THE HAND OF PROVIDENCE

By W. C. Tuttle

Author of “Tied Up for Tombstone,”
“The Domestication of Dobie,” etc.

“Mebby this ol’ place was excitin’ once upon a time, but since I’ve lived here she’s been jist about as wild and woolly and excitin’ as watchin’ a sheep-herder play solitaire,” opines Ricky Henderson to the bunch of us on the steps of Buck Masterson’s saloon.

“Why,” he continues, when we don’t argue none, “even the dog-gone broncs have done forgot how to pitch in this man’s land. This year of 1895 shore is dull and drab to ol’ man Henderson’s li’l boy.”

“Too true, Ricky,” agrees Magpie Simpkins, agreein’ with some one fer once in his life. “Why, them broncs”—indicatin’ six buzzard heads from the Seven A and the Triangle outfits, which are noddin’ their heads at the rack—“are too dog-goned lazy to even go home if they was cut loose. Nothin’ short of the crack of doom would disturb their slumbers, and I knowed the time when we used to make bets as to whether our broncs wouldn’t tear loose and set us on foot when we hits town. It shore ain’t like the good ol’ days when—— What in —— is comin’?”

We all stands up on our hind legs, and also does the broncs at the rack. Whatever it was we shore don’t de-cipher the sound. We’re kumtucks to every degree of noise in that locality from the buzz of a sidewinder to the crack of a thunderbolt, but this sound was somethin’ ab-solutely new.

It is poppin’ and roarin’ down at the end of the street and comin’ closer every pop. “Cobalt” Williams jumps up on a chair, and climbs the support of the porch.

“Here she comes!” he yells. “Nothin’ pushin’ and nothin’ pullin’! My Gawd!”

Jist then it emerges from a cloud of alkali dust and ambles straight fer our place of refuge. Them broncs gits back their childhood days in a second, and, bein’ as some of them are tied with half-inch ropes there ain’t nothin’ to be done except to uproot that rack, the same of which they does with great cheer and dispatch.

Immediately and soon them four rope-tied broncs proceeds to sweep the streets of our city with that twenty-foot rack. They begins operations by takin’ up the town pump, and then on second thought they annexes Pete Gonyer’s cart, which he has jist painted and left in the sun to dry. Pete put in a lot of work remodelin’ that ol’ breakin’ cart, and he won’t sing joyfully when he finds it has been distributed all over the range.

Ol’ Sam Holt is comin’ up the road in his wagon, and he sees the cyclone jist in time. It’s sweepin’ in his direction, and the ol’ man, after takin’ one good look, swings his team around, and the last we sees of the procession the ol’ man is still in the lead. When the dust settles we inspects the cause of the disturbance. It’s standin’ in the middle of the street, shakin’ like it had the ager, and we recognizes the occupant as one “Scenery” Sims, of Curlew.

Scenery gits his name from the fact that he builds his house on the top of a hill so he can see the country. He’s a li’l pop-eyed hombre, without no visible shoulders, and his tracks in the dust can’t be told from the spoor of a Piegan. Also he’s lousy with money which he made runnin’ sheep in the Johnson Hole.

“Jist about what kind of a —— thing is that?” snorts Wick Smith.

Scenery looks us over with a superior air, and lights a seegar.

“Don’t try to keep it a secret,” advises Cobalt. “We kin all see it, Scenery, so yuh might as well come across like a man.”

“Say, yuh bunch of ignorant grangers,” sez Scenery, “do yuh mean to say yuh don’t know what this is?”

“Shore, we know what it is,” replies Weinie Lopp, “but we wants to hear it from yore own lips.”

“This,” sez Scenery, pattin’ the polished side of the contraption, “is a hossless wagon.”

“Well,” sez Slim Hawkins, pickin’ up the remains of his plaited leather bridle out of the dust, “you shore comes to the right place. This is a hossless city right now.”

Scenery looks off down the street in the direction taken by the hosses, and then dismounts.

“Hosses have got to git used to these things,” he states. “Down to Curlew they’re gittin’ a heap used to ’em. The first day there is eight runaways, the next there’s only five and yesterday there is only three. It don’t take ’em long to ——”

“How many teams was in Curlew yesterday?” interrupts Buck.

