BIRDS AND BEASTSIt was Lanky’s third night in cow camp. The herd had been bedded, and the first night shift had gone on. Lanky, sore of muscle, but extremely contented, sat by the fire with Red Wallace, Hank Williams, and Joe Martin, the men who on the first night had imparted to him the esoteric lore of the rattlesnake, and who on the second night had entertained him with yarns of marvelous speed.Lanky had proved a good listener. He had done his best to appear credulous. He had interrupted seldom, and when he had, he had always followed his cue, and had propounded only the questions that the narrators wanted him to ask. It is not surprising, therefore, that on this night the older men were loaded for him.It was Red Wallace that discharged the first missile.“We ’as speakin’ of milamo birds last night,” he observed. “I seen sign today, lots of sign.”“That’s funny; I done that very same thing,” said Hank. “I seen, I reckon, a hundred holes where they’d been feedin’.”“Do you suppose we’re likely to see any of them?” asked Lanky.“Not likely,” said Joe, “not likely. They’re mighty scerce these days, mighty scerce, and mighty shy, mighty shy. I ain’t seen one in years. You might keep your eye peeled though; we might happen on one any time. We might. You never can tell.”“Yeah, we might,” broke in Hank. “Still we’re more likely to hear one than to see one. They’ve got a way of knowin’ when somebody’s about, though he’s a mile off. Yeah, they’re mighty hard to see, ’specially these days; mighty hard to see.”“What sort of a bird is the milamo?” asked Lanky. “What is he like?”“Oh,” replied Hank, “he’s like a milamo. They ain’t nothin’ else jest like him.”“Is he large or small?” asked Lanky.“He’s rather large,” said Hank, “though not as big as an ostrich I reckon, though somewhat bigger than a crane, which he somewhat resembles in general makeup and conformation.“In the fall when the rains comes and fills up the lakes, like they are now, the critters comes in, or used to, and feeds around the edges of the water. They’ve got long legs like stilts for wadin’ in the water, a long neck, and a long beak that they uses to bore into the soft ground for the earthworms, which is their principal food and diet.“I ain’t talkin’ about the little puny earthworms like school boys use to fish with. Naw, sir, a milamo bird would be ashamed of his self if he et one of them kind. He digs down into the ground and ketches the big fellers, shore-nuff he-man worms that looks like inner-tubes. I’ve seen holes you could hide a hoss’s leg in where them critters ’ad been escavatin’ for grub. More than one good cow hoss has had to be shot from steppin’ in holes that these birds has made, not to say nothin’ of the good cow-hands that has had their necks broke.“But as I was sayin’ about the milamo bird, he jest has a way of knowin’ where the big worms lives, and when he comes to a place where he knows one of them big fellers is all curled up takin’ a nap down under the ground, he sticks his bill into the soil and begins to bore and bore, walkin’ around and around. Purty soon his bill goes out of sight, then his head, then his neck, clean up to his shoulders. That’s the way you can slip up on one of ’em. If you can ketch him in jest that stage, maybe you can git sight of him.“Well, he bores around a while in the hole he has dug; then all at once he sets back like a hoss when there’s a big steer on the other end of the rope; and you know then he’s got a-holt of one of them big worms. The more he pulls, the more the worm stretches. If he lets up the least bit, the worm jerks his head and neck back into the hole. I seen one once a-bobbin’ up and down like that for two hours and fifteen minutes before he finally got his worm.“Well, he pulls and tussles and yanks and jerks, and finally the worm jest can’t stand it no longer and has to let go. He shoots out jest like a nigger-shooter when you turn it loose, and like as not he hits the milamo in the eye. But he’s a good-natured bird and don’t git ringy about it. Jest why he does it, I don’t know; maybe he’s so glad to git the worm out, or maybe he sees the joke’s on him, after all; anyhow, when the worm comes out and hits him in the eye, he jest naturally gits tickled and rears back on his hind legs and laughs through his beak so you can hear him a mile or more.”“I see,” said Lanky. “A strange bird.”“But mighty shy,” replied Hank, “mighty shy.”“Yeah, they’re shy critters all right,” agreed Joe, “but they ain’t near as shy as the whiffle-pooffle. Why, them things is so bashful they don’t feel comfortable unless they’re hid in the bottom of a bottomless lake.”“Are they a fish?” asked Lanky.“Not exactly a fish,” explained Joe, “a sort of cross, I reckon, between an eel and a gila monster.”“Are there any around here?” asked Lanky.“Well, maybe,” replied Joe; “maybe a few. Still I doubt it. You see right around here the lakes go dry sometimes in the dry season, and the whiffle-pooffle wants water, and plenty of it,mucha agua. Still there may be a few. Out in the Roswell country, they used to be numerous. Also in Toyah Creek and Leon waterholes. I expect, though, they’re gittin’ scerce out in them parts now. All game is gittin’ scerce. Still, them critters is mighty hard to ketch, and it’s jest a few that knows how to do it. Mighty few in fact.”“Do people fish for them, then?” asked Lanky.“Some does,” replied Joe, “but it ain’t no use to fish for ’em with a regular fishin’ outfit. I’ve seen them rich dudes from the East come out with their fine tackle, rods and reels and all that fool finery, and fish and fish for ’em all day long and never git a nibble. Still they can be caught.”“How does one catch them?” asked Lanky.“So far as I know it was Pecos Bill that discovered the method. Durin’ Pecos Bill’s time there was a lot of people that didn’t believe there was any sech animalas the whiffle-pooffle livin’ in the bottom of the lakes. Bill said he knowed there was, and he’d show ’em. So he studied and studied, and finally he found a way to capture the critters. First he gits together a rowboat, a long post-hole auger, and a can of oil. Then he hunts up the funniest story-teller he can find and takes him along and sets out.