""h.e.l.lo there!" somebody yells. "You there at the fire." I kept on shaking the skillet over the camp-fire.
""What"s the matter with him?" somebody said. A man got off and walked up behind me.
""See here, brother," he says, tapping me on the shoulder; "this don"t go."
"I jumped clean over the fire, dropped the pan, and let out a deaf and dumb holler, "Ee! Ah!"
"The men began to laugh; it seemed to rile the little leftenant.
""Cut this out," says he. "You can talk as well as I can, and you"re a going to tell us about this Injun killin". Don"t try any fake business, or I"ll roast your little heels over that fire like yams."
"I just acted the dummy, wiggled my fingers, and handed him the joyful gaze, heliographing with my teeth as though I was glad to see visitors. However, I wondered if that runt would really give my chilblains a treat. He looked like a West Pointer, and I didn"t know but he"d try to haze me.
"Well! they "klow-towed" around there for an hour looking for clues, but I"d hid all the signs of Kink, so finally they strapped me onto a horse and we hit back for the fort.
"The little man tried all kinds of tricks to make me loosen on the way down, but I just acted wounded innocence and "Ee"d" and "Ah"d" at him till he let me alone.
"When we rode up to the post he says to the Colonel:
""We"ve got the only man there is in the mountains back there, sir, but he"s playing dumb. I don"t know what his game is."
""Dumb, eh?" says the old man, looking me over pretty keen. "Well! I guess we"ll find his voice if he"s got one."
"He took me inside, and speaking of examinations, probably I didn"t get one. He kept looking at me like he wanted to place me, but I give him the "Ee! Ah!" till everybody began to laugh. They tried me with a pencil and paper, but I balked, laid my ears back, and buck-jumped. That made the old man sore, and he says: "Lock him up!
Lock him up; I"ll make him talk if I have to skin him." So I was dragged to the "skook.u.m-house," where I spent the night figuring out my finish.
"I could feel it coming just as plain, and I begun to see that when I did open up and prattle after Kink was safe, n.o.body wouldn"t believe my little story. I had sized the Colonel up as a dead stringy old proposition, too. He was one of these big-chopped fellers with a mouth set more"n half way up from his chin and little thin lips like the edge of a knife blade, and just as full of blood--face, big and rustic-finished.
"I says to myself, "Bud, it looks like you wouldn"t be forced to prospect for a living any more this season. If that old sport turns himself loose you"re going to get "life" three times and a holdover."
"Next morning they tried every way to make me talk. Once in a while the old man looked at me puzzled and searching, but I didn"t know him from a sweat-pad, and just paid strict attention to being dumb.
"It was mighty hard, too. I got so nervous my mouth simply ached to let out a cayoodle. The words kept trying to crawl through my sesophagus, and when I backed "em up, they slid down and stood around in groups, hanging onto the straps, gradually filling me with witful gems of thought.
"The Colonel talked to me serious and quiet, like I had good ears, and says, "My man, you can understand every word I say, I"m sure, and what your object is in maintaining this ridiculous silence, I don"t know. You"re accused of a crime, and it looks serious for you."
"Then he gazes at me queer and intent, and says, "If you only knew how bad you are making your case you"d make a clean breast of it.
Come now, let"s get at the truth."
"Them thought jewels and wads of repartee was piling up in me fast, like tailings from a ground-sluice, till I could feel myself getting bloated and p.u.s.s.y with langwidge, but I thought, "No! to-morrow Kink "ll be safe, and then I"ll throw a jolt into this man"s camp that"ll go down in history. They"ll think some Chinaman"s been thawing out a box of giant powder when I let out my roar."
"I goes to the guard-house again, with a soldier at my back.
Everything would have been all right if we hadn"t run into a mule team.
"They had been freighting from the railroad, and as we left the barracks we ran afoul of four outfits, three span to the wagon, with the loads piled on till the teams was all lather and the wheels complainin" to the G.o.ds, trying to pa.s.s the corner of the barracks where there was a narrow opening between the buildings.
"Now a good mule-driver is the littlest, orneriest speck in the human line that"s known to the microscope, but when you get a poor one, he"d spoil one of them cholera germs you read about just by contact.
The leader of this bunch was worse than the worst; strong on whip-arm, but surprising weak on judgment. He tried to make the turn, run plump into the corner of the building, stopped, backed, swung, and proceeded to get into grief.
"The mules being hot and nervous, he sent them all to the loco patch instanter. They began to plunge and turn and back and snarl. Before you could say "c.r.a.ps! you lose," them shave-tails was giving the grandest exhibition of animal idiocy in the Territory, barring the teamster. He follered their trail to the madhouse, yanking the mouths out of them, cruel and vicious.