“Three,” sez Scenery. “Let’s all have a li’l snifter.”

“What makes the blasted thing go?” asks Cobalt. “She ain’t got no b’iler ner smokestack ner nothin’.”

“Gasoline,” sez Scenery. “I ain’t noways familiar with the internal workin’s, but I knows that gasoline is the fodder. She cost me four thousand, but by cripes, she’s worth it.”

“I’d reckon that yuh guides it with that iron walkin’ stick,” sez Slim.

“Uh-huh,” agrees Scenery, with his face full of hooch. “It ain’t no trick to run the blamed thing. All yuh has to do is to wind the handle on the side, and she begins to splutter. Then yuh forks the seat, pulls north on that leever, steps on the pedal on the bottom and ——”

“And what?” asks Buck.

“Pray,” sez Scenery. “Let’s have another li’l snifter.”

“Why the prayer?” asks Cobalt. “I don’t see no cause for religion.”

“Shore yuh don’t, Cobalt,” replies Scenery, wipin’ the back of his hand across his mouth. “You ain’t used to nothin’ more dangerous than an ordinary outlaw bronc, which is a crawlin’, milk-eatin’ specimen of locomotion alongside this juggernaut.

“’Cause why? ’Cause a bronc has got eyes, and don’t ordinarily butt his head agin an immovable object, nor git the idea that he’s a tree-infestin’ animule and try to re-pose serenely on the top of a tree. This thing don’t care a —— where it goes. Sabe?”

“Well,” sez Slim, “all I can say is that yo’re goin’ to find yoreself badly disliked in this country, Scenery. I’m commencin’ to feel a certain degree of animosity agin yuh already. That headstall and reins cost me twelve simoleons in Miles City this Spring, and I’m willin’ to bet that my bronc is plumb ruined by this time from trailin’ that rack.”

“Sorrow ain’t payable at no bank, so I won’t say I’m sorry, Slim, but I will say——”

Comes the rattle of a wagon out in the street and we hears ol’ Sam Holt yell:

“Whoa! Hey, Buck! Bring me a drink!”

“Come in and git it!” replies Buck. “Yuh ain’t paralyzed, are yuh?”

“Hurry up!” yells Sam. “Dog-gone yuh, Buck, hurry up! I got a half-mile lead on that bunch of destruction, and if yuh don’t hurry I’ll have to pull out. Here they—— Hooray! Hooray! Never mind it now, Buck. They’ve got crossways of Judge Steele’s hay-rack and they can’t move a peg.

“What started ’em, Buck?” asks Sam, when he comes inside. “I never knowed that them Seven A and Triangle cayuses had that much life. They done chased me fer three miles.”

“Hossless wagon,” sez Buck. “Scenery comes to our town in this hossless vehicle, and scares delirious delight out of every bronc in the place. Didn’t yuh see it outside?”

“So that was a hossless wagon, eh? I shore seed it outside, but I opines that it’s somebody’s buggy with the pole broke out. I’ve heerd tell of them things but I ain’t noways kumtucks to their peculiarities, Buck.

“I’m shore glad that it’s Scenery Sims what first introduces said runaway promoter to our vicinity, ’cause he won’t be missed like a regular man would. Not havin’ no wife nor children he won’t have no one to mourn his untimely de-mise, and nobody will have pangs of re-morse fer smokin’ up his carcass with a gun.”

“Havin’ voted for President Garfield in 1881, I don’t consider myself an infant in swaddlin’ clothes,” opines Scenery, loosenin’ the top button of his pants, so his six-gun will hang looser.

“I’ve et rattlesnake soup and picked my teeth with a bayonet, and jist because I ain’t got no wife nor kids to mourn, it don’t give me no reason fer voluntarily passin’ on to the bourn from which no pilgrim ever returneth back. I hereby states, without malice nor deliberate intention of hurtin’ other people’s feelin’s, that me and my four thousand dollar bronc-boycotter goes where and when we danged pleases. Mebby she goes where I don’t want to go, and mebby she causes me to fork a cloud and finger music out of a harp, but regardless of all that, I opines that this is a free country, Sam Holt. Do I speak clear?”

