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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #67060 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67060)
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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Making Good for Muley, by W. C. Tuttle
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: Making Good for Muley
-
-Author: W. C. Tuttle
-
-Release Date: January 5, 2022 [eBook #67060]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: Roger Frank and Sue Clark
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAKING GOOD FOR MULEY ***
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-                        Making Good for Muley
-
-                           by W. C. Tuttle
-
-       Author of “A Prevaricated Parade,” “Loco or Love,” etc.
-
-
-If there’s a word of truth in that old saying about beauty being only
-skin deep, Susie Abernathy was the thinnest-skinned person I ever saw.
-I may not be a judge of womanly beauty, and the poetry of my soul may
-have been shook loose by pitching broncos, and buried deep under a
-coating of alkali dust, but I sure do sabe when a woman is hard to
-look at.
-
-Seems to me like it’s human nature for a feller with squirrel-teeth,
-no jaw to speak about and a physique like a corn cultivator to marry a
-beautiful female, and vice versa—not that “Muley” Bowles qualifies in
-the beauty division, but at that I reckon he shaded Susie a little.
-
-Muley was a poetical puncher, of considerable avoirdupois, and he
-found Susie a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Susie was a niece of
-Zeb Abernathy, who owned a sheep outfit on Willow Creek, and a grouch
-toward all cowmen—and Muley punched cows for the Cross J outfit, and
-drew forty a month from old man Whittaker.
-
-I’m not belittling Muley’s salary, ’cause I drew the same, and so did
-“Telescope” Tolliver and “Chuck” Warner. Back in the dim and distant
-past, when cows first come into style, the old-timers got together and
-settled the pay of the average cow-hand.
-
-They figured that any normal puncher—if there is such an animal—would
-try at least three turns of the roulette wheel, at ten dollars per
-turn. That left him ten dollars. He’d buy some tobacco, some red
-neckties and perfume, and what was left, at two-bits a drink for
-hooch, would just carry him a few inches short of the murder and
-sudden death stage.
-
-I’ve just been up to the house to draw my stipend from the old man,
-and am on my way back to the bunk-house, when Muley rides in. He’s
-humped over in his saddle, like Misery going to a cemetery, and if you
-can stamp despair on a full-sized milk-cheese he had it on his face.
-
-He slips his saddle off, turns his bronc into the corral, leans
-against the fence and cuts loose the granddaddy of all sighs. There
-ain’t many men that you can hear sigh at pointblank range for a
-.30-30, but you could with Muley. It was like releasing the air on a
-freight train.
-
-I wanders down there and passes the time of day with him, but he don’t
-respond. He exhausts deep into his soul once more, and hangs up his
-saddle.
-
-“Some of your relatives die, Muley?” I asks.
-
-“Hello, Hen,” says he, sad-like, “I ain’t got no relatives—except one
-aunt. I don’t know whether she’s alive or not.”
-
-“Name of Bowles?”
-
-“Nope. Name’s Allender. Maw’s name was Allender, and that’s why I was
-named Lemule Allender, and—what do you want to know for?”
-
-“You sighed a couple of times,” I reminds him, and he nods and looks
-off across the range.
-
-“Henry, how can I make some money? Regular money. I can’t get along on
-forty a month—no more.”
-
-“You aim to marry Susie Abernathy?” I asks.
-
-Muley digs a little trench with the toe of his boot, and shakes his
-head, sad-like—
-
-“No-o-o, I reckon not, Hen.”
-
-“Just come from there?” I asks.
-
-“Uh-huh. Listen, Hen: can you keep a secret? I know danged well that
-you can’t, but I got to talk to somebody. Me and Susie’s got it all
-framed up to get married, but she argues that I got to see Zeb. Susie
-ain’t of age yet, and Zeb is her guardian, Sabe?
-
-“Believe me, Henry, if I owned a penitentiary I’d hire Zeb. I’d a
-killed him a long time ago if it wasn’t for Susie, ’cause no sheep-man
-can tell me where to head in at—dang his old billy-goat face! He’s a
-darned——”
-
-“Not to change the subject, Muley,” says I, “but why don’t you ask
-him?”
-
-“I did. Do you think I’d feel this way over futures? You’re darn well
-right I asked him! Know what he said? He said to me, just like this:
-‘Mister Bowles, you keep away from Miss Abernathy. She’s got her
-sights set higher than a forty-dollar puncher.’
-
-“That’s what he said, Henry, and then I said: ‘Mister Abernathy,
-you’re tilting that gun for her: let her do her own shooting,” and he
-said, ‘Your reputation ain’t none too good, and if the Vigilantes ever
-organize here Susie would be a widow.’ ‘You wouldn’t know it,’ says I,
-‘’cause they’d get you first.’
-
-“Muley,” says I, “which one of you shot first?”
-
-“Neither one. I beat him on the draw, but you can’t kill your
-sweetheart’s guardian. It ain’t ethical, Hen. He told me that any old
-time I could show enough money to buy out his herd I could have Susie.
-I told him I wasn’t in the habit of buying either sheep or wives, and
-he said he knowed that without me telling him. Said that no
-forty-a-month puncher was ever that foolish.”
-
-“How about Susie—does she love you, Muley?”
-
-“Uh-huh,” he sighs, “she sure does. I don’t know how she can, but she
-does.”
-
-“I don’t know either, Muley, but it takes all kinds of folks to make a
-world.”
-
-“I been thinking of marriage for a long time,” he sighs, “I been
-afraid to ask her, but today she up and kissed me, and that settled
-it, Hen. Funny what a little kiss will do thataway. It makes me
-desperate.”
-
-“It would have done the same to me, Muley. If a girl like her kissed
-me I’d likely turn outlaw. You aim to go to Chicago with that train of
-cows?”
-
-“I can’t, Hen. I hope the old man don’t ask me to. You going?”
-
-“No. Telescope and Chuck are going, but the old man wants me to act as
-foreman while they’re gone—he’s going, too. I’ll ask him to let you
-stay, if you want me to, Muley.”
-
-“I’d love you like a brother, Hen,” he sighs, “I want to be near her.”
-
-That’s Muley. Being of a poetical temperament he has to confide in
-folks. If me or Telescope or Chuck got kissed by a lady we’d cherish
-the memory to our graves—unless it was Susie, and think of it only
-when alone.
-
-I ain’t so bad to look upon, and a lady couldn’t be censured for
-giving me a kiss, but when it comes to Telescope and Chuck—well, I
-suppose they’ll eventually marry beautiful women.
-
-Telescope is built like a bed-slat, and orates openly that he’s a twig
-of the Tolliver tree, which flourished and bought colored help in
-Kentucky before the plans were drawn for the pyramids. Chuck Warner
-don’t claim nothing, and don’t get sore if you subtract from his
-ancestry. He was born west of the Arizona line, and if he descended
-from anybody it was Ananias.
-
-Chuck’s legs are as short as his memory, and he was born with the face
-of a horse and the trusting eyes of an angel. He never told the truth
-but once. A big feller, from down below Mesquite, took him down and
-bumped his head on the ground.
-
-“You got enough?” asks the big person, and Chuck howls—
-
-“Plenty!”
-
-“You ain’t lying, are you?” asks the feller, after he lets Chuck up.
-
-Chuck brushes off his clothes and shakes his sore head:
-
-“No! Dang it all! I wasn’t in no position to lie about it!”
-
-                  *       *       *       *       *
-
-Muley told me that I couldn’t keep a secret, and I didn’t. Me and
-Chuck and Telescope rides to town that afternoon, to foller out the
-usual program expected of punchers with a month’s pay aboard, and I
-tells them about Muley’s troubles.
-
-“He’s more to be censured than pitied,” admits Chuck. “I don’t blame
-Zeb, but I do hate a shepherd what thinks a puncher ain’t good enough
-for his relatives.”
-
-“Poor Muley,” says Telescope, sad-like, “any man what is just one aunt
-shy of being an orphan has my sympathy. I’ll promise you, Hen, that
-I’ll do all I can.”
-
-“In Muley’s name I thanks you,” says I, “but if you can’t do it for
-Muley don’t do it on my account. I ain’t going to marry her. I just
-feel sorry for him. I’d feel sorry for anybody what was in love with
-Susie.”
-
-“She ain’t exactly of the vampire type,” agrees Chuck. “Muley’s got
-one dead immortal cinch though: nobody’s going to come along and steal
-her away from him.”
-
-“Zeb says he’ll have to marry her over his dead body or bring money
-enough to buy out his sheep,” says I.
-
-“The latter is the more revolting,” says Telescope. “Tell Muley we’ll
-fix it for him after we get back if we have to steal Zeb’s sheep so he
-won’t have nothing to sell.”
-
-The next few days we’re a busy crew, loading twenty cars of beef for
-Chicago, and we don’t have much time for conversation. Muley is too
-fat to herd ’em up the chute, so he sets down cross-legged on top of a
-car, and checks off the loads. Zeb Abernathy comes over to the yards
-and sets down on top of the fence, along with a lot of other loafers,
-and when Telescope sees him he crosses the corral and sets down beside
-Zeb.
-
-“Howdy, Zeb,” says Telescope, rolling a smoke. “You going to leave
-here after you sells out, or are you going to make your home with
-Susie and her husband?”
-
-“Hu-u-u-u-h?” grunts Zeb, amazed-like, “what’s that you said?”
-
-“Haw, haw, haw!” laughed Telescope, slapping Zeb on the back. “You
-can’t keep things like that a secret around here, old-timer. What’ll
-we bring to the charivari—sheep-shears or tin cans?”
-
-Zeb sets there, working his jaws faster and faster over his tobacco,
-and pretty soon he looks up at Muley. Muley grins at him, and nods.
-That’s the last straw.
-
-“Muley’s going to buy out Zeb and marry his niece,” slates Telescope
-to Johnny Myers, owner of the Triangle brand. “Muley’s going to be a
-sheep-king, Johnny.”
-
-All this time Zeb has been getting off the fence, and he’s so mad that
-he dances a jig in the dust when he hits the ground.
-
-“Ya-a-a-a-ah!” he whoops, waving his long arms like a swarm of bees
-was after him. “Telescope Tolliver, you’re a liar if you think it!
-Marry that fat, forty-dollar fool! Buy my herd! Say, he ain’t never
-had money enough to buy a wool sock! Ya-a-a-a-ah! You think you’re
-funny, don’t you?”
-
-“Ya-a-a-ah!” mimics Chuck, wiggling his ears. “Zebbie, you’re
-learning. Now the chorus—ba-a-a-a-a-ah!”
-
-Zeb’s feelings can’t stand no more, so he turns around like a man with
-a sore throat, and goes back toward town stiff-legged like a bear with
-a peeve on.
-
-“Zeb loves you fellers,” laughs Johnny. “I heard him say this morning
-that there’s just five things he hates. One is a rattlesnake and the
-other four draws a salary from Whittaker. What’s he sore at you
-fellers for? Has the sheep affected his brain?”
-
-“Such a theory is absurd, Johnny,” says I. “It can’t be proved, ’cause
-nobody with brains ever mixes up with sheep. You can’t corrupt a
-coyote.”
-
-A little later on me and Muley are setting on the fence, when
-Telescope climbs up beside us and talks to Muley like a father.
-
-“You realize what this here marriage stuff means, Muley?” he asks.
-“You sure you ain’t just sick like a calf for it’s maw?”
-
-“I know my own heart, liver and lights, Telescope,” replies Muley.
-
-“Really love her with all your heart and soul, eh? Say, I’ll bet you’d
-turn her down cold if it was to your advantage.”
-
-“You dang well know I wouldn’t!”
-
-“Suppose,” says Telescope, “suppose somebody said to you: ‘Muley, I’ll
-give you a year’s salary if you’ll keep away from Susie?’ What would
-you do?”
-
-“Me? I’d rise up on my hind legs and inform him that my love ain’t for
-sale. Sabe? Not for the salary of a lifetime.”
-
-Telescope thinks it over for a while, and then shakes his head,
-sad-like:
-
-“Maybe you would, Muley. I sure hopes you gets them sheep, ’cause you
-qualifies for the shepherd class without no fixing. I’ve read about
-love making a fool out of a man, but—well, it ain’t no funeral of
-mine.”
