says, and I shook hands with him.
+
+"'Now, see that!' says he.  'That's the first time you've ever
+treated me like an ekal, Zeke; and I can tell you I don't like to
+be pitied no more'n any other man.  God knows there wouldn't 'a'
+been a perter monkey in the bunch, if so it hadn't come I was
+scart, or thinkin' of somethin' else, when a hot-box arrived.  The
+good Lord took the trouble to make me, and it seems kind of
+onjustifiable for me to prove He plumb wasted His time.  You tell
+Maggy I done it for her.  I ain't hidin' my light under a bushel,
+because I need it to see by.  Ouch!' says he.  'This racket hurts!'
+
+"I reckon it did.  I sewed him up with a piece of deer-sinew and a
+darning-needle.  Never was a great hand at tailorin', nohow, and
+Pete's hide was that tough I mostly had to pound the needle through
+with a chunk of wood.
+
+"Well, I fixed him comfortable as I could, and prepared to start.
+
+"'Zeke,' says he, 'don't'--he kinder swallered hard--'don't be no
+longer'n you kin help,' says he.  There come a tear in his eye.
+'An' take my respects to Maggy,' says he.
+
+"'Shaw, Pete!' says I.  'Now, don't you go borrowin' no
+trouble--that's so easy to git without collaterial, it ain't worth
+the time.  I'll be back imejate.'  I patted him on the shoulder and
+he squeezed my hand hard.
+
+"'No man could be a better pardner than you be, Zeke,' says he.  'I
+ain't a mite afraid of nothin' when that bald head of your'n is in
+sight, an' you understand a feller--it's a tough play for a rooster
+that don't come by sand natural.'
+
+"'You got plenty of sand, Pete,' says I, 'all the trouble is, you
+let it git choked in your hoppers.  By-by.'  And away I went,
+slopin' fast, with Pete's forty-eight dollars down in my jeans.
+
+"I was so took up with his affairs I didn't watch out careful, and
+that ain't wise in a hard-luck country.  All of a suddent I hears a
+v'ice say, 'Puttee hands light uppee!'  Sounds like I'd struck a
+day nursery, but that ain't so, for just before I hears them words
+there popped out from behind a rock a Chinaman--not, by no means,
+one of these here little Charlie-boys that does your wash and gives
+you a ticket with picters of strange insecks painted on it, but a
+whoopin', smashin' old Tartar pirate, seven foot by three, with
+mustaches like two tails of a small hoss, and cheekbones you could
+hang your hat on.  More'n that, he was armed and equipped with two
+hoss-pistols as required by circumstances.
+
+"That tired feelin' come over me, and I stretched; yessir, the
+hands of E. G. W. Scraggs went up toward the sky.
+
+"My yaller friend next requested me to produce.  Well, now, that
+was Pete's money.  I'd 'a' took a chance at v'ilent physicule
+exercises, but I see the time had come to talk.
+
+"'My Christian friend and brother,' says I, 'before we converse
+upon the root of all evil, let me put you on to the fact that my
+name is E. G. W. Scraggs.'
+
+"'Ah!' says he, backin' up, 'Sclaggsee!'
+
+"'Sclaggsee!' I hollers, and we near met on the spot.  'Don't you
+say that agin!'
+
+"'Ah!' says he.
+
+"I noticed his guns was wobblin'.
+
+"'Ah!' says I.  'You're darned right.  Now, I'll make you this
+proposition.  I got forty-eight dollars in my pocket that don't
+belong to me.  If we let things slide by as if they had not
+happened I'll give you two dollars for the use of that money until
+Tuesday next--pay you fifty dollars next Tuesday, at Jimmy Holt's
+place--get me?'
+
+"'Gettee money now,' says he, cunnin'.
+
+"'_P'raps_,' says I, 'but you won't be in condition to spend it for
+some time.'  He rolled his eye off'n me, and at that instant Mary
+Ann, the faithfullest gun that ever stood between me and a
+gentleman whose intentions weren't good, appeared upon the scene.
+
+"'Don'tee shootee, Sclaggsee!' he screeches.
