TIPPECANOE AND COUGARS TWO

By W. C. Tuttle

Author of “Sparing the Family Tree,” “Figures of Speech,” etc.

In this here vale of tears where a person ain’t got but one way out and has to die to find that exit, I’ve met a lot of fools. Yea verily, they have come from the ends of the earth to do injury to my nervous system, but while I may never look the same, I have managed to keep my carcass out of the loco-lodge in spite of their having done unto me things which I could never have done unto them.

Some of them have been of the common or hillside variety, which you may bust with a six-gun and not figure that you’ve ruined any of God’s beautiful works; while others has been of educated stock, peculiar to look upon and listen to. But to all ye fools, whether ye be shepherd or scientist, I say unto thee: there is a place at my table—come and get it! But, all ye of absent mind—vamoose!

A fool is merely one who is destitute of reason; but an absent-minded man is anointed of the devil, and his days are few and far between if he gets in range of my wickiup. Tell yuh why I’m against everybody who forgets to remember.

“Tippecanoe” Seeley was one of the reasons. When it came to forgetting he was seven thousand degrees in the shade. He never thought of anything with more than one syllable, and his back-trail was littered with things he’d forgotten to do.

Everything he done was with a reverse English. If he wanted his dog to follow him he’d throw rocks at it instead of whistling. He’d cook mush for his supper, thinking it was breakfast, and then sit up all night kicking about the dark days we’re having in this Western country. He packed a .45 Colt and filled his belt with .45-70 rifle cartridges.

He was a peculiar-looking hombre. Eating his own cooking had just about finished up what Nature was ashamed to do to him. Mostly always he’d have his pants on backwards or his shoes on the wrong feet. One nice thing about him was the fact that he never repeated what was told to him—he never remembered it.

Me and “Magpie” Simpkins, my pardner, are doing a little work on our alleged gold-mine on Thunder Creek about five miles from Piperock. We cut out a road to our cabin and she’s some road, I’d tell a man. Beyond our cabin is the Thunder Creek trail, which hugs the side of an awful steep mountain for several miles.

Our cabin was built on the only place where we could find room to hook it on to the side of the hill, and we’ve got about fifteen feet of ground for a front yard, and the rear of the cabin sets back into the hill.

Beyond our front yard the landscape just falls for a mile. We’ve sure got a restricted building-site, a wonderful view and nothing to see.

One morning I’m sitting in the cabin cooking a pot of beans, when all to once I hears a awful noise coming up the road. I pokes out my head and sees an automobile heaving and twisting towards the cabin. That road is barely out of the pack-trail age, which means she’s still within the Stone Age and noways appropriate for horseless carriages. Anyway, they got to the cabin and stopped.

The feller who is doing the driving is one of them cadaverous-looking little persons, long on glasses and short on chin. Somebody has sold him a suit of clothes which must ’a’ been ordered for a African explorer, even to one of them front-and-back-porch hats. The other person in the seat is Tippecanoe Seeley.

“Howdy,” says I, and the feller nods.

“Is this ‘Hackamore’ Harper or Ike Harper?” asks Tip, peering at me.

I’ve knowed Tip for ten years; so I don’t laugh.

“I’m Ike,” says I.

“By the whiskers on the waumpus, I knowed I was right!” he squeaks. “I knowed I’d get the right Harper. Can’t fool old Tippecanoe—y’betcha.”

I congratulated Tip on his ability, which was all right and proper, even if Hackamore had been dead four years.

“Hackamore,” says Tip, “meet Professor—uh——”

“Doctor Aloysius Van Fleet,” says the lion-hunter. “At your service.”

“I can’t use you,” says I. “I’m running things alone now.”

“We comes out to see you about something,” says Tip, “didn’t we, reverend?”

“Reverend,” snaps the other. “Ain’t I told you plenty of times that I’m the professor?”

“I thought you said ‘Doctor’,” says I.

The little fellow lifts his hat and feels of his bald head.

“Well, maybe I did. Sure I did.”

Then he turns to Tip. “You know as well as I do that I’m not a doctor. I am a— What were we talking about anyway?”

“My ——!” says I. “Two of a kind! What did you want of me?”

Tip and Aloysius looks at each other for a moment and then they look at me.

“What was it?” asks Aloysius. “You know, don’t you?”

“——!” grunts Tip. “I didn’t hire out to keep track of your wants. I hired out to—to— What in —— did you hire me for anyway?”

Aloysius turns and stares Tip in the face.

“You mean to say you don’t know what I hired you for?”

“Nope,” says Tip, puzzled-like. “Do you?”

Aloysius puckers up his eyebrows and seems to try to remember, but finally shakes his head.

“My gosh, that’s some gun you got!” says I. “What kind of a weapon do you call it?”

“Oh that,” says Aloysius. “I forget, but I know it’s a five-passenger. I must have bent the steering-gear in the rocks.”

“Well,” says I, “you better get out and rest your mind a while.”

They climbs out. Tip picks a rope and walks around to the front of the machine and then stops and rubs his nose.

“You don’t need to tie it, Tip,” says I, and he nods.

“I forgot that I’d already took the team to the stable.”

They sets down on the steps of the cabin and admires the view. Pretty soon Tip sniffs and cranes his neck.

“Whatcha cooking in— That’s it! That’s it, judge! We wanted to hire him to cook!”

“Ah,” grins Aloysius. “You surely can remember things. I congratulate you on a wonderful memory. Mister—er—what’s the name?”

“Harper,” says I.

