CLEAN CRAZY

by W. C. Tuttle

Author of “Muley’s Morals,” “Salt of the Earth,” etc.

“Cleanliness is next to godliness, Hen,” orates Telescope Tolliver, trying to stick up uh razor slash on his face with some cigaret paper. “Uh feller ought to take uh bath once uh week whether he needs it or not. Uh course I don’t mean that yuh ought to rub all the cuticle loose, but uh nice refreshing bath, taken in uh gentlemanly manner don’t hurt nobody.”

“That’s nice to listen to, Telescope,” says I. “Cleanliness is uh hi-yu state of uh affairs, but when uh feller has to absorb said cleanliness from uh wash-basin and uh dirty towel, it sort uh loses its girlish charms.

“The last time I gets dudish thataway Muley Bowles comes along and gets his big feet into that basin. I’ve only got as far down as my ears, and there ain’t no water left, so I proclaims uh drouth on the lower part uh my system and lets her go at that. I’d give three cheers to know who honed this razor. If Chuck don’t get rid uh them corns uh his pretty soon we’ll all have to grow whiskers on our faces. What’s all this here talk about baths about, Telescope?”

“Uh man ought to go clean to uh dance, Hen,” he proclaims. “Being as there’s going to be uh sprinkling of the fair sex at the Seven A shindig it ain’t no more than right that we sloughs off uh little real estate and smells more like uh rose. I hates to shave this early, but if Muley and Chuck ever starts to get dolled up for uh dance there ain’t never going to be no chance for uh civilized man to get prepared. We’ll get most all ready, except the per-fume, Hen, and then they can have it all to themselves, eh?”

“Speaking uh baths,” says I.

Telescope smokes hard on his cigaret, and grins at me.

“Hen,” says he, reminiscent like, “did you admire the swimming-hole when you was uh kid?”

“I’d tell uh man,” says I. “Why, doggone it, Telescope, I re——”

“Fine,” says he, still grinning. “About half-way between here and Paradise, down there where Tin Cup Crick makes that elbow turn, there’s uh swimming-hole that was sure built to order. I discovered it the other day, when I hazes uh cow across.”

“Too close to the road,” I objects. “Anybody going along the road could look right over there.”

“Naw. Bushes all along the bank. You’d have to stand up in uh wagon to see the water uh-tall, Hen. Let’s me and you go down there and have uh good old swim. What do yuh say, eh?”

“Here they are, Muley!” yells Chuck Warner from the doorway. “You guard the window while I hangs uh rope on ’em, and we’ll split the reward.”

“Being funny is an art, Chuck,” states Telescope, dangling uh pair uh green neckties in his hands. “There’s always something pitiful about the funny stuff you say. What are you and that animated can uh goose-grease trying to start around here?”

“Goose-grease, eh?” yelps Muley Bowles from the window, where his face looms up like uh milk-cheese. “You long, limber-jointed cross between uh surveyor’s chain and uh razor-backed hawg—you!”

“Well, spring it,” I advises. “Let’s all laugh.”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” whoops Chuck. “You’ll laugh all right, Hen. Sheriff McFee was taking uh couple uh crazy men up to Warm Springs from Red Lodge last night. He had them two hombres in the express car, where their language won’t offend nobody—and drummers, and when it gets dark they opines that they desires to sleep. McFee humors them by letting ’em take off their clothes.

“Well, pretty soon they seems to get uh longing for the free and open pe-rairie, so they busts McFee over the head with uh crate uh aigs, piles uh heavy trunk on the messenger, and hits the cactus near Paradise, with nothing on their bodies or minds.

“Also they takes McFee’s and the messenger’s six-shooters. McFee arrives in Paradise with aigs in his hair and malice in his heart. He offers uh hundred dollars reward for information that will corral the aig-busters. I’d opine that them nude nuts will be hard to take alive.”

“Uh man, with nothing on his mind

And nothing on his legs,

Who hits the county sheriff

With uh case uh ancient aigs,

Then pilgrims out in cactus land

To take uh little sleep

Hadn’t ought to be arrested;

He should be herding sheep.”

Muley recites with his face through the window.