+
+"'You call me "Sclaggsee" oncet more, and I won't leave nothin' of
+you but a rim,' says I.  'As for the other proposition, it
+goes--Tuesday next.  Jimmy Holt's place, I put you in hand fifty
+dollars, you cock-eyed, yaller, mispronouncin' blasphemy on a
+heathen idol!  Although I ain't been near enough to a cherry tree
+to cut one down, the word of Ezekiel George Washington Scraggs is
+as good as the Father of his Country,' says I.  'He beat me at that
+last game, but I can stick to my sayin' like a porous plaster.  You
+get the money; I will lie for the fun of the thing, but not for no
+dirty fifty dollars,' says I.  'You goin' toward town?'
+
+"'Yes,' says he.
+
+"'Well, git your plug, and we'll amble along together.'
+
+"So we rode in, right cheerful, instead of quar'lin'.  I made him
+come along to Maggy's cabin, to show it weren't a bluff about the
+money.
+
+[Illustration: "So we rode in, right cheerful."]
+
+"Poor Maggy, she wipes her eye on her apron, and says she'll start
+for our camp at oncet.
+
+"I called the Chinaman aside, confidential.  "'You take care of
+lady!' I shrieks at him.  'Lady--you take care!'  I dunno why it is
+you think if you holler loud enough you can make a man understand
+anything, but it's a fact.
+
+"My chink bobs his head.  'Take clare laly,' he says.
+
+"'Yaas!' says I.  'I rustley monnellee!'
+
+"He bobs his head again.
+
+"'Lusselleemonellee!' he answers, kind of vacant.
+
+"I sot down.  'Twas clear he didn't have no idee of my
+conversation.  So we went over it for two hours, me drawin' maps
+and wigglin' my fingers, and makin' faces to illustrate a man with
+an ax-cut in the small of his back, and a lone widder-woman takin'
+care of him, till at last, by bringin' hands, face, and feet all
+into the game, with a small hunk of kerfoozled English language
+here and there, a light broke on his heathen soul.  He near bobbed
+his head off.
+
+"'Me makee all lightee for Sclaggsee, you bettee, hellee dammee!'
+says he.
+
+"He was that earnest I overlooked the name.  'Good,' says I.  'Now,
+Charlie, you cut wood, haul water, and keep things goin' out there
+and your fifty is waitin' for you on Tuesday.'
+
+"Maggy did a crow-hop when she found she had to travel with the
+chink, but I told her it was O.K., so she got aboard an Injin pony
+and off they goes to Pete.
+
+"Well, dear friends and brothers, I sincerely hope you've never had
+to raise fifty dollars in a busted camp.  The boys done the best
+they could, but a can of corn had to stand for fifty cents, and a
+pair of pants that would take Tartar Charlie somewheres about the
+knees drew a credit of two-fifty.  Four iron knives and a busted
+coffee-pot stood for a case, and a pair of scissors with one blade
+broke half off, and a mouth-organ that only sounded in spots, was
+equal to two iron dollars.  I got eighteen fifty in cash and the
+balance was junk.
+
+"'Well,' says I, 'he's no better'n a road-agent, and I can't help
+it, nohow.'
+
+"For all that, I sot in Jim Holt's place of a Tuesday afternoon
+feelin' low-spirited when I looked at the heap, when who comes
+sailin' in at the door but Tartar Charlie, wearin' a grin that took
+two turns and a half around his face.
+
+"'Laly comee!' says he.  'Petee comee!'
+
+"'On what?' says I, ashamed to show surprise to a yaller Chinaman.
+
+"'Joss man fetchee!' says he.
+
+"'Certainly!' says I.  'That's what he ought to do; don't get
+excited.'  I did my wonderin' about the joss man in private.  'Sit
+down, Charlie.'
+
+"So Charlie, he sot down and watched me rifflin' the cards.
+
+"'Playee poker?' says he.
+
+"'As a relaxiation, Charles,' says I.  'Poker is a business for
+gentlemen of means--gottee nomonee!'
+
+"'Me stakee you,' says he.  'Likee poker.'
+
+"So Jim and some of the other boys come over, and Charlie and me
+begun to draw cards.  After we dubbed through a few deals, gettin'
+on to each other's play, I see Charlie stow away a pair of aces.
+Now, ordinarly, I'd complained, but, under the circumstances, it
+didn't appear to me to be the decent thing to do, so I motioned to
+Jim, and he slid me a pack with the same sort of backs.
+
+"After that you never in all your borned days see such hands on a
+poker table.  Why, a king-full wasn't worth raisin' back on.  A set
+of fours was the least a man could have confidence in, and only if
+it was on his own deal, at that.