-
-That night we shakes hands with Telescope and Chuck and the old man,
-and wishes them many happy returns of the day.
-
-“Don’t give up the ship, Muley,” advises Telescope. “Do a lot of
-thinking while we’re gone, and if you can figure out any way of making
-money without robbing a bank, me and Chuck will put her over for you,
-eh, Chuck?”
-
-“A stiff upper lip gathers no mustache,” proclaims Chuck, “and a faint
-heart never rustled no sheep, Muley. So-long, you pitch-fork puncher.
-And, Hen-ree, don’t fall in love. One shepherd in the family is a
-plenty.”
-
-Me and Muley rides back to the ranch, but Muley ain’t got much to say.
-Love is a queer little animal, and affects folks different. Muley’s
-was the dark-blue variety, with circles around the eyes.
-
-The next morning after breakfast Muley gets a sheet of paper and a
-pencil, and seems to compose deep-like. After a while he cuts loose a
-deep sigh, and looks, dreamy-like, at the ceiling.
-
-“I’m here,” says I. “Can I help you in any way, Muley?”
-
-“I’ve got it,” he sighs. “You can’t appreciate it, ’cause you ain’t
-got no finer feelings, but I’ll recite it to you:
-
-    “I loved a darling angel,
-      And she loved me quite a lot.
-    Her ears are like the clam shell,
-      And I can forget her not.
-    She’s doomed to marry money,
-      And my heart will break, I think,
-    If I don’t wed this angel,
-      I will drown myself in drink.”
-
-“Nice sentiment,” I applauded. “Bobby Burns never had nothing on you
-except the long sound of his r’s, but you’ll have to put off your
-demise for at least another month. You can’t do an artistic job of
-drownding in a couple of dollars’ worth of hooch. If you was to get in
-over your depth in liquor, Muley, what brand would you prefer?”
-
-Right then Muley gets sore at me. I finds that you can josh a man
-about love just so far, and then he turns like a worm and tries to
-bite me.
-
-                  *       *       *       *       *
-
-For the next few days he writes poetry in the evening, and is absent
-most all day. He ain’t a pleasant critter to talk to, so I spends most
-of my time playing solitaire. One day down in Paradise I runs across
-Susie.
-
-“Seen Muley lately?” I asks, and she shakes her head.
-
-“No. Uncle Zeb ordered him off the ranch, and since then I’ve only
-seen him at a distance. He—he said he was going to try and convince
-uncle that he’s something more than an ordinary cowboy. Do you think
-he can, Mister Peck?”
-
-“Not unless uncle loses his sense of sight. Muley is pining away, day
-by day, and unless something comes up to relieve the situation he’ll
-be able to go through a door without turning the knob. I know this is
-a leading question, Miss Abernathy, but would you marry that Lemuel
-Bowles if you had a good chance?”
-
-“Why—er—uh-huh,” says she, nodding her head brave-like, while her ears
-get hot enough to light a cigaret on.
-
-“I feel sorry for Muley,” says I, letting her take it any way she
-wants to, and then I lopes away, ’cause I sees Zeb coming.
-
-The next morning we ain’t no more than out of bed when in rides old
-Paddy Morse. Paddy runs the post-office, along with his little store,
-and this is the first time I ever seen him at the Cross J.
-
-“Is Le-mule Allender Bowles to home?” he inquires, peering over his
-specs at me.
-
-“Right here, Paddy,” says Muley. “What do you want?”
-
-“Letter for you. Reckon it’s for you, ’cause there ain’t no other
-Bowles around this here neck of the woods. You got to sign your full
-name, same as on that letter or I can’t let you have it. Sabe?
-
-“This here is a special delivery letter—darn such things! Uncle Sam
-forces me to ride plumb up here to deliver this or take the
-consequences, which I believe is three hundred days in jail or a
-year—sign right on that line. Now, I reckon I’ll go on back. Hope it
-ain’t bad news, Muley. Mostly always a letter of that kind or a
-telegram means death. Come from Milwaukee. You got any kin in
-Milwaukee?”
-
-But Muley has gone back into the house, and Paddy don’t get the
-information he seeks.
-
-About fifteen minutes later Muley comes down to the bunk-house, where
-I’m putting some rosettes on a new bridle, and he’s got a grin plumb
-across his fat face. I glances at him and goes on working.
-
-“Henry,” says he, after a little while, “would you like to have a job
-herding my sheep?”
-
-“Your sheep? Sure. I’ll herd all you got in my sleep.”
-
-“I’m going to be the richest man in Yaller Rock County,” he proclaims.
-
-“You better talk lower, Muley,” I advises. “If the county
-commissioners hear you talk thataway they’ll way-bill you to the
-loco-lodge at Warm Springs.”
-
-“You remember me telling you about my Aunt Agnes, Hen? She died.”
-
-“And left you a sheep?” I asks.
-
-“Sheep—always sheep! Take a look at this.”
-
-He hands me a letter—the one what Paddy brought him, and I looks her
-over. The brand opines it to be from Milwaukee, and the top of the
-letter proclaims that Frederick & Quincy are lawyers. She listens
-something like this:
-
-    Dear Sir:
-
-    It grieves us to inform you that your aunt, Miss Agnes
-    Allender, of this city, died on the fifth day of August,
-    1900.
-
-    According to her last will and testament, you, which she
-    designates as her favorite nephew, will inherit the bulk
-    of her estate, which is valued at about one hundred
-    thousand dollars.
-
-    As you likely know she was a very eccentric person, and
-    her will imposes you as follows: without receiving a cent
-    of said inheritance you must, before the fifteenth day of
-    August, 1900, have invested four-fifths of said hundred
-    thousand dollars in sheep.
-
-    She also designates that: the said Lemuel Allender Bowles
-    must not marry for the space of five years under penalty
-    of forfeiture of entire inheritance. Also that he take a
-    care for Alfred and Amelia for the rest of their natural
-    lives. All of the foregoing requests must be complied with
-    or my estate is to be divided between charitable
-    institutions aforementioned in my will.
-
-    On the fifteenth day of August, 1900, our representative
-    will call on you and examine your investments. We wish you
-    luck.
-
-I hands it back to him, and goes on working.
-
-“Well,” says he, sort of choking-like, “don’t I get congratulated?”
-
-“As soon as I gets time I’m going to feel sorry for you, Muley. How in
-thunder can you invest eighty thousand dollars around here, when
-everybody knows you ain’t got a cent, and everybody hates sheep. You
-can’t get married for five years, and you’ve got to feed, water and
-groom Alfred and Amelia all the rest of their natural lives. Wonder
-what them twin-sounding things are, Muley?”
-
-Muley sets to thinking it over, and folding and unfolding that letter:
-
-“Since you sympathized with me, things don’t look so rosy,” he admits,
-with a deep sigh. “Reckon I missed that marrying part. If Alfred and
-Amelia got a fair start they ought to be about due. Reckon I’ll ride
-down to Paradise—dang the luck! I’ve torn that letter plumb in two!”
-
-He puts the two pieces in his vest pocket and goes off down to the
-corral.
-
-The longer I thinks things over the harder it looks for Muley. Muley
-ain’t got the reputation of a saint around here, and can’t even lie so
-folks will believe him. Zeb owns all the visible supply of sheep, and
-Muley ain’t got no time to spare if he’s going to make good.
-
-Along about noon Muley rides in. He’s got a big bundle under one arm
-and a big box under the other. He deposits his plunder on the steps,
-and sets down. I sets down beside him to wait until he gets through
-sighing, when all to once a squeaky voice yells:
-
-“Way ’round ’em. Shep! Who’s crazy!”
-
-I hops plumb off the steps, and whirls with my gun ready. Muley looks
-at me, sad-like, and sighs again—
-
-“That’s Alfred, Henry.”
-
-“Alfred?” I asks. “Alfred who?”
-
-“I don’t know. Nobody introduced me, but it don’t matter—Alfred is a
-parrot.”
-
-“Oh!” says I, “what’s Amelia—a lady bug?”
-
-“Naw-w-w! Cat.”
-
-“_Squr-r-r-r-reek! Sheep dip! Sheep dip! Har, har, har! Squr-r-reek!_”
-announces Alfred.
-
-“Hen, what’s the natural life of a parrot?” asks Muley, without
-lifting his head.
-
-“I don’t know. Why the question?”
-
-“That letter specifies ‘natural lifetime.’ That’s the joker.”
-
-“Did it say that?”
-
-“Sure did. Wait, I’ll show you.” He fumbles around in his pockets for
-a while, and then looks foolish-like at me: “The front half of that
-letter is gone, Henry! Now, where in thunder did I drop that?”
-
-He hunts some more but his pockets don’t essay a trace.
-
-“Har, har, har! Way ’round ’em, Shep!” shrieks Alfred, and Muley kicks
-the cage off the porch.
-
-“Shut up! You cross between a duck and a phonygraph! You ain’t yelped
-nothing but sheep-talk since I got you. No wonder Aunt Agnes died—she
-must have had ticks!”
-
-“You ain’t showing proper respect for the dead, Muley,” I reminds him.
-
-“Is that so!” he yelps. “Is that so! Well, dog-gone it, Hen, she
-didn’t show no respect for the living when she shipped me these
-trinkets, did she? Sending a puncher a sheep-talking buzzard ain’t
-showing a whole lot of respect. That cat is so old I’ll have to feed
-it on a bottle, and—”
-
-“Sheep dip!” screams Alfred. “Who’s crazy?”
-
-Muley throws his coat over the cage, and slams the whole works into
-the house. He follers it inside, and I sets there for a while thinking
-things over. The slats on Amelia’s home ain’t none too secure, so I
-loosens one end, and as I goes inside the bunk-house I sees Amelia
-trotting off toward the barn.
-
-Muley comes down after a while and sets down on the bunk. “Alfred
-danged near bit my finger off, and Amelia’s made her getaway, Hen,” he
-announces in a sad voice. “Amelia was down there on the corral fence,
-making faces at Chuck’s coyote pup, and she offers fight when I tries
-to calm her spirits. Aunt Agnes must have been a nut over ferocious
-animals.”
-
-“Nevertheless she was your mother’s sister, and left you all her
-wealth,” I chides him.
-
-“Yah! Like throwing both ends of a rope to a drownding man, and
-forgetting to hang on to the middle. Can’t marry for five—huh!”
-
-He gets up and stomps out of the place, and I opines that Muley’s
-inheritance is beginning to bear down upon his immortal soul.
-
-                  *       *       *       *       *
-
-The next day Hank Padden, who owns the Seven A outfit, shows up, and
-sets down with me in the parlor. Muley is washing up, and when Hank
-asks for him he yells that he’ll be out in a minute.
-
-“I’m going to make Muley an offer,” says Hank to me, confident-like.
-“I hears that he’s going to get married, and I needs a foreman what is
-a married man. Sabe? Single men ain’t got nothing to hold ’em down. I
-like Muley—dang his fat carcass—and I rides over here to see him.”
-
-“Uh-huh,” says I, ’cause there ain’t nothing else to say, and then
-Hank yells at Muley:
-
-“Come out here, you half-ton puncher! I want to talk to you about——”
-
-“Sheep dip! Sheep dip! Har, har, har!”
-
-I know it’s Alfred, but if it don’t sound like Muley I’ll eat my
-quirt. Same little wheeze that Muley has in his laugh.
-
-Hank comes to his feet like a shot, and glares at the half-closed
-door. He puts on his hat, walks straight out of the door, gets on his
-bronc and fogs away from the Cross J.
-
-I hears a crash in the next room, a couple of shrieks, and out comes
-Alfred with most of his tail feathers missing. He sails around the
-room a couple of times, finally hits the open door, and perches on the
-hitch-rack in front of the house.
-
-Muley comes out, with a shotgun in his hand, and glares around.
-
-“Natural lifetime, Muley,” I informs him, and he tosses the gun on the
-sofa.
-
-“That bird will be the death of me, Henry!” he wails, “yelping
-sheep-talk at Hank Padden is like lighting a cigaret with a stick of
-dynamite. What did he want of me?”