“Yuh shore does, Scenery,” agrees Sam. “If I had as many scoops of hooch under my belt as you have I could make a fittin’ reply to yore oration, but I’m like you—no speaker when I’m sober. I can say this much, though, Scenery: I don’t like yuh; I don’t like yore hossless cart and I don’t like yore platform.”

Sam turns to Buck, who is considered the best rifle shot in the country, and sez:

“Buck, if a machine about the size of Scenery’s was five hundred yards away and goin’ about twenty mile per hour, how far ahead of it would yuh hold with a 45-70 to hit it dead center?”

“Well,” sez Buck, settin’ out the glasses ag’in, and squintin’ at the bar-bottle, “if I owned a hoss I wouldn’t stand so far away. Yuh might shoot low and hit the machine.”

“All of which,” snorts Scenery, “proves that this here village is backward. Yore satisfied to loaf along on a hoss or in a rattlin’ buckboard, but as fer me I ——”

“Yuh sorter spurns the earth, as it were,” finishes Weinie. “All I hope is that in case that gas-grazin’ animule of yorn decides to mingle with a tree I’ll have a front seat at the show. I’d enjoy that—me.”

“I’m goin’,” states Scenery, startin’ fer the door, “but in spite of the fact that my vehicle ain’t appreciated by you snake hunters I’m comin’ back some day.”

He winds on the crank until he jist about busts his gizzard before she starts whizzin’, and then he mounts. He slams the leever ahead, digs his heels into the dashboard, and that shiny corn-husker gives a couple of jerks, and off she goes toward Curlew, rickety-rack, rickety-rack.

“That,” opines Magpie, after Scenery disappears in the dust, “is a —— of a bunch of liabilities fer a man to ride on. Mebby it’s all right, boys, but she looks to me—sufferin’ coyotes! Look what’s comin’!”

It shore was worth a second glance. Out of the cloud of dust, left by the departin’ Scenery Sims, comes the remnant of a vanishin’ race. Not mounted on prancin’ steeds and bedecked with beads, feathers and riotous blankets and stained with war-paint. Not wavin’ scalpin’-knife and tommyhawk and honin’ fer ha’r. Not any!

This is ol’ Chief Plenty Black Bears and his fambly, consistin’ of a moon-faced klooch, eight papooses and five dogs, and the whole mess is ridin’ high and handsome in a—hearse! The chief opines to be the leader of the copper-skinned Four Hundred of Roarin’ Creek, and when he goes visitin’ he shore goes plumb stylish. He buys the hearse from an undertaker over in Helena, and the corpse-rustler puts in a high hat with a black plume fer good measure. The chief wears the hat when he drives.

I would say that them broncs were goin’ some place. Up the street they comes with their bellies scrapin’ the dust, and that ol’ death equipage is swayin’ and bouncin’ some scandalous. The chief has got that plug hat pulled down over his face so the brim rests on the bridge of his broken nose, and he’s ra’red up there sawin’ on his lines, and every time the broncs hit the dirt yuh can hear him yellin’:

“Hoh! Hoh! Hoh!”

He’s hittin’ a dead center on the street and everythin’ is goin’ fine until he gits in front of the saloon. I reckon his lines were some patched up, and even good leather won’t stand fer too much pullin’. Anyway one of the lines snapped, and, bein’ as the ol’ war-whoop is overbalanced, he jist natcherally turns a back flip-flop, drops gracefully off the rear of the hearse and stands on his hat in the road.

I don’t reckon it was through any sense of loyalty or desire to remain with their lord and master, but the rest of the fambly descends one by one, via the li’l door at the rear. Each one spills out, bounces a couple of times, gits up, looks back, and then goes over and sets down on Sam Holt’s porch. The squaw, bein’ the last one out, has to walk back about a quarter of a mile, while the funerial dray fades out of sight over a ridge.

Nobody thought to cut that hat off the chief’s head—we pulls it off, and the pullin’ didn’t improve the ol’ boy’s looks any. He fingers his face fer a while, and then looks off in the direction from whence he comes.