I don’t reckon that Muley could help orating poetry if he wanted to. He tips the hay-scales at two hundred and forty, rides the biggest saddle-tree in the State, and constantly lives in hope that his past is forgotten, and that he can learn to spin uh rope without balling it up.

Telescope Tolliver was built after uh pole-bean pattern. He ducks every time he enters the door, and rides with short stirrups so his feet won’t drag. His past is closely linked with Muley’s, and the less said about it the better. Telescope insists that he’s originally from Kentucky—the Tollivers of Kentucky, with the accent on “the.” Telescope sings. Some folks sings by music and some by ear, but Telescope sings by main strength.

Chuck Warner has banty legs on uh man-sized body, face like uh bronc, and ability to tell uh lie and stick to it. He wiggles his ears like uh burro, looks trusting out of uh pair uh innocent blue eyes, and sings—when somebody don’t stop him.

Me? I’m Hen Peck. I was born in Missouri and showed in Montana. I ain’t so awful to look at and I got uh lot uh natural sense. I sure can make uh banjo set up and take notice; and also can sing uh little. I’m to be described as having uh sympathetic disposition and warts on both hands. I’m unlucky. If I hadn’t uh started to punch cows for uh living I might uh made uh mark in the world, but no matter if I had, somebody would have come along and rubbed it out.

Right now this unholy quartet is drawing down forty and board from the Cross J outfit, owned and cussed at by old man Whittaker, christened Ephriham. Any one wishing to correspond with me can send it to any one of us, care of the Cross J ranch, Yellow Rock County, Montana. It don’t make no difference who yuh address the letter to—the other three will get it sooner or later.

“Lucky thing that you and Muley had your clothes on, Chuck,” says I. “That’s all the alibi yuh had. How long did it take you and Muley to frame up uh lie like that?”

“It ain’t no lie, Hennery,” replies Muley. “McFee is getting up uh posse right now.”

“Why didn’t you fellers go with him?” asks Telescope. “They say it takes uh thief to catch uh thief: why not uh nut to catch uh nut? Like attracts like.”

Me and Telescope dodges two pair uh boots, and arrives outside intact.

“Let’s go swimming,” says Telescope, and we did just that thing. That swimming-hole was built to order, and we can’t hardly wait to get our clothes off. I reckon it’s about uh hundred in the shade, and believe me that water did feel good to little Henry Clay Peck, Esq.

We dives off the bank and disports like uh pair uh muskrats. After we ducks each other uh couple uh times, like uh pair uh kids, Telescope shakes the water out of his ears and says:

“Hen, them broncs look uh heap dry and hot, don’t yuh think? Suppose we gives ’em uh bath, too?”

“Not for mine,” says I. “That saddle cost me too much coin and I don’t take no chance on having it curl up. Sabe?”

“Huh!” he snorts. “I reckon it would hurt yuh uh lot to ride bareback, wouldn’t it? We can take off the saddles and bridles and use hackamores. That’ll be more than we got on. What yuh say?”

I didn’t say. I climbs right out and begins to take off my rig. I’m riding uh big Lazy Y roan, with just enough sense in its head to cause it to eat. Telescope’s is uh brown outlaw, which displays uh Cross-in-uh-Box brand and uh wicked-looking eye. We climbs on and forces ’em into the water. It’s deep enough to make ’em swim, and we starts ’em to milling right in the middle of the crick.

Sudden like my bronc lets out uh snort like uh scared buck and paws for the bank, and Telescope’s brown is right against me, snorting like uh freight engine on uh grade.

I gets one look as we hits the bank, and sees the cause of all the fright. Goats! Dozens of goats. High up on the other bank I glimpses uh dilapidated figure, which I recognizes as being “Harelip” Hansen.

Harelip used to be uh cowman, but some rustlers busted up his herd. Then he went into sheep over on another range just in time to get mixed up in the sheep and cattle trouble, and his sheep paid the penalty of his sins. He opines that nobody is going to hurt uh goat so he invests in uh small herd.

I never saw two broncs take such uh dislike to goats as them two did. Me and Telescope are all slick from that water, and the broncs are wet, too, so yuh can imagine the chance we had to hold ’em with hackamores.

