Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters Part 5

Now, there may be those who will object that the plain, unvarnished tale of my friend "Hy" Smith, which follows, is lacking in the robust qualities that truth alone can bring; to them I recommend the att.i.tude of the Injun. But I must add this: Heaven forbid that I should have to stand good for any of Hy's stories! Still, some of what I considered his most outrageous lies afterward received strong and unexpected confirmation. For instance, the manner in which he earned his sobriquet of "Hydraulic" Smith I thought was pure fable, but no less a man than his former employer said that it was fact in every essential.

Smith got his front name while working in a big hydraulic camp in Idaho. He was nozzleman. One day in an unusually merry mood he turned the monitor loose on a crowd of Chinamen who were working over tailings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Hy" Smith]

"And if ever you saw felt shoes and pigtails flying in the air 'twas then," said Hy. "It looked for all the world like Old Faithful had spouted in a poll-parrot cage. I don't know why I done it, no more than the man in the moon--it was one of them idees that takes hold of you, and gets put through before you can more'n realise you're thinking of it--but it was the greatest success of its kind I ever see. We had a two-hundred-foot head of water and a six-inch stream, and I might say that there was a yaller haze of Chinamen in the atmosphere for the next ten seconds. I piped one Charley-boy right over the top of a tool-shed. Well, our boss was a mighty kind-hearted man, and when that crowd of spitting, foaming, gargling, gobbling Chinamen went to him, and begun to pour out their troubles like several packs of fire-crackers going off to oncet, waving all the arms and legs I hadn't knocked out of commission, he was het up considerable. He never waited to hear my side of the story, but just rolled up his pants and waded into me up to the hocks; he read me my pedigree from Adam's wife's sister down to now, and there wasn't a respectable person in it, according to him.

"I didn't like it, and I made a swipe for him with a shovel, but he was too soople for me, and of all the lickings I ever got, that is the one I don't want to remember the most: he did a sort of double-shuffle fandango on my back, while he brought my legs into the argument with a sluice rake.

"When he asked me if I had had enough, I told him I thought it would do for the present, because, as a matter of fact, if all I had more than enough was money in the bank, I wouldn't have done no more work for the rest of my days.

"So then he calls me up and gives me my time, and I must say he treated me square when he said good-bye.

"'You're the best darn man on a monitor lever that I ever did see,'

says he, 'but anywheres else you're the foolest combine of small boy and dare-devil, and some other queer thing that I don't seem to be able to find a name for, that ever c.u.mbered this earth. Now, get the ---- out of this, and good luck to you.'

"I didn't feel a bit sorry for them Chinamen--they're only hairless monkeys that don't even know enough to wear their tails in the right place. Their arithmetic proves that. It's regular monkey figgering.

They haven't any numbers that look like numbers at all. Suppose you want to multipy twenty-five by thirty-six, Chinee system? First you put down a rooster's foot-track; that's twenty-five. Underneath that goes the ground-plan of a small house; that's thirty-six. Then you take an hour off, and work out the sum with a lot of little b.a.l.l.s on wires; then you put down the answer, and what do you think it is? Why, it's a map of Chicago after the fire! Shucks! And they call themselves men. I'd go old Job three boils to his one rather than have any c.h.i.n.ks around me.

"Well, the boys labelled me Hydraulic Smith from that on, and I went prospecting. Took up with a feller named Agamemnon G. Jones. Aggy was a big, fine-looking man, with a chest like a dry-goods box, and a set of whiskers that would start him in business anywhere. They were the upstandingest, n.o.blest, straightforwardest outfit of whiskers I most ever saw, and how they come to grow on Ag is a mystery; but they stood him in many a dollar, now, I tell you that!

"He was a man of pretty considerable education, in some ways, and he could make you believe that to-day was last Thursday a week ago, if you weren't on to him. At this time he was kind of under a cloud like myself, and the way it come about was this:

"He started an a.s.say office when he first struck the gulch, and he used to bring in results according to the looks of the customer. If the man looked tender around the feet, Aggy'd knock it to him, and probably the shave-tail would be so pleased that he would fork out an extra ten; but if he was plainly vented as one of the boys, there would be just enough pay in the return to encourage him. Now, Jones did everything shipshape and in style. Here's the paper that made him trouble."

Hy fished a slip out of the bundle in his old pocket-book and handed it to me.

AGAMEMNON G. JONES, _a.s.sayer_, Qualitative and Quant.i.tative a.n.a.lysis.

