Читать книгу Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters - Henry Wallace Phillips - Страница 10

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"His mount was a big American horse, full sixteen hand high, trotting in twenty-foot jumps. If I had anything against a person, just short of killing, I'd tie him on the back of a horse trotting like that. It's a great gait to sit out. Howsomever, this man didn't sit it out; what he wanted of a saddle beyond the stirrups was a mystery, for he never touched it. He stood up on his stirrups, bent forward like he was going to bite the horse in the ear, soon's the strain got unendurable.

"Well, here he come, straight for us. I'd a mind to wake the other boys up, to let 'em see something new in the way of mishandling a horse, but they snored so peaceful. I refrained.

"'How-de-do?' says he.

"I said I was worrying along, and sized him up, on the quiet. He was a queer pet. Not a bad set-up man, and rather good looking in the face. Light yellow hair, little yellow moustache, light blue eyes. And clean! Say, I never saw anybody that looked so aggravating clean in all my life. It seemed kind of wrong for him to be outdoors; all the prairie and the cabin and everything looked mussed up beside him.

"As soon as he opened up, I noticed he had a little habit of speaking in streaks, that bothered me. I missed the sense of his remarks.

"'Would you mind walking over that trail again?' I asked him. 'I do most of my thinking at a foot-step and your ideas is over the hill and far away before I can recognise the cut of their scalp-lock.'

"'Haw!' says he and stared at me. I was just on the point of askin' him if red hair was a new thing to him, when all of a sudden he begun to laugh, 'Haw-haw-haw!' says he; 'not bad at all, ye know.'

"'Of course not,' says I. 'Why should it be?'

"This got him going. I saw him figuring away to himself, and then I had to smile so you could hear it.

"'Well,' says I, better humoured, 'tell us it again—I caught the word sheep in the hurricane.'

"So he went over it, talking slow. I listened with one ear, for he had a white bulldog with him; a husky, bandy-legged brute with a black eye, and he was sniffing, dog fashion, around the door, while I blocked him out with my legs. Doggy was in a frame of mind, puzzling out bull-snake trail, and hawk trail, and bob-cat trail. He foresaw much that was entertaining the other side of the door, and wanted it, powerful.

"'Here,' says I, 'call your dog. I can't pay attention to both of you.'

"'He won't hurt anything, you know,' says the man.

"'Well, we've got a cat in there that'll hurt him,' I says. 'You'd better whistle him off before old Bob wakes up and scatters him around the front yard.'

"Gee! That man sat up straight on his horse! Cat hurt that dog? Nonsense! Of course, he wouldn't let the dog hurt the cat, and as long as I was afraid——

"I looked into that peaceful cabin. Billy was lying on his back, his fine manly nose vibrating with melody; Wind-River was cooing in a gentle, choked-to-death sort of fashion, on the second bunk; Tom was coiled in the corner, the size of half a barrel; the Judge slept on his perch; Robert reposed under the cook-stove with just a front paw sticking out. It was one of them restful scenes our friends the poets sing about. It did appear wicked to disturb it but——

"'Will you risk your dog?' I asked that man very softly and politely.

"'Certainly!' says he.

"Says I, 'His blood be on your shirtfront,' and I moved my leg.

"Well, sir, Billy landed on the grocery shelf. Wind-River grabbed his gun and sat up paralysed. It really was a most surprising noise. I've had hard luck in my life, but all the things that ever happened to me would seem like a recess to that bulldog. Our domestic difficulties was forgotten. 'United We Stand,' waved the motto of the lake-bed cabin. Jerusalem! That dog was snake-bit, and hawk-scratched-and-bit-and-clawed, and bobcat-scratched-and-bit-and-clawed, till you could not see a cussed thing in that cabin but blur. And of all the hissing and squawking and screeching and yelling and snapping and roaring and growling you or any other man ever heard, that was the darndest. I took a look at the visitor. He'd got off his horse and was standing in the doorway with his hands spread out. His face expressed nothing at all, very forcible. Meanwhile, things were boilin' for fair; cook-stove, frying-pans, stools, boxes, saddles, tin cans, bull-snakes, hawks, bob-cats, and bulldogs simply floated in the air.

"'I wish you'd tell me what has busted loose, Red Saunders!' howls old Wind-River in an injured tone of voice; 'and whether I shell shoot or sha'n't I?'

"There come a second's lull. I see Judge Jenkins on the dog's back, his talents sunk to the hock, whilst he had hold of an ear with his bill, pullin' manfully. Tommy had swallered the dog's stumpy tail, and Bob was dragging hair out of the enemy like an Injun dressing hides.

"A bulldog is like an Irishman; he's brave because he don't know any better, and you can't get any braver than that, but there's a limit, even to lunk-headedness. It bored through that dog's thick skull that he had butted into a little bit the darndest hardest streak of petrified luck that anything on legs could meet with.

"'By-by,' says he to himself. 'Out doors will do for me!' And here he come! Neither the visitor nor me was expecting him. He blocked the feet out from under us and sat his master on top. We got up in time to see a winged bulldog, with a tail ten foot long, bounding merrily over the turf, searching his soul for sounds to tell how scart he was, whilst a desperate bob-cat, spitting fire and brimstone, threw dirt fifty foot in the air trying to lay claws on him."