+
+"Howsomever, havin' a hull pack at my disposal, whilest Charlie
+could only use his hold-outs, I worked him down to tin cans of
+vegetables, the busted coffee-pot, and the pants.
+
+"He, bein' as game as any white man, jack-potted the lot.  It was
+just draw cards and show down for the money.  Darned if he didn't
+get the best of me.'  How I come to pick out the queen of diamonds
+to match a straight club flush is one of them things that won't be
+revealed till Judgment Day.  There wasn't nobuddy more surprised
+than me.  This brought us down to even Stevens, and I felt
+irritated, so I come back at him with one play for the bunch.  He
+agreed, and I dealt him four aces, pat.  I was going to draw to
+fill my straight color.  I snaked out the three I had on my knee,
+and was just goin' to insert 'em where they'd do the most good,
+when Pete's v'ice says: 'Well, Zeke!'
+
+"It was a joyful v'ice, but I knowed he'd seen my play.  I dropped
+them cards.
+
+"'One minute, Pete,' says I.  I called across the table to Charlie,
+'Show openers and win!' And when he laid down them bullets I'd give
+him with my own hands, my heart broke inside me.  But I couldn't
+stand for a crooked play seen by Old Pete.
+
+"I hopped up from the table and shook his hand, I shook Maggy's
+hand, where she stood, smilin' bashful, and then I shook the hand
+of a strange gent in black clothes, whose name was Mr.
+Somethin'-or-other.
+
+"Pete explained to me that the gent was a minister travelin'
+through the country, who'd offered him and Maggy a ride to town.
+'We thought we might as well get hitched at the same time,' says
+Pete, 'and I sure wanted to see you, Zeke.'
+
+"'Yes,' says Maggy.  'It wouldn't seem right to get married without
+you bein' there, Mr. Scraggs.  To think of what you've done for
+Pete!  And that Charley High-ball there is just the blessedest
+angel that ever was!  Why, he got some stuff in the woods and put
+it on Pete's back, and made him well in a minute, you might say.
+And there warn't nothin' he wouldn't do for us.  And I'm just the
+happiest woman ever was,' says Maggy, wipin' her eyes on her apron
+some more.
+
+"'Well!' says I, brisk, tryin' to forgit that lost fifty.  'Why
+don't you and Pete sign the pledge right here and now?--how's that,
+friend?' I asks the minister.
+
+"'Why, ah! says he.  'Ah! It doesn't seem quite the proper place--'
+
+"'What's the matter with this place?' says Jim.  He took a great
+pride in his saloon.  He had glass mirrors up that cost him a
+hundred plunks apiece.  'If you think,' says he, 'that there's a
+prettier little joint in town than this, why, don't let me keep
+you.'
+
+"That minister was cut out fer the business.  He hedged his bet so
+quick, I admired him.
+
+"'That's just it,' he says loud and hearty.  'I look upon matrimony
+as a solemn affair, and I was afraid our friends would be
+distracted from the seriousness of the ceremony by the
+surroundings.'
+
+"'Don't say a word!' says Jim, wavin' his hand.  'You have put the
+next round on me; but I guess Pete and Maggy has had seriousnesses
+enough, just as she slides--heh?'
+
+"'You're talkin' blue checks, Jim,' says Maggy, through her apron.
+'I don't reckon I'll ever get too gay to hurt me, nor Pete, nuther.'
+
+"'Very well,' says the minister--and we had the weddin'.  Charlie
+High-ball burnt punk that smelled strong but fine, and swung his
+arms, Jim and the rest of the boys sayin' 'amen' every time there
+come a stop, and all the proceedin's goin' on grand, till the
+preacher got to the last of it, and then Pete broke in:
+
+"'I copper that statement,' says he.  'I wouldn't run against you
+for the world, old man, but here I got to.  We ain't "man" and
+wife, for I ain't never been a man since I growed up: Maggy, she's
+the man and wife both.  Say "husband and wife," to oblige.'
+
+"The preacher looked at Pete mighty kind.
+
+"'Husband and wife,' says he.  Then Maggy busted out, 'He's the
+best man that ever lived!' says she.
+
+"'May you live long and happy years together,' says the preacher,
+and he had a different look on his face--more's if it was a
+pleasure instead of business he was attendin' to.
+
+"Whilest we stood there, kinder awk'ard, Charley made a high play.
+He gathered all his winnings in a heap.  'For laly,' says he,
+makin' her a bow.
