Volume I Part 13 (2/2)

”Timid? Sh.o.r.e! They're that timid, seminary girls compared to 'em is as sternly courageous as a pa.s.sel of buccaneers. Out in Mitch.e.l.l's canyon a couple of the Lee-Scott riders cuts the trail of a mountain lion and her two kittens. Now whatever do you-all reckon this old tabby does? Basely deserts her offsprings without even barin' a tooth, an' the cow-punchers takes 'em gently by their tails an' beats out their joovenile brains.

That's straight; that mother lion goes swarmin' up the canyon like she ain't got a minute to live. An' you can gamble the limit that where a anamile sees its children perish without frontin' up for war, it don't possess the commonest roodiments of sand. Sech, son, is mountain lions.

”It's one evenin' in the Red Light when Colonel Sterett, who's got through his day's toil on that _Coyote_ paper he's editor of, onfolds concernin' a panther round-up which he pulls off in his yooth.

”'This panther hunt,' says Colonel Sterett, as he fills his third tumbler, 'occurs when mighty likely I'm goin' on seventeen winters. I'm a leader among my young companions at the time; in fact, I allers is.

An' I'm proud to say that my soopremacy that a-way is doo to the dom'nant character of my intellects. I'm ever bright an' sparklin' as a child, an' I recalls how my apt.i.toode for learnin' promotes me to be regyarded as the smartest lad in my set. If thar's visitors to the school, or if the selectman invades that academy to sort o' size us up, the teacher allers plays me on 'em. I'd go to the front for the outfit.

Which I'm wont on sech harrowin' o'casions to recite a ode--the teacher's done wrote it himse'f--an' which is ent.i.tled _Napoleon's Mad Career_. Thar's twenty-four stanzas to it; an' while these interlopin'

selectmen sets thar lookin' owley an' sagacious, I'd wallop loose with the twenty-four verses, stampin' up and down, an' accompanyin' said recitations with sech a mult.i.tood of reckless gestures, it comes plenty clost to backin' everybody plumb outen the room. Yere's the first verse:

I'd drink an' sw'ar an' r'ar an' t'ar An' fall down in the mud, While the y'earth for forty miles about Is kivered with my blood.

”'You-all can see from that speciment that our school-master ain't simply flirtin' with the muses when he originates that epic; no, sir, he means business; an' whenever I throws it into the selectmen, I does it jestice. The trustees used to silently line out for home when I finishes, an' never a yeep. It stuns 'em; it sh.o.r.e fills 'em to the brim!

”'As I gazes r'arward,' goes on the Colonel, as by one rapt impulse he uplifts both his eyes an' his nosepaint, 'as I gazes r'arward, I says, on them sun-filled days, an' speshul if ever I gets betrayed into talkin' about 'em, I can hardly t'ar myse'f from the subject. I explains yeretofore, that not only by inclination but by birth, I'm a sh.o.r.e-enough 'ristocrat. This captaincy of local fas.h.i.+on I a.s.soomes at a tender age. I wears the record as the first child to don shoes throughout the entire summer in that neighborhood; an' many a time an'

oft does my yoothful but envy-eaten compeers lambaste me for the insultin' innovation. But I sticks to my moccasins; an' to-day shoes in the Bloo Gra.s.s is almost as yooniversal as the licker habit.

”'Thar dawns a hour, however, when my p'sition in the van of Kaintucky _ton_ comes within a ace of bein' ser'ously shook. It's on my way to school one dewy mornin' when I gets involved all inadvertent in a onhappy rupture with a polecat. I never does know how the misonderstandin' starts. After all, the seeds of said dispoote is by no means important; it's enough to say that polecat finally has me thoroughly convinced.

”'Followin' the difference an' my defeat, I'm witless enough to keep goin' on to school, whereas I should have returned homeward an' cast myse'f upon my parents as a sacred trust. Of course, when I'm in school I don't go impartin' my troubles to the other chil'en; I emyoolates the heroism of the Spartan boy who stands to be eat by a fox, an' keeps 'em to myself. But the views of my late enemy is not to be smothered; they appeals to my young companions; who tharupon puts up a most onneedful riot of coughin's an' sneezin's. But n.o.body knows me as the party who's so pungent.