-
-“He came over to sympathize with you about your aunt.”
-
-“Oh!” says Muley, blank-like, looking out of the window. “Ain’t this
-Wick Smith coming?”
-
-It was Wick. He ties his bronc and comes inside. To hear him talk
-you’d think that rheumatism had typhoid-pneumonia and bubonic plague
-beat so far that you could cure ’em both with internal applications of
-peach pie.
-
-“I got to get away from here,” states Wick, after we discusses the
-weather a while. “Every season I lives here brings me that much nearer
-the grave. I want to take a pardner into my store, and while I ain’t
-decided exactly about it, I comes up here to have a talk with Muley. I
-needs new blood in my place, and I got to have a married man, which
-has a little money. Sabe?”
-
-“You got any sheep?” I asks.
-
-Wick sets up straight and glares at me.
-
-“Sheep? I’m a merchant—not a shepherd!”
-
-“Wool is good for rheumatism,” says I, offhand-like, trying to smooth
-over my mistake.
-
-“If you’re looking for a married man with money you sure got into the
-wrong pew, Mister Smith,” states Muley.
-
-“Zeb told me that you had an aunt—” begins Wick, wise-like, and then:
-
-“_Squr-r-r-r-reek! Meo-o-o-o-o-ow! Yip, yip, yip!_”
-
-First comes Amelia. She’s traveling so blamed fast that she looks like
-a string of about six cats. Right behind her comes that coyote pup,
-digging deep into his soul for joyful sounds, and behind him,
-screeching and screaming comes Alfred, and they invades the parlor.
-
-Wick hops to his feet as they enters, and of course he’s the highest
-point in the room. A cat will always hit for elevation—therefore Wick
-got Amelia. Me and Muley sort of draws back to keep the score, but
-things happens too fast for computation. Amelia draws all four feet
-together in Wick’s scalp, the same of which makes Wick wrinkle up his
-face, and forget the rheumatism in his legs. The bird and the coyote
-don’t do much except cut circles until Wick starts, blind-like to
-leave there, and falls over a chair.
-
-Wick turns over once, lands on his hands and knees, and pilgrims out
-of the door, with the cat prospecting his dandruff, Alfred hopping up
-and down on his back, and the coyote pup hanging on to his coattails,
-and skidding along, making little snappy barks of delight.
-
-They all rolls off the porch, where the three animals tangles up,
-leaving Wick alone. He forks his bronc in a hurry, and sets there
-rubbing the haze out of his eyes.
-
-Amelia is setting a new cross-country record for cats, as she hunts
-for a high spot, and the pup is singing along right behind her.
-
-Alfred walks circles around a post for a few seconds, and then
-flutters to the top of the hitch-rack. He ruffles up what feathers
-he’s got left, cocks his head on one side and screeches:
-
-“Har, har, har! Sheep dip! Who’s crazy?”
-
-“My gosh!” explodes Wick. “That cyclone hit me so hard that I can see
-green eagles and hear ’em talk!” and he backs his bronc away,
-cautious-like, and leaves us in a hurry.
-
-Me and Muley looks at each other for a while, and then Muley yawns:
-
-“I must have lost that piece of letter where Zeb could find it. Well,
-it didn’t say nothing about buying sheep, anyway, Hen.”
-
-“Lucky it didn’t, Muley. If the community thought you intended to
-bring eighty thousand dollars’ worth of sheep on to this range you’d
-be the honored guest at a cravat party. Your auntie didn’t understand
-conditions when she wrote that will, Muley.”
-
-“Why emphasize ‘when she wrote that will,’ Henry!” he asks, sad-like.
-“After looking at Alfred and Amelia—well, Henry, there’s a destiny
-what shapes our ends.”
-
-Next morning at breakfast we’re interrupted. Comes a thump of feet
-outside the door, and a voice yells—
-
-“Hello, the house!”
-
-“Hello the ——!” says I. “That sounds like Zeb Abernathy, Muley.”
-
-Muley steps over and picks up the old man’s shotgun.
-
-“Let him in, Henry,” says he. “If he comes on the prod I’ll scatter
-his remains to the four winds.”
-
-I opens the door, and the old pelican bows to me like I was the fourth
-king in the deck to enter his hand.
-
-“Howdy, Henry,” says he, and then he happens to see Muley with the
-shotgun. “I comes in sorrow not in anger,” he states, “my soul is
-filled with contrition.”
-
-“As long as she’s filled with something I’ll save my buckshot,” opines
-Muley. “Come on in and rest your ticks, Zeb Abernathy.”
-
-“Nice weather,” observes Zeb, mopping his face with a red
-handkerchief. “May rain and it may not. I kind of look for a dry
-spell.”
-
-“The Weather Bureau at Washington gets but annual reports, which reach
-us too late, so we thanks you for the information,” says Muley.
-
-“I hope I see you both well,” opines Zeb.
-
-“Your eyesight don’t worry me none to speak about,” states Muley. “The
-last time I meets up with you I made you throw your gun down the well.
-How’s your sentiments concerning me at present?”
-
-“I’m filled with meekness and contrition, as I aforementioned,
-Le-mule. It aches my heart to know that I provoked you thataway, and I
-pilgrims over here to make amends. Sabe?”
-
-“Why this sudden change of attitude?” inquires Muley, and Zeb sort of
-squirms in his chair.
-
-“She comes to me like a yelp in the night,” says he, pious-like, “I
-gets to thinking thusly: ‘Le-mule Allender Bowles, I ain’t treated you
-right. I hops on to you like a coyote on a carcass, and reviles you
-abusive-like, ’cause you desires to marry into my family. I lets my
-interest in Susie blind me to her best interests, but now I sheds the
-scales off my eyes, and comes out into the sunshine of true
-understanding.
-
-“The more I thinks about it, Le-mule, the worse I feels. Youth calls
-to youth, and what is stronger than the call of true love? She ain’t
-never yelped at me, boys, but I’m a heap wise. While Le-mule is only
-getting forty a month now, I feels that in the due course of time
-he’ll be a shining light of the community, and maybe go to Congress.”
-
-“Good sentiments, Zeb,” I agrees, “but it will likely be a close race
-between the voters and the sheriff to decide whether he goes to Helena
-or Deer Lodge.”
-
-“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roars Zeb. “Muley will never go to the penitentiary.”
-
-“Not willingly,” I agrees. “What are your sheep worth today?”
-
-“I have no sheep, Henry,” he grins. “Sold out to a feller from St.
-Marie’s basin, and his drive started today. Yep. I’m a civilian now.”
-
-“Got a good price, too,” he grins, when he sees me look foolish-like
-at Muley. “Glad I sold. Too much sentiment against sheep. Well, boys,
-I reckon I’ll toddle along. I couldn’t sleep until I comes over and
-squares myself with Le-mule. Come over and make yourself to home at my
-place, Le-mule.”
-
-“Thanks, Zeb-uleon,” says Muley, “I may do that little thing,
-Zeb-uleon. How’s Susie, Zeb-uleon?”
-
-“Tolable, Le-mule. She’s pining.”
-
-We watches him ride away, and then Muley spits, reflectively:
-
-“Henry, if that old pelican had called me Le-mule once more I’d have
-slaughtered him. He must have found that letter I lost.”
-
-“You ought to invest your money in a detective agency, and run it
-yourself. I suppose you’ll go over to see Susie?”
-
-“Dang well know I will! Why not?”
-
-“Go ahead. Go ahead, Muley, and lose a hundred thousand. What’s a
-fortune beside her? Your brain ain’t big enough, Muley. When it gets
-over forty dollars it all looks alike to you. You take my advice and
-buy sheep.”
-
-“Yah-h-h-h!” he blats. “Where?”
-
-“What will you give me if I buy ’em for you?” I asks.
-
-“You? You got a dead aunt, too, Henry?”
-
-“No, but I got brains, and I can buy sheep.”
-
-“Go buy ’em then!” he snaps, “I’m from Missouri—me.”
-
-                  *       *       *       *       *
-
-Muley rides away in the general direction of his heart’s desire, and I
-gets an inspiration. Over in St. Marie’s basin is plenty of sheep, and
-I never saw a sheep-man yet what wouldn’t sell out. I like Muley.
-Dog-gone his irresponsible heart, I like him. His mind ain’t big
-enough to contemplate a hundred thousand dollars, and I feels glad for
-him that he’s got a friend like me to make good for him.
-
-I may be rewarded for my efforts, and maybe not, but anyway I’ve
-always wanted to handle big money, and show to the world that Henry
-Peck could be more than he’s ever showed.
-
-I saddles up Glory and puts a pack on Blazer, and leaves a note for
-Muley, telling him that I’ll be back on the fatal day to save him from
-ruin. Little Henry is going to be a hero, and hopes to do his heroing
-on a commission basis.
-
-I pilgrims over into a country that cowmen designates as being a fair
-example of the place where sinners will reside in the hereafter, and
-eats mutton and talks sheep.
-
-Believe me I could talk sheep faster than the men that owned the
-herds, and I confides in ’em about Muley’s inheritance. Of course I
-didn’t tell it all, but anyway I got options on enough sheep to cause
-Yaller Rock County to build an extra wing on the insane asylum, and
-said options didn’t cost me a cent.
-
-“Old Testament” Tilton rides back with me. I’ve spent about fifteen
-thousand of Muley’s credit with him, and being a minister, he’s a
-little suspicious of his fellow-men.
-
-“I ride with you for the good of my soul,” orates the old boy, when he
-offers to accompany me.
-
-I reckon that when a shepherd goes into cow-land, it’s like taking a
-ship into fresh water to knock off the barnacles.
-
-He’s a queer old coot. Imagine a man of his cognomen, add the smell of
-sheep, dress him up around the neck like a preacher, tuck his pants
-into the top of a pair of heavy boots, and you’ve got a portrait of
-Old Testament. He rides a little calico bronc, with one cropped ear
-and a rat-tail, and calls it Ebenezer. The only way, I figure, that he
-could ever hand out salvation would be by correspondence.
-
-“Now, this here Le-mule Bowles,” remarks the old boy, “do you think I
-could induce him to come into the vineyard?”
-
-“Muley will go into anything that’s got a door on it,” says I. “Also,
-he’ll take anything what ain’t nailed down.”
-
-“I fear me it will be a task,” he says, sad-like, and then he sort of
-brightens up. “Have you ever considered your soul?”
-
-“I have no soul,” says I.
-
-“Say not that you are a lost sheep,” he chides me, and it makes me
-sore, and I points off down the valley.
-
-“We’re in cow-land now, old-timer, so you lay off on that lost-sheep
-stuff. Sabe? Down here they calls ’em plain strays.”
-
-We plods down into the Sleeping Creek country, and stops at Hank
-Padden’s place for dinner. Old Testament and Hank are old friends, but
-Hank don’t more than give me a nod. I reckon he ain’t forgot what he
-thought was Muley’s voice, and he blames me, too. When we gets ready
-to leave Hank acts like I had a contagious disease.
-
-“Drop in any old time, Tilton,” says Hank. “Glad to see you.”
-
-“Me, too, Hank?” I asks, and he gives me a hard look.
-
-“You travels on your own responsibility,” he replies.
-
-“I wonder what Hank is sore at me for?” I asks Old Testament, a little
-later, but he shakes his head, and mumbles something about the flocks
-on the seven hills and the wrath to come.
-
-“Did you tell him that I bought them sheep?” I asks, and he nods.
-
-“Yea. I did not lie, Henry Peck. I know naught of Bowles.”
-
-“I suppose you also told him that I was going to stock this here range
-with sheep, didn’t you?”
-
-“I merely told him that I surmised so.”
-
-We rides almost to the Cross J, when we overtakes Abe Evans, the depot
-agent at Paradise.
-
-“Gosh! I’m glad you caught me,” pants Abe, “I never was built to fit a
-saddle, and this here nag ain’t no rocking-chair. Here’s a telegram
-for Lemule Bowles, charges paid. You sign for it, Hen, and let me go
-back home.”