+
+"Maggy, she cried.  Everybody'd been so good to her, she said, and
+she weren't able to turn a hand for her part, and so forth, and we
+was all kind of pleasantly miserable for a while, till Jim sings
+out, 'Here, this ain't no weddin' hilarity--guide right to the bar!'
+
+"There we all lined up, Charlie High-ball and all.
+
+"'What'll you have, sir?' says Jim, askin' the minister first out
+of manners.
+
+"'The same as the rest,' says the minister like a man.
+
+"'Mr. Scraggs?' says Jim.
+
+"'Ginger ale, says I.  And every man and woman took ginger ale,
+which is a beverage that 'ud drive a man to drink.  Howsomever, we
+showed that preacher he didn't hold over us, speck nor color, when
+it come to a showdown.  And he savvied the play, too.  He watched
+the line drinkin' its ginger ale.
+
+"'Gentlemen,' says he, 'I'm glad to know you--I think I'll stay in
+your town a while, but now'--and he kind of twinkled around the
+eyes--'I hope you will excuse me.'  With that he vanished, leaving
+us to take a little antidote for that there ginger ale.
+
+"And Pete and Maggy?  Well, dear friends and brothers, you never
+saw nothin' like it--they think as much of each other as two men
+would!  And the way Pete can iron a b'iled shirt is a wonder. . . .
+Yaas; he found his job at last; plain and decorative ironin'.
+Often I've seen Maggy, holdin' up a batch of clo's, with pride just
+oozin' out of her, and heard her say, 'There ain't a person in
+these here United States that kin slip a flatiron over dry-goods
+the way my Pete kin.'"
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
+
+"Once upon a time," said Mr. Scraggs, "there come a profound peace
+on my household.  It was 'Zeke, what kin I give you for dinner
+to-day?' and 'Zeke' this and that, until I says to myself, 'We're
+going to have cyclones followed by a heavy frost if I tarry here,'
+so I pulled my freight to Arizona, till this unnatural condition of
+things passed away.  I understand Mrs. Scraggs in her war-paint,
+but Mrs. Scraggs with her eyes uprolled to Heaven and a white dove
+perched on each and every ear is a thing I'm not goin' to witness
+the spoilin' of, if I kin help it.
+
+"I loafed around a little town, wearin' the counters shiny,
+entertainin' myself every minute by wonderin' what in thunder I'd
+do with the next one, till Fate, that's always seemed ready and
+eager to butt into my affairs, sent me down to the railroad station
+one morning.
+
+"There got off'n the train a little stout man, with a clean baby
+skin and clean baby eyes.  He looked as if he'd got born into this
+wicked world with a bald spot, gray side-whiskers and a pair of
+gold-rimmed specks.  He made me feel sad--not that he weren't
+cheerful enough, but his rig was that of a parson, and a parson
+naturally reminded me of matrimony, and there was only one thing
+worse than loafing around Jim Creek, and that was matrimony.
+'Yes,' I says to myself, lookin' at that nice, clean old gentleman,
+'he little knows the trouble he's made in this world.  And yet,'
+thinks I, willing to be square, 'I don't know as you could have
+kept 'em apart, even if there weren't no ministers.  Man is born to
+trouble as a powder-mill is to fly upward.  Male and female He made
+'em, after their kind; and it's only reasonable that they've been
+after their kind ever since.  And more'n that, that gentleman would
+have checked my wild career--he'd have held me down to one.  So why
+should I wish to walk on his collar?'
+
+"Whilest I was Hamlettin' to myself like that the old boy talked to
+the station agent.  Billy leaned on the truck and pointed to me.
+'There's your man right now,' says he; 'Mr. E. G. Washington
+Scraggs, the most famous guide and hunter in Arizona.  I ain't got
+a doubt you can secure his services,' and off goes Billy.
+
+"Railroad men get used to takin' life on the run, from eatin' to
+jokes.  Bill never waited to see the effect of his little spring on
+me.
+
+"My friend comes up to me.  'Is this Mr. Scraggs?' he says.
+
+"'I am a modest man by nature,' says I; 'and yet I cannot deny it.'
+
+"He made me a bow.  I made him a bow.
+
+"'I am told, Mr. Scraggs,' says he, 'that you are a celebrated
+guide and hunter?'
+
+"'If you go through this land believing all that's told you,' says
+I, 'you'll have a queer sensation in your head.  However, I can do
+plain guiding and hunting, all right.  What am I to guide, and who
+am I to hunt?'