“What was yore hurry, Chief?” laughs Buck.

He looks at Buck fer a minute and then points off down the road.

“Seeum diaub!” he yelps. “Hyas peshack!”

And then he waddles over to Holt’s porch, where the squaw is busy takin’ the census.

“Well,” sez Magpie, “I’d say he was right when he said that he had seen the devil, and that it was very bad. Don’t anybody tell him what it really was, ’cause he’d jist about massacree Scenery. Sentiment is a queer thing, boys. If the chief assassinated ol’ Scenery we’d jist about have to hang the Injun on general principles ’cause he’s an Injun. If a white man killed Scenery we’d give a dance. I kinda like the ol’ war-whoop, so let’s let him think that it was the devil.”

It’s about three hours since Scenery left when we hears voices raised in anger, and we stops the deal long enough to recognize the wau-wau of Pete Gonyer and Andy Johnson, and they’re speakin’ like men with a grievance on their chests.

“This shore is one fine town, Andy,” snorts Pete. “By the horns on the moon, I leaves a perfectly good li’l red cart in front of my shop. It was jist an inoffensive li’l ol’ cart, Andy, and somebody comes along and scatters it fer miles!”

“Dang yore ol’ cart!” wails Andy. “I got blisters on my heels as big as a dollar and six-bits. That’s the first time that roan hoss ever piled me, and I ain’t cheerin’ none. Piled slick and clean, six miles from home and mother!”

“Yuh can’t blame the hoss, Andy.”

“You said somethin’, Pete. If that hoss had been ridin’ me I’d have shore done some pitchin’ myself. I’d admire to know what it was.”

“Looked like a smoke-spittin’ whangobbler to me, Andy. Six miles in tight boots! Aw ——!”

We gits up and walks out on the porch. There sits Pete and Andy and they’re shore a tired-lookin’ pair of pilgrims. Pete’s got his boots off, but Andy’s feet are swelled up so tight he can’t git his boots off, so he’s cheerfully cuttin’ ’em off with his knife.

“Been takin’ a li’l stroll?” asks Weinie Lopp.

Andy scowls at Weinie, cuts the last boot off, and tries to wiggle his toes:

“Go ahead and tell ’em what happened, Pete,” sez he. “I’d do it but they’d say I was a liar.”

“Well,” says Pete, borrowin’ my tobacco and papers, “I don’t care a tinker’s dang what they say to me. I can’t believe it myself but I shore know it came along.”

“Meanin’ which?” grins Magpie.

“We met,” sez Pete, inhalin’ deep, “Andy and me, we met—say, Andy, give it a name.”

“The whangobbler,” prompts Andy.

“The whangobbler,” sez Pete. “Me and Andy—aw, Magpie, yuh don’t need to grin. We’re ridin’ slow-like along the road, and jist as we starts around the curve at the mouth of Peel Heel Gulch we hears a rippin’ sort of a noise, and right then this said whangobbler enters our midst.

“My bronc don’t take time to buck. He jist whirls off the grade, turns plumb over in the air and de-posits me in a mesquite, so what I seen of it was sort of sudden-like. Andy’s cayuse r’ars up, falls agin’ the side of the hill, and leaves Andy with his boots in the air over a log. Them two hosses gits together and leaves fer parts unknown. I kin almost swear that I hears that whangobbler laugh when we meets disaster.”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roars Slim. “Yore a fine pair of rustics! Don’t yuh know a hossless wagon when yuh sees one?”

Andy and Pete looked foolish like at each other and then Andy clears his throat—

“Pete, that’s jist what I said at——”

“You did like ——!” snaps Pete. “Mebby yuh meant to say that, Andy, but the things yuh called it couldn’t noways be construed to spell hossless wagon. Not by about four Chinese alphabets.”

“Scenery Sims!” yelps Pete, after we explains about it. “That li’l ol’ wool-lovin’ pelican! Magpie, you bein’ sheriff of this county, can’t yuh act as a game-warden long enough to declare open season on the Sims fambly?”