We went up that bank like two streaks, over to the main road, and away we goes to Paradise hell-bent-for-election.

“Ho-ho-hold that —— roan down!” yells Telescope, laying back on his bronc’s hips, and sawing with both hands.

“Hold ——!” I yells right back at him. “How can I hold mine while yours acts thataway?”

I pulls on my bronc until I ain’t got uh pull left in my carcass, but the harder I pulls the faster he runs, with Paradise only three miles away.

I looks back after a while and sees Telescope riding sideways and slapping his bronc on the side of its head, trying to turn it out of the road, but that outlaw is so scared that it don’t even shake its head.

I’m simply raining sweat and profanity when Telescope forges up beside me and yells in uh scared voice—

“Team coming!”

I takes uh look down the sandy road, and here comes uh wagon-load uh folks. I can see colors, so I knows that there’s females aboard.

“What yuh going to do?” I yells, looking back, but I gets uh demonstration instead of an answer.

Telescope hops high in the air, away from his bronc, and spills end over end into that hot dust.

I takes another look at that wagon and follers suit. I lights setting down, and I reckon I’d uh set there too long if the sand hadn’t been so hot. I looks around and finds that the only bit uh cover is uh mesquite bush back about uh hundred yards where Telescope had lit.

You can talk all you like about sprinters who can make the hundred yards in nine and four-fifths, but I made that in four-fifths flat, and it wasn’t no cinder path either. It was ankle-deep hot sand, but I spurns it like uh bird, slides under the bush, wraps my arms around the roots and sticks my head into Telescope’s stummick.

“Oof!” says Telescope, patting himself on the belt-buckle. “Mff-arr-guff-oof!”

“Yes,” says I, “it sure is some sultry.”

“My ——!” he explodes, after he gets through swallering his discomfort. “The shade is on the wrong side, Hen!”

Just then the wagon rattles past, and we sees that in it is Weinie Lopp and uh couple uh women. We angles around the bushes as they goes past and hears ’em talking about them crazy men.

“What’ll the officers do if they do see ’em?” asks uh female.

“Well, ma’am, they’ll just about have to shoot first and ask questions afterward,” replies Weinie. “They can’t afford to take no chances in uh case like this.”

The wagon rattles on and me and Telescope gets around on the shady side.

“This shade ain’t much but it’s better than nothing,” states Telescope. “Now I reckon—look out! Here comes another wagon.”

We ducks back into the sun again and sizzles while that wagon goes on to Paradise. I never noticed before how slow uh team uh horses can be.

As soon as they’re out uh range we goes back to the shade, but right away comes uh couple uh girls on horseback, and we has to enter the fiery furnace again.

I reckon that dust is the invention of the devil to make men sneeze at uh time like this, but I couldn’t help it. Right when they’re opposite us I simply has to cut loose and sneeze like uh confirmed hay-feverist.

It scares one uh them broncs and it bolts right toward us, and uh course Telescope has to stand up. Blooey!

One of them horses goes right on up the road, but the other sunfishes, and its rider lights high wide and handsome in her floppy skirt. She sets there slapping the dust out of her eyes and making little squeaky noises, while me and Telescope goes off across country like uh couple uh skinned coyotes looking for uh place to hole up.

Hot? Say, I can just feel the lard oozing out uh my carcass, and as we tops uh hogback ridge Telescope stops long enough to pant:

“Huh-huh-huh-Hen, we’re in uh-uh-uh nice fix! There—huh-uh-huh—uh—comes the posse.”

“Let ’em come,” I wheezes. “I can’t run another foot. What do we care—nothing but men.”

“Like ——!” he gulps. “They—huh—uh-huh—picked up them females.”

Did I say I couldn’t run another foot? I lied about my ability. Did yuh ever run across country without no clothes on your anatomy? No, uh course yuh never did. That’s uh privilege that is accorded to uh select few.

Uh cactus gets stuck on your heel, flies from there up to some choice part of your carcass and takes uh grip that calls for pinchers and heroic action.

Before me and Telescope had hit Tin Cup Crick we looks like uh pair uh full-fledged porkypines. We flops down in the thick brush before the posse shows up, and rolls and wheezes our lungs full of air.