-
-We pilgrims on to the ranch, but Muley ain’t there. There’s a note on
-the table which orates that he’ll be there at three o’clock, and it’s
-addressed to Weinie Lopp, of the Triangle.
-
-“This here telegram ought to be opened,” opines Old Testament, who is
-as nosey as a pet coon. “A telegram always means that something is
-going to happen, and it’s better to be prepared.”
-
-I tears the cover off and looks her over. It says—
-
-       Will arrive your town this date meet me with a vehicle.
-
-And she’s signed Frederick & Quincy.
-
-I looks at my watch and decides on quick action.
-
-“You set down here and rest your feet,” says I to Old Testament, “I’ll
-hitch up the buckboard, and go to town. I just got enough time to get
-there.”
-
-That was some ride. Them broncs were as wild as deer, and we went to
-Paradise so fast that the dust didn’t settle for thirty minutes after
-I ties up at the station.
-
-The train is late, so I goes over to Mike Pelly’s place, and washes
-the sheep-taste out of my throat. It takes quite a lot of liquid, and
-when I goes back to the station I’m sheep-proof.
-
-The train pulls in and I spots my man. There’s quite a crowd at the
-station, but I knowed him the minute he got off, and it takes me about
-three steps to get where he’s standing. Being sheep-proof, I’m also
-polite, so I takes his valise away from him, and starts for the rig.
-
-“Come on, Blackstone,” says I, “your carriage waits without.”
-
-He starts with me, but he seems to complain a heap, so I stops and
-asks him whyfore the objections.
-
-“Where the Sam Hill are you taking my bag?” he asks, getting red in
-the face. “Who told you to take that valise?”
-
-“Mister,” says I, “don’t excite yourself thataway. I’m doing all I can
-to make you comfortable. Sabe? I advises you to come along peaceable,
-and anything you may say will be used against you.”
-
-I always thought that lawyers tried to settle things peaceably, but I
-don’t reckon this one runs true to form, ’cause he hit me so hard
-under the chin that he drove my head right up to the top of my hat.
-That hat always was too small, but after that wallop I has to stuff
-the sweat-band with paper so she’ll fit.
-
-The train is pulling out when I wakes up, and I sees that fat feller
-standing on the rear platform.
-
-“What was you aiming to do, Hen?” asks Bill McFee, our sheriff, who is
-setting beside me on the platform.
-
-“That was the feller I was here to meet, Bill,” says I. “He’s sure a
-sudden son-of-a-gun for a lawyer.”
-
-“He ain’t no lawyer, Henry,” says Bill. “He’s the railroad paymaster,
-and he thought you was trying to steal his roll.”
-
-“Wrong man,” says I. “Seen any stranger get off the train?”
-
-Bill shakes his head, so I pilgrims around to where I tied my rig, and
-there sets Telescope, Chuck and the old man. Them three acts like they
-was tickled stiff, and Telescope yelps at me—
-
-“Got the telegram, did you, Henry?”
-
-I don’t have nothing to say, and that seems to make ’em more joyful. I
-don’t keep silent from choice, but that feller darn near unjointed my
-jaw and she hurts like thunder when I opens my face.
-
-“Muley still wearing crape?” asks Chuck, as we ride out of town, and
-all three of ’em busts out laughing.
-
-“Danged mean trick,” opines the old man. “You remember Jimmy
-Frederick, don’t you, Hen? He was out here a few years ago. He knows
-Muley well. We were up in his office and Telescope and Chuck got him
-to write that letter.”
-
-“How many sheep has Muley bought on his nerve?” asks Chuck.
-
-“Come on through, Hen. Did he buy out Zeb’s herd? I hope he ain’t got
-mutton for our supper.” And then Telescope sings sort of plaintive
-like;
-
-    “I love a little chicken and I love a little fish.
-    When somebody says ‘ham and eggs,’ I pass along my dish,
-    When I get good and hungry I could eat a roarin’ bull,
-    But when they passes mutton meat my stummick’s full.”
-
-And then Chuck joins in the chorus:
-
-    “I’m a tough old rooster, and I’ve eaten snakes,
-    I’ve spread giant powder on my buckwheat cakes,
-    I’ve drank rawhide stew ’till I was out of breath,
-    But when they serves up mutton meat I starves to death.”
-
-“You’re a fine bunch of friends!” I snaps, taking a chance that my jaw
-is still on its hinges. “She was his favorite relative, and since that
-letter he ain’t done nothing but mope. You’re a danged bunch of ghoul
-comedians. Muley’s due to kill somebody when he finds out about it.
-What was the main idea?”
-
-“Well,” laughs Telescope, “we made him rich for a while, didn’t we?
-Zeb orates that he wants Susie to marry money, so we gave it to him in
-a lump. We puts in that marriage clause just to see if Muley loved her
-enough to lose the money, Sabe? We knowed danged well that he couldn’t
-buy no sheep. What did the parrot have to say, Hen?”
-
-“Told Hank Padden he could use sheep dip.”
-
-“Haw, haw, haw!” whoops Chuck. “Did he honest say that? I sat up all
-one night and day trying to teach that parrot some sheep-talk, but all
-it ever did was to bite me. Telescope swiped that cat at the depot in
-Milwaukee.”
-
-                  *       *       *       *       *
-
-Just before we reaches the ranch, three people rides in ahead of us
-and waits for us to come up. It’s Hank Padden, Johnny Myers and
-“Scenery” Sims. They all got rifles.
-
-We exchanges greetings, but they don’t seem glad to see nobody but me.
-
-“We don’t aim to be nosey, Mr. Peck,” says Hank, “but we’d admire to
-hear a little more about them sheep.”
-
-“What sheep?” I asks, surprised-like.
-
-“Old Testament told me,” says Hank. “He spoke about you going to start
-a herd here and——”
-
-“I thanks you for the compliment,” says I. “It seems nice to be
-mistaken for a capitalist, Hank, but what I wants to know is this; how
-long since have you been taking the word of a shepherd? Do I need to
-deny it?”
-
-“Old Testament must have lied, Hank,” states the old man. “He must
-have been crazy to state such a thing. Somebody’s crazy anyway.”
-
-“That’s what I said,” squeaks Scenery. “Hen Peck couldn’t buy a pair
-of wool socks.”
-
-They all nods sort of agreeable-like, and he drives on.
-
-“After a while, when there ain’t nobody around to interrupt us, I’m
-going to ask you a few questions, Henry,” states Chuck, solemn-like.
-
-“You better bring a witness,” says I. “All I wants is an uninterested
-third party present so I can prove I shot in self-defense.”
-
-We pulls up to the ranch. The front door is open and two rigs are tied
-out in front. We pilgrims up to the door, and are greeted with some
-sight.
-
-There’s Old Testament standing in the middle of the room, with his
-eyes rolled toward the rafters, while in front of him stands Susie
-Abernathy and Muley Bowles. Muley’s vest is stretched to the bursting
-point, and you could light a match on Susie’s freckles.
-
-To one side stands Zeb Abernathy, and on the other stands Weinie Lopp,
-all dressed up in a celluloid collar, and no place to put his hands.
-
-We hears Old Testament finish up his prayer, and as Muley folds Susie
-to his bosom we troops inside. Muley sees us over Susie’s shoulder,
-and breaks the clinch. Zeb grins out through his whiskers and Weinie
-Lopp turns up the collar of his coat.
-
-Everything is still for a few seconds, and then Old Testament smiles
-at me over his specs:
-
-“My son,” says he, “it’s fortunate that I came with you. I had
-considered taking a trip over into the Bitter Roots, and Mister Lopp
-would have missed me.”
-
-“Exactly,” says I, having the understanding of a fish. “All very true.
-Was Weinie on your trail?”
-
-“Uh-huh,” gurgles Weinie,“I—I was after a preacher for Muley.”
-
-“They—they just got married,” chuckles Zeb. “Just now.”
-
-“Well,” says Chuck, foolish-like, “who gets the first kiss from the
-bride—after you, Muley?”
-
-“Muley, you’re a hero!” gasps Telescope. “Any man is a hero who will
-sacrifice a hundred thousand dollars at the throne of love. Everybody
-take off your hats to Muley Bowles.”
-
-Everybody’s got their hats off so we don’t respond.
-
-“What did you mean by that, Telescope?” gasps Zeb. “Do—do you mean
-that he—he’ll lose all that money ’cause he married Susie?”
-
-“You said it, Zeb,” grins Telescope. “Ain’t you proud of him? What a
-nephew-in-law!” and then he turns to Muley: “Muley, old-timer, I
-didn’t think you had it in you, but you never can tell which way a
-dill pickle will squirt. How does it seem to lose a hundred thousand
-dollars?”
-
-“Well,” grins Muley, putting one arm around the shrinking bride. “I
-ain’t lying to you when I says I don’t know how it feels. You see,
-Telescope, the name of Allender don’t cover no branch of my
-family-tree, and I never had any Aunt Agnes.”
-
-There’s a painful silence for a minute, and then comes a flutter of
-feathers, and in waddles Alfred. He ain’t got no tail-feathers left,
-and the rest of his carcass is pretty well plucked. He looks us over,
-wild-eyed, ruffles up his remaining foliage, croaks:
-
-“Har, har, har! Who’s crazy?”
-
-Zeb looks wide-eyed at the bird for a moment, and then sneaks past it
-and out on the steps:
-
-“I’m going away,” says he in a low, hoarse voice. “Going away before
-that bird answers its own questions.”
-
-“Tally three more,” states Telescope, and him and Chuck and the old
-man sneaks out.
-
-“Make it five,” says I, and me and Weinie goes out, too.
-
-
-[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the September 3, 1918 issue
-of Adventure magazine.]
-
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-  <meta charset="UTF-8" />
-  <title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Making Good for Muley, by W. C. Tuttle</title>
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-<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Making Good for Muley, by W. C. Tuttle</p>
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
-are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
-country where you are located before using this eBook.
-</div>
-
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Making Good for Muley</p>
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: W. C. Tuttle</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January 5, 2022 [eBook #67060]</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>
-  <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Roger Frank and Sue Clark</p>
-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAKING GOOD FOR MULEY ***</div>
-<div id='001' class='mt01 mb01 w001'>
-  <img src='images/illus-fpc.jpg' alt='' style='width:100%' />
-</div>
-<div style='text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; '>
-<h1 style='margin-bottom:0.7em;'>Making Good for Muley </h1>
-<div style='margin-bottom:0.5em;'>by W. C. Tuttle </div>
-<div style='font-size:0.9em;margin-bottom:2em;font-style:italic;'>Author of “A Prevaricated Parade,” “Loco or Love,” etc. </div>
-</div>
-<p>If there’s a word of truth in that old saying about beauty being only
-skin deep, Susie Abernathy was the thinnest-skinned person I ever saw.