“The game law,” replies Magpie, “includes elk, deer, antelope, mountain goats and sheep. Also it protects at all times, beaver, otter and singin’ birds. He ain’t no otter nor beaver, and I can swear that he ain’t no singin’ bird. He’s a crow or a buzzard by his voice, the same bein’ le-gitimate targets at all times.”

“Thanks,” sez Andy. “I allus aims to be within the law. Magpie, are yuh familiar with the vital parts of one of them wagons?”

“About six inches above the seat.”

“Kerect!” sez Andy. “I don’t like to see anythin’ suffer from bein’ wounded.”

And then he hobbles across the street in his socks to git some moccasins.

Not tryin’ to change the subject none, but I’d jist like to remark that hoss-thieves don’t show proper consideration fer the law. If they had shown proper decency in their callin’ this story probably wouldn’t have occurred, or if it did I’d have been in the audience instead of on the stage.

A couple of days after Scenery introduces his machine to the admirin’ populace of Piperock, Magpie gits a call to go over on the Li’l Muddy to investigate a rustlin’ proposition, and without consultin’ my wishes or desires, he immediately swears me in as a deputy and drags me along with him.

I ain’t lost no rustlers. Live and let live is my motter, and I’m so strong on the first part of that sayin’ that I’m plumb gunshy. We starts late and reaches Cottonwood Creek that night. Not wishin’ to have to hunt hosses in the mornin’, we pickets the broncs down on the creek bottom, and while we’re dreamin’ of shootin’ hundreds of rustlers with one hand, while we pins glory medals on our bulgin’ breasts with the other, some son-of-a-gun stole our hosses!

All they leaves was, “Thanks,” which was wrote on a piece of paper with the charred end of a stick, and hung on the picket pin. Magpie looks it over, picks up the piece of charcoal and writes “Yore welcome” on the same piece of paper and hangs it back on the stake.

“That li’l trick,” sez Magpie, “shore prejudices me agin’ all hoss-thieves, Ike. Heretofore I’ve only took a stand agin ’em when somebody gits peeved at their activities, but hereafter I’m agin all hoss-thieves, black, white and red.”

“All of which is a noble and upliftin’ oration,” sez I, “but high ideals and future ambitions don’t cut down the distance from here to Piperock.”

Magpie consults a cigaret or two before he figgers the exact position which we are occupyin’.

“Ike, we’re about eight miles above the main road, as near as I can figger. Suppose we jist amble down the creek, and we’re bound to hit the road. Can’t be over eight miles.”

“And after that,” sez I, cheerfully, “we’ve only got a li’l ol’ measly ten miles more to walk before we sees the ol’ homestead. This deputy sheriff life is shore great. All yuh got to do is to have some rattle-headed apology fer a sheriff ask yuh to hol’ up yore right hand while he repeats a few words which he don’t know the meanin’ of, and then let him pin a piece of tin on yore manly bosom, and yo’re organized to go out and capture all lawbreakers and——”

“Walk back,” sez Magpie. “Sarcasm is a great accomplishment, Ike, but it don’t ease yore achin’ feet. Let’s git a goin’.”

Did yuh ever walk eight miles—the kind of miles of which some hombre guessed the distance, and then added six more to be sure and have it long enough—down hill in high-heeled boots? It can be done but you’ll never feel the same toward yore feet agin. Yore toes bug out of the end of yore boots until yuh can hear yore toenails squeak, and jist when yuh thinks yuh can’t stand any more torture, yuh stubs yore toes on a sharp rock. Hell hath no fury like a stubbed sore toe.

Shore, we arrived at the road, but that didn’t cheer me none. To me it was only a case of subtractin’ eight from eighteen. We bathes our feet in the crick to take the swellin’ out, cuts holes in our boots so we can git ’em on agin, and limps off toward Piperock.

We’ve pilgrimed along fer about a mile when Magpie stops and gazes at our back trail. By cripes! I hears it too. Bein’ absolutely up to date, my sensitive ears catches the splutter of a hossless wagon, and she’s comin’ the same way we’re headed. I looks at Magpie, and his homely face is harborin’ a grin.