“Ah, yes—Harper. We—er—wish to hire you to act as our guide.”

“That’s it!” yelps Tip, slapping himself on the knee. “That’s it, professor. I knew I was hired for something, and that’s it. I’m to guide you.”

Aloysius stares at Tip for a moment and then nods:

“I believe you are right. I wish I had your ability to remember little details. Yes, you’re the guide.”

“Guide and a cook, eh?” says I. “Where you going?”

“Exactly,” agrees Aloysius, turning to Tip. “Where are we going?”

“Did you speak of any certain place?” asks Tip, foolish-like.

“Why certainly, I did,” says Aloysius, peevish-like. “I certainly did.”

“Oh,” says Tip. “I see how it happened. You was standing on my left when you said it, and I can’t hear very well in my left ear. Tell me again.”

Aloysius considers it for a while and then clears his throat.

“Ahem-m-m-m! Seems to me that I had some place in mind at the time, but I must have misplaced it. Now what places have you around here?”

“You don’t happen to be hunting elephants, do you?” I asks, examining that double-barreled rifle, which had a bore like a twelve-gage shotgun.

“Elephants?” asks Aloysius. “Hunting elephants?”

“There ain’t none,” says Tip, wise-like. “There ain’t been none since the Custer massacre.”

“The last herd I knowed about was up in the Flathead country.”

“You mean buffalo, don’t you?” I asks.

“Buffalo? Sure. What did you think I meant?”

“Aloysius,” says I, “you’ll do well. You’ve got some guide.”

“Yes,” says he. “I know I have. I saw a man in town and I asked him where I could find a guide, and he directed me to Mister Seeley. He said that Mister Seeley had forgotten more about the country than most anybody knew about it.”

“He didn’t lie to you at that,” says I, and it pleased old Tip a heap.

“By golly, I sure sabe the country all right,” he squeaks. “There ain’t no place I can’t go.”

“That’s right, Tip,” says I. “You don’t need to worry about finding places, but you sure can’t remember the way back.”

Sudden-like Aloysius hops up and stares around.

“What’s eatin’ yuh?” asks Tip.

“You’re a fine guide!” whoops Aloysius. “Goodness gracious, where are the rest of us?”

“Rest of us?” asks Tip. “Oh, you mean them folks what was with you?”

“My wife! Where is she? Where is the rest of them?”

“I dunno,” grunts Tip. “There was some folks got out of that blamed machine when you stopped at my place. Was they intending to stay with us?”

“I think so. In fact I’m almost certain they intended coming with us. Why, we must go right back there at once.”

“Not me,” says Tip, shaking his head. “Not in that thing. Go ahead if you wants to.”

“You refuse to go? Very well then, I’ll go.”

He hops into that machine, fusses with it a moment, and she begins to heave and grunt.

“You can’t go out that way,” says I. “The road ends here.”

“Turn around, can’t I?” he snaps.

I looks at the road and stumps and shakes my head.

“I can,” says he. “I’ll do anything for my wife.”

“All right,” says I. “It’s your machine and your wife.”

I don’t know how he done it, but he did. He went over rocks, stumps or anything in front of him. Half the time he wasn’t in the seat at all, ’cause that machine pitched and bucked like a bronco, but he pulled leather and stayed with her.

He made as complete a circle as anybody would want to see, and stopped right in front of the cabin again—pointed the same way he was before he circled.

“Didn’t I do it?” he crows. “Told you I——”

Then he looks ahead and behind.

He looks at Tip’s grinning face, and right there Aloysius gets sore.

“I hired you to guide me!” he wails. “The fellow in Silver Bend was right.”

“What did he say about Tip?” I asks.

“He told me to get a guide,” explains Aloysius. “He told me I’d get completely turned around in this country, and he’s right— I did.”

“Do it again,” says Tip. “By the whiskers on a waumpus, I ain’t never been so amused before in my life. Do it again. I’ll show you one stump you missed.”

I walks over and peers into the body of that machine. There’s enough stuff in there to start a trading-store with.

“What’s that rigging in there?” I asks, and Aloysius seems to get over his peeve.

“That is my picture machine. Ain’t I told you about that yet? Well, well!”

“He’s going to photygraft animiles,” shrills Tip, grinning. “Goin’ to get them on the move, too. Danged nigh impossible, I reckon, but the blame fool thinks he can. Says he’s going to photygraft grizzlies and mountain lions. Haw! Haw! Haw! Interests of eddication. Be of benefit to the people. Daw-gone! I reckon the undertaker will get his, and that’s about all.”

“My dear sir,” says Aloysius, “you seem remarkably able to get facts twisted. I hired you as a cook—not to prophesy.”

“You did like ——! I’m the guide.”

“Well, guide me then! I want to go——”

Aloysius wrinkles up his brow and scowls at Tip.

“Where were we going?”

“I refuses to advance a prophecy,” says Tip, expectorating at a lizard. “I’m your guide and that’s all. You tell where you want to go and I’ll take you there, y’betcha.”

“I want you to take me to my family,” says Aloysius, deliberate-like. “If you are of any value as a guide you can do that!”

“I ain’t—not thataway. I’m here to——”

“You said you could guide me, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I said that—shore; but I ain’t no wife-restorer. Daw-gone it, why don’t you put hopples or a bell on her before you loses her for keeps?”

“There’s Lord Washburn, too,” says Aloysius, as the threads of memory begins to tickle his brain, “and Bettina. Yes, there’s three of us missing. What do you suppose they think?”

“Same kind of folks as you?” I asks. “Same kind? Why, they’re my people.”