-I may not be a judge of womanly beauty, and the poetry of my soul may
-have been shook loose by pitching broncos, and buried deep under a
-coating of alkali dust, but I sure do sabe when a woman is hard to
-look at.</p>
-
-<p>Seems to me like it’s human nature for a feller with squirrel-teeth,
-no jaw to speak about and a physique like a corn cultivator to marry a
-beautiful female, and vice versa—not that “Muley” Bowles qualifies in
-the beauty division, but at that I reckon he shaded Susie a little.</p>
-
-<p>Muley was a poetical puncher, of considerable avoirdupois, and he
-found Susie a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Susie was a niece of
-Zeb Abernathy, who owned a sheep outfit on Willow Creek, and a grouch
-toward all cowmen—and Muley punched cows for the Cross J outfit, and
-drew forty a month from old man Whittaker.</p>
-
-<p>I’m not belittling Muley’s salary, ’cause I drew the same, and so did
-“Telescope” Tolliver and “Chuck” Warner. Back in the dim and distant
-past, when cows first come into style, the old-timers got together and
-settled the pay of the average cow-hand.</p>
-
-<p>They figured that any normal puncher—if there is such an animal—would
-try at least three turns of the roulette wheel, at ten dollars per
-turn. That left him ten dollars. He’d buy some tobacco, some red
-neckties and perfume, and what was left, at two-bits a drink for
-hooch, would just carry him a few inches short of the murder and
-sudden death stage.</p>
-
-<p>I’ve just been up to the house to draw my stipend from the old man,
-and am on my way back to the bunk-house, when Muley rides in. He’s
-humped over in his saddle, like Misery going to a cemetery, and if you
-can stamp despair on a full-sized milk-cheese he had it on his face.</p>
-
-<p>He slips his saddle off, turns his bronc into the corral, leans
-against the fence and cuts loose the granddaddy of all sighs. There
-ain’t many men that you can hear sigh at pointblank range for a
-.30-30, but you could with Muley. It was like releasing the air on a
-freight train.</p>
-
-<p>I wanders down there and passes the time of day with him, but he don’t
-respond. He exhausts deep into his soul once more, and hangs up his
-saddle.</p>
-
-<p>“Some of your relatives die, Muley?” I asks.</p>
-
-<p>“Hello, Hen,” says he, sad-like, “I ain’t got no relatives—except one
-aunt. I don’t know whether she’s alive or not.”</p>
-
-<p>“Name of Bowles?”</p>
-
-<p>“Nope. Name’s Allender. Maw’s name was Allender, and that’s why I was
-named Lemule Allender, and—what do you want to know for?”</p>
-
-<p>“You sighed a couple of times,” I reminds him, and he nods and looks
-off across the range.</p>
-
-<p>“Henry, how can I make some money? Regular money. I can’t get along on
-forty a month—no more.”</p>
-
-<p>“You aim to marry Susie Abernathy?” I asks.</p>
-
-<p>Muley digs a little trench with the toe of his boot, and shakes his
-head, sad-like—</p>
-
-<p>“No-o-o, I reckon not, Hen.”</p>
-
-<p>“Just come from there?” I asks.</p>
-
-<p>“Uh-huh. Listen, Hen: can you keep a secret? I know danged well that
-you can’t, but I got to talk to somebody. Me and Susie’s got it all
-framed up to get married, but she argues that I got to see Zeb. Susie
-ain’t of age yet, and Zeb is her guardian, Sabe?</p>
-
-<p>“Believe me, Henry, if I owned a penitentiary I’d hire Zeb. I’d a
-killed him a long time ago if it wasn’t for Susie, ’cause no sheep-man
-can tell me where to head in at—dang his old billy-goat face! He’s a
-darned——”</p>
-
-<p>“Not to change the subject, Muley,” says I, “but why don’t you ask
-him?”</p>
-
-<p>“I did. Do you think I’d feel this way over futures? You’re darn well
-right I asked him! Know what he said? He said to me, just like this:
-‘Mister Bowles, you keep away from Miss Abernathy. She’s got her
-sights set higher than a forty-dollar puncher.’</p>
-
-<p>“That’s what he said, Henry, and then I said: ‘Mister Abernathy,
-you’re tilting that gun for her: let her do her own shooting,” and he
-said, ‘Your reputation ain’t none too good, and if the Vigilantes ever
-organize here Susie would be a widow.’ ‘You wouldn’t know it,’ says I,
-‘’cause they’d get you first.’</p>
-
-<p>“Muley,” says I, “which one of you shot first?”</p>
-
-<p>“Neither one. I beat him on the draw, but you can’t kill your
-sweetheart’s guardian. It ain’t ethical, Hen. He told me that any old
-time I could show enough money to buy out his herd I could have Susie.
-I told him I wasn’t in the habit of buying either sheep or wives, and
-he said he knowed that without me telling him. Said that no
-forty-a-month puncher was ever that foolish.”</p>
-
-<p>“How about Susie—does she love you, Muley?”</p>
-
-<p>“Uh-huh,” he sighs, “she sure does. I don’t know how she can, but she
-does.”</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t know either, Muley, but it takes all kinds of folks to make a
-world.”</p>
-
-<p>“I been thinking of marriage for a long time,” he sighs, “I been
-afraid to ask her, but today she up and kissed me, and that settled
-it, Hen. Funny what a little kiss will do thataway. It makes me
-desperate.”</p>
-
-<p>“It would have done the same to me, Muley. If a girl like her kissed
-me I’d likely turn outlaw. You aim to go to Chicago with that train of
-cows?”</p>
-
-<p>“I can’t, Hen. I hope the old man don’t ask me to. You going?”</p>
-
-<p>“No. Telescope and Chuck are going, but the old man wants me to act as
-foreman while they’re gone—he’s going, too. I’ll ask him to let you
-stay, if you want me to, Muley.”</p>
-
-<p>“I’d love you like a brother, Hen,” he sighs, “I want to be near her.”</p>
-
-<p>That’s Muley. Being of a poetical temperament he has to confide in
-folks. If me or Telescope or Chuck got kissed by a lady we’d cherish
-the memory to our graves—unless it was Susie, and think of it only
-when alone.</p>
-
-<p>I ain’t so bad to look upon, and a lady couldn’t be censured for
-giving me a kiss, but when it comes to Telescope and Chuck—well, I
-suppose they’ll eventually marry beautiful women.</p>
-
-<p>Telescope is built like a bed-slat, and orates openly that he’s a twig
-of the Tolliver tree, which flourished and bought colored help in
-Kentucky before the plans were drawn for the pyramids. Chuck Warner
-don’t claim nothing, and don’t get sore if you subtract from his
-ancestry. He was born west of the Arizona line, and if he descended
-from anybody it was Ananias.</p>
-
-<p>Chuck’s legs are as short as his memory, and he was born with the face
-of a horse and the trusting eyes of an angel. He never told the truth
-but once. A big feller, from down below Mesquite, took him down and
-bumped his head on the ground.</p>
-
-<p>“You got enough?” asks the big person, and Chuck howls—</p>
-
-<p>“Plenty!”</p>
-
-<p>“You ain’t lying, are you?” asks the feller, after he lets Chuck up.</p>
-
-<p>Chuck brushes off his clothes and shakes his sore head:</p>
-
-<p>“No! Dang it all! I wasn’t in no position to lie about it!”</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>Muley told me that I couldn’t keep a secret, and I didn’t. Me and
-Chuck and Telescope rides to town that afternoon, to foller out the
-usual program expected of punchers with a month’s pay aboard, and I
-tells them about Muley’s troubles.</p>
-
-<p>“He’s more to be censured than pitied,” admits Chuck. “I don’t blame
-Zeb, but I do hate a shepherd what thinks a puncher ain’t good enough
-for his relatives.”</p>
-
-<p>“Poor Muley,” says Telescope, sad-like, “any man what is just one aunt
-shy of being an orphan has my sympathy. I’ll promise you, Hen, that
-I’ll do all I can.”</p>
-
-<p>“In Muley’s name I thanks you,” says I, “but if you can’t do it for
-Muley don’t do it on my account. I ain’t going to marry her. I just
-feel sorry for him. I’d feel sorry for anybody what was in love with
-Susie.”</p>
-
-<p>“She ain’t exactly of the vampire type,” agrees Chuck. “Muley’s got
-one dead immortal cinch though: nobody’s going to come along and steal
-her away from him.”</p>
-
-<p>“Zeb says he’ll have to marry her over his dead body or bring money
-enough to buy out his sheep,” says I.</p>
-
-<p>“The latter is the more revolting,” says Telescope. “Tell Muley we’ll
-fix it for him after we get back if we have to steal Zeb’s sheep so he
-won’t have nothing to sell.”</p>
-
-<p>The next few days we’re a busy crew, loading twenty cars of beef for
-Chicago, and we don’t have much time for conversation. Muley is too
-fat to herd ’em up the chute, so he sets down cross-legged on top of a
-car, and checks off the loads. Zeb Abernathy comes over to the yards
-and sets down on top of the fence, along with a lot of other loafers,
-and when Telescope sees him he crosses the corral and sets down beside
-Zeb.</p>
-
-<p>“Howdy, Zeb,” says Telescope, rolling a smoke. “You going to leave
-here after you sells out, or are you going to make your home with
-Susie and her husband?”</p>
-
-<p>“Hu-u-u-u-h?” grunts Zeb, amazed-like, “what’s that you said?”</p>
-
-<p>“Haw, haw, haw!” laughed Telescope, slapping Zeb on the back. “You
-can’t keep things like that a secret around here, old-timer. What’ll
-we bring to the charivari—sheep-shears or tin cans?”</p>
-
-<p>Zeb sets there, working his jaws faster and faster over his tobacco,
-and pretty soon he looks up at Muley. Muley grins at him, and nods.
-That’s the last straw.</p>
-
-<p>“Muley’s going to buy out Zeb and marry his niece,” slates Telescope
-to Johnny Myers, owner of the Triangle brand. “Muley’s going to be a
-sheep-king, Johnny.”</p>
-
-<p>All this time Zeb has been getting off the fence, and he’s so mad that
-he dances a jig in the dust when he hits the ground.</p>
-
-<p>“Ya-a-a-a-ah!” he whoops, waving his long arms like a swarm of bees
-was after him. “Telescope Tolliver, you’re a liar if you think it!
-Marry that fat, forty-dollar fool! Buy my herd! Say, he ain’t never
-had money enough to buy a wool sock! Ya-a-a-a-ah! You think you’re
-funny, don’t you?”</p>
-
-<p>“Ya-a-a-ah!” mimics Chuck, wiggling his ears. “Zebbie, you’re
-learning. Now the chorus—ba-a-a-a-a-ah!”</p>
-
-<p>Zeb’s feelings can’t stand no more, so he turns around like a man with
-a sore throat, and goes back toward town stiff-legged like a bear with
-a peeve on.</p>
-
-<p>“Zeb loves you fellers,” laughs Johnny. “I heard him say this morning
-that there’s just five things he hates. One is a rattlesnake and the
-other four draws a salary from Whittaker. What’s he sore at you
-fellers for? Has the sheep affected his brain?”</p>
-
-<p>“Such a theory is absurd, Johnny,” says I. “It can’t be proved, ’cause
-nobody with brains ever mixes up with sheep. You can’t corrupt a
-coyote.”</p>
-
-<p>A little later on me and Muley are setting on the fence, when
-Telescope climbs up beside us and talks to Muley like a father.</p>
-
-<p>“You realize what this here marriage stuff means, Muley?” he asks.
-“You sure you ain’t just sick like a calf for it’s maw?”</p>
-
-<p>“I know my own heart, liver and lights, Telescope,” replies Muley.</p>
-
-<p>“Really love her with all your heart and soul, eh? Say, I’ll bet you’d
-turn her down cold if it was to your advantage.”</p>
-
-<p>“You dang well know I wouldn’t!”</p>
-
-<p>“Suppose,” says Telescope, “suppose somebody said to you: ‘Muley, I’ll
-give you a year’s salary if you’ll keep away from Susie?’ What would
-you do?”</p>
-
-<p>“Me? I’d rise up on my hind legs and inform him that my love ain’t for
-sale. Sabe? Not for the salary of a lifetime.”</p>
-
-<p>Telescope thinks it over for a while, and then shakes his head,
-sad-like:</p>
-
-<p>“Maybe you would, Muley. I sure hopes you gets them sheep, ’cause you
-qualifies for the shepherd class without no fixing. I’ve read about
-love making a fool out of a man, but—well, it ain’t no funeral of
-mine.”</p>
-
-<p>That night we shakes hands with Telescope and Chuck and the old man,
-and wishes them many happy returns of the day.</p>
-
-<p>“Don’t give up the ship, Muley,” advises Telescope. “Do a lot of
-thinking while we’re gone, and if you can figure out any way of making
-money without robbing a bank, me and Chuck will put her over for you,
-eh, Chuck?”</p>
-
-<p>“A stiff upper lip gathers no mustache,” proclaims Chuck, “and a faint
-heart never rustled no sheep, Muley. So-long, you pitch-fork puncher.
-And, Hen-ree, don’t fall in love. One shepherd in the family is a
-plenty.”</p>
-
-<p>Me and Muley rides back to the ranch, but Muley ain’t got much to say.