“My ——!” wails Telescope. “I’m all stuck to thunder. The end uh my nose is the only place where there ain’t no stickers and that’s only because it was too far in front. Here comes the posse, Hen! Thank God for these bushes!”

We lays low and waits for ’em to come close. Sudden like we hears uh noise, and Harelip Hansen comes down through the brush and breaks out into the open. We can’t see him now, but pretty soon we hears voices and we opines that he’s conversing with the posse.

“Zhure I zeen um,” we hears Harelip proclaim. “In zwimmin’.”

“Which way did they go?” we hears McFee ask, and then: “Uh-huh. I thought so. Must uh been the same ones that tackled these ladies. Mighty lucky thing we came along when we did. Yuh never can tell about uh crazy man. I reckon we’ll have to kill ’em.”

“Did they have any guns?” asks somebody.

“Yes,” we hears uh female reply. “Yes, they were heavily armed. They surely were a savage-looking pair, weren’t they, Mable? I honestly thought my last hour had come.”

“Indeed, yes,” we hears the other one reply. “They surely were a desperate-looking pair. One of them tried to overtake me.”

Telescope kicks me on the ankle, thereby joining us together through the medium of uh healthy prickly-pear.

“Ouch!” groans Telescope. “Deliver me from all women.”

“That woman ain’t lying,” I states. “She believes that them things actually happened. Anyway you are uh desperate-looking hombre—nude thataway, Telescope.”

“Don’t argue shapes with me, Hennery Peck,” he hisses. “You’d make uh good model for uh cross between uh sack uh sand and uh pretzel. You ain’t nude, Hen. You couldn’t never be nude—not with your present physique—you’re naked as ——!”

“Well,” we hears some of the posse say: “It’s uh cinch they ain’t going to come and invite us to put uh rope on ’em, so we better be moving on.”

After they leaves us we gets busy on cactus spines. We manages to get the worst ones out of our legs, and then starts crawling through the brush in the general direction of our clothes. They say that curiosity killed uh cat, but no cat was ever born with curiosity that uh range steer can show at times.

You can ride all around him on uh bronc and he won’t pay no attention ’cause he sort uh figures, I reckon, that the man is part of the horse, but you let uh steer see uh man on foot, and he immediate and soon wishes to investigate.

This long, rangy red steer that me and Telescope crawls up against in them bushes gets scared of uh year’s growth when he sees two nude specimens. He lets out uh bawl like his sun was about to set, and paws his way up uh washout, where he stands and gawps at us, with his tongue hanging out uh foot.

“Don’t move!” I whispers. “Stand perfectly still and he’ll think we’re part of the scenery.”

“I’m uh cactus,” states Telescope, and then he imitates one to perfection by stooping over to pull uh thorn from between his toes.

That settled things for that steer. The minute that Telescope imitates uh cactus bending in the breeze the steer gets uh longing for uh nice piece uh juicy cactus, and he immediate and soon comes right down to see if we’re of the edible variety. He sticks his red head down, sticks his tail up, puts uh kink in it, and orates aloud that he’s uh committee to find out things.

Me and Telescope didn’t linger longer. There ain’t nothing in sight that looks like uh safe place to be, so we goes off across country regardless of contour or description, and that committee uh one red steer pilgrims in our wake.

We acquires more cactus in our journeys, also numerous and sundry bruises from mesquite prongs and rocks. We sure lead uh care-free and aimless existence for the next few minutes. Telescope leads by one jump, and about uh hop and uh bawl behind yours truly comes that Seven A critter. Every little while it lets out uh warning that the worst is yet to come, and we shoves the speed up another notch.

The speed limit uh human endurance is about reached in my system, when I sees Telescope throw up his skinny arms and drop out uh sight through uh fringe uh brush, and the next fraction of uh second finds me doing the same.

I drops through space for uh second or two, and then: glub! I lands all sprawled out in uh pot-hole with alkali mud in the bottom. I reckon that steer tries to stop on the edge, but he skids around and comes down the bank rear end first, right into our midst and mud.