“Don’t worry then,” says I. “They likely ain’t missed you yet.”

“But I absolutely need them,” says he. “Lord Washburn is——”

“Here comes a wagon,” says Tip. “Maybe somebody is bringing ’em up here.”

Around a turn in the road comes our wagon. Magpie Simpkins is perched up on the seat, herding our two pinto broncs, and beside him sets a female who only needs four more pounds of lard and an ambition to get into a sideshow.

Setting on a pile of plunder in the back is what I’d designate as Bettina and Lord Washburn. Bettina might ’a’ been good-looking—it’s all a matter of opinion, but Lord Washburn—oh, man!

He’s got one of them walrus mustaches, a one-eyed spectacle and knee panties. From his collar in the back to the crown of his head he is one succession of rolls, the same of which makes a fellow wishful to puncture one with a pin and let the air out.

Magpie skids them shy pintos up alongside of that machine and slams on the brake.

He looks at me, winks one eye and sighs—

“Well, folks, here we are.”

“Haw!” says Lord Washburn. “Haw! Joke. Heard it before. Where had we ought to be?”

“—— only knows,” says Magpie, sad-like. “Any old place except in the hills, I reckon.”

“Aloysius Van Fleet,” says the old lady, glaring at the lion-hunter, “what do you mean by leaving us down there? If this gentleman hadn’t come along—well, I shudder to think what might have happened. Can’t you never remember anything?”

“Shucks,” says Tip. “You’d ’a’ been all right.”

“Who asked your opinion?” asks the old lady. “Who are you anyway?”

“I’m the—the—what am I?” Tip looks at Aloysius, who shakes his head.

“Well,” says Washburn, “I’d say we might as well dismount. After this I shall keep my eye on the car. The roads in this vicinity are beastly, don’t you know?”

The lord and Bettina climbs down and we all sets around. Magpie looks at me and shakes his head.

“How’d you happen to come along?” I asks Lord Washburn.

“Really.” He screws his glass into his eye and stares at me. “I have proffered my services to Doctor Van Fleet as nimrod extraordinary. We are here, as I understand it, in the interest of natural history, to photograph the wild beast in its own environment, and I am acting as a sort of body-guard to the doctor in case any of the animals should—er—annoy him.”

“Ever done much shooting?” asks Magpie.

“I’ve shot with kings.”

“What did the other fellow have?” asks Tip. “Aces?”

Then I hears Aloysius’ voice raised in a high key:

“My dear, I was so interested in our new guide that I never noticed you getting out of the car. He’s a jewel. Wonderful memory.”

“Well,” says his wife, “I’m glad you had sense enough to hire a good one. Bettina, my love, are you standing the trip?”

“I think so, mamma,” squeaks Bettina, and then she says to Tip, “I beg your pardon, but can you tell me how long we will be here?”

“Ma’am,” says Tip, “I am a guide, not a prophet. I was hired to find animals, not to make time-tables.”

“Oh,” says Bettina. “Why are we stopping here?”

“Ask your pa,” advised Tip. “He put on the brakes.”

“Papa, did you put on the brakes?” she asks.

Aloysius scratches his head and looks around.

“I really can’t remember, my dear. Where did we have them last?”

“——’s delight!” grunts Magpie. “Reckon I’ll unhitch that team so as to keep my mind off the painful things of life. Better take them two boxes of dynamite and put ’em where that bunch can’t fall over ’em, Ike.”

I unloads two fifty-pound boxes of powder and the bunch of grub Magpie had been to Piperock after, while Aloysius, Lord Washburn and Tip seems to hold a conference. Then they comes over to me.

“Can we go any farther with the car?” asks Aloysius.

“Well,” says I, “after seeing you hop the rocks and stumps out there, I’d hate to say.”

“Mister Seeley tells me that your two spotted horses are suitable to carry luggage,” says Washburn. “We would like to rent them, if we may—in the event that we can go no farther with the car.”

“I’ve got four saddle-hosses at my ranch,” says Tip. “Women can ride ’em.”

“Women can ride ’em, Tip?” I asks.

“Women can ride as well as men, can’t they?”

Just then Magpie comes back, and I puts it up to him about the pintos.

“To pack?” says he. “Sure you can have the horses. Won’t guarantee ’em though.”

“Oh, that’s perfectly all right,” says Aloysius. “I assure you we will take a chance on them wearing out.”

Magpie looks at me and I look at Magpie, but we don’t say a word. Neither of them broncs has ever had anything on their backs, except a harness.

Well, that whole danged bunch sets right down and makes themselves to home. Lord Washburn is an English setter and the rest is blooded stock in which the setter instinct predominates. Magpie goes over to Tip, and says—

“Well, why don’t you pitch camp, Tip?”

“I ain’t running the show. Ask the lord. He, he, he! Sounds like a prayer.”

“A prayer might be in order,” nods Magpie. “After looking the bunch over, I reckon we better ask for divine protection.”

Then cometh mamma. Mamma sizes me up, like she was looking at a dogy, and says:

“Will you prepare a dinner menu so I may consider it?”

“Will I prepare a dinner me and you?” I asks. “That’s a —— of a way to use United States language, ma’am. Why don’t you say, ‘Will you prepare a dinner for me and you, so we may eat?’ Up here we don’t consider nothing but our stummicks, ma’am.”

Mamma rears up and almost falls over backwards. She adjusts her glasses and glares at me.

“Of all things!” she snaps, which covers everything a mule-skinner could say in five minutes’ straight cussing.