-Love is a queer little animal, and affects folks different. Muley’s
-was the dark-blue variety, with circles around the eyes.</p>
-
-<p>The next morning after breakfast Muley gets a sheet of paper and a
-pencil, and seems to compose deep-like. After a while he cuts loose a
-deep sigh, and looks, dreamy-like, at the ceiling.</p>
-
-<p>“I’m here,” says I. “Can I help you in any way, Muley?”</p>
-
-<p>“I’ve got it,” he sighs. “You can’t appreciate it, ’cause you ain’t
-got no finer feelings, but I’ll recite it to you:</p>
-
-<div class='poetry-container'>
-<div class='poetry'>
-<div class='stanza'>
-<div class='verse'>“I loved a darling angel,</div>
-<div class='indent2'>And she loved me quite a lot.</div>
-<div class='verse'>Her ears are like the clam shell,</div>
-<div class='indent2'>And I can forget her not.</div>
-<div class='verse'>She’s doomed to marry money,</div>
-<div class='indent2'>And my heart will break, I think,</div>
-<div class='verse'>If I don’t wed this angel,</div>
-<div class='indent2'>I will drown myself in drink.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<p>“Nice sentiment,” I applauded. “Bobby Burns never had nothing on you
-except the long sound of his r’s, but you’ll have to put off your
-demise for at least another month. You can’t do an artistic job of
-drownding in a couple of dollars’ worth of hooch. If you was to get in
-over your depth in liquor, Muley, what brand would you prefer?”</p>
-
-<p>Right then Muley gets sore at me. I finds that you can josh a man
-about love just so far, and then he turns like a worm and tries to
-bite me.</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>For the next few days he writes poetry in the evening, and is absent
-most all day. He ain’t a pleasant critter to talk to, so I spends most
-of my time playing solitaire. One day down in Paradise I runs across
-Susie.</p>
-
-<p>“Seen Muley lately?” I asks, and she shakes her head.</p>
-
-<p>“No. Uncle Zeb ordered him off the ranch, and since then I’ve only
-seen him at a distance. He—he said he was going to try and convince
-uncle that he’s something more than an ordinary cowboy. Do you think
-he can, Mister Peck?”</p>
-
-<p>“Not unless uncle loses his sense of sight. Muley is pining away, day
-by day, and unless something comes up to relieve the situation he’ll
-be able to go through a door without turning the knob. I know this is
-a leading question, Miss Abernathy, but would you marry that Lemuel
-Bowles if you had a good chance?”</p>
-
-<p>“Why—er—uh-huh,” says she, nodding her head brave-like, while her ears
-get hot enough to light a cigaret on.</p>
-
-<p>“I feel sorry for Muley,” says I, letting her take it any way she
-wants to, and then I lopes away, ’cause I sees Zeb coming.</p>
-
-<p>The next morning we ain’t no more than out of bed when in rides old
-Paddy Morse. Paddy runs the post-office, along with his little store,
-and this is the first time I ever seen him at the Cross J.</p>
-
-<p>“Is Le-mule Allender Bowles to home?” he inquires, peering over his
-specs at me.</p>
-
-<p>“Right here, Paddy,” says Muley. “What do you want?”</p>
-
-<p>“Letter for you. Reckon it’s for you, ’cause there ain’t no other
-Bowles around this here neck of the woods. You got to sign your full
-name, same as on that letter or I can’t let you have it. Sabe?</p>
-
-<p>“This here is a special delivery letter—darn such things! Uncle Sam
-forces me to ride plumb up here to deliver this or take the
-consequences, which I believe is three hundred days in jail or a
-year—sign right on that line. Now, I reckon I’ll go on back. Hope it
-ain’t bad news, Muley. Mostly always a letter of that kind or a
-telegram means death. Come from Milwaukee. You got any kin in
-Milwaukee?”</p>
-
-<p>But Muley has gone back into the house, and Paddy don’t get the
-information he seeks.</p>
-
-<p>About fifteen minutes later Muley comes down to the bunk-house, where
-I’m putting some rosettes on a new bridle, and he’s got a grin plumb
-across his fat face. I glances at him and goes on working.</p>
-
-<p>“Henry,” says he, after a little while, “would you like to have a job
-herding my sheep?”</p>
-
-<p>“Your sheep? Sure. I’ll herd all you got in my sleep.”</p>
-
-<p>“I’m going to be the richest man in Yaller Rock County,” he proclaims.</p>
-
-<p>“You better talk lower, Muley,” I advises. “If the county
-commissioners hear you talk thataway they’ll way-bill you to the
-loco-lodge at Warm Springs.”</p>
-
-<p>“You remember me telling you about my Aunt Agnes, Hen? She died.”</p>
-
-<p>“And left you a sheep?” I asks.</p>
-
-<p>“Sheep—always sheep! Take a look at this.”</p>
-
-<p>He hands me a letter—the one what Paddy brought him, and I looks her
-over. The brand opines it to be from Milwaukee, and the top of the
-letter proclaims that Frederick &amp; Quincy are lawyers. She listens
-something like this:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-<p style='text-indent:0'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Dear Sir:</span></p>
-
-<p>It grieves us to inform you that your aunt, Miss Agnes Allender, of
-this city, died on the fifth day of August, 1900.</p>
-
-<p>According to her last will and testament, you, which she designates as
-her favorite nephew, will inherit the bulk of her estate, which is
-valued at about one hundred thousand dollars.</p>
-
-<p>As you likely know she was a very eccentric person, and her will
-imposes you as follows: without receiving a cent of said inheritance
-you must, before the fifteenth day of August, 1900, have invested
-four-fifths of said hundred thousand dollars in sheep.</p>
-
-<p>She also designates that: the said Lemuel Allender Bowles must not
-marry for the space of five years under penalty of forfeiture of
-entire inheritance. Also that he take a care for Alfred and Amelia for
-the rest of their natural lives. All of the foregoing requests must be
-complied with or my estate is to be divided between charitable
-institutions aforementioned in my will.</p>
-
-<p>On the fifteenth day of August, 1900, our representative will call on
-you and examine your investments. We wish you luck.</p>
-
-</blockquote>
-<p>I hands it back to him, and goes on working.</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” says he, sort of choking-like, “don’t I get congratulated?”</p>
-
-<p>“As soon as I gets time I’m going to feel sorry for you, Muley. How in
-thunder can you invest eighty thousand dollars around here, when
-everybody knows you ain’t got a cent, and everybody hates sheep. You
-can’t get married for five years, and you’ve got to feed, water and
-groom Alfred and Amelia all the rest of their natural lives. Wonder
-what them twin-sounding things are, Muley?”</p>
-
-<p>Muley sets to thinking it over, and folding and unfolding that letter:</p>
-
-<p>“Since you sympathized with me, things don’t look so rosy,” he admits,
-with a deep sigh. “Reckon I missed that marrying part. If Alfred and
-Amelia got a fair start they ought to be about due. Reckon I’ll ride
-down to Paradise—dang the luck! I’ve torn that letter plumb in two!”</p>
-
-<p>He puts the two pieces in his vest pocket and goes off down to the
-corral.</p>
-
-<p>The longer I thinks things over the harder it looks for Muley. Muley
-ain’t got the reputation of a saint around here, and can’t even lie so
-folks will believe him. Zeb owns all the visible supply of sheep, and
-Muley ain’t got no time to spare if he’s going to make good.</p>
-
-<p>Along about noon Muley rides in. He’s got a big bundle under one arm
-and a big box under the other. He deposits his plunder on the steps,
-and sets down. I sets down beside him to wait until he gets through
-sighing, when all to once a squeaky voice yells:</p>
-
-<p>“Way ’round ’em. Shep! Who’s crazy!”</p>
-
-<p>I hops plumb off the steps, and whirls with my gun ready. Muley looks
-at me, sad-like, and sighs again—</p>
-
-<p>“That’s Alfred, Henry.”</p>
-
-<p>“Alfred?” I asks. “Alfred who?”</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t know. Nobody introduced me, but it don’t matter—Alfred is a
-parrot.”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh!” says I, “what’s Amelia—a lady bug?”</p>
-
-<p>“Naw-w-w! Cat.”</p>
-
-<p>“<i>Squr-r-r-r-reek! Sheep dip! Sheep dip! Har, har, har! Squr-r-reek!</i>”
-announces Alfred.</p>
-
-<p>“Hen, what’s the natural life of a parrot?” asks Muley, without
-lifting his head.</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t know. Why the question?”</p>
-
-<p>“That letter specifies ‘natural lifetime.’ That’s the joker.”</p>
-
-<p>“Did it say that?”</p>
-
-<p>“Sure did. Wait, I’ll show you.” He fumbles around in his pockets for
-a while, and then looks foolish-like at me: “The front half of that
-letter is gone, Henry! Now, where in thunder did I drop that?”</p>
-
-<p>He hunts some more but his pockets don’t essay a trace.</p>
-
-<p>“Har, har, har! Way ’round ’em, Shep!” shrieks Alfred, and Muley kicks
-the cage off the porch.</p>
-
-<p>“Shut up! You cross between a duck and a phonygraph! You ain’t yelped
-nothing but sheep-talk since I got you. No wonder Aunt Agnes died—she
-must have had ticks!”</p>
-
-<p>“You ain’t showing proper respect for the dead, Muley,” I reminds him.</p>
-
-<p>“Is that so!” he yelps. “Is that so! Well, dog-gone it, Hen, she
-didn’t show no respect for the living when she shipped me these
-trinkets, did she? Sending a puncher a sheep-talking buzzard ain’t
-showing a whole lot of respect. That cat is so old I’ll have to feed
-it on a bottle, and—”</p>
-
-<p>“Sheep dip!” screams Alfred. “Who’s crazy?”</p>
-
-<p>Muley throws his coat over the cage, and slams the whole works into
-the house. He follers it inside, and I sets there for a while thinking
-things over. The slats on Amelia’s home ain’t none too secure, so I
-loosens one end, and as I goes inside the bunk-house I sees Amelia
-trotting off toward the barn.</p>
-
-<p>Muley comes down after a while and sets down on the bunk. “Alfred
-danged near bit my finger off, and Amelia’s made her getaway, Hen,” he
-announces in a sad voice. “Amelia was down there on the corral fence,
-making faces at Chuck’s coyote pup, and she offers fight when I tries
-to calm her spirits. Aunt Agnes must have been a nut over ferocious
-animals.”</p>
-
-<p>“Nevertheless she was your mother’s sister, and left you all her
-wealth,” I chides him.</p>
-
-<p>“Yah! Like throwing both ends of a rope to a drownding man, and
-forgetting to hang on to the middle. Can’t marry for five—huh!”</p>
-
-<p>He gets up and stomps out of the place, and I opines that Muley’s
-inheritance is beginning to bear down upon his immortal soul.</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>The next day Hank Padden, who owns the Seven A outfit, shows up, and
-sets down with me in the parlor. Muley is washing up, and when Hank
-asks for him he yells that he’ll be out in a minute.</p>
-
-<p>“I’m going to make Muley an offer,” says Hank to me, confident-like.