I gets uh wallop that stands me on my head up against that sticky bank, and when I gets my perceptions to working again, I observes that steer flat on its side in the bottom of that pot-hole with Telescope setting on its head.

The hole is only about twenty feet across the bottom, and the sides slope sharp to the rim, which is about twenty feet away. The steer is making funny noises with its nose in the mud, and Telescope’s head droops like uh wilted flower, while he pants and puffs like uh winded pup. I puffs uh little and rubs some mud out uh my eyes.

“Sus-sus-some bulldogger—me,” stutters Telescope, spitting out uh gob uh alkali mud.

“More like uh Mexican hairless dogger,” says I. “I sure gives yuh credit for leading that misguided piece uh beef into uh cul-de-sac.”

“Cul de ——!” he groans, looking at the top of the bank. “I lead him all right, but how am I going to leave him?”

“Get him by the tail and throw him out,” I advises. “You always could throw the bull, Telescope.”

“Funny, ain’t yuh?” he snaps, sarcastic like. “Maybe that’s uh better idea than you thought it would be. Out uh the mouth uh fools often cometh wisdom. We’ll both get him by the tail and then it’s uh cinch he can’t hook us.”

“And he’s too wise to starve to death, and will have to leave here sooner or later,” says I. “You set there until I gets uh good grip.”

I grabs that tail in uh death grip, braces my feet in the mud, and notifies Telescope that he can get up and hook on. For the next few seconds there is something doing. That animile immediate and soon gets on his feet in that slippery, yaller mud, and digs deep into his soul for sounds to tell how mad and scared he is.

He tries to change ends but the anchor is too much of uh drag, so he lets out an extra bawl for good measure and bores straight for the rim.

We’re with him in spirit and in fact, and the three of us flops back on to good going in record time. Preferring uh stern chase we encourages that steer to keep going, and you can take it from me, uh steer can run.

I’m hanging on to its tail near the rump and Telescope is out on the extreme end, and we bumps, whips and bounds across country like two tin cans on the tail of uh wolf.

I’m ready to quit pretty soon, but I ain’t in no position to drop off first, being as I’m sort of in front, so I tries to yell loud enough for Telescope to hear—

“Let go!”

I thought he had taken my advice, so I slaps that steer uh parting wallop with my free hand and lets go with the other. I was mistaken. I reckon that Telescope must uh taken uh half-hitch on that tail, ’cause when I lets loose I gets run into so danged hard that I turns flip-flops and chases stars for fifty feet out of our line uh march.

I’m laying there taking uh star census, when I hears uh voice proclaim from the brush below me:

“I hope he got killed! Dang his hide!”

“Me and you both,” says I, right back at him. “I hates red steers worse than ——!”

Telescope Tolliver raises his bony physique into my line uh vision and looks me over.

“Henry Clay Peck, I didn’t mean the steer,” he states. “What did yuh let loose for? You busted my wishbone—dang yuh!”

“There’s luck in busted wishbones,” says I. “If your heart ain’t too full uh malice I wish you’d come up here and take uh few prickly-pears out uh me—I want to set down. Where’s the steer?” I asks, as Telescope imitates uh windmill, trying to shake uh prickly-pear out of his thumb.

“Dang his red hide—I don’t know! I don’t care! If he ain’t slowed up none he’s in Canada by now. My gosh, I’m fit for uh hospital!”

“And you’re all dirty, too, Telescope. Uh bath don’t do some folks any good. Anyway we sure are having some holiday, wild and free thisaway. What’ll we do now that’ll be painfully funny? After all this I could laugh myself sick at uh lynching.”

“We’ll go over and get our clothes, Hen,” he states. “I’m all through with this here cave-man stuff. My cripes, that water will feel good on these cuts and bruises, eh?”

We limps across them burning sands like two naked souls in the losing end of the hereafter, and after hunting every bit uh cover on the way, we finally hits the bank uh Tin Cup again. We splashes around for uh while and then climbs the bank where we left our clothes.

“There!” says Telescope. “That water sure felt good, eh, Hen? There ain’t no use talking, clothes sure do make the—what the ——!”

“Gone!” says I, vacant like. “Somebody stole ’em.”