“Such insolence!” Then she whirls and yelps, “Aloysius!”

Aloysius’ backbone settles about seven inches when he hears that yelp, but he toddles over beside her. She grabs him by the arm and points at me.

“You selected him,” she snaps. “Him!”

“Did I?” squeaks Aloysius. “All right, dearie.”

“Now discharge him!” she whoops.

“But—but, my dear,” pleads Aloysius, “I—I must have a guide.”

“Guide? Didn’t you hire him as a chef?”

“Chef? Perhaps I did, dearie.”

“I demand his discharge—at once!”

“Well,” says Aloysius, sad-like, and mamma shakes him, “well—get out—out of the kitchen. Now, my dear, I have discharged him—who will get dinner?”

Mamma sets her jaw and looks all around. Her eyes light on Magpie and she decides quick.

“I employ that man in the late chef’s place. Prepare a menu—at once!”

Magpie’s mouth forms a real smart reply, beginning with profanity, but he manages to choke it back. Then he stares at me and then at her.

“Yes’m. I got all my education at night the same of which spoils me for writing in the day-time, but I’ll orate a bill of fare.”

“Very well!” she snaps. “I am listening.”

Magpie smooths his mustache and chants:

“Bean soup, hot enough to burn a burro’s belly,
Fried bronc’s ears and Gila-monster jelly.
Horse-hoof salad and some jerked rawhide,
Baked turkey buzzard with some loco fried,
Sidewinder gravy and a sunburned spud,
Saddle-blanket pie and a cup of mud.”

“And,” says Magpie, looking up at the awed face of mamma, “that is a —— of a good feed for a he-man, if anybody should ask yuh.”

Mamma swallers hard and flops her arms like she was going to fly, but her voice won’t seem to work. She sort of puffs up full of words and all at once she explodes:

“Of all things!”

“Yes’m,” agrees Magpie. “Such as they are.”

Mamma takes two deep breaths and walks away stiff-legged like a peeved bear. Aloysius cocks one eye at mamma, and then squints at Magpie.

“Pup-paw,” says Bettina, “I’m ashamed that you would let a man say such things to mummaw.”

Aloysius looks at Magpie and then back at Bettina.

“My dear, one must use diplomacy. I find that cooks are very scarce, and—and besides, your mother is too—er—cocky. Isn’t that the right word to use, Lord Washburn?”

“I—er—” Lord Washburn screws the one-eyed spectacle into his eye and squints hard—“I would—er—rawther say—er—speaking in the feminine gender regarding fowl, I would say she was—er—a bit henny. Haw! Haw! Haw!”

Bung!

Anyway I think it “bunged.” I didn’t hear it, ’cause I was the one it bunged upon. I know I woke up and found them all grouped around me, and old Tip says—

“Aw, you can’t kill him that easy, but I’ll bet that pot-cover will never fit again.”

I got up and declared myself like this—

“I can lick the —— fool who hit me!”

“There he goes again, pup-paw,” wails Bettina. “He’s meaning mum-maw.”

“Is she the —— fool?” I asks.

“She is my wife,” says Aloysius.

“That’s a sensible answer,” says I. “Why did she hit me?”

“Women,” says Tip, “never need no reason. Them female contraptions is a heap like dynamite, because they bust without provocation at times. I reckon she was aiming to land a court-card and drew a deuce. Lord What-yuh-call’m haw-hawed at the wrong time.”

“Then Lord What-yuh-call’m better lay off on that haw-haw stuff,” says I. “I ain’t going to have no —— females banging me on the head just because some snake-hunter of a lord opines to haw-haw at the wrong time. What you haw-hawing about anyway?”

“Joke,” says he. “Good joke. Aloysius says, ‘She’s getting too cocky, don’t you know?’ and I replied, ‘I’d say she was—er—rather henny.’ Haw, Haw, Haw!”

It was five minutes before the lord woke up. I whanged him on the head with a lid off the Dutch oven, and he just sets right down and stares into space.

“That was a dastardly deed,” says Bettina, trying to take the lord’s head in her lap; but he acts like one of them toy things what you can’t make lay down. Every time she tips him over he flops right up again.

“You plumb knocked his gyroscope out of kilter,” says Magpie. “Want me to set on his neck, ma’am?”

The lord begins whistling through his teeth and pretty soon he gets red in the face and looks around.

“What happened to me, I’d awsk?” says he.

“You got in the road of that pot-cover,” says Magpie.

“Pot-cover?” he asks. “I beg your pardon.”

“You’re welcome,” says Magpie. “The old lady hit Ike with it ’cause you haw-hawed at the wrong time, and then Ike tried to hit the old lady ’cause you haw-hawed at the wrong time again.”

“Did you try to hit mum-maw?” asks Bettina. “Did you actually contemplate that? Why?”

“You can draw your own conclusions,” says I.

“She can’t draw anything,” declares Aloysius. “She spent a year in Paris and ten thousand dollars tryin’ to learn how to draw, and—and——”

“Pup-paw, that is very unkind of you to air our family affairs before strangers.”

“Don’t mind me,” squeaks Tip. “Fight if yuh feel like it—I’m hard-boiled.”

“I’d venture to say that I am misunderstood,” states the lord, rubbing his head. “What had art to do with the present situation, I’d awsk? There has been altogether too much coarse badinage and exchanging of—er——”

“Pot-covers?” asks Magpie.

“Exactly. I hope we will succeed in our mission, but I am of the opinion it will require unprecedented good fortune to repay us for the discomforts of the environment in which we are placed.”

