"Got them all?" he asks.
"All but a cross-eyed buckskin that"s mean, and the bay mare that Noah bred to."
"Get them," says he.
"The bandits want too much," I explains.
"Get them anyway," says he.
I went away and got them. It was scand"lous; such prices.
When I hit Cyanide again I ran into scenes of wild excitement. The whole pa.s.sel of them was on that one street of their"n, talkin" sixteen ounces to the pound. In the middle was Dutchy, drunk as a soldier-just plain foolish drunk.
"Good Lord!" thinks I to myself, "he ain"t celebratin" gettin" that bunch of buzzards, is he?"
But I found he wasn"t that bad. When he caught sight of me, he fell on me drivellin".
"Look there!" he weeps, showin" me a letter.
I was the last to come in; so I kept that letter--here she is. I"ll read her.
Dear Dutchy:--I suppose you thought I"d flew the coop, but I haven"t and this is to prove it. Pack up your outfit and hit the trail. I"ve made the biggest free gold strike you ever see. I"m sending you specimens. There"s tons just like it, tons and tons. I got all the claims I can hold myself; but there"s heaps more. I"ve writ to Johnny and Ed at Denver to come on. Don"t give this away. Make tracks. Come in to Buck Canon in the Whetstones and oblige.
Yours truly, Henry Smith
Somebody showed me a handful of white rock with yeller streaks in it.
His eyes was bulgin" until you could have hung your hat on them. That O"Toole party was walkin" around, wettin" his lips with his tongue and swearin" soft.
"G.o.d bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle!" says he. "And the fool had to get drunk and give it away!"
The excitement was just started, but it didn"t last long. The crowd got the same notion at the same time, and it just melted. Me and Dutchy was left alone.
I went home. Pretty soon a fellow named Jimmy Tack come around a little out of breath.
"Say, you know that buckskin you bought off"n me?" says he, "I want to buy him back."
"Oh, you do," says I.
"Yes," says he. "I"ve got to leave town for a couple of days, and I got to have somethin" to pack."
"Wait and I"ll see," says I.
Outside the door I met another fellow.
"Look here," he stops me with. "How about that bay mare I sold you?
Can you call that sale off? I got to leave town for a day or two and--"
"Wait," says I. "I"ll see."
By the gate was another hurryin" up.
"Oh, yes," says I when he opens his mouth. "I know all your troubles.
You have to leave town for a couple of days, and you want back that lizard you sold me. Well, wait."
After that I had to quit the main street and dodge back of the hog ranch. They was all headed my way. I was as popular as a snake in a prohibition town.
I hit Dutchy"s by the back door.
"Do you want to sell hosses?" I asks. "Everyone in town wants to buy."
Dutchy looked hurt.
"I wanted to keep them for the valley market," says he, "but--How much did you give Jimmy Tack for his buckskin?"
"Twenty," says I.
"Well, let him have it for eighty," says Dutchy; "and the others in proportion."
I lay back and breathed hard.
"Sell them all, but the one best hoss," says he--"no, the TWO best."
"Holy smoke!" says I, gettin" my breath. "If you mean that, Dutchy, you lend me another gun and give me a drink."
He done so, and I went back home to where the whole camp of Cyanide was waitin".
I got up and made them a speech and told them I"d sell them hosses all right, and to come back. Then I got an Injin boy to help, and we rustled over the remuda and held them in a blind canon. Then I called up these miners one at a time, and made bargains with them. Roar!
Well, you could hear them at Denver, they tell me, and the weather reports said, "Thunder in the mountains." But it was cash on delivery, and they all paid up. They had seen that white quartz with the gold stickin" into it, and that"s the same as a dose of loco to miner gents.
Why didn"t I take a hoss and start first? I did think of it--for about one second. I wouldn"t stay in that country then for a million dollars a minute. I was plumb sick and loathin" it, and just waitin" to make high jumps back to Arizona. So I wasn"t aimin" to join this stampede, and didn"t have no vivid emotions.
They got to fightin" on which should get the first hoss; so I bent my gun on them and made them draw lots. They roared some more, but done so; and as fast as each one handed over his dust or dinero he made a rush for his cabin, piled on his saddle and pack, and pulled his freight on a cloud of dust. It was sure a grand stampede, and I enjoyed it no limit.
So by sundown I was alone with the Injin. Those two hundred head brought in about twenty thousand dollars. It was heavy, but I could carry it. I was about alone in the landscape; and there were the two best hosses I had saved out for Dutchy. I was sure some tempted. But I had enough to get home on anyway; and I never yet drank behind the bar, even if I might hold up the saloon from the floor. So I grieved some inside that I was so tur"ble conscientious, shouldered the sacks, and went down to find Dutchy.
I met him headed his way, and carryin" of a sheet of paper.
"Here"s your dinero," says I, dumpin" the four big sacks on the ground.
He stooped over and hefted them. Then he pa.s.sed one over to me.
"What"s that for?" I asks.
"For you," says he.
"My commission ain"t that much," I objects.