Part 32 (1/2)
”That settles it,” said McCalmont. ”Now you, Jim, you go back and tell these boys to join the herders in front, and I'll be with you presently.
It ain't decent, my boy, for you to behold what's going to happen in the way of costume. So you jest tell Curly good-bye, and we'll proceed with disguisin' her as a womern.”
”When shall I see Curly again?” asks Jim in a fright.
”At such time when he's fit to ride. Now tell yo' good-bye.”
So Jim and Curly had a minute together while I helped McCalmont to get out the trunk of clothes. Then Jim rode off for the sake of decency, and I turned my back. There was arguments between McCalmont and Curly about how the female costume should be fixed, the parent wanting one side to the front, and the dutiful child insisting otherwise. When I was told to look, there was Curly grinning in surroundings of yellow wig, the same being bunched up behind like a clump of p.r.i.c.kly pear. McCalmont rigged himself out in his preacher clothes, cinched up his sorrel horse at the tail of the buckboard, and tied his cowboy gear to the strings of the saddle. He turned to watch Jim and the robbers file past on their way to the front, then gave me his lantern.
”My friend,” says he, ”when you go to the home of them ladies, drive straight acrost the open range to the back door, be thar befo' midnight, and if you love yo' life, don't stray out on the waggon road between the Jim Crow Mine and Grave City. If you do you'll get killed for sure.”
”What shall I do with the buckboard?”
”Lose it somewheres whar it ain't apt to be found. Turn them team hawsses loose and let them break for their home, as they sh.o.r.ely will.”
”And when Curly is well of this wound?”
”Then Jim will join you, and you'll take them children to some safe country, so that they get mar'ied and forget this life. We planned all that befo'.”
”You trust me still?”
”It looks that way, my friend, and I don't trust by halves.”
He gripped my hand, and went loping away into the night.
CHAPTER XXII
ROBBERY-UNDER-ARMS
In those days of our little unpleasantness in Arizona there was another discussion proceeding along in South Africa. The Boers had their tail up, and the British Army was indulging itself in ”regrettable incidents”
about once a week. Which I allude to here because the word ”regrettable incident” is good; it's soothing, and it ill.u.s.trates exactly what happened on the night when I delivered Curly, damaged but cheerful, among my cousins, the Misses Jameson.
Just to the east of the home inhabited by these ladies occurs the Jim Crow Mine, the same being the very place where the robbers once had breakfast with old man Ryan, making him pay the bill, as aforesaid, which was seventy-five thousand dollars, and annoying.
On this further occasion which I now unfold, there were only four men working the Jim Crow claim. It seems they were in the bunk house playing poker until eleven p. m., when their foreman uprose with regrets to surrender his hat, boots, and pants to an avaricious person holding three aces and a pair of jacks. The foreman's warm communications on the subject of cheating were then cut off short by a masked robber standing in the doorway with guns. This robber proposed that all gentlemen present should throw up their hands, and allowed they had a fervent invitation to die unless they stepped out pretty soon to the head of the Jim Crow shaft. Accordingly the sad procession trailed away to the shaft, and one by one the mourners went down in a bucket to a total depth of one hundred and four feet. Then the robber hauled up the bucket to keep them from straying out, and promised faithful that if he heard any noise he would just drop in a few sticks of dynamite. There was not much noise.
Meanwhile other earnest young robbers were collecting every citizen who pa.s.sed the mine, and inviting him to join their surprise-party down at the foot of the shaft. The citizens all accepted, and when some candles, a deck of cards, and a few bottles of nose paint were sent to a.s.sist, the levee underground began to get quite a success.
Mixed in with these proceedings, and other hold-ups various and swift, was the Chinese cook with a robber holding his tail while he fixed supper for twenty-five men. Afterwards he likewise was handed down the shaft. I should also mention a preacher in a black suit, and a white tie up under his ear, projecting around among the store shed for cases of dynamite.
At 12:30 a bunch of cowboys numbering eighteen head, with a cavvyard of ponies, trailed in off the range. After each man had roped and saddled a fresh horse, and fed corn to the same, their reverend pastor put out a relief of sentries, and told the crowd to line up in the rampasture for supper.
Naturally these people had to get the provisions off their minds before there was any talk, but then the preacher reared up to address the meeting.
”Brethren----” says he.
”Look a-here,” the new segundo, Black Stanley, started in obstreperous, backed by a dozen men, all seething. ”I represents this outfit in starting to buck right now!”
”Turn yo'self loose.”