“My gosh!” snorts Tip. “You don’t need a guide—you need a e-metic. I wish I had a almanac so I could see if he was chidin’ us, or just runnin’ over with wisdom.”

Some folks will naturally say that we’re all wrong in talking and acting like we’ve been doing. They’ll orate that Western chivalry is extinct like the dodo or Free Silver, but such is not a fact. Western chivalry is all there like it is in the East.

This bunch of misfits comes on a forlorn mission. They picks us out to be servants unto their wishes, whangs us with pot-covers et cettery, and nobody, unless they’re of the same kind, color, and complexion, can expect us to kiss, humor, and coddle said conglomeration of misguided humanity.

Magpie is just through being sheriff of Yaller Rock County, and I’m willing to help Aloysius all I can, being as he’s a cripple—mentally; but the rest of the scientific herd—nothin’ doing in sympathy or helpfulness. I’m plumb neutral and non-committal.

The old lady gets to fussing around and pretty soon she says:

“Aloysius, I really must have food. It will soon be dinner-time and no preparations are under way. Attend to this please.”

“Yes’m,” says Aloysius, foolish-like. “Yes’m. Where do we dine?”

“Where?” asks mum-maw, looking down at poor little Aloysius. “Where?”

“Oh,” says Aloysius, and then goes to writing in his little book.

Mum-maw gets sore as a boil and sort of appeals to Lord Washburn. He shakes his head and says:

“My dear Mrs. Van Fleet, I know nothing whatever of the culinary art. I was under the impression that Mr. Van Fleet had engaged a chef.”

“He did,” says Tip, “and the old lady had him throwed out of the kitchen. Women raiseth —— with everything—seems to me. I comes danged near getting married oncet, I——”

“Forgot to go to the church,” says I.

Tip nods and grins.

“Did I? Maybe I did—I forget. Anyway, I ain’t got no wife, for which I raises my voice in a prayer each day.”

“Your domestic difficulties have no bearing on my dinner,” says mum-maw, mean-like. “I want to eat!”

“Shucks, if that’s all you want, I can cook,” says Tip. “There’s two things I sure can do, and one of them is cook.”

“What’s the other?” asks Magpie.

Tip scratches his head and thinks hard.

“Danged if I know right now, Magpie, but she’s a accomplishment, as I remember it.”

Let me pass over that meal. I tried it and found it guilty of everything. I ain’t no hand to fuss over the way my stuff is cooked; but I’ll be danged if my stummick can stand for parboiled tea and a mulligan thickened with baking-powder.

I reckon everybody except Aloysius and Tip felt the same about it. Aloysius puffed up a little, but I can’t see much change in Tip.

“Mighty” Jones rides in and looks over the aggregation. He asks me and Magpie about them, and we tells him all we know.

“Goin’ to photygraft animiles?” he asks. “On the run? Geemighty!”

“Oh, absolutely,” says Aloysius. “Interests of science. I want pictures of wild animals in their native haunts. Would it be possible for—er—us to get pictures of panthers, grizzly bear and—er—wildcats—uh—er—going about their daily—er—pastimes, as it were?”

“As it were,” nods Mighty. “Not as it is.”

“It can be done,” says Tip. “There ain’t nothin’ impossible, is there? Just because a grizzly never did let anybody photygraft it as it is——”

“Exactly,” says Aloysius. “I am glad to find a man who does not insist on precedent. We will secure the pictures we desire without any effort, I assure you all.”

“Why does the grizzly object to being photographed?” asks Bettina.

“Superstition,” says Magpie. “A grizzly is superstitious about photography. They figure that it’s unlucky to let a photographer cross their trail.”

“We will—er—commence on the—er—inoffensive—er— What is it, Mr. Seeley?” asks Aloysius.

“Inoffensive?” asks Tip. “What you talkin’ about, senator?”

“The—er— Now, I adjure you, I am not a senator. We spoke of some animal, which we might try the machine on. Was it the—er—tom-cat?”

“Bob-cat,” says Tip. “We’ll find one at once. We ought to have some dogs.”

“Domestic animals I do not wish for,” states Aloysius.

“You don’t have to wish,” says Tip. “Wishin’ never got nobody some dogs.”

“I’ll rent my pack,” offers Mighty.

“There yuh are,” says Tip. “Mighty’s dogs will find animals if there is any.”

“I hired you as my guide,” reminds Aloysius. “As long as I’ve got you I have no use for a pack of dogs.”

“Ah-oo-o-oo-o-o!” howls one of Mighty’s dogs, and away went the whole pack down the side of the mountain.

“What do yuh reckon they’re after?” asks Mighty.

“After?” grins Magpie. “Oh, nothing. They’re insulted, that’s all.”

One thing I can say for Mighty’s pack of dogs, they’re numerous. I reckon that he figured that the more the merrier, and he sure picked up everything of the dog kind which had four legs, a tail, and a voice. They starts going just like a whip. For instance, the seven greyhounds leave first, then four or five fox-hounds, then comes all breeds and mixtures, the order of their going depending a heap on their powers of smell.

The last to leave is old “Whiskers,” a cross between everything doggish from a St. Bernard to a pink poodle. Whiskers sniffles all the time and smells nothing. He’s the popper on the whip, that’s the way they leaves. That conglomeration of animiles is enough to put the fear of the devil into anything wilder than a fool-hen.

We watches ’em go and then listens to their voices fade out.

“In Europe,” says Lord Washburn, screwing his one-eyed spectacle into his eye, “I would say they were on a warm scent. Perhaps it is a fox.”