-“I hears that he’s going to get married, and I needs a foreman what is
-a married man. Sabe? Single men ain’t got nothing to hold ’em down. I
-like Muley—dang his fat carcass—and I rides over here to see him.”</p>
-
-<p>“Uh-huh,” says I, ’cause there ain’t nothing else to say, and then
-Hank yells at Muley:</p>
-
-<p>“Come out here, you half-ton puncher! I want to talk to you about——”</p>
-
-<p>“Sheep dip! Sheep dip! Har, har, har!”</p>
-
-<p>I know it’s Alfred, but if it don’t sound like Muley I’ll eat my
-quirt. Same little wheeze that Muley has in his laugh.</p>
-
-<p>Hank comes to his feet like a shot, and glares at the half-closed
-door. He puts on his hat, walks straight out of the door, gets on his
-bronc and fogs away from the Cross J.</p>
-
-<p>I hears a crash in the next room, a couple of shrieks, and out comes
-Alfred with most of his tail feathers missing. He sails around the
-room a couple of times, finally hits the open door, and perches on the
-hitch-rack in front of the house.</p>
-
-<p>Muley comes out, with a shotgun in his hand, and glares around.</p>
-
-<p>“Natural lifetime, Muley,” I informs him, and he tosses the gun on the
-sofa.</p>
-
-<p>“That bird will be the death of me, Henry!” he wails, “yelping
-sheep-talk at Hank Padden is like lighting a cigaret with a stick of
-dynamite. What did he want of me?”</p>
-
-<p>“He came over to sympathize with you about your aunt.”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh!” says Muley, blank-like, looking out of the window. “Ain’t this
-Wick Smith coming?”</p>
-
-<p>It was Wick. He ties his bronc and comes inside. To hear him talk
-you’d think that rheumatism had typhoid-pneumonia and bubonic plague
-beat so far that you could cure ’em both with internal applications of
-peach pie.</p>
-
-<p>“I got to get away from here,” states Wick, after we discusses the
-weather a while. “Every season I lives here brings me that much nearer
-the grave. I want to take a pardner into my store, and while I ain’t
-decided exactly about it, I comes up here to have a talk with Muley. I
-needs new blood in my place, and I got to have a married man, which
-has a little money. Sabe?”</p>
-
-<p>“You got any sheep?” I asks.</p>
-
-<p>Wick sets up straight and glares at me.</p>
-
-<p>“Sheep? I’m a merchant—not a shepherd!”</p>
-
-<p>“Wool is good for rheumatism,” says I, offhand-like, trying to smooth
-over my mistake.</p>
-
-<p>“If you’re looking for a married man with money you sure got into the
-wrong pew, Mister Smith,” states Muley.</p>
-
-<p>“Zeb told me that you had an aunt—” begins Wick, wise-like, and then:</p>
-
-<p>“<i>Squr-r-r-r-reek! Meo-o-o-o-o-ow! Yip, yip, yip!</i>”</p>
-
-<p>First comes Amelia. She’s traveling so blamed fast that she looks like
-a string of about six cats. Right behind her comes that coyote pup,
-digging deep into his soul for joyful sounds, and behind him,
-screeching and screaming comes Alfred, and they invades the parlor.</p>
-
-<p>Wick hops to his feet as they enters, and of course he’s the highest
-point in the room. A cat will always hit for elevation—therefore Wick
-got Amelia. Me and Muley sort of draws back to keep the score, but
-things happens too fast for computation. Amelia draws all four feet
-together in Wick’s scalp, the same of which makes Wick wrinkle up his
-face, and forget the rheumatism in his legs. The bird and the coyote
-don’t do much except cut circles until Wick starts, blind-like to
-leave there, and falls over a chair.</p>
-
-<p>Wick turns over once, lands on his hands and knees, and pilgrims out
-of the door, with the cat prospecting his dandruff, Alfred hopping up
-and down on his back, and the coyote pup hanging on to his coattails,
-and skidding along, making little snappy barks of delight.</p>
-
-<p>They all rolls off the porch, where the three animals tangles up,
-leaving Wick alone. He forks his bronc in a hurry, and sets there
-rubbing the haze out of his eyes.</p>
-
-<p>Amelia is setting a new cross-country record for cats, as she hunts
-for a high spot, and the pup is singing along right behind her.</p>
-
-<p>Alfred walks circles around a post for a few seconds, and then
-flutters to the top of the hitch-rack. He ruffles up what feathers
-he’s got left, cocks his head on one side and screeches:</p>
-
-<p>“Har, har, har! Sheep dip! Who’s crazy?”</p>
-
-<p>“My gosh!” explodes Wick. “That cyclone hit me so hard that I can see
-green eagles and hear ’em talk!” and he backs his bronc away,
-cautious-like, and leaves us in a hurry.</p>
-
-<p>Me and Muley looks at each other for a while, and then Muley yawns:</p>
-
-<p>“I must have lost that piece of letter where Zeb could find it. Well,
-it didn’t say nothing about buying sheep, anyway, Hen.”</p>
-
-<p>“Lucky it didn’t, Muley. If the community thought you intended to
-bring eighty thousand dollars’ worth of sheep on to this range you’d
-be the honored guest at a cravat party. Your auntie didn’t understand
-conditions when she wrote that will, Muley.”</p>
-
-<p>“Why emphasize ‘when she wrote that will,’ Henry!” he asks, sad-like.
-“After looking at Alfred and Amelia—well, Henry, there’s a destiny
-what shapes our ends.”</p>
-
-<p>Next morning at breakfast we’re interrupted. Comes a thump of feet
-outside the door, and a voice yells—</p>
-
-<p>“Hello, the house!”</p>
-
-<p>“Hello the ——!” says I. “That sounds like Zeb Abernathy, Muley.”</p>
-
-<p>Muley steps over and picks up the old man’s shotgun.</p>
-
-<p>“Let him in, Henry,” says he. “If he comes on the prod I’ll scatter
-his remains to the four winds.”</p>
-
-<p>I opens the door, and the old pelican bows to me like I was the fourth
-king in the deck to enter his hand.</p>
-
-<p>“Howdy, Henry,” says he, and then he happens to see Muley with the
-shotgun. “I comes in sorrow not in anger,” he states, “my soul is
-filled with contrition.”</p>
-
-<p>“As long as she’s filled with something I’ll save my buckshot,” opines
-Muley. “Come on in and rest your ticks, Zeb Abernathy.”</p>
-
-<p>“Nice weather,” observes Zeb, mopping his face with a red
-handkerchief. “May rain and it may not. I kind of look for a dry
-spell.”</p>
-
-<p>“The Weather Bureau at Washington gets but annual reports, which reach
-us too late, so we thanks you for the information,” says Muley.</p>
-
-<p>“I hope I see you both well,” opines Zeb.</p>
-
-<p>“Your eyesight don’t worry me none to speak about,” states Muley. “The
-last time I meets up with you I made you throw your gun down the well.
-How’s your sentiments concerning me at present?”</p>
-
-<p>“I’m filled with meekness and contrition, as I aforementioned,
-Le-mule. It aches my heart to know that I provoked you thataway, and I
-pilgrims over here to make amends. Sabe?”</p>
-
-<p>“Why this sudden change of attitude?” inquires Muley, and Zeb sort of
-squirms in his chair.</p>
-
-<p>“She comes to me like a yelp in the night,” says he, pious-like, “I
-gets to thinking thusly: ‘Le-mule Allender Bowles, I ain’t treated you
-right. I hops on to you like a coyote on a carcass, and reviles you
-abusive-like, ’cause you desires to marry into my family. I lets my
-interest in Susie blind me to her best interests, but now I sheds the
-scales off my eyes, and comes out into the sunshine of true
-understanding.</p>
-
-<p>“The more I thinks about it, Le-mule, the worse I feels. Youth calls
-to youth, and what is stronger than the call of true love? She ain’t
-never yelped at me, boys, but I’m a heap wise. While Le-mule is only
-getting forty a month now, I feels that in the due course of time
-he’ll be a shining light of the community, and maybe go to Congress.”</p>
-
-<p>“Good sentiments, Zeb,” I agrees, “but it will likely be a close race
-between the voters and the sheriff to decide whether he goes to Helena
-or Deer Lodge.”</p>
-
-<p>“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roars Zeb. “Muley will never go to the penitentiary.”</p>
-
-<p>“Not willingly,” I agrees. “What are your sheep worth today?”</p>
-
-<p>“I have no sheep, Henry,” he grins. “Sold out to a feller from St.
-Marie’s basin, and his drive started today. Yep. I’m a civilian now.”</p>
-
-<p>“Got a good price, too,” he grins, when he sees me look foolish-like
-at Muley. “Glad I sold. Too much sentiment against sheep. Well, boys,
-I reckon I’ll toddle along. I couldn’t sleep until I comes over and
-squares myself with Le-mule. Come over and make yourself to home at my
-place, Le-mule.”</p>
-
-<p>“Thanks, Zeb-uleon,” says Muley, “I may do that little thing,
-Zeb-uleon. How’s Susie, Zeb-uleon?”</p>
-
-<p>“Tolable, Le-mule. She’s pining.”</p>
-
-<p>We watches him ride away, and then Muley spits, reflectively:</p>
-
-<p>“Henry, if that old pelican had called me Le-mule once more I’d have
-slaughtered him. He must have found that letter I lost.”</p>
-
-<p>“You ought to invest your money in a detective agency, and run it
-yourself. I suppose you’ll go over to see Susie?”</p>
-
-<p>“Dang well know I will! Why not?”</p>
-
-<p>“Go ahead. Go ahead, Muley, and lose a hundred thousand. What’s a
-fortune beside her? Your brain ain’t big enough, Muley. When it gets
-over forty dollars it all looks alike to you. You take my advice and
-buy sheep.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yah-h-h-h!” he blats. “Where?”</p>
-
-<p>“What will you give me if I buy ’em for you?” I asks.</p>
-
-<p>“You? You got a dead aunt, too, Henry?”</p>
-
-<p>“No, but I got brains, and I can buy sheep.”</p>
-
-<p>“Go buy ’em then!” he snaps, “I’m from Missouri—me.”</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>Muley rides away in the general direction of his heart’s desire, and I
-gets an inspiration. Over in St. Marie’s basin is plenty of sheep, and
-I never saw a sheep-man yet what wouldn’t sell out. I like Muley.