+
+"'I shall explain to you," says he, taking off his specks and
+tapping his hand with 'em--he was a nice, home-raised old
+gentleman, but he sure did think his own affairs was interesting.
+'It is this way,' says he: 'my ministerial labors
+have--er--exhausted, that is to say, prostrated me.  My physician
+insisted I should come to this climate, where I am told it is
+exceedingly dry and healthful, and live entirely out-of-doors; to
+return to our healing mother, Nature; to salute the rosy youth of
+Morning from a couch of sod, to bid farewell to Day from some
+yearning height, far from the petty madness of cities--what did you
+say, Mr. Scraggs?'
+
+"'I said "Ya-a-s,"' says I, quick, because I'd forgot myself a
+trifle.
+
+"'Ah!' says he, waving his specks in enthusiasm.  'The abiding
+peace of a life like yours!--I beg your pardon?'
+
+"'I have an attack of this here bronco-kitus,' says I.  'I cough
+almost like conversation--go on.'
+
+"'To live,' says he, 'in the great peace of these enormous
+spaces--to spread God's clean sky above you and pass into a sleep
+where this sweet air shall hush me through the night, like the wind
+from angels' wings.  With what a sick longing have I looked for
+this!
+
+"'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 vanishin' 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 cucumber 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 glasses, 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 Bloody
+Hand, and he was askin' me if I'd met any of his enemies.
+
+"'He didn't look fierce,' says Percival.
+
+"'That's his lay,' says I; 'he goes up to a man and don't look
+fierce, and the first thing you know there's a funeral.'
+
+"About sunset we hit the place we aimed for: a nice, high spot with
+a pool of water, overlooking the valley for miles.  It was straight
+on three sides, and a hard pull for the mules on the other; but a
+patch of grass to the back, timber handy, and the lookout it gave
+you, together with the water, made it worth the climb.  Besides, it
+was the very spot where the Roosian Prince Porkandbeansky camped,
+time I guided him ten years before.  I told Percival all about the
+Prince whilest I was cooking supper, thus giving him a line on the
+proper way to behave.  It was enough to say the Prince done
+so-and-so--or didn't--to bring Percival into line easy for the rest
+of the trip.
+
+"Well, we couldn't get under that blue coverlid of Percival's any
+too quick that night.  I didn't mind a blanket thrown in, nor him,
+neither, for it was colder'n sin.  We was good and tired.  Broad
+sun-up when we woke.
+
+"Percival, he flew around like a cock-sparrer.  Happy!  The Lord
+save us!  He sung little hymns, and trotted every step he took, his
+sun-burnt little nose gleamin' with joy.  It done you good to look
+at him.  I took as much pride in him as though he was my sister's
+eldest--taught him to do this and that, till he was fit to bust
+with the glory of bein' such a camper.  And forty times a day he'd
+explain to me how glad he was that I'd been his guide; how much
+he'd have missed otherwise.  I suppose them yarns I told him had
+added to his romantic ideas about living uncomfortably
+out-of-doors, but every time he said it I felt mean again.
+
+"Still, Satan mischief always finds for idle hands to do.  After
+about five days of loafin' I turned the conversation to the
+uncertainty of things in general; we talked a good deal about it.
+I gradual come to particulars, and producin' a pack of
+playin'-cards, proceeded to show Percival how odd five of 'em dealt
+at a time would come out.  He was interested, and I suggested that
+he sh'd take five, too, and he did; and the first thing you know I
+had everything that Percival owned, owin' to his misjudging the way
+them cards would fall.  Then we divided again and went at it.  At
+the end of the next week I was proud of Percival.  He fronted me
+out of a plump jackpot without a tremble of a gray whisker, but, to
+save me, I couldn't get him to play cards.  He said it was wicked
+and led to gamblin'--I dunno but what he's right at that.  We had
+lots of fun with the Uncertainty of Things, anyhow, and saved our
+morals.
+
+"At the end of three weeks us two was twin brothers.  Old Percy
+told me in confidence he hadn't had a real friend for years before.
+And I liked him, you bet.  We all has got our faults--why, even
+Mrs. Scraggs isn't free from 'em--but you scratch them off the top
+of Percival and you found a white man--the most trusting little
+critter in God and man, the kindest-hearted and the best-natured
+that ever lived.  Honest, I couldn't sleep nights sometimes,
+thinking of the lies I told him, and if I'd never slept I couldn't
+'a' quit--it was like leaving a starvin' nigger in charge of a
+hencoop.