“Fox ——!” grunts Mighty. “Them pups won’t even look at a fox.”

“Ah-oo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!” comes the chorus, and we listens freely.

“Ah-oo-o-o-o-o-o-o!” she comes again, and this time she’s a lot closer.

Me and Magpie looks at each other. It appears to us that the chase is coming down the trail, and knowing that trail like we does, it’s almost a cinch that the procession is due to come past the cabin.

The trail swings around the side of the cañon, and the hill drops straight off for a danged long ways, and the upper side is almost unclimbable.

Lord Washburn walks past the automobile and appears to squint up the trail, and Aloysius walks behind him. I steps over beside the cabin and Magpie joins me. Bettina and mum-maw joins the lord and pup-paw.

All to once the dogs’ voices swells to a joyful chorus as they make the curve above the cabin.

Then things begin to happen. I seen Lord Washburn seem to lift right off the ground and come backwards towards us at an enormous rate of speed. Aloysius gets hit, and goes past me and Magpie, spinning like a pin-wheel. Something hits me a side-swipe and I goes down only to come up amid a whooping, howling, snapping bunch of dogs which swamp me, and I goes down again.

When I awoke, I feels some one kissing me, and I looks up into the face of Whiskers. I shoves him away and sets up.

There is Magpie, with his back braced against the cabin door, digging his heels into the dirt to keep upright. Mum-maw is sitting with her back against a wheel of the automobile, while Bettina is sitting straddle of the engine-end of the machine, clapping her hands like she was encoring that bunch of dogs, et cettery, to make another appearance.

From the body of the machine appears the head of Aloysius. He looks all around, down at his better half and then at his daughter.

“Stop applauding, Bettina!” he says, hoarse-like, and she looks foolish-like at him.

Then he looks all around again.

“I ask every one to cease cheering.”

From on top of the cabin comes a voice, and we looks up to see Tip, with one arm hooked around the ridge-pole and both feet up on top of the cabin. He’s hanging on tight.

“Animiles!” he squeaks. “Said you’d see ’em, didn’t I? Didn’t I say you would?”

Aloysius squints at Tip and nods.

“I did—a fleeting glimpse.”

“Well, dang it, I didn’t agree to stop ’em, did I?”

“Heaven is my home!” gasps mum-maw. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” says Aloysius. “Nothing to get excited about.”

“Wh-where is Lord Washburn?” gasps Bettina, all out of breath.

“Ma’am,” says Magpie, “I ain’t making no definite statements; but if he stuck on that silver-tip’s back, and if the silver-tip can keep up his speed for ten minutes longer, Lord Washburn will be somewhere in Canada.”

“Well,” says I, watching Magpie digging his heels into the dirt, “that cabin won’t fall down if you leave go of it, Magpie.”

“No, but the door will come open, Ike.”

“Oh!” says I. “It likely will, but that won’t hurt nothing.”

“Like —— it won’t.”

“Meaning what?”

“Both of them danged cougars went inside.”

“Both —— cougars?” I gasps, and Magpie nods.

“Uh-huh. I reckon them dogs got after them two cougars, swung ’em on to the trail where the silver-tip was pesticating along, and the whole caboodle came to our party.”

“I—have—shot—with—kings,” states a voice, and we turns to look at Lord Washburn.

He’s a mess. I reckon that silver-tip took him for a sightseeing trip through a thorn thicket, and he sure got shucked. He’s got a half a shirt left, and that ain’t connected with his pants, said pants consisting of a waistband and a lot of streamers. His stockings are pulled down over his shoes and drag out behind as he walks.

But he’s still hanging on to that one eyeglass. He weaves there in the trail and repeats his statement—

“I—have—shot—with—kings.”

“He, he, he, he!” squeaks Tip. “’Pears to me that the king used a cross between a shotgun and a rake.”

“Where is the bear?” asks Aloysius.

Washburn screws his eyeglass tighter and licks his lips.

“Bear?” he asks, dignified-like. “Really—er—I did not awsk it for an address.”

“They’re hard to ride,” nods Tip. “Danged hard.”

“It enhances the difficulty if one is riding backwards,” agrees Lord Washburn. “The—er—dogs——”

“Say, where is Mighty Jones?” I asks.

Magpie jerks his thumb behind him at the door.

“You don’t mean that he’s inside?” I gasps.

“He went in,” says Magpie, foolish-like, “and he ain’t never come out—yet.”

“Wait a moment,” says Tip. “Lemme get this right. Two cougars went inside and Mighty Jones went in after them? Mighty’s brave.”

“No-o-o-o,” drawls Magpie. “Mighty went in first; the cougars are brave!”

“What might a cougar be?” asks mum-maw.

“A cougar?” parrots Tip. “A cougar is—a—a—naturalized African lion.”

“In the cabin?” asks Aloysius. “My chance has come! I will picturize it. Lord Washburn, we will start our first film. This is a very good opportunity.”

“Told yuh I’d find animiles for yuh,” grins Tip. “I sure can do guidin’, can’t I?”

“Yes, I find you satisfactory,” grunts Aloysius, wrestling with his photygraft apparatus.

He gets it out of the machine and sets it up. It’s a three-legged dingus, and on top of it he fastens a box-like arrangement with a crank on the side.

“Hey!” yells Mighty’s voice from the inside. “Hey, out there!”

“No hay,” yells Tip. “Whatcha want?”

“Magpie!” yelps Mighty. “You going to let me out?”

“Unattended,” admits Magpie.