“Why be glad?” I asks.

“Ride, yuh maverick!” he whoops. “We’ll ride home in style, Ike.”

Jist then Scenery and his rattlebox appears around the turn, and Magpie spreads his long legs in the middle of the road and waves his arms.

“Halt!” he yells, and Scenery heaves hard on the brake. “In the name of the law I commands yuh to give Ike and me a ride to Piperock.”

Scenery looks some careworn and scratched. He’s got a piece of dirty rag coverin’ a cut on his forehead, and one eye is assumin’ a purple tint.

“Well,” sez he, lookin’ us over and then movin’ over to one side of the narrer seat, “the name of the law don’t mean nothin’ to me, but I’m willin’ to help a friend, Magpie. You fellers will have to ride that side of the seat double, ’cause this trouble-huntin’ buggy wasn’t built fer no fambly equipage.”

We climbs aboard and away she goes. By cripes, it shore beat walkin’ four ways from the jack. While she makes a heap of noise it shore pilgrims along fine, and it did feel queer to be ridin’ along thataway without nothin’ in front but the road. We swings around the top of the grade at the summit of Roarin’ Mountain and dips down toward the creek. Bein’ a fairly steep hill, the wagon seems to gather speed at every bounce.

“Better ease her up a li’l, Scenery,” sez Magpie, reachin’ back and gittin’ a good holt on my belt. “There’s a plumb bad curve at the bottom, and—my Gawd!”

Right around the turn comes a four-hoss team, with Johnny Myers of the Triangle outfit, drivin’, and Hank Padden, the owner of the Seven A, is sittin’ beside him on the high seat, smokin’ his pipe. All three of us yelled at the same time, but them yells were a plumb waste of good wind, ’cause them broncs were too busy to hear ’em. I seen ol’ man Padden hit the road on the seat of his pants, and Johnny was still in the air as we passed, so I don’t know jist how he did land. The four hosses went off through the timber, buckin’ and bawlin’ and makin’ light of that heavy wagon.

“D-d-d-danged f-fools!” grunts Magpie, as we sailed over a stump and skidded almost off the road. “D-d-drivin’ wild hosses thataway. Hosses have shore got to git——”

Whiz! Spat! Magpie’s hat goes sailin’ off into space, and ol’ Scenery gives her another fork full of gas.

“C-c-c-can Johnny sh-shoot s-s-straight?” yells Scenery in my ear.

I nods my head as much as I can, bein’ as it’s bent backward from contact with Magpie’s shoulder blades, and then Scenery yells—

“Duck!”

I hears a gentle zephyr oof past my ear, and then we turns a corner and gits out of sight. Scenery stops his wagon and looks her over.

“I’d say we was goin’ right smart,” he remarks. “Johnny was shootin’ a 30-30 and she jist barely punctures the back of the seat.”

He gits aboard agin and on we goes.

“I’d gather from them remarks,” sez Magpie, “that you’ve had so much trouble with this machine that a 30-30 bullet more or less ain’t nothin’ out of the ordinary.”

“Yore mouth was full of words jist then,” sez he. “Nothin’ can feeze me any more. This danged thing can jist about make a man impervious to any and all kinds of bloodshed. I’ve seen death and destruction starin’ me in the face fer a week. I’ve wrecked homes, caused twelve-year-old work hosses to go loco and kick the hand what feeds ’em, and scratched —— out of my own face. Today this thing opines to go to the top of Sentinel Butte, and I can’t noways seem to change its mind. We goes off the east side with great cheer and plenty of rattle, and ambles half-way down the hill on one wheel. After which we cultivates a mesquite patch. She shore is acrobatic.”

We chugs cheerfully along until we’re about a mile from town, when we starts down-grade agin. I reckon that Scenery wants to go into town some fast, so I don’t pay no attention to our speed until we gits close. I feels Magpie reachin’ back fer my belt and bracin’ his feet agin the dashboard, and then I ascertains that we’re movin’ faster than usual.

We enters that town like a steer with a can on its tail, and pee-rades right up the main street. We’re goin’ so fast that things are sort of a blur, but I sees a plenty.