+
+"So things ambled along--not a jar.  No rain, no crawling thing to
+spoil our fun, till one day just before dinner--Percy and me
+sittin' there with the blankets between us and our beans counted
+out at the side, raisin' and cross-liftin' each other, him having
+drawed one card whilest I took two to a pair of tens and a kicker,
+and made four tens--a shadder fell on the blanket.  Percy was too
+busy wondering whether he'd better see my last raise to notice, but
+your Uncle Zeke has lived so long in lonesome and sometimes
+unhealthy places that the chill of that shadder, comin' so
+noiseless and unexpected, fell on his soul.  Before I raised my
+eyes I looked at the shadder close; yes, there was a gun, and it
+was also an Injun.
+
+"There ain't anything an Injun likes better than to sit tight and
+enjoy a cinch.  He won't kill you as long as he can get some fun
+out of you.
+
+"I ain't savin' what I felt, but old pink-and-white Percival was
+there, babe in the woods dependin' on me, and me covered by an
+Apache rifle!
+
+"'How!' says I, throwin' it careless over my shoulder.
+
+"There was a still second.  Then the Injun answers, 'Huh!'
+
+"Percy looked up, pleased and surprised.
+
+"'Why, there's an Indian!' says he.
+
+"'Go on with the game,' says I, cross.  'Don't stare at him--he has
+feelin's.'
+
+"Percy got red.  'I beg your pardon!' he says to the Injun--then to
+me: 'What does he want?'
+
+"I made up my mind Percy wasn't goin' to be scart if I could help
+it.  If he _had_ to go let him go quick, without waiting.  They
+made me wait once, and while it didn't come to nothing, I don't
+think I should ever really care for it.
+
+"'He wants to rassel me,' I answers.  'Great people for sports,
+Injuns, and curious how they go at it.  He expects me to surprise
+him--let's see, how many have you got there?'
+
+"I bent over, to get my legs loose, so I could jump, and also to
+get a quick peep at circumstances.  There wasn't but the lone buck.
+I worked the cat racket.  You know how a cat does?  She sits still,
+thinkin' 'I'm goin' to move fast in a minute--I sure _am_ goin' to
+move fast in a minute,' until she gets such a head of steam on,
+she's off before she knows it.  That's just what I done, exactly.
+I was all over that Injun, kicked his gun out of reach and heaved
+him over the steepest side before you could say 'Keno.'
+
+[Illustration: "I was all over that Injun."]
+
+"Percy was surprised and displeased.  He put on his specks and
+trotted quick to the edge.
+
+"'Washington,' says he, 'you have hurt that man!'
+
+"'Oh, I guess not,' says I.  'He's used to this country.'
+
+"I hadn't hurt him half as much as I'd liked.  If you slapped a
+white man straight down a hundred foot on top of a pile of rocks
+he'd depart like a Christian, but my red friend and brother
+promptly wriggled off behind the boulders.
+
+"I dassen't shoot.  There might be a twenty of 'em in hearing, and,
+besides, no need of worryin' poor Percy, trustin' E. G. W., any
+sooner than I had to.
+
+"'It seems to me, Washington,' says Percy, 'that's _very_ rough
+play.'
+
+"'Percy,' says I, 'as you may have read, an Injun don't care so
+much about being hurt as he does for supportin' his family pride.
+If I'd only chucked him fifteen foot or so he'd thought I didn't
+respect his powers of endurance proper, and like enough wouldn't
+'a' spoke to me if we met.'
+
+"'Well, of course, _you_ know all about these things,' he says.
+'But to me it is very surprising.'
+
+"'Percy,' says I to him again, real earnest, 'if a man took note of
+all the things in this world that are surprisin' it wouldn't be no
+time before every tree in the forest looked like an exclamation
+mark to him.'
+
+"'I suppose,' says Percy, waggin' his head, wise, 'that's quite
+true.'
+
+"And if there'd been fifty million Injuns ready to fricassee us the
+next minute I couldn't 'a' helped havin' another attack of that
+bronco-kitus that troubled me so.
+
+"But your Uncle Zeke wasn't so cussed hilarious for the next four
+days.  I expected that Injun back with his friends every minute,
+and what with watchin' all night and joshin' Percy all day I was
+plumb wore out.  He made me kind of mad by not noticin' things was
+wrong, although that's the impression I'd labored to create upon
+him, as he'd say.
