Part 17 (1/2)

the professor is on at a glance that, considered from standp'ints of hypnotism, he ought to be a pushover.

”Emil don't hone to be no subject, but them Bernilillo hold-ups s.n.a.t.c.hes onto him in spite of his protests, an' pa.s.ses him up onto the stage to the professor. They're plenty headlong, not to say boorish, them Bernilillo ruffians be; speshully if they've sot their hearts on anythin', an' pore Emil stands about the same show among 'em as a cottontail rabbit among a pa.s.sel of owls.

”For myse'f, I allers adheres to a theery that what follows is to be laid primar'ly to the door of the Bernilillo pop'lace. Which it's themselves, not the professor, they'd oughter've strung up. You see this Emil artist person blinks out onder the spells of the professor, an' never does come to no more. The professor hypnotizes Emil, but he can't onhypnotize him. Thar he sets as dead as Davy Crockett.

”This yere Emil bein' sh.o.r.e dead, Bernilillo sent'ment begins to churn an' wax active. Thar ain't a well-conditioned vig'lance committee between the Pecos an' the Colorado which, onder the circ.u.mstances, would have dreamed of stretchin' that professor. What he does, them Bernilillo dolts forces him to do. As for deceased, his ontimely evaporation that a-way is but the frootes of happenstance.

”What cares the Bernilillo pop'lace, wolf hungry for blood? In the droppin' of a sombrero they've cinched onto the professor, an' the only question left open is whether they'll string him up to the town windmill or the sign in front of the First National Bank.

”While them Bernilillo wolves is howlin' an' mobbin' an' millin'

'round the professor--who himse'f is scared plumb speechless an' is as white as a lump of chalk--relief pushes to the front in most onexpected shape. It's a kyard sharp by the name of Singleton, otherwise called the Planter, who puts himse'f in nom'nation to extricate the professor.

”Climbin' onto the top step in front of the bank, the Planter lifts up his voice for a hearin'.

”'Folks!' he shouts, 'I'm in favor of this yere lynchin' like a landslide. But, all the same, thar's a bet we overlooks. It's up to us not only to be jest, but to be gen'rous. This yere murderer, who's done blotted out the only real artist I ever meets except myse'f, has a wife down to the hotel. As incident to these festiv'ties she's goin'

to be a widow. Is it for the manhood an' civic virchoo of Bernilillo to leave a widow of its own construction broke an' without a dollar? I hears the incensed echoes from the Black Range roarin' back in scornful accents ”No!” Sech bein' the sityooation, as preelim'nary to this yere hangin' I moves we takes up a collection for that widow.

Yere's a fifty to 'nitiate the play'--at this p'int the Planter throws a fifty-dollar bill into his hat--'an' as I pa.s.ses among you I wants every sport to come across, lib'ral an' free, an' prove to the world lookin' on that Bernilillo is the band of onbelted philanthropists which mankind's allers believed.

”Hat in hand, same as if it's a contreebution box an' he's pa.s.sin' the platter in church, the Planter begins goin' in an' out through the mult.i.tood like a meadowlark through standin' gra.s.s. That is, he starts to go in an' out; but, at the first motion, that entire lynchin' party exhales like mist on the mornin' mountains. It's the same as flappin' a blanket at a bunch of cattle. Every profligate of 'em, at the su'gestion he contreebute to the widow, gets stampeded, an' thar's n.o.body left but the Planter, the professor, an' me.

”'Which I sh.o.r.e knows how to tech them ground-hawgs on the raw,' says the Planter, as he onlooses the professor. 'If I was to have p'inted a gun at 'em now, they'd've give me a battle. But bein' to the last man jack a bunch of onmitigated misers, a threat leveled at their bankrolls sets 'em to hidin' out like quail!'

”The professor?

”The instant he's laig-free, an' without so much as pausin' to congrachoolate his preeserver on the power of his eloquence, he vanishes into the night. He's headin' towards Vegas as he's lost to sight, an' I learns later from Russ Kishler he makes that meetropolis more or less used up. No; he don't have no wife. That flight of fancy is flung off by the Planter simply as furnis.h.i.+n' 'atmosphere.'

”Wolfville never gets honored but once by the notice of a hypnotist.

This yere party don't proclaim himse'f as sech, but bills his little game as that of a 'magnetic healer,' an' allows in words a foot high that he's out to 'make the deef hear, the blind see, the lame to walk an' the halt to skip an' gambol as doth the hillside lamb.' Also, on them notices, the same bein' the bigness of a hoss-blanket an' hung up lib'ral in the Red Light, the post office, the Dance Hall, an' the Noo York store, is a picture of old Satan himse'f, teachin' Professor Propriety Pratt--that bein' the name this yere neecromancer gives himse'f--his trade.