"Now, one mule can cause a heap of tribulation, and six mules can break a man"s heart, but there wasn"t no excuse for that driver to stand up on his hind legs, close his eyes, and throw thirty foot of lash into that plunging buckin", white-eyed mess. When he did it, all the little words inside of me began to foam and fizzle like sedlitz; out they came, biting, in mouthfuls, and streams, and squirts, backwards, sideways, and through my nose.
""Here! you infernal half-spiled, dog-robbing walloper," I says; "you don"t know enough to drive puddle ducks to a pond. You quit heaving that quirt or I"ll harm you past healing."
"He turned his head and grit out something through his teeth that stimulated my circulation. I skipped over the wheels and put my left onto his neck, fingering the keys on his blow-pipe like a flute.
Then I give him a toss and gathered up the lines. Say! it was like the smell of grease-paint to an actor man for me to feel the ribbons again, and them mules knew they had a chairman who savvied "em too, and had mule talk pat, from soda to hock.
"I just intimated things over them with that whip, and talked to them like they was my own flesh and blood. I starts at the worst words the English langwidge and the range had produced, to date, and got steadily and rapidly worse as long as I talked.
"Arizony may be slow in the matter of standing collars and rag-time, but she leads the world in profanity. Without being swelled on myself, I"ll say, too, that I once had more"n a local reputation in that line, having originated some quaint and feeling conceits which has won modest attention, and this day I was certainly trained to the minute.
"I addressed them brutes fast and earnest for five minutes steady, and never crossed my trail or repeated a thought.
"It must have been sacred and beautiful. Anyhow, it was strong enough to soak into their pores so that they strung out straight as a chalk-line. Then I lifted them into the collars, and we rumbled past the building, swung in front of the commissary door, cramped and stopped. With the wheelers on their haunches, I backed up to the door square as a die.
"I wiped the sweat out of my eyes and looked up into the grinning face of about fifty swatties, realizing I was a mute--and a prisoner.
"I heard a voice say, "Bring me that man." There stood the Colonel oozing out wrath at every pore.
"I parted from that wagon hesitating and reluctant, but two soldiers to each leg will bust any man"s grip, I lost some clothes, too, after we hit the ground, but I needed the exercise.
"The old man was alone in his office when they dragged me in, and he sent my guards out.
""So you found your voice, did you?" he says.
""Yes, sir," I answers. "It came back unexpected, regular miracle."
""He drummed on the table for a long time, and then says, sort of immaterial and irreverent, "You"re a pretty good mule puncher, eh?"
""It ain"t for me to say I"m the best in the Territory," I says; "but I"m curious to meet the feller that claims the t.i.tle."
"He continues, "It reminds me of an exhibition I saw once, back in New Mexico, long time ago, at the little Flat.w.a.ter Canyon."
""Maybe you"ve heard tell of the fight there when the Apaches were up? Yes? Well, I happened to be in that scrimmage."
""I was detailed with ten men to convoy a wagon train through to Fort Lewis. We had no trouble till we came to the end of that canyon, just where she breaks out onto the flats. There we got it. They were hidden up on the ridges; we lost two men and one wagon before we could get out onto the prairie.
""I got touched up in the neck, first clatter, and was bleeding pretty badly; still I hung to my horse, and we stood "em off till the teams made it out of the gulch; but just as we came out my horse fell and threw me--broke his leg. I yelled to the boys:
"""Go on! For G.o.d"s sake go on!" Any delay there meant loss of the whole outfit. Besides, the boys had more than they could manage, Injuns on three sides.
""We had a young Texan driving the last wagon. When I went down he swung those six mules of his and came back up that trail into the gut, where the bullets snapped like gra.s.shoppers.
""It was the prettiest bit of driving I ever saw, not to mention nerve. He whirled the outfit between me and the bluff on two wheels, yelling, "Climb on! Climb on! We ain"t going to stay long!" I was just able to make it onto the seat. In the turn they dropped one of his wheelers. He ran out on the tongue and cut the brute loose. We went rattling down the gulch behind five mules. All the time there came out of that man"s lungs the fiercest stream of profanity my ears ever burned under. I was pretty sick for a few weeks, so I never got a chance to thank that teamster. He certainly knew the mind of an army mule, though. His name was--let me see--Wiggins--yes, Wiggins.
""Oh, no it wasn"t," I breaks in, foolish; "it was Joyce."
"Then I stopped and felt like a kid, for the Colonel comes up and shuts the circulation out of both my hands.