+
+"The Injun didn't come, and he didn't come till I got mad at him,
+too.  How was I to know that he finished up my idee by fallin'
+over, further down?  So I fumed and I fussed, and I yearned inside
+of me to get square with somebody.  And at last my chance come.
+
+"Afternoon, hot and clear as usual.  Percy asleep under a rock, and
+then, horses' footsteps!  I jumped for the edge, and, boys, for a
+minute my sight give out.  It wasn't Injuns; it was a lot of Uncle
+Sam's durned soldiers.  I never expected to be so glad to see a
+soldier; I thought I despised 'em.
+
+"I looked at 'em for a full half minute, thinking,' God bless old
+Percy's blistered nose, he's safe!' and then I done what I hadn't
+orter did out of that, desire to get even.   I slid down the
+mountain and whanged away over their heads.  It was like pokin'
+your finger in a hornets' nest.  Up comes them soldiers, workin'
+the finest of Injun sneaks up the hill.  If there ever was a grand
+sight in Nature it's a two-hundred-pound soldier entirely concealed
+by a rock twice the size of my fist.
+
+"Y-a-as, here they come; and I flitted my red handkercher like it
+was a 'Pache's head-dress, leadin' 'em on to where Percy was.  I
+got there first and crawled into a cave where I could watch.  I
+looked at Percy, sleeping, remarkin' 'whooo-whisssh!' at regular
+intervals, his little baby face surrounded by his white
+handkercher, his little fat hands folded on his little fat stomach,
+and I could scarcely wait for the time when them soldiers' eyes
+should fall upon their treacherous, fierce, and implackibble foe.
+
+"The lieutenant was a kid, just gradooated--one of the kind that
+thinks it's glorious to get killed and read about it in the papers.
+He led his men into the simple quiet of our camp, crouched and
+tur'ble, a gun in each hand . . .  and there was the United States
+army and there was the sleepin' Percy, face to face!
+
+"'What . . . !' says the lieutenant, falling back ten foot.  'What
+. . . !' says he, falling back twenty feet and losin' his voice.
+'What . . . !'says he, gatherin'himself; 'what is this?
+
+"And then I come out of the cave and rolled on the ground.
+
+"The lieutenant walked over and patted me on the back with a
+rifle-butt.
+
+"'What d'ye mean, you s-c-c-coundrel!' he says.  'Stop that
+laughing or I'll shoot the pair of you!'
+
+"I come to quick when I heard that.  'Look a' here, young feller,'
+I says, 'you can beat me as much as you feel like, but if you make
+a crooked play at Percy I'll wrap you up in your diploma and send
+you home to your ma.'
+
+"It just happened their half-breed scout knew me.
+
+"'I wouldn't rile Mr. Scraggs, Lieutenant,' says he; 'it's bad
+luck.'
+
+"Of course there was more talk, but the lieutenant was a good
+enough kid, and when he see all the boys laughin' he give in and
+smiled himself.
+
+"'Well, you long-legged statue of melancholy,' says he, 'I suppose
+I'll have to let it go, but I'll shoot you, sure as there is
+shootin', if you ever play a trick like that on me again.  What
+kind of a fool are you to stay here in the middle of an outbreak,
+anyhow?  Now wake up your friend and come with us.'
+
+"'Thanky,' says I; 'but hold--is the road safe to town?'
+
+'"Sure; we've cleaned 'em, all but one bunch.'
+
+"'Well,' says I, 'then Percy and me'll just amble back together the
+way we come.  I don't want him to know nothing about any trouble.'
+
+"After chewin' for a while he consented, and away went the army.
+
+"So bimeby Percy woke up and said he'd had a nice nap and felt
+refreshed and--um--invigorated, and him and me went back to town,
+and he never suspicioned ther'd been an Injun risin', soldiers nor
+nothin'.  I have felt like offering one hundred dollars' reward to
+the person who'd produce something that Percy would suspect.  And
+whenever I think of that my spirits lift to that extent I could
+almost go out and get married again.
+
+"And this here ticker I set great store by, because it come from
+Percy and says inside of it, 'To E. G. Washington Scraggs, in
+memory of our beautiful friendship, from Percival Mervin'--and that
+to a tough old Mormon like me!  Well, he was one darned nice little
+man."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mr. Scraggs, by Henry Wallace Phillips
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. SCRAGGS ***
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