Forty years? Only three hundred miles? Humph! Ben Holliday would have fetched them through in thirty-six hours!
The boy meant no harm. He did not know that he had said anything that was wrong or irreverent. And so no one scolded him or felt offended with him and nobody could but some ungenerous spirit incapable of excusing the heedless blunders of a boy.
At noon on the fifth day out, we arrived at the Crossing of the South Platte, alias Julesburg, alias Overland City, four hundred and seventy miles from St. Joseph the strangest, quaintest, funniest frontier town that our untraveled eyes had ever stared at and been astonished with.
CHAPTER VII
It did seem strange enough to see a town again after what appeared to us such a long acquaintance with deep, still, almost lifeless and houseless solitude! We tumbled out into the busy street feeling like meteoric people crumbled off the corner of some other world, and wakened up suddenly in this. For an hour we took as much interest in Overland City as if we had never seen a town before. The reason we had an hour to spare was because we had to change our stage (for a less sumptuous affair, called a mud-wagon) and transfer our freight of mails.
Presently we got under way again. We came to the shallow, yellow, muddy South Platte, with its low banks and its scattering flat sand-bars and pigmy islands a melancholy stream straggling through the centre of the enormous flat plain, and only saved from being impossible to find with the naked eye by its sentinel rank of scattering trees standing on either bank. The Platte was up, they said which made me wish I could see it when it was down, if it could look any sicker and sorrier. They said it was a dangerous stream to cross, now, because its quicksands were liable to swallow up horses, coach and passengers if an attempt was made to ford it. But the mails had to go, and we made the attempt. Once or twice in midstream the wheels sunk into the yielding sands so threateningly that we half believed we had dreaded and avoided the sea all our lives to be shipwrecked in a mud-wagon in the middle of a desert at last. But we dragged through and sped away toward the setting sun.
Next morning, just before dawn, when about five hundred and fifty miles from St. Joseph, our mud-wagon broke down. We were to be delayed five or six hours, and therefore we took horses, by invitation, and joined a party who were just starting on a buffalo hunt. It was noble sport galloping over the plain in the dewy freshness of the morning, but our part of the hunt ended in disaster and disgrace, for a wounded buffalo bull chased the passenger Bemis nearly two miles, and then he forsook his horse and took to a lone tree. He was very sullen about the matter for some twenty-four hours, but at last he began to soften little by little, and finally he said:
Well, it was not funny, and there was no sense in those gawks making themselves so facetious over it. I tell you I was angry in earnest for awhile. I should have shot that long gangly lubber they called Hank, if I could have done it without crippling six or seven other people but of course I couldnt, the old Allens so confounded comprehensive. I wish those loafers had been up in the tree; they wouldnt have wanted to laugh so. If I had had a horse worth a cent but no, the minute he saw that buffalo bull wheel on him and give a bellow, he raised straight up in the air and stood on his heels. The saddle began to slip, and I took him round the neck and laid close to him, and began to pray. Then he came down and stood up on the other end awhile, and the bull actually stopped pawing sand and bellowing to contemplate the inhuman spectacle.
Then the bull made a pass at him and uttered a bellow that sounded perfectly frightful, it was so close to me, and that seemed to literally prostrate my horses reason, and make a raving distracted maniac of him, and I wish I may die if he didnt stand on his head for a quarter of a minute and shed tears. He was absolutely out of his mind he was, as sure as truth itself, and he really didnt know what he was doing. Then the bull came charging at us, and my horse dropped down on all fours and took a fresh start and then for the next ten minutes he would actually throw one hand-spring after another so fast that the bull began to get unsettled, too, and didnt know where to start in and so he stood there sneezing, and shovelling dust over his back, and bellowing every now and then, and thinking he had got a fifteen-hundred dollar circus horse for breakfast, certain. Well, I was first out on his neck the horses, not the bulls and then underneath, and next on his rump, and sometimes head up, and sometimes heels but I tell you it seemed solemn and awful to be ripping and tearing and carrying on so in the presence of death, as you might say. Pretty soon the bull made a snatch for us and brought away some of my horses tail (I suppose, but do not know, being pretty busy at the time), but something made him hungry for solitude and suggested to him to get up and hunt for it.