Just then a cougar cut loose a yowl you could hear a mile. Aloysius stops fussing with his camera.

“Got ’em both!” whoops Mighty. “Buck, dang yuh, buck!”

“Both what?” squeaks Tip.

“Got ’em roped!” whoops Mighty, and our ears gets assailed by a lot of cat-talk which shows that them cats are sore.

“Where are you located, Mighty?” asks Magpie.

“On the bal-co-nee!” whoops Mighty.

We’ve got a little loft arrangement built at the rear of the cabin, where we keep our extra supplies; but it sure wasn’t built for no Romeo and Juliet balcony scene.

“Got ’em roped on the same rope, too,” brags Mighty. “Come in and have a look.”

Magpie opens the door slow-like and peers inside. Then he turns to Aloysius.

“There’s your picture, mister.”

We all crowds into the doorway. Mighty is setting on the edge of the loft. He’s got the rope snubbed to the cross-pole of the loft, and on each end is a cougar, and if anybody asks me, I’ll orate aloud that them cats are peeved.

“How did you get up there, Mighty?” asks Magpie.

“Up here? Say, this ain’t high to go—under them circumstances.”

“By Jove, that’s wonderful!” gasps Lord Washburn. “Cawn’t we get them as they are, professor? It will be instructive in a way, don’t you think?”

“Um-m-m-m,” says Aloysius, and then he nods. “A still!” he exclaims. “Wait until I set up the other camera.”

He comes back with a different outfit, and sets it up inside the doorway. Them two cats just set there and spit. After Aloysius gets through looking through the rigging, he gets awful excited.

“Wonderful opportunity,” he announces. “I will make several exposures. I will have Bettina, Lord Washburn, Mrs. Van Fleet, the guide and the chef in the picture with the lions. Immense!”

Then he turns to me and says—

“You will be my assistant.”

“Yeah?” says I. “What do I do?”

He places Magpie and Lord Washburn on one side and on the other he puts Bettina, mum-maw and Tip. In the middle is them two spitting cougars, and setting on the edge of the loft is Mighty Jones.

Aloysius peeks at them through the camera and then loads the thing. He takes the dingus and pours it full of some kind of powder and hands it to me.

“Hold that over your head,” says he. “Put your finger into that ring and when I requests it of you, pull down on it.”

I follers directions. Aloysius tells everybody to stand perfectly still, and then says—

“Pull!”

I pulled. Yeah, I pulled. Ike Harper seems to have been created to foller directions. Looking back at it, I comes to the conclusion that if I’d ’a’ killed the professor when I first seen him, this world would have been sweeter.

As I said before, I pulled. Comes a blinding flash of light, the yowl of a scared cougar, the splintering crash of overweighted timbers, and, as “Hip-Shot” Squires used to say, “—— took a recess.”

It appeared that one of them cougars came unto my bosom, and I sure took it in. I went high, wide and handsome, and got clawed from heels to dandruff. Something got me by the feet and something got me by the head, and they pulled opposite directions. The feet end of me was pointed towards the door, and whatever the power was on that end—it won.

I remembers skidding on the seat of my pants off our door-step and down that danged hill. I hooked my feet against a rock, and then the power on my neck raises me upright and yanks me upside down again, and all this time I’m locked in deadly combat with that danged cougar.

Suddenly we stops in a blaze of glory. I dodges a flock of stars and tries to set up. Then the cougar in which I have my teeth, fingers and spurs seems to set a precedent of natural history when it says in a faint voice—

“Well, by ——, I hope we stay stopped!”

I unhooks from said cougar and looks into the peaceful face of Magpie Simpkins.

“I thought you was a cougar,” says I.

He looks at me painful-like and says—

“Since when did you start eating raw cougars, Ike?”

I didn’t answer him because I didn’t care to answer such fool questions. We both got up and started back for the cabin.

There was a sight for sore eyes. Them two cougars busted loose when the balcony went down, and they must ’a’ swept the cabin clean with that rope.

Mum-maw has got the rope around her body, and is half under the machine. Lord Washburn has got both feet twisted in the rope and is standing on the back of his neck with his feet cinched up to the seat where one of the cougars is reared back, trying to get loose.

The other cougar is still fastened to the other end of the rope and is about six feet away from the machine, all twisted up in that camera. Every time the cougar moves the camera moves, and then the cat wallops it with both paws while it searches the depths of its soul to try and find cat-talk enough to describe its opinion of photography.

Setting on the door-step is Tip with his hands on his knees and a beautiful expression on his homely face. He is looking at the scene before him; but he don’t see it, ’cause his thoughts are of spiritual, not material things. Suddenly his expression changes, and he grunts soft-like—

“Still ——!”

Aloysius has got an egg-sized bump over his right eye, and one of them cougars has opened his clothes all the way down his back; but Aloysius don’t mind. He’s trying to set that moving-picture camera and all the while he’s singing, soft and low:

“Daha-a-a-a-ling, I am gro-o-o-o-wing o-o-o-o-old,
Sweet Alice with ha-air so-o-o-o brown,
Through the sycamo-o-o-o-res the candle-lights are gleaming,
The moss-covered bu-u-u-u-u-cket that hung in the well——”

“My ——!” grunts Magpie. “He’s even absent-minded in his songs.”

“He, he, he, he!” squeaks Tip, hammering his hands on his knees. “Can’t that fellow jist make a banjo talk? Whoo-e-e-e-e-e!”

“Cawn’t some one do something?” complains Lord Washburn. “This is insufferable.”