_Sample left by Mr. Idaho Kid_ _No. 36,943_.

Value per ton.

Gold ...................................... $362.13 Silver .................................... 186.90 Platinum .................................. 14.77 Lead ...................................... 2.06 Iridium ................................... .02 Osmium .................................... .00003+ Copper .................................... 18.54

10:36 A.M. 3/16/81

Signed, AGAMEMNON G. JONES, _a.s.sayer_.

"Now, that was the worst that Aggy had ever sprung on anybody, because this Idaho Kid looked as if he hadn't been three weeks away from his mother; instead of which he was a hootin', tootin' son-of-a-gun in reality, and you might say he'd cut his teeth on a miner's candlestick.

"When the Kid saw that miraculous result, his eyes bunged out; then he took a long breath and wrecked the place. Aggy left at one that morning for fear that worse might follow. He fetched this paper with him to remind him that 'genius has its limitations,' he said. But he didn't seem to learn anything by it. Next he took up engineering. He hit a blame good job on Castle Creek. The people wanted to turn the creek through a tunnel, so that they could work the bed, and at this point it was rather an easy business. The stream made a 'U' about three-quarters of a mile long, the bottom p.r.o.ng being at least a hundred and fifty feet below the water-level on the top one--a smashing good fall--so Aggy started in on the down side to bore the hole up.

Well, everything went lovely. He'd come around with his plans and specifications twice a day, and draw his hundred once a week regular for his great labours. At last, however, the shift-boss said they must be getting pretty near water; he could hear it roar through the face of the tunnel, he said. But Aggy told him not to be alarmed; he had it all worked out, and they weren't within forty foot of breaking through."

[Ill.u.s.tration: He'd come around with his plans and specifications twice a day]

"So at it they went again, as cheerful as could be, and the next news they got, down comes the face, and they were being piped through four hundred foot of black-dark tunnel, trying to guess what was up, b.u.mping and banging against the walls, and the whole of Castle Creek on top of them. My, Chinamen weren't a circ.u.mstance. Aggy said they boiled out of the lower end of the tunnel where he was standing so fast he couldn't recognise them, and, as a matter of fact, three or four of 'em were washed a mile down creek before they could make land. Aggy gathered that it was time to move again, so he pulled back for Idaho.

There wasn't anybody really drowned, except old Tom Olley, a cousin-Jack whose only amus.e.m.e.nt in life was to wear out his pants laying low for cinches in the stud-poker game, and you couldn't rightly say he was any loss to the community. So Aggy used to regret sometimes that he hadn't stayed to face the music. They might have played horse with him for a while, but 'twould soon have blown over--miners not being revengeful by nature--and he was to have had an eighth interest, besides his salary, if the thing was a success.

"But there was no good of crying over spilt milk, and us two went prospecting.

"We located for a permanent stand down on Frenchman's Creek, near where three of Cap' Ally's greaser sheep herders had their camp. They did our hunting for us, and as there was n.o.body but them around, and they were the peacefullest people in the world, we didn't feel the need of any gun except Ag's old six-shooter. That was the cussedest machine that ever got invented by man. When you pulled her off she'd spit fire in all directions, filling the crotch of your hand with powder burns, and sometimes two or three of the loads would go off at once, when she'd kick like a Texas steer. There was much talk of bear around, and we were always going to buy a real gun, some day, but we never got at it.

"Well, we prospered pretty well, considering how little we worked. A large part of the time was taken up with playing monte with the herders, and still more in arguing questions about religion and things like that; but we had a decent cabin built--with the kind a.s.sistance of the herders--and as we struck a rich little streak that run out ten dollars per man a day with no trouble at all, we were in clover.

"At last our stock of grub ran low, and Jones slid up to Salmon City to load up again. It was quite a trip, and as I didn't think it was square to work while Aggy was away, I took up with the herders. They were the decentest folks I ever struck. Play a little music on the guitar, sing songs that always wound up just where a white man's songs would begin, and tell stories and smoke cigarettes--that was the layout for them. Old Cap' Allys was a Christian, and he wouldn't let a man herd sheep all by himself--surest way to get crazy that ever was invented--so he sent the boys out three in a bunch.

"Those fellers had the darndest lot of fairy tales I ever did hear.