We looks over the place where we left our habiliments of civilization, but all that’s left is half uh Telescope’s hat, one saddle-blanket and the two saddles and bridles.

“Nobody stole ’em,” proclaims Telescope, pointing at the cut-up ground. “See what took ’em, Hen? Goats! The sons-uh-guns done ate half uh my hat, too!”

“I hope the souls of all departed goats will haunt Harelip Hansen all the rest of his danged life!” I pronounces.

“Haunts ——!” howls Telescope. “Butts, you mean. Who cares about goat ghosts?”

We sets down there and contemplates our condition. Telescope picks up that saddle-blanket and tries to make uh breechcloth for himself but he’s got too many cactus spines in that part of his anatomy, so he throws it away and puts on that half uh hat.

“From your eyebrows on up you’re civilized,” says I. “But what’s the use—nobody’s going to look at your face.”

“Aw ——!” he wails. “We got to get home, so we might as well start now as any time.”

“We can’t take the road,” I objects. “We’re liable to run into uh posse any time, and besides that there’s uh danged lot uh travel on this road today. If we had clothes on we’d never meet anybody, but it seems like when yuh gets naked yuh got to pass uh pee-rade all the time.”

“No, we’re not using roads this season, Mister Peck,” says he. “Roads were built for civilized folks. We’ll pilgrim up Sillman Gulch to the forks, sneak over the top through them cottonwoods, and work our way home down that gully back of the bunk-house.”

“We might visit Miss Emily and Genevieve on our way,” I suggests.

Them two is the Mudgett sisters. They lives with their brother, Abe Mudgett, who is away right now. Them two is twins, and if there ever was two homelier women on earth they never showed up in this State. Them two old maids don’t need no protector, ’cause it’s uh cinch that nothing will ever attack ’em in the daylight.

“Uh-huh,” agrees Telescope. “We sure are dressed for uh call. I don’t reckon that Solomon in all his glory would attract the attention that me and you would.”

We sneaks across the road and hits the brush up the gulch. After we’ve gone about half uh mile, we hears voices, and sees several people ride across the gulch above us. We drops low in the brush, as two fellers ride close by us, and we hears one of ’em opine:

“They can’t get far, that’s uh cinch. Believe me, I don’t take no chances on them kind uh Jaspers. Things like this is what scares women plumb stiff. I reckon all the men in the country are on their trail.”

Telescope looks foolish like at me and digs some hardened mud out of his ear.

“That’s cheerful news for us to hear, Hennery,” says he.

“Yes,” says I. “I ain’t been cheered so much since uh doctor took one look at me and said, ‘Smallpox.’ I reckon we might as well keep going. I’d as soon be killed near the ranch as out here in the brush.”

We listens uh while and then sneaks on up the gulch. About uh quarter of uh mile further on we slips into sight of the Mudgett house, which is only uh short distance from the bottom of the gulch.

We sets there and watches the place for uh while but there don’t seem to be any sign uh life. The door is shut and the blinds are down.

“Nobody there,” says I. “Let’s go on, Telescope.”

“Hen, ain’t you got no sabe in your system?” he asks. “Look at the washing on the line over there.”

I looks and beholds two pair of overalls and some female apparel, hanging there on uh line, stretched from the house to the barn, and it warms my heart like wine.

“Telescope,” says I, “you got Sherlock Holmes out on uh limb. The trunk is open and nobody home. Let’s go cover our shame.”

We eases ourselves out of the brush, and skips across that open space with joy in our souls, and when we’re about half-way across we turns and goes right back to the brush with birdshot in our hides. It sure was uh reversal of form.

“Ambushed!” wails Telescope, as we falls under cover and picks at them stinging spots.

“No argument,” says I, picking uh number seven shot out uh my hide and rolling it in my hand. “There’s always uh silver lining though, Telescope.”

“For instance?”

“Well,” says I, holding out that little piece uh lead. “We might uh been uh lot closer, for one thing, and they might uh had uh thirty-thirty.”

Zee-e-e-e! Zing-g-g-g-g! Boom! Boom!

Two more loads uh shot invades our sanctuary, and causes us to hug each other. Uh course we’re about out uh range, but them shot has still got enough ambition to bring tears to our eyes.