”'It's a tryin' moment. I can see that, once I'm located, I'm goin' to be as onpop'lar as a b'ar in a hawg pen; I'll come tumblin' from my pinnacle in that proud commoonity as the gla.s.s of fas.h.i.+on an' the mold of form. You can go your bottom _peso_, the thought causes me to feel plenty perturbed.

”'At this peril I has a inspiration; as good, too, as I ever entertains without the aid of rum. I determines to cast the opprobrium on some other boy an' send the hunt of gen'ral indignation sweepin' along his trail.

”'Thar's a innocent infant who's a stoodent at this temple of childish learnin' an' his name is Riley Bark. This Riley is one of them giant children who's only twelve an' weighs three hundred pounds. An' in proportions as Riley is a son of Anak, physical, he's dwarfed mental; he ain't half as well upholstered with brains as a shepherd dog. That's right; Riley's intellects, is like a fly in a saucer of syrup, they struggles 'round plumb slow. I decides to uplift Riley to the public eye as the felon who's disturbin' that seminary's sereenity. Comin' to this decision, I p'ints at him where he's planted four seats ahead, all tangled up in a spellin' book, an' says in a loud whisper to a child who's sittin' next:

”'”Throw him out!”

”'That's enough. No gent will ever realize how easy it is to direct a people's sentiment ontil he take a whirl at the game. In two minutes by the teacher's bull's-eye copper watch, every soul knows it's pore Riley; an' in three, the teacher's done drug Riley out doors by the ha'r of his head an' chased him home. Gents, I look back on that yoothful feat as a triumph of diplomacy; it sh.o.r.e saved my standin' as the Beau Brummel of the Bloo Gra.s.s.

”'Good old days, them!' observes the Colonel mournfully, 'an' ones never to come ag'in! My sternest studies is romances, an' the peroosals of old tales as I tells you-all prior fills me full of moss an' mockin' birds in equal parts. I reads deep of _Walter Scott_ an' waxes to be a sharp on Moslems speshul. I dreams of the Siege of Acre, an' Richard the Lion Heart; an' I simply can't sleep nights for honin' to hold a tournament an' joust a whole lot for some fair lady's love.

”'Once I commits the error of my career by joustin' with my brother Jeff. This yere Jeff is settin' on the bank of the Branch fis.h.i.+n' for bullpouts at the time, an' Jeff don't know I'm hoverin' near at all.

Jeff's reedic'lous fond of fis.h.i.+n'; which he'd sooner fish than read _Paradise Lost_. I'm romancin' along, sim'larly bent, when I notes Jeff perched on the bank. To my boyish imagination Jeff at once turns to be a Paynim. I drops my bait box, couches my fishpole, an' emittin' a impromptoo warcry, charges him. It's the work of a moment; Jeff's onhossed an' falls into the Branch.

”'But thar's bitterness to follow vict'ry. Jeff emerges like Diana from the bath an' frales the wamus off me with a club. Talk of puttin' a crimp in folks! Gents, when Jeff's wrath is a.s.suaged I'm all on one side like the leanin' tower of Pisa. Jeff actooally confers a skew-gee to my spinal column.

”'A week later my folks takes me to a doctor. That pract.i.tioner puts on his specs an' looks me over with jealous care.

”'”Whatever's wrong with him, Doc?” says my father.

”'”Nothin',” says the physician, ”only your son w.i.l.l.yum's five inches out o' plumb.”

”'Then he rigs a contraption made up of guy-ropes an' stay-laths, an' I has to wear it; an' mebby in three or four weeks or so he's got me warped back into the perpendic'lar.'

”'But how about this cat hunt?' asks Dan Boggs. 'Which I don't aim to be introosive none, but I'm camped yere through the second drink waitin'

for it, an' these procrastinations is makn' me kind o' batty.'

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