And then you ought to have seen that spider legged old skeleton go! and you ought to have seen the bull cut out after him, too head down, tongue out, tail up, bellowing like everything, and actually mowing down the weeds, and tearing up the earth, and boosting up the sand like a whirlwind! By George, it was a hot race! I and the saddle were back on the rump, and I had the bridle in my teeth and holding on to the pommel with both hands. First we left the dogs behind; then we passed a jackass rabbit; then we overtook a cayote, and were gaining on an antelope when the rotten girth let go and threw me about thirty yards off to the left, and as the saddle went down over the horses rump he gave it a lift with his heels that sent it more than four hundred yards up in the air, I wish I may die in a minute if he didnt. I fell at the foot of the only solitary tree there was in nine counties adjacent (as any creature could see with the naked eye), and the next second I had hold of the bark with four sets of nails and my teeth, and the next second after that I was astraddle of the main limb and blaspheming my luck in a way that made my breath smell of brimstone. I had the bull, now, if he did not think of one thing. But that one thing I dreaded. I dreaded it very seriously. There was a possibility that the bull might not think of it, but there were greater chances that he would. I made up my mind what I would do in case he did. It was a little over forty feet to the ground from where I sat. I cautiously unwound the lariat from the pommel of my saddle
Your saddle? Did you take your saddle up in the tree with you?
Take it up in the tree with me? Why, how you talk. Of course I didnt. No man could do that. It fell in the tree when it came down.
Oh exactly.
Certainly. I unwound the lariat, and fastened one end of it to the limb. It was the very best green raw-hide, and capable of sustaining tons. I made a slip-noose in the other end, and then hung it down to see the length. It reached down twenty-two feet half way to the ground. I then loaded every barrel of the Allen with a double charge. I felt satisfied. I said to myself, if he never thinks of that one thing that I dread, all right but if he does, all right anyhow I am fixed for him. But dont you know that the very thing a man dreads is the thing that always happens? Indeed it is so. I watched the bull, now, with anxiety anxiety which no one can conceive of who has not been in such a situation and felt that at any moment death might come. Presently a thought came into the bulls eye. I knew it! said I if my nerve fails now, I am lost. Sure enough, it was just as I had dreaded, he started in to climb the tree
What, the bull?
Of course who else?
But a bull cant climb a tree.
He cant, cant he? Since you know so much about it, did you ever see a bull try?
No! I never dreamt of such a thing.
Well, then, what is the use of your talking that way, then? Because you never saw a thing done, is that any reason why it cant be done?
Well, all right go on. What did you do?
The bull started up, and got along well for about ten feet, then slipped and slid back. I breathed easier. He tried it again got up a little higher slipped again. But he came at it once more, and this time he was careful. He got gradually higher and higher, and my spirits went down more and more. Up he came an inch at a time with his eyes hot, and his tongue hanging out. Higher and higher hitched his foot over the stump of a limb, and looked up, as much as to say, You are my meat, friend. Up again higher and higher, and getting more excited the closer he got. He was within ten feet of me! I took a long breath, and then said I, It is now or never. I had the coil of the lariat all ready; I paid it out slowly, till it hung right over his head; all of a sudden I let go of the slack, and the slipnoose fell fairly round his neck! Quicker than lightning I out with the Allen and let him have it in the face. It was an awful roar, and must have scared the bull out of his senses. When the smoke cleared away, there he was, dangling in the air, twenty foot from the ground, and going out of one convulsion into another faster than you could count! I didnt stop to count, anyhow I shinned down the tree and shot for home.
Bemis, is all that true, just as you have stated it?
I wish I may rot in my tracks and die the death of a dog if it isnt.
Well, we cant refuse to believe it, and we dont. But if there were some proofs
Proofs! Did I bring back my lariat?
No.
Did I bring back my horse?
No.
Did you ever see the bull again?
No.
Well, then, what more do you want? I never saw anybody as particular as you are about a little thing like that.