I see mum-maw twitch her feet, and then she lets out a screech that skinned the yowl of a cougar four ways from the jack.

“All ready! Camera!” snaps Aloysius, and he starts grinding on that machine.

Then out of the door comes Bettina. She’s got her hat down over her eyes, but that don’t matter, ’cause she wouldn’t have seen Tip anyway. She just walked right over him and lit sitting down in front of the cougar, and right behind her comes Mighty Jones.

He’s got a section of that balcony around his neck and Lord Washburn’s two-barreled rifle in his hands. Before we can stop him he raises the gun and pulls both triggers. I jumped in to stop him, but all too late. I reckon that both of them big bullets hit the rope within a foot of Lord Washburn’s legs and cut it plumb in two.

The cat on the ground went right between my legs, and that camera stand caught me in the shins and I turned upside down. I seen mum-maw roll loose and turn over on her stummick. I hears Aloysius saying, “Just a moment, Lord Washburn,” and I glances up there. Lord Washburn is trying to throw himself backwards, and the cat is objecting at the top of its voice.

“Hold it!” pleads Aloysius, grinding as fast as he can. “Orrr-r-r-r-r-oooooooowwwww!”

It was too much for the cat. I seen it go in the air, straight for the doorway, while Lord Washburn turned over, kicking his feet loose from the rope.

The cat hit Tip dead center, knocked him half-way into the cabin door, and the cat almost popped its own tail off going inside.

“My ——!” gasps Magpie. “Didja ever see such ——”

“Hold it!” gasps Aloysius. “Easy now.”

He picks up that heavy camera and trots to the doorway where he peers inside.

Yeo-o-o-o-o-oww! Crash!

You can’t fool a cougar more than once, and that one recognized that interior. It came right out again. I reckon it meant to jump plumb over everything in sight, but it was fuddled a little and hit the camera dead center, and cat, camera and Aloysius all went down together.

The cat hopped right off the ground, and went between Tip’s legs; but Tip was falling at the time, falling away from the crash, and him and the cat went to the dirt together.

Comes a whirl of a man, cat, and dust, and here is the cat under the machine with its tail under one of the tires and Tip hanging on with his feet braced to the wheel. The cat is throwing dust like a fanning-mill, trying to get loose.

“Huh-hurry up!” squeaks Tip, spitting dust. “You wanted animiles, dang yuh—here they are!”

“Hold it!” pleads Aloysius, and here he is with what is left of his machine, trying to get it to grinding again.

“Hold it, I demand of you!”

“Well, I—I—I’m huh-holding, ain’t I?” squeaks Tip.

“I can’t see it,” complains Aloysius, peering into dust.

“Go around the other side!” grunts Tip. “Aintcha got no sense?”

Aloysius staggers around to the other side, and in a few moments he says:

“Absolutely wonderful! I see him now.”

“Good!” squeaks Tip, and lets loose of the tail.

Yeow-w-w-w-w-w-w!

Me and Magpie steps around on the other side, and there sits Aloysius, holding to one ear, and about ten feet away is his camera.

“Is the cougar gone?” I asks. Aloysius looks up at me, wide-eyed, and says—

“Well—I—have—hopes.”

“Dang yuh,” squeaks Tip. “You wanted movin’ pitchers, and I reckon that’n moved fast enough for the most fastidious, eh? By the grab! I’m some guide, ain’t I? Contracted to show you animiles, and I reckon you seen ’em, didn’t yuh?”

“Aloysius Van Fleet, get up!” There is mum-maw with her arm around Bettina, glaring down at poor Aloysius.

“Ye-yes?” says Aloysius.

“Crank up the machine!”

“The animals are all gone,” says he, sad-like.

“I was speaking of the automobile!” snaps mum-maw. “We’re going home. We have had all of this that we can stand. Bettina is a nervous wreck and I am no better. Right now we go home.”

“Yes, my dear. I am willing. It is no place for the gentle sex, I have found that out.”

“Pup-paw,” says Bettina weakly, “please face the audience as much as possible. You are—uh—open in the rear.”

“Really,” says Lord Washburn, “it was trying, I assure you. I shall welcome my bawth. Did we—er—get some films, professor?”

“We did,” smiles Aloysius. “I got at least five hundred feet. Perhaps it is not exactly what I wished for; but it was well worth taking.”

Aloysius winds the danged automobile up, they all gets aboard, and he makes that turn once more and stops at the door again; but this time he’s pointed the right way. Tip is standing there scratching his head like he was trying to remember something.

“Say, judge,” says he, “you told me to remember something that I was to be sure and not let you forget, and I can’t seem to think what it was?”

“I am not a judge,” says Aloysius, severe-like. “I am—a—a—a—huh——”

“Drive on, Aloysius Van Fleet, before somebody thinks of something more,” says mum-maw, and Aloysius obeyed.

We watched them make the turn in the road and then sets down on the porch.

Tip is still thinking hard. Mighty rubs a skinned place on his face and says—

“Funny how they just turn a crank and——”

“That’s it!” whoops Tip.

He jumps up and starts to run down the road, but stops.

Then he comes back.

“Gol dang it, I plumb forgot it!” he wails, waving his arms. “Ain’t that the darndest thing to forget? Shucks!”

“What did you forget to tell him?” asks Magpie.

“He told me to be sure and not forget to tell him to do it!” wails Tip.

“What?” snaps Magpie.

“To load his danged movin’-pitcher machine,” says Tip.

Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the Mid-May, 1922 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, Mid-May, 1921

Prepared by volunteers at BookCove (bookcove.net).