“Dang uh woman!” wails Telescope. “They can’t see us but they got imagination enough to hit us just the same.”

“Well, they ain’t going to hit me no more,” says I. “Little Henry Clay Peck ain’t going to expose his sylph-like form to no more shotguns.”

I wiggles off through the brush and Telescope is with me.

“Where yuh going?” he asks.

“I’m going to hole up over here in the thick brush and there ain’t nothing short of uh cloud-burst or uh fire going to pry me loose until it gets dark. Sabe?”

“I wish we had some way to tell ’em that we ain’t the ones,” complains Telescope.

“Well, we ain’t. Uh course I know and you know that we ain’t crazy, Telescope, but there ain’t no use telling it to somebody at uh hundred yards when they got uh gun. Nobody in this country ever seen us running around naked thisaway, so yuh can’t blame ’em if they don’t recognize us at uh glance. I’m sure going to lie silent until darkness covers this troubled land. Everybody’ll be at the dance, so we’ll have uh cinch.”

We lays there nursing our wounds, sunburn and scratches, and praying for uh smoke until it gets dark.

Then out we pilgrims and turns our swollen feet toward the Cross J. We picks up prickly-pears at every step, and our progress is profanely audible. We’re sore and stiff, and that night air ain’t what you’d designate as being tropical.

“Cleanliness may be next to godliness, Telescope, but this is the most ungodly bath I ever had,” says I. “Every time I thinks of the old swimming-hole I’m going to think of cactus, scared broncs, wild steers, birdshot, irresponsible women and goats. This is what uh feller gets for trying to smell like uh rose. After this I takes my bath in sections. Never again do I remove my clothes. I don’t reckon I got uh spot the size of uh two-bit piece on my carcass what ain’t injured in some way.”

“Them is my sentiments, Hen,” groans Telescope. “Never again do I be so dudish that I takes two baths in one day.”

We pilgrims on through the dark and swings out through the willers back of the bunk-house.

We sees somebody light uh match on the porch of the ranch-house, but there ain’t no beacon out to guide us home. We sneaks around to the bunk-house door and finds it locked tight. The window is nailed down.

“Locked out!” wails Telescope, in uh whisper. “After all this suffering we finds that we ain’t even welcome at home. What’ll we do now, Hen?”

“I’ll tell yuh what. We’ll sneak up to the back of the house, open the window to the old man’s room and get some uh his clothes. We got to be danged quiet ’cause there’s somebody on the front porch.”

We crawls around behind the house, and up to the old man’s window. Lucky for us the window ain’t fastened, so we pushes it up like two experienced burglars.

Telescope slides his lanky frame over the sill into the dark, and I’m right behind him.

“How are we going to get uh light?” I asks, in uh whisper.

“Cinch,” he whispers. “I know where the old man keeps his matches.”

He fumbles around in the dark for uh minute and then gives uh satisfied grunt.

“Got ’em, by gosh!”

Then he strikes uh match, and holds it up. Here we are standing in the middle uh that big room, like two naked souls, holding uh light for all to see.

“My ——!” gasps Telescope and me together, and that match still burns merrily on.

There’s three beds in the room; and from each bed rises the figures of two females. They got curler things on their heads and horror in their eyes.

One of ’em makes uh noise like uh little chicken calling for its maw, and then all is silent again.

“——!” snorts Telescope, when that match burns down and nips his fingers, and we’re in darkness again.

I’ve heard some noises in my time, but that bunch uh females can make more separate and distinct noises in uh short space uh time than anything I ever heard.

We hears somebody cuss out on the porch, and then me and Telescope meets at the window, and both tries to go out together. The theory was all wrong. We might uh made it in single file but not in uh bunch thataway. We claws at that window in the dark, with female screams spurring us on, but all we managed to do was to shut the danged thing.

I drops to the floor and rolls under uh bed, and I feels that Telescope is right with me. Them females is in the last stages of hysterics when the door opens and in comes the old man and Muley Bowles.

I reckon the old man is carrying uh lamp, but all I can see is their boots, and the muzzles of two rifles.