There’s a team tryin’ to do a balancin’ act on the hitch-rack, and saddle hosses are goin’ away from there in flocks, but what catches my attention most is a glimpse of Pete Gonyer and Andy Johnson, one on each side of the road, swingin’ their ropes. Either of them jaspers is able to pick the foot of a runnin’ steer any ol’ time, and I has a sinkin’ sensation when I feels a rope slap me on the off ear.

We loses Scenery.

He jist seems to e-vaporate out of that seat, and we’re so far away when he comes down that we don’t even hear him grunt. Magpie slides over into the vacant side of that seat, and takes hold of the steerin’ gear.

“Put on the brake!” I yells in his ear, but he only looks foolish at me and yells back—

“Th’ danged thing’s gone!”

Shore enough it was! I felt a jar and hears a rippin’ noise as we loses Scenery, so I reckon one of them ropes picks off that leever. Anyway, it was gone, and all that was left was about four inches of iron stickin’ up through the bottom.

Magpie leans hard on the steerin’ gear and around we goes like a coyote tryin’ to dodge a hound, and in a minute or two we’re viewin’ the main street of Piperock at forty miles per hour.

I reckon the thing ain’t been rode enough to make her bridle-wise ’cause she deserts the straight and narrer way and breaks straight fer Wick Smith’s store. I gits a glimpse of Wick, dancin’ a jig in his doorway, and wavin’ a shotgun.

She swerves at the curb and crosses the street. I sees Weinie Lopp start through the blacksmith shop and fall into the slack tub in the excitement. Magpie seems to git control once more and heads her for Sam Holt’s picket fence. She don’t shy none this time.

Comes a thr-r-r-r-r-rup and what I sees looks like an explosion in a shingle mill.

“Ike,” yells Magpie, as we saunters out of town agin, “hang on tight! I don’t know how long the danged thing’s wound up fer, and I ain’t goin’ to have to walk back when she quits.”

“Tend to yore drivin’!” I yells, easin’ myself in the saddle, as we hops over a pile of boulders. “This ain’t no time fer conversational promises nor flights of fancy. Where yuh goin’?”

“B-back to town!” he yelps, as he ports his helm, and we spins on one wheel in the space of a saddle blanket.

I reckon the whole population of our fair city is out to see the pee-rade this time.

I spies a pedal sort of a dingus in the bottom of the wagon, and I yells in Magpie’s ear, and points it out to him:

“Why don’t yuh step on that thing? Mebby it’s the brake!”

He nods his head, and does jist what I suggests. By cripes!

That outlaw piece of machinery gives a roar and bores straight fer the audience. Scatter? Well, some! One greaser, named Pete Gomez, was caught flatfooted, and when he comes down he drapes over the hay scales like a sack on a clothes-line. It was all done so danged quick-like that all we gits is a sort of a general impression, and then we’re out of the other side of town and goin’ fast.

“Yuh might give that thing a rest!” I yells at Magpie, pointin’ at his boot which is still loafin’ on that pedal.

“Yah!” he yells back, jist missin’ a mesquite thicket by a hair. “That thing ain’t no brake, Ike!”

“No, it shore ain’t!” I agrees at the top of my voice. “That’s one part of the danged thing that we know ain’t what we thinks it might have been. Look out fer that—Gawd!”

“Quit yore yellin’, Ike! Dog-gone it, I missed that steer a foot.”

“Where yuh goin’ now?” I asks mildly curious-like.

“Town!” he yells above the roar of that instrument of destruction, and back we shore does go.

Magpie gits sort of careless-like this time. I reckon that familiarity breeds contempt, and Magpie’s been doin’ so well that he lolls back in the saddle and misses his location to the extent that we climbs the board sidewalk of the first house. Not carin’ to do a sidewalk exhibition we cuts back into the street, takin’ one of the props from under Jimmie Peyton’s chop-house porch, and bends the front axle of our mount so she runs a heap bow-legged. It don’t seem to affect her speed none but she seems to misjudge direction somethin’ scandalous.

“Look!” I yells, grabbin’ Magpie by the arm and pointin’ up the street. “They’re adoptin’ the block system!”

