第42章

"What's that, son? You-all thinks my stories smell some tall! You expresses doubts about anamiles conversin' with one another? That's where you're ignorant.All anamiles talks; they commoonicates the news to one another like hoomans.When I've been freightin' from Dodge down towards the Canadian, I had a eight-mule team.As shore as we're walkin'--as shore as I'm pinin' for a drink, I've listened to them mules gossip by the hour as we swings along the trail.Lots of times I saveys what they says.Once I hears the off-leader tell his mate that the jockey stick is sawin' him onder the chin.Iinvestigates an' finds the complaint troo an' relieves him.The nigh swing mule is a wit; an' all day long he'd be throwin' off remarks that keeps a ripple of laughter goin' up an' down the team.You-all finds trouble creditin' them statements.Fact, jest the same.I've laughed at the jokes of that swing mule myse'f; an' even Jerry, the off wheeler, who's a cynic that a-way, couldn't repress a smile.

Shore! anamiles talks all the time; it's only that we-all hoomans ain't eddicated to onderstand.

"Speakin' of beasts talkin', let me impart to you of what passes before my eyes over on the Caliente.In the first place, I'll so far illoomine your mind as to tell you that cattle, same as people--an'

speshully mountain cattle, where the winds an snows don't get to drive 'em an' drift 'em south--lives all their lives in the same places, year after year; an' as you rides your ranges, you're allers meetin' up with the same old cattle in the same canyons.They never moves, once they selects a home.

"As I observes, I've got a camp on the Caliente.Thar's ten ponies in my bunch, as I'm saddlin' three a day an' coverin' a considerable deal of range in my ridin'.Seein' as I'm camped yere some six months, I makes the aquaintance of the cattle for over twenty miles 'round.Among others, thar's a giant bull in Long's Canyon--he's shoreiy as big as a log house.Him an' me is partic'lar friends, cnly I don't track up on him more frequent than once a week, as he's miles from my camp.I almost forgets to say that with this yere Goliath bull is a milk-white steer, with long, slim horns an' a face which is the combined home of vain conceit an' utter witlessness.

This milky an' semi-ediotic steer is a most abject admirer of the Goliath bull, an' they're allers together.As I states, this mountain of a bull an' his weak-minded follower lives in Long's Canyon.

"Thar's two more bulls, the same bein', as Colonel Sterett would say, also 'persons of this yere dramy.' One is a five-year-old who abides on the upper Red River; an' the other, who is only a three-year-old, hangs out on the Caliente in the vicinity of my camp.

"Which since I've got to talk of an' concernin' them anamiles, Imight as well give 'em their proper names.They gets these last all reg'lar from a play-actor party who comes swarmin' into the hills while I'm thar to try the pine trees on his 'tooberclosis,' as he describes said malady, an' whose weakness is to saw off cognomens on everythin' he sees.As fast as he's introdooced to 'em, this actor sport names the Long's Canyon bull 'Falstaff'; the Red River five-year-old 'Hotspur,' bein' he's plumb b'lligerent an' allers makin'

war medicine; while the little three-year-old, who inhabits about my camp in the Caliente, he addresses as 'Prince Hal.' The fool of a white steer that's worshippin' about 'Falstaff' gets named 'Pistol,'

although thar's mighty little about the weak-kneed humbug to remind you of anythin' as vehement as a gun.Falstaff, Pistol, Hotspur an'

Prince Hal; them's the titles this dramatist confers on said cattle.

"Which the West is a great place to dig out new appellations that a-way.Thar's a gentle-minded party comes soarin' down on Wolfville one evenin'.No, he don't own no real business to transact; he's out to have a heart-to-heart interview with the great Southwest, is the way he expounds the objects of his search.

"'An' he's plenty tender,' says Black Jack, who's barkeep at the Red Light.'He cornes pushin' along in yere this mornin'; an' wliat do you-all reckon now he wants.Asks for ice! Now whatever do you make of it! Ice in August, an' within forty miles of the Mexico line at that."Pard," I says, "we're on the confines of the tropics; an'

while old Arizona is some queer, an' we digs for wood an' climbs for water, an' indulges in much that is morally an' physically the teetotal reverse of right-side-up-with-care, so far in our meanderin's we ain't oncovered no glaciers nor cut the trail of any ice.Which if you've brought snowshoes with you now, or been figgerin' on a Arizona sleighride, you're settin' in hard luck."'

"Jest as Black Jack gets that far in them statements, this yere tenderfoot shows in the door.

"'Be you a resident of Wolfville?' asks this shorthorn of Dave Tutt.

"'I'm one of the seven orig'nal wolves,' says Tutt.

"'Yere's my kyard,' says the shorthorn, an' he beams on Dave in a wide an' balmy way.

"'Archibald Willingham De Graffenreid Butt,' says Dave, readin' off the kyard.Then Dave goes up to the side, an' all solemn an' grave, pins the kyard to the board with his bowie-knife.'Archibald Willingham De Graffenreid Butt,' an' Dave repeats the words plumb careful.'That's your full an' c'rrect name, is it?'

"The shorthorn allows it is, an' surveys Dave in a woozy way like he ain't informed none of the meanin' of these yere manoovers.

"'Did you-all come through Tucson with this name?' asks Dave.

"He says he does.

"'An' wasn't nothin' said or done about it?' demands Dave; 'don't them Tucson sports take no action?'

"He says nothin' is done.

"'It's as I fears,' says Dave, shakin' his head a heap loogubrious, 'that Tucson outfit is morally goin' to waste.It's worse than careless; it's callous.That's whatever; that camp is callous.Was you aimin' to stay for long in Wolfville with this yere title?' asks Dave at last.

"The shorthorn mentions a week.