”These proclamations is tacked up a full week before Professor Pratt is doo, an' prodooces a profound effect on Boggs, him bein' by nacher sooperst.i.tious to the brink of the egreegious. The evenin' before the Professor is to onlimber on us, he shows in Red Dog, an' Boggs is that roused by what's been promised in the line of mir'cles, he rides across to be present.

”'It ain't that I'm convinced none,' Boggs reports, when quaffin' his Old Jordan in the Red Light, an' settin' fo'th what he sees, 'but I must confess to bein' more or less onhossed by what this yere Pratt Professor does. He don't magnetize none of them Red Dog drunkards in person, for which he's to be exon'rated, since no self-respectin'

magnetizer would let himse'f get tangled up with sech. He confines his exploits to a brace of dreamy lookin' ground owls he totes 'round with him, an' which he calls his ”hosses.” What he makes these vagrants do, though, a.s.soomin' it's on the squar', is a caution to bull-snakes.

After he's got 'em onder the ”inflooence,” they eats raw potatoes like they're roast apples, sticks needles into themselves same as though they're pincus.h.i.+ons, an' at his slightest behest performs other feats both blood-curdlin' an' myster'ous.'

”We-all listens to Boggs, of course, as he recounts what marvels he's gone ag'inst in Red Dog, but we don't yield him as much attention as we otherwise might, bein' preeockepied as a public with word of a hold-up that's come off over near the Whetstone Springs. Some bandit--all alone--sticks up the Lordsburg coach, an' quits winner sixty thousand dollars. Nacherally our cur'osity is a heap stirred up, for with sech encouragement thar's no tellin' when he'll make a play at Monte an' the Wolfville stage, an' take to layin' waste the fortunes of all us gents. What is done to Lordsburg we can stand, but a blow at our own warbags, even in antic'pation, is calc'lated to cause us to perk up. We're all discussin' the doin's of this yere route agent an' wonderin' if it's Curly Bill, when Boggs gets back from Red Dog, with the result, as I says, that he onloads his findin's, that a-way, on a dead kyard. Not that this yere public inattention preys on Boggs. He keeps on drinkin' an' talkin', same as though, all y'ears like a field of wheat, we ain't doin' a thing but listen.

”'Also,' he observes, as he tells Black Jack to rebusy himse'f, meanwhile p'intin' up to the poster which shows how the devil is holdin' Professor Pratt in his lap an' laborin' for that hypnotist's instruction; 'I shall think out a few tests which oughter get the measure of that mountebank. He won't find this outfit so easy as them Red Dog boneheads.'

”Professor Pratt has a one-day wait in Wolfville, not bein' able that evenin' to get the Bird Cage Op'ry House, the same bein' engaged by a company of histrions called the Red Stocking Blonds. Havin' nothin'

else to do, the Professor wanders yere an' thar, now in the Red Light, now at the Noo York store, but showin' up at the O. K.

Restauraw at chuck time both rav'nous an' reg'lar. Missis Rucker allows she never does feed a gent who puts himse'f outside of so much grub for the money, an' hazards the belief it's because of a loss of nervous force through them hypnotizin's he pulls off. Not that she's findin' fault, for the Professor, havin' staked her to a free ticket, has her on his staff in the shakin' of a dice-box.

”The Professor don't come bulgin' among us, garroolous an' friendly, but holds himse'f aloof a heap, clingin' to the feelin' mebby that to preeserve a distance is likely to swell reesults at the Bird Cage door. Boggs, however, ain't to be stood off by no coldness, carin' no more for a gent's bein' haughty that a-way than a cow does for a cobweb. Which you bet it'll take somethin' more'n mere airs to hold Boggs in check.

”It's in the O. K. Restauraw, followin' our evenin' _frijoles_, that Boggs breaks the ice an' declar's for some exper'ments.

”'Which you claims,' says he, appealin' to the Professor, 'to make the deef hear and the blind see. Onforchoonately we're out of deef folks at this writin', an' thar's nothin' approachin' blindness in this neck of woods which don't arise from licker. But aside from cures thus rendered impossible for want of el'gible invalids, thar's still this yere hypnotic bluff you puts up. What Wolfville hankers for is tests, tests about the legit'macy of which thar's no openin' for dispoote.

Wharfore I yereby makes offer of myse'f to become your onmurmurin'