Ag stood six-foot-two by two-foot-six, and when he had the long-tailed coat, the plug hat, and his general-in-the-army whiskers working right, he only had to stick one hand in his vest and begin, "Fellow-Citizens and Gentlemen," and he could start anything from a general war to a barber-shop expedition to gather North Poles.
Give him a good, honest, upright gang of men that would weigh two hundred a head, and Aggy could romp with their money or them, so the worst used monkey in the cage would go home pleased.
Ag was built to play with huskies, not paralytics; so one day when he stooped and turned sideways to get into the paralytic"s room, treadin"
soft on the boards so"s not to land the outfit in the cellar, the sight of the poor sick man lyin" there--everlastingly lyin"--his helpless hands turned palm up on the covers, why, old Ag"s heart was touched.
He was that kind of gra.s.s-hopper, Ag, to whipsaw you out of a hundred and then lend you five hundred, even if he had to rip the pelt off somebody else to get it. I asked him about that trait onct.
"Why, Hy, my boy," says he, with his thumb in his vest, and his twenty-five cent cigar in his teeth--we was livin" at the risk of a high-roller hotel at the time--"in the first place, I"m a gentleman in disguise, and carelessness allows me to drop the disguise now and then; besides that," says he, "I hate these here conventions. Because I touch Mr. Jones for his wad, must I therefor scramble Mr. Ferguson?
And if I stake Ferguson, must I open a free lunch for the country?
Now, G.o.d forbid!" says Ag. "I started out being pleased by doing the things that pleased me, regardless of the vulgar habits of the mob.
The mob can select its destination at any or all times it pleases, but I"m going to be Agamemnon G. Jones," says he. "The unexpected always happens, and I"m the unexpected," he says.
You wouldn"t ask for a man to keep his statements clearer than that. I was the only person had a line on him. I"d figger out every possibility for him and then sleep peaceful, knowing that it had come off different.
So while n.o.body"d figger on Ag"s gettin" stuck by a paralytic, darned if he didn"t come away with a map in his hands. "Here is our fortune, Henry," says he.
Well, now, I jumped sideways. "Look here, Aggy Jones, do you mean to say that legless wonder has stuck you?"
"Mr. Troy conveyed all rights in the property to me for $10, paid in hand, including this method of findin" out where it is," says he.
"Where"d you get the $10, and me not know it?" says I.
"Trivial, trivial," says Ag.
"And do you expect to follow that dotted line until you stub your toe over a half-ton nuggets?"
"Frivolous, frivolous," says Ag.
"Yes," I says, "yes. Trivial--frivolous--all right--but what"s that red cross?"
"Shows the location plainly," says he, shiftin" his cigar. "Where the arms of that cross intersect, we double it, or turn nurses in the army."
Well, I stared at him. Too much thinkin" goes to a man"s head sometimes.
"You feel anything strange about you anywheres?" says I.
"Yes," says he, tapping it. "This map-- Accordin" to the scale of miles these here arms on the cross are somethin" like fifty miles long.
Ah, what a merry, merry time we shall have, Hy, chasin" up and down gla.s.s mountains, eatin" p.r.i.c.kly pear, drinking rarely, and cullin" a rattlesnake here and there to twine in our locks. It will seem like old times, dropping a rock in your boots in the mornin" to quell the quivering centipede and the upstanding and high-jumping tarantula."
"Say," says I, "do you think there"s a mine here at all?"
"Mine!" says he, like I"d asked a most unexpected question. "Mine?
Have we lived out of eyeshot of the most remarkable mine in the United States and Canada at any time we smoked the trail?"
"No," says I, "that"s so; but, Ag, you ain"t goin" to push for that red cross out in the middle of h.e.l.l"s ash-heap, are you?"
"Only a little ways," says he; "it"s time we left this anti-money trust behind us, and I always like to leave dramatically, if it"s only to give the sheriff a run."
"More fast-footin" in this?"
""Nary, but we shall meet some of our fellow-townsmen on the river to-morrow--all men who haven"t done us a bit of good--and then we"ll flap our gliders to a gladder land."
"But that ten dollars----"
"Look here. Let"s _again_ settle this money question once for all. Am I the financial expert for this party?"
"You be."
"Selah," says Ag. "And unlike the corporations in the effete East, where a high collar marks the gentleman, we mix amus.e.m.e.nt with our lives?"
"Sure," says I.
"Well, then," says Aggy, speaking with the frankness and affection of one or more friends to another, "I ask you to swallow your tongue and watch events."
"Keno," says I. "Produce your events."
So the next day we hooted it out toward the southeast, packin" grub only, and I never says a word.
Bimeby we see a lot of people comin" a horseback, on board waggons, and runnin" afoot.
"Each man with a map," says Ag. "Look at "em dodge, Hy. They go out of sight for seconds at the time--"Shall we gather by the river, the beautiful, the beautiful Squaw River?"--I reckon."
We did. Everybody seemed surprised at seein" everybody else.
"Just come out for a picnic, friends?" says Ag.
"Oh, yes," says everybody. "Great old day and nice spot here--tired of town--thought we"d make a holiday."
"Good, good," says Aggy, his honest face gleamin" with joy. "Let"s all eat now and swop maps afterward."
Things kind of stopped for a minute. If a man was unhitchin" a mule, he waited till you could count 1, 2, 3, and then continnered.
"What d"ye mean by "map"?" says one lad, bent under a horse to hide his face.
"What do I mean?" says Ag, offended. "Why, I mean just what Noah Webster meant when the dove came back bringin" the definition to his ark. I mean map--m-a-p, map--a drawin" that shows you the way to get to a red cross that doesn"t exist on the face of nature. I like green crosses as a matter of taste, but all our paralysed friend had left was a red one, so I took that, not to be unsociable."
I"ve been at pleasanter lookin" picnics.
Finally the feller under the horse did some deep thinkin" and come out.
"Have you honest got a map?" says he.
"To the Lost Injun mine? "Heigh-o, the Lost Injun!"" sings Aggy.
"Here she is, my friend, with all dips, angles, and variations; one million feet on the main lode; his heirs, a.s.signs, orphans. _E pluribus unum_, forever and forever!"
"Yours ain"t just the same as mine," says the feller, grimly spittin".
"No," says Ag, "I reckon he spread it around. He didn"t know this was the nearest ford on Squaw Creek, and we might likely come together."
And then arose a cussin", not loud, but with a full head of steam--it would make ordinary loud seem like the insides of a whisper--and a rush for horses.