“They were here!” yelps uh female, and the noise starts all over again.

“Wait uh minute!” howls the old man. “Shut up and give me uh chance to get head or tail to all this noise. Do yuh mean to say that them crazy men was in this room?”

“I seen ’em!” yelps uh female. “They lit uh match. Must have come in the window.”

“——!” snorts the old man. “Somebody sure must be crazy. The window is shut.”

“Sherlock Holmes again,” I whispers, pinching Telescope on the leg.

“Yeow-w-w-w!”

What I thought was Telescope wasn’t him—not any! It was uh female, who, following her natural impulse, went under the bed for safety. Anyway she sure went out from under there like uh streak, and lights right into the multitude.

“Oh-o-o-o-o!” she yelps. “Something bit me!”

“Dog,” pronounces the old man. “That Airedale will bite. Here, Booze! Come on out, you whiskered cow-chaser! Come out uh that! Well, stay there then—I don’t blame yuh!”

“Make uh noise like uh Airedale, Hen,” comes uh strangled whisper from the other bed, and I knows that Telescope is still with me.

“What seems to be the trouble?” asks uh voice at the door, and we recognizes it as belonging to Chuck Warner. “What’s all the fuss about?”

“These here ladies opines that them crazy men invades their sanctuary uh while ago,” replies the old man, and Chuck roars.

“Haw! Haw! Haw! Did, eh? Well, well! Somebody sure must be seeing things. Them two fellers never got off that train. They went out of that express car, but they just crawled on top of the coach and they caught ’em at Warm Springs. McFee just got uh wire, telling all about it.”

There ain’t uh word said for some time, and then the old man busts loose:

“Gol dingle dang uh woman! Here we got the whole danged country aroused and hunting for something what ain’t! Making uh female refuge out uh my house! Ain’t that uh —— of uh note? Chuck, you hitch up and take some uh these females home, and Muley can take the rest. Take ’em home, take ’em to the dance or any other danged place they wants to go. Get ’em away from the Cross J.

“Gol dingle dang! Don’t know uh coyote from uh naked man. Gosh A’mighty, woman, why don’t yuh study physiology and learn the human shape? Harelip Hansen ain’t no better, but yuh can’t blame him—he’s uh goat-herder. Dang everybody!”

They all leaves, while the old man fusses and splutters, and when there ain’t nobody left in sight me and Telescope hauls our weary carcasses out from under and sets down on uh bed. We looks foolish like at each other, and just then the old man walks back into the room, still spluttering.

He shuts the door before he sees us. He’s just lighting his pipe, and when he sees us he stops dead still, leans against the wall, weak like, throws his pipe on the floor and puffs solemn like on that match.

“——!” he gasps. “I might—uh—knowed—that—Chuck—lied—about—that—telegram!” and just then Muley sticks his head inside the door.

“Say, are you—holy—suffering—cinch-rings!”

He looks us over with eyes the size uh two-bit pieces, and then begins to shake like uh sack uh jelly. He gets his breath after a while, and examines us some close like, and recites:

“They roamed the prairie wild and free

Without uh single stitch.

They gathered cactus with their feet

And got the dobie itch.

They scared the women all to ——,

And bathed in alkali.

They had no brains—so crazy men

Had to prove their alibi.”

“You fellers expect to get to that dance?” asks the old man, still sucking on that match. “You both better take uh bath and ——”

“You answer him, Telescope,” says I. “I ain’t got the heart.”

“No,” says Telescope. “Uh man what ain’t got no more sense than to give uh man advice like that ain’t worth answering.”

“You fellers can’t go to no dance with all that mud—” begins Muley, but Telescope rises to his full height, and sets his jaws hard.

“Shut up! Me and Hen may be crazy but we ain’t clean crazy! From now on I’m going to keep my hat on when I washes my face. How about you, Hen?”

“Me? Telescope, I’ll raise your ante uh little. From now on I’m going to wear gloves when I washes my hands.”

Transcriber’s Note

This story appeared in Adventure Magazine, May 18, 1918. It is believed to be in the public domain in the United States; copyright status may differ in other countries.

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, May 18, 1918

Prepared by volunteers at BookCove (bookcove.net).