And superst.i.tious! Great Jupiter! Any little blame thing that happened meant something: this thing was good luck; that meant bad, and if you tried to josh them out of it, they'd shake their heads and look at you as if they thought you weren't truly religious. One of their yarns was about El Diablo de Fuego, 'The Devil of Fire,' which Miguel said ran in his family. Seems that when anything wrong was about to happen, this blazing, ripping monster showed up as a warning. I told Mee that I thought the monster was misfortune enough, without anything else, but he was scandalised.

"'Psst!' says he. 'Do not spik sooch t'eeng as dthat! Ay, di mi!

Je-Maria-mi Cristo! Jesu, muy dolce y poquito! Dhat mek heem arrrrrrive dthat eenstant, eef djoo spik weez dees-rrreespeck!'

"'All right, Mee,' says I. 'We'll let her go at that--todo el mismo por mi, sabe? But how's the bear crop?'

"'Ay, cara! Is plenty G.o.ddam ba-are!' says Pepe. 'Keel three--four ship las' nigh'! That mek that two mus' seet oop for watch, an' alll ship mus' be in close-corrrrallll! I speet on the soul of that ba-are!'

"Gad! that wasn't cheerful news a little bit. If there's anything in this world I more than don't like, it's a bear--he's so darn big and strong and unreasonable, and unless you catch him sitting, you can pump lead into him until you're black in the face, and it's all one to him.

Well, I thought I might as well camp with the herders until Aggy came back.

"When he did show up he was rather under the influence of strong drink, and from the looks of the waggon he'd brought with him, I should say he'd bought about everything that was movable in Salmon City. I ain't easily astonished, but I must admit that some of the truck got the best of me. I kept asking, 'What in ---- is this, Ag?' and he always answered, 'Ask the driver.' Well, now, if there was any choice between the two, the driver was drunker than Aggy, so you can imagine what a lot of satisfaction I got. There was one thing that I simply couldn't make head nor tail of, and I stayed with him until I got an answer on that.

"'Why, it's an alcohol cooking-stove,' said he, 'great medicine--no trouble to cook now at all. Just light her,' says he, waving his hand, 'and whoop! away she goes! Where's that can of alcohol? Here she is!

Have a drink, Hy?'

"I took a small swig of it in a little water to please him, but there weren't stimmilants enough in the country to raise my spirits that night. I put all the plunder that I could lift up in the c.o.c.k-loft, and the rest I left sitting around.

"I don't exactly know where you fellers are going to sleep,' says I, trying to be sourcastic. 'Pity you didn't order a folding-bed, Ag.'

"'I did,' says he.

"'A folding-bed?' I repeats, not believing my ears.

"'And a piano,' says he. 'What is home without a piano? Answer: It's a place that can't hold the forte--dam good joke--keno--go up to the head, Jones.'

"'Well,' says I, after some other things, 'who's going to pay for all this?'

"'G.o.d knows!' says he, waving his hand again. 'Good-night!' and with that he fell down between a new bureau and a patent portable blacksmith's forge, and putting his head on a concertina, went sound asleep.

"I couldn't follow suit for some time; it's one thing to come home full of budge and animal spirits yourself, and it's quite different to have your pardner work it on you. At last, however, I concluded it would be all the same the next century, and turned in, but I was so rattled that I forgot the bears, and didn't lock up with the usual care.

"It must have been about two in the morning when I woke all in a tremble. I had the feeling that things were away off, but I couldn't place what was the matter, until I looked at the square of moonlight on the floor that came through the window, and I was near to screech like a tomcat, for there was a monstrous black shadow bobbing back and forth in the patch of light. I drew on my bank for all the sand I had and raised my eyes. My heart fairly knocked my ribs loose. Nicely framed in the window was the head of a grizzly, and I'll take my oath it wasn't over a size smaller than a beer-barrel!

"'Now,' thinks I, 'if I can only get that gun before he sees me, and if the cussed thing will only do the right thing by me this once!'

"So out I steps, and the first rattle out of the box I stumbled on a few dozen of the purchases Ag had brought home, and down them and me came like an earthquake. It scart the bear so he drew back; no use trying to work a sneak now. I jumped for the holster, unlimbered, and turned the gun loose for general results. I guess every load went off, from the noise, and she flew out of my hand and vanished behind me.

The place was full of smoke and the plunder that was scattered around; you could neither see nor walk, and that bear was swatting the door in a fashion that showed he was going to give us a call any old how, and I was plumb distracted--for the life of me I didn't know what to do.

"'Don't make such a d.a.m.n noise!' growls Aggy.