I made up my mind that if this man was not a liar he only missed it by the skin of his teeth. This episode reminds me of an incident of my brief sojourn in Siam, years afterward. The European citizens of a town in the neighborhood of Bangkok had a prodigy among them by the name of Eckert, an Englishman a person famous for the number, ingenuity and imposing magnitude of his lies. They were always repeating his most celebrated falsehoods, and always trying to draw him out before strangers; but they seldom succeeded. Twice he was invited to the house where I was visiting, but nothing could seduce him into a specimen lie. One day a planter named Bascom, an influential man, and a proud and sometimes irascible one, invited me to ride over with him and call on Eckert. As we jogged along, said he:
Now, do you know where the fault lies? It lies in putting Eckert on his guard. The minute the boys go to pumping at Eckert he knows perfectly well what they are after, and of course he shuts up his shell. Anybody might know he would. But when we get there, we must play him finer than that. Let him shape the conversation to suit himself let him drop it or change it whenever he wants to. Let him see that nobody is trying to draw him out. Just let him have his own way. He will soon forget himself and begin to grind out lies like a mill. Dont get impatient just keep quiet, and let me play him. I will make him lie. It does seem to me that the boys must be blind to overlook such an obvious and simple trick as that.
Eckert received us heartily a pleasant-spoken, gentle-mannered creature. We sat in the veranda an hour, sipping English ale, and talking about the king, and the sacred white elephant, the Sleeping Idol, and all manner of things; and I noticed that my comrade never led the conversation himself or shaped it, but simply followed Eckerts lead, and betrayed no solicitude and no anxiety about anything. The effect was shortly perceptible. Eckert began to grow communicative; he grew more and more at his ease, and more and more talkative and sociable. Another hour passed in the same way, and then all of a sudden Eckert said:
Oh, by the way! I came near forgetting. I have got a thing here to astonish you. Such a thing as neither you nor any other man ever heard of Ive got a cat that will eat cocoanut! Common green cocoanut and not only eat the meat, but drink the milk. It is so Ill swear to it.
A quick glance from Bascom a glance that I understood then:
Why, bless my soul, I never heard of such a thing. Man, it is impossible.
I knew you would say it. Ill fetch the cat.
He went in the house. Bascom said:
There what did I tell you? Now, that is the way to handle Eckert. You see, I have petted him along patiently, and put his suspicions to sleep. I am glad we came. You tell the boys about it when you go back. Cat eat a cocoanut oh, my! Now, that is just his way, exactly he will tell the absurdest lie, and trust to luck to get out of it again.
Cat eat a cocoanut the innocent fool!
Eckert approached with his cat, sure enough.
Bascom smiled. Said he:
Ill hold the cat you bring a cocoanut.
Eckert split one open, and chopped up some pieces. Bascom smuggled a wink to me, and proffered a slice of the fruit to puss. She snatched it, swallowed it ravenously, and asked for more!
We rode our two miles in silence, and wide apart. At least I was silent, though Bascom cuffed his horse and cursed him a good deal, notwithstanding the horse was behaving well enough. When I branched off homeward, Bascom said:
Keep the horse till morning. And you need not speak of this foolishness to the boys.
CHAPTER VIII
In a little while all interest was taken up in stretching our necks and watching for the pony-rider the fleet messenger who sped across the continent from St. Joe to Sacramento, carrying letters nineteen hundred miles in eight days! Think of that for perishable horse and human flesh and blood to do! The pony-rider was usually a little bit of a man, brimful of spirit and endurance. No matter what time of the day or night his watch came on, and no matter whether it was winter or summer, raining, snowing, hailing, or sleeting, or whether his beat was a level straight road or a crazy trail over mountain crags and precipices, or whether it led through peaceful regions or regions that swarmed with hostile Indians, he must be always ready to leap into the saddle and be off like the wind! There was no idling-time for a pony-rider on duty. He rode fifty miles without stopping, by daylight, moonlight, starlight, or through the blackness of darkness just as it happened. He rode a splendid horse that was born for a racer and fed and lodged like a gentleman; kept him at his utmost speed for ten miles, and then, as he came crashing up to the station where stood two men holding fast a fresh, impatient steed, the transfer of rider and mail-bag was made in the twinkling of an eye, and away flew the eager pair and were out of sight before the spectator could get hardly the ghost of a look. Both rider and horse went flying light. The riders dress was thin, and fitted close; he wore a round-about, and a skull-cap, and tucked his pantaloons into his boot-tops like a race-rider. He carried no arms he carried nothing that was not absolutely necessary, for even the postage on his literary freight was worth five dollars a letter.