Part 5 (1/2)
”'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.