They’ve run one empty wagon and one load of hay into the street so it’s impossible fer us to go through, and they knows danged well that in spite of the fact that we’ve got some acrobatic buggy she ain’t equal to no such jump as that.

I glances at Magpie. His mouth is wide open, and yuh could hang yore hat on his eyes when he sees what we’re up against. He simply stares and drives to our doom.

I’ve heard tell that in a case like that a feller’s past life comes up and slaps him in the face. Mine didn’t. We was goin’ so fast that all I could remember was that one of my red drawers legs was tore off at the knee and that my mismated socks were full of holes.

I reckon that Magpie was dazed some, and I jist gits presence of mind enough to grab his arm and yell—

“Pick the hay, yuh blasted fool!”

Yuh see, he was steerin’ straight fer the empty wagon. I don’t know whether I pulls hard on his arm and whether the yell does the business, but anyway we didn’t hit that wagon a-tall. We turns like a steer tryin’ to git back to the main herd, and hits the hitch-rack square in the middle.

The four by six across the top of the rack is jist high enough to hit the bottom of the seat. When we swerves, we natcherally rests on our shoulder blades with our boots in the air, and that cross-piece picks the seat right off. Bein’ as we’re on the seat, it’s some pickin’s.

I remembers gittin’ a view of Piperock upside down, and I sees a boot heel above me which I identifies as belongin’ to Magpie, so from that I’d opine that he broke all altitude records, and then somebody blows out the lights.

I reckon I’m a li’l off in the head, ’cause there seems to be people twenty feet tall all around me, and I hears a voice—sounded somethin’ like Pete Gonyer’s—sayin’—

“Mebby he’ll pull through.”

And then another giant speaks up and says—

“Don’t be joyful, he may live.”

And then I turns into a beautiful dove, and I’m flyin’ along in the clouds, and I sees another dove which is Magpie, and we’re flyin’ in opposite directions. Fer some reason neither of us can turn out, and we meets in the air in one awful smash. I feels the life-blood flowin’ out of my beautiful beak, and then I wakes up long enough to hear Buck Masterson yell:

“Don’t spill all that good hooch, Slim! If he’s too dead to swaller likker there’s no use forcin’ it down!”

I sets up and looks around.

Magpie is settin’ on the pool-table holdin’ his head in his hands, and Scenery Sims is slumped down in a chair, with a half-full bottle hangin’ loose-like in his hand, and he’s starin’ at a knot-hole in the floor.

“Well,” sez I, sizin’ up the assemblage, “we seem to have stopped.”

“Uh-huh,” agrees Buck, “it would seem that way. What was you fellers tryin’ to do—make a hossless racetrack out of our main street?”

Bein’ a meek sort of a person, I’m jist about to make a soft answer when—

Bang! The windows rattled, and a picture fell off the wall and busts a couple of bottles on the bar.

“What the —— was that!” yelps Buck. “Sounded like——”

Sam Holt stumbles inside, and I sees him tryin’ to stuff into his pants pocket what looks to me like a piece o’ blastin’ fuse.

“Say,” sez he, before any one else has time to ask a question, “that danged machine didn’t show no judgment whatever! She stops out there on the flat, right over a place where I’ve done cached twelve sticks of dynamite. I plants it there ’cause nobody ever knows when that stuff is due to bust. I reckon it was the hand of Providence, Scenery.”

Scenery sets that bottle carefully on the table, wabbles over to Sam and sticks out his hand.

“Sam,” sez he, “yore a bringer of good news. You’ve done saved this remnant of the Sims tribe from dyin’ with its boots on, and jist to show that there ain’t no hard feelins I’d like to shake hands, and inquire the price o’ hossflesh.”

And the hand of Providence and the hand of Scenery Sims met.

Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the November 3, 1918 issue of Adventure magazine.

About This Book

This work is believed to be in the public domain in the United States. Copyright status in other countries may vary; readers outside the US should verify the status in their own jurisdiction.

Originally published by The Ridgway Company in Adventure Magazine, November 3, 1918

Prepared by volunteers at BookCove (bookcove.net).