-Dog-gone his irresponsible heart, I like him. His mind ain’t big
-enough to contemplate a hundred thousand dollars, and I feels glad for
-him that he’s got a friend like me to make good for him.</p>
-
-<p>I may be rewarded for my efforts, and maybe not, but anyway I’ve
-always wanted to handle big money, and show to the world that Henry
-Peck could be more than he’s ever showed.</p>
-
-<p>I saddles up Glory and puts a pack on Blazer, and leaves a note for
-Muley, telling him that I’ll be back on the fatal day to save him from
-ruin. Little Henry is going to be a hero, and hopes to do his heroing
-on a commission basis.</p>
-
-<p>I pilgrims over into a country that cowmen designates as being a fair
-example of the place where sinners will reside in the hereafter, and
-eats mutton and talks sheep.</p>
-
-<p>Believe me I could talk sheep faster than the men that owned the
-herds, and I confides in ’em about Muley’s inheritance. Of course I
-didn’t tell it all, but anyway I got options on enough sheep to cause
-Yaller Rock County to build an extra wing on the insane asylum, and
-said options didn’t cost me a cent.</p>
-
-<p>“Old Testament” Tilton rides back with me. I’ve spent about fifteen
-thousand of Muley’s credit with him, and being a minister, he’s a
-little suspicious of his fellow-men.</p>
-
-<p>“I ride with you for the good of my soul,” orates the old boy, when he
-offers to accompany me.</p>
-
-<p>I reckon that when a shepherd goes into cow-land, it’s like taking a
-ship into fresh water to knock off the barnacles.</p>
-
-<p>He’s a queer old coot. Imagine a man of his cognomen, add the smell of
-sheep, dress him up around the neck like a preacher, tuck his pants
-into the top of a pair of heavy boots, and you’ve got a portrait of
-Old Testament. He rides a little calico bronc, with one cropped ear
-and a rat-tail, and calls it Ebenezer. The only way, I figure, that he
-could ever hand out salvation would be by correspondence.</p>
-
-<p>“Now, this here Le-mule Bowles,” remarks the old boy, “do you think I
-could induce him to come into the vineyard?”</p>
-
-<p>“Muley will go into anything that’s got a door on it,” says I. “Also,
-he’ll take anything what ain’t nailed down.”</p>
-
-<p>“I fear me it will be a task,” he says, sad-like, and then he sort of
-brightens up. “Have you ever considered your soul?”</p>
-
-<p>“I have no soul,” says I.</p>
-
-<p>“Say not that you are a lost sheep,” he chides me, and it makes me
-sore, and I points off down the valley.</p>
-
-<p>“We’re in cow-land now, old-timer, so you lay off on that lost-sheep
-stuff. Sabe? Down here they calls ’em plain strays.”</p>
-
-<p>We plods down into the Sleeping Creek country, and stops at Hank
-Padden’s place for dinner. Old Testament and Hank are old friends, but
-Hank don’t more than give me a nod. I reckon he ain’t forgot what he
-thought was Muley’s voice, and he blames me, too. When we gets ready
-to leave Hank acts like I had a contagious disease.</p>
-
-<p>“Drop in any old time, Tilton,” says Hank. “Glad to see you.”</p>
-
-<p>“Me, too, Hank?” I asks, and he gives me a hard look.</p>
-
-<p>“You travels on your own responsibility,” he replies.</p>
-
-<p>“I wonder what Hank is sore at me for?” I asks Old Testament, a little
-later, but he shakes his head, and mumbles something about the flocks
-on the seven hills and the wrath to come.</p>
-
-<p>“Did you tell him that I bought them sheep?” I asks, and he nods.</p>
-
-<p>“Yea. I did not lie, Henry Peck. I know naught of Bowles.”</p>
-
-<p>“I suppose you also told him that I was going to stock this here range
-with sheep, didn’t you?”</p>
-
-<p>“I merely told him that I surmised so.”</p>
-
-<p>We rides almost to the Cross J, when we overtakes Abe Evans, the depot
-agent at Paradise.</p>
-
-<p>“Gosh! I’m glad you caught me,” pants Abe, “I never was built to fit a
-saddle, and this here nag ain’t no rocking-chair. Here’s a telegram
-for Lemule Bowles, charges paid. You sign for it, Hen, and let me go
-back home.”</p>
-
-<p>We pilgrims on to the ranch, but Muley ain’t there. There’s a note on
-the table which orates that he’ll be there at three o’clock, and it’s
-addressed to Weinie Lopp, of the Triangle.</p>
-
-<p>“This here telegram ought to be opened,” opines Old Testament, who is
-as nosey as a pet coon. “A telegram always means that something is
-going to happen, and it’s better to be prepared.”</p>
-
-<p>I tears the cover off and looks her over. It says—</p>
-
-<div style='text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; '>
-<div style='font-size:0.9em;'>Will arrive your town this date meet me with a vehicle. </div>
-</div>
-<p>And she’s signed Frederick &amp; Quincy.</p>
-
-<p>I looks at my watch and decides on quick action.</p>
-
-<p>“You set down here and rest your feet,” says I to Old Testament, “I’ll
-hitch up the buckboard, and go to town. I just got enough time to get
-there.”</p>
-
-<p>That was some ride. Them broncs were as wild as deer, and we went to
-Paradise so fast that the dust didn’t settle for thirty minutes after
-I ties up at the station.</p>
-
-<p>The train is late, so I goes over to Mike Pelly’s place, and washes
-the sheep-taste out of my throat. It takes quite a lot of liquid, and
-when I goes back to the station I’m sheep-proof.</p>
-
-<p>The train pulls in and I spots my man. There’s quite a crowd at the
-station, but I knowed him the minute he got off, and it takes me about
-three steps to get where he’s standing. Being sheep-proof, I’m also
-polite, so I takes his valise away from him, and starts for the rig.</p>
-
-<p>“Come on, Blackstone,” says I, “your carriage waits without.”</p>
-
-<p>He starts with me, but he seems to complain a heap, so I stops and
-asks him whyfore the objections.</p>
-
-<p>“Where the Sam Hill are you taking my bag?” he asks, getting red in
-the face. “Who told you to take that valise?”</p>
-
-<p>“Mister,” says I, “don’t excite yourself thataway. I’m doing all I can
-to make you comfortable. Sabe? I advises you to come along peaceable,
-and anything you may say will be used against you.”</p>
-
-<p>I always thought that lawyers tried to settle things peaceably, but I
-don’t reckon this one runs true to form, ’cause he hit me so hard
-under the chin that he drove my head right up to the top of my hat.
-That hat always was too small, but after that wallop I has to stuff
-the sweat-band with paper so she’ll fit.</p>
-
-<p>The train is pulling out when I wakes up, and I sees that fat feller
-standing on the rear platform.</p>
-
-<p>“What was you aiming to do, Hen?” asks Bill McFee, our sheriff, who is
-setting beside me on the platform.</p>
-
-<p>“That was the feller I was here to meet, Bill,” says I. “He’s sure a
-sudden son-of-a-gun for a lawyer.”</p>
-
-<p>“He ain’t no lawyer, Henry,” says Bill. “He’s the railroad paymaster,
-and he thought you was trying to steal his roll.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wrong man,” says I. “Seen any stranger get off the train?”</p>
-
-<p>Bill shakes his head, so I pilgrims around to where I tied my rig, and
-there sets Telescope, Chuck and the old man. Them three acts like they
-was tickled stiff, and Telescope yelps at me—</p>
-
-<p>“Got the telegram, did you, Henry?”</p>
-
-<p>I don’t have nothing to say, and that seems to make ’em more joyful. I
-don’t keep silent from choice, but that feller darn near unjointed my
-jaw and she hurts like thunder when I opens my face.</p>
-
-<p>“Muley still wearing crape?” asks Chuck, as we ride out of town, and
-all three of ’em busts out laughing.</p>
-
-<p>“Danged mean trick,” opines the old man. “You remember Jimmy
-Frederick, don’t you, Hen? He was out here a few years ago. He knows
-Muley well. We were up in his office and Telescope and Chuck got him
-to write that letter.”</p>
-
-<p>“How many sheep has Muley bought on his nerve?” asks Chuck.</p>
-
-<p>“Come on through, Hen. Did he buy out Zeb’s herd? I hope he ain’t got
-mutton for our supper.” And then Telescope sings sort of plaintive
-like;</p>
-
-<div class='poetry-container'>
-<div class='poetry'>
-<div class='stanza'>
-<div class='verse'>“I love a little chicken and I love a little fish.</div>
-<div class='verse'>When somebody says ‘ham and eggs,’ I pass along my dish,</div>
-<div class='verse'>When I get good and hungry I could eat a roarin’ bull,</div>
-<div class='verse'>But when they passes mutton meat my stummick’s full.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<p>And then Chuck joins in the chorus:</p>
-
-<div class='poetry-container'>
-<div class='poetry'>
-<div class='stanza'>
-<div class='verse'>“I’m a tough old rooster, and I’ve eaten snakes,</div>
-<div class='verse'>I’ve spread giant powder on my buckwheat cakes,</div>
-<div class='verse'>I’ve drank rawhide stew ’till I was out of breath,</div>
-<div class='verse'>But when they serves up mutton meat I starves to death.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<p>“You’re a fine bunch of friends!” I snaps, taking a chance that my jaw
-is still on its hinges. “She was his favorite relative, and since that
-letter he ain’t done nothing but mope. You’re a danged bunch of ghoul
-comedians. Muley’s due to kill somebody when he finds out about it.
-What was the main idea?”</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” laughs Telescope, “we made him rich for a while, didn’t we?
-Zeb orates that he wants Susie to marry money, so we gave it to him in
-a lump. We puts in that marriage clause just to see if Muley loved her
-enough to lose the money, Sabe? We knowed danged well that he couldn’t
-buy no sheep. What did the parrot have to say, Hen?”</p>
-
-<p>“Told Hank Padden he could use sheep dip.”</p>
-
-<p>“Haw, haw, haw!” whoops Chuck. “Did he honest say that? I sat up all
-one night and day trying to teach that parrot some sheep-talk, but all
-it ever did was to bite me. Telescope swiped that cat at the depot in
-Milwaukee.”</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>Just before we reaches the ranch, three people rides in ahead of us
-and waits for us to come up. It’s Hank Padden, Johnny Myers and
-“Scenery” Sims. They all got rifles.</p>
-
-<p>We exchanges greetings, but they don’t seem glad to see nobody but me.</p>
-
-<p>“We don’t aim to be nosey, Mr. Peck,” says Hank, “but we’d admire to
-hear a little more about them sheep.”</p>
-
-<p>“What sheep?” I asks, surprised-like.</p>
-
-<p>“Old Testament told me,” says Hank. “He spoke about you going to start
-a herd here and——”</p>
-
-<p>“I thanks you for the compliment,” says I. “It seems nice to be
-mistaken for a capitalist, Hank, but what I wants to know is this; how
-long since have you been taking the word of a shepherd? Do I need to
-deny it?”</p>
-
-<p>“Old Testament must have lied, Hank,” states the old man. “He must
-have been crazy to state such a thing. Somebody’s crazy anyway.”</p>
-
-<p>“That’s what I said,” squeaks Scenery. “Hen Peck couldn’t buy a pair
-of wool socks.”</p>
-
-<p>They all nods sort of agreeable-like, and he drives on.</p>
-
-<p>“After a while, when there ain’t nobody around to interrupt us, I’m
-going to ask you a few questions, Henry,” states Chuck, solemn-like.</p>
-
-<p>“You better bring a witness,” says I. “All I wants is an uninterested
-third party present so I can prove I shot in self-defense.”</p>
-
-<p>We pulls up to the ranch. The front door is open and two rigs are tied
-out in front. We pilgrims up to the door, and are greeted with some
-sight.</p>
-
-<p>There’s Old Testament standing in the middle of the room, with his
-eyes rolled toward the rafters, while in front of him stands Susie
-Abernathy and Muley Bowles. Muley’s vest is stretched to the bursting
-point, and you could light a match on Susie’s freckles.</p>
-
-<p>To one side stands Zeb Abernathy, and on the other stands Weinie Lopp,
-all dressed up in a celluloid collar, and no place to put his hands.</p>
-
-<p>We hears Old Testament finish up his prayer, and as Muley folds Susie
-to his bosom we troops inside. Muley sees us over Susie’s shoulder,
-and breaks the clinch. Zeb grins out through his whiskers and Weinie
-Lopp turns up the collar of his coat.</p>
-
-<p>Everything is still for a few seconds, and then Old Testament smiles
-at me over his specs:</p>
-
-<p>“My son,” says he, “it’s fortunate that I came with you. I had
-considered taking a trip over into the Bitter Roots, and Mister Lopp
-would have missed me.”</p>
-
-<p>“Exactly,” says I, having the understanding of a fish. “All very true.
-Was Weinie on your trail?”</p>
-
-<p>“Uh-huh,” gurgles Weinie,“I—I was after a preacher for Muley.”</p>
-
-<p>“They—they just got married,” chuckles Zeb. “Just now.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” says Chuck, foolish-like, “who gets the first kiss from the
-bride—after you, Muley?”</p>
-
-<p>“Muley, you’re a hero!” gasps Telescope. “Any man is a hero who will
-sacrifice a hundred thousand dollars at the throne of love. Everybody
-take off your hats to Muley Bowles.”</p>
-
-<p>Everybody’s got their hats off so we don’t respond.</p>
-
-<p>“What did you mean by that, Telescope?” gasps Zeb. “Do—do you mean
-that he—he’ll lose all that money ’cause he married Susie?”</p>
-
-<p>“You said it, Zeb,” grins Telescope. “Ain’t you proud of him? What a
-nephew-in-law!” and then he turns to Muley: “Muley, old-timer, I
-didn’t think you had it in you, but you never can tell which way a
-dill pickle will squirt. How does it seem to lose a hundred thousand
-dollars?”</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” grins Muley, putting one arm around the shrinking bride. “I
-ain’t lying to you when I says I don’t know how it feels. You see,
-Telescope, the name of Allender don’t cover no branch of my
-family-tree, and I never had any Aunt Agnes.”</p>
-
-<p>There’s a painful silence for a minute, and then comes a flutter of
-feathers, and in waddles Alfred. He ain’t got no tail-feathers left,
-and the rest of his carcass is pretty well plucked. He looks us over,
-wild-eyed, ruffles up his remaining foliage, croaks:</p>
-
-<p>“Har, har, har! Who’s crazy?”</p>
-
-<p>Zeb looks wide-eyed at the bird for a moment, and then sneaks past it
-and out on the steps:</p>
-
-<p>“I’m going away,” says he in a low, hoarse voice. “Going away before
-that bird answers its own questions.”</p>
-
-<p>“Tally three more,” states Telescope, and him and Chuck and the old
-man sneaks out.</p>
-
-<p>“Make it five,” says I, and me and Weinie goes out, too.</p>
-
-<div class="tn">
-  <p style='text-indent:0'>Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in
-  the September 3, 1918 issue of <em>Adventure</em> magazine.</p>
-</div>
-<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAKING GOOD FOR MULEY ***</div>
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