“He rows out on the lake to where the water’s deep; then he takes the post-hole auger and bores a hole clean down to the bottom so as the whiffle-pooffle can come up to the top. Then he has the story-teller tell the funniest stories he can think of—all about Pat and Mike and an Englishman and a Scotchman, and all that.“Purty soon the whiffle-pooffle gits interested and pricks up his ears. Then Bill tells the story-teller to git funnier. Then purty soon the whiffle-pooffle is so amused that he comes up through the hole and sticks out his head. Bill tells the man to keep on gittin’ funnier and funnier till the whiffle-pooffle comes clean out on top of the water. Then Bill begins to ply the oars, very gentle-like at first. The whiffle-pooffle is so interested and amused that he jest naturally can’t help but foller the story-teller, who all the time is gittin’ funnier and funnier. Bill rows faster and faster, all the time makin’ straight for the bank.whifflepooffle“Purty soon the whiffle-pooffle gits interested and pricks up his ears.”“Jest before he gits there, when he is rowin’ as fast as he can, he pours the oil out on the water and cuts sharply to the left. By that time the whiffle-pooffle has got up so much speed on the slick water that he can’t stop, and he jest naturally slides right out onthe bank. Then Pecos Bill lands on him. If you ever git one of the critters on the land, he’s jest as helpless as a year-old baby. But they’re mighty bashful, mighty bashful.”“In that particular, thay ain’t a-tall like the club-tailed glyptodont,” said Red, “which is a very ferocious and vicious beast. I’ll tell you, Lanky, when you’re ridin’ around in the canyons and meet one of them fellers, you’d better not git into any disputes with him about your highway rights. Jist give him the whole road and don’t argue with him. And be careful you don’t hang around under the rim-rock when them critters is around.”“I take it they are animals,” said Lanky.“Yeah, I guess they belong to the kingdom of beasts,” replied Red. “Some people call ’em whang-doodles, but they ain’t real whang-doodles, bein’ much bigger and more ferocious. They’re purty scerce now, but when we work the canyontomorrow, I can show you places where they have been. Yes, sir, I can show you the very spot where one of them fellers took off one of the very best friends I ever had in this world.”“A sort of mountain lion, I suppose,” said Lanky.“Son, one of them babies would make a mountain lion look like a kitten. Besides, they don’t belong to the feline species nohow, bein’ more like a kangaroo in build, and about sixteen hands high when on all-fours, though most of the time they hop along on their hind legs and tail and keep their forepaws ready to biff anything that gits in their way. And if one of themcritters hits you—well, you’re lucky if they find anything to bury.“However, that ain’t their main method of combat; that ain’t the way one of ’em took off my dear friend—Jack Snodgrass was his name. The glyptodont has got a big flat tail made out of stuff like cow’s horn, except there ain’t no bone in it. This tail bein’ springy is a great aid and help in more ways than one. He can jump along with it and clear the brush, and he can land on it when he wants to jump off of a cliff, and he don’t feel no bad effects from the jar.“Well, I started to tell you how one of them beasts took off my dear friend Jack Snodgrass. Jack used to work on this outfit, and one fall he was workin’ the canyon, jist like we’ll be tomorrow, and Jack gits a glimpse of the glyptodont. Jack was always a curious lad; so he tarried around to see what the critter was about. Jack was on the other side of a canyon, anyway, and he ’lowed he’d have plenty of time to make his stampede if the critter showed any signs of combat. So Jack jist looks across to see what’s goin’ on.“Directly the glyptodont gits wind of him and looks at him right straight for a minute or two. But Jack still ain’t worried none, havin’ the canyon between him and the ferocious beast. He jist stands there and watches him to see what he is about. Purty soon he notices that the glyptodont is spadin’ around on the ground with his tail. Presently he scoops up a big boulder, jist like you’d lift it with a shovel. He carries this on his tail, bein’ careful not to let it fall off, and backs up and eases it off on the top of a bigger boulder.Jack begins to try to figure out a way to capture the brute; he ’lows if he ever could git him broke, he’d be a mighty handy animal to have around the place about tankin’ time.“Well, the glyptodont walks over to the other side of the rock he’s set up and squats on his hind legs; then he draws up his front legs and begins to whirl around and around on his hind legs, jist like a spool of barbed wire on a crowbar when you’re stringin’ fence. After he spins around a while, he lets down his tail, which hits the rock he’s set up, which comes through the air like a cannon-ball. That was the last thing pore Jack ever knowed. We buried him, pore feller, next day—that is, all of him we could find. When we’re over there tomorrow, I’ll show you the place where he got kilt, as well as a lot of other places where them critters has catapulted rocks up and down the canyons jist to keep in practice and for the fun of seein’ ’em roll. Yeah, them club-tailed glyptodonts is ferocious animals.”“They’re vicious brutes,” agreed Joe, “but they ain’t got much on the gwinter.”“I never heard of a gwinter,” said Lanky.“Well,” replied Joe, “did you ever hear of a godaphro?”“No.”“Did you ever hear of a side-swiper?”“No.”“Did you ever hear of a mountain-stem-winder?”“No, I never heard of them, either.”“Well, they’re really all one and the same thing,but the real true and correct name is gwinter.”“And what sort of a beast is he?” asked Lanky.“Well, he’s a grass-eatin’ quadruped,” said Joe, “something like a cross between a buffalo and a mountain-goat, only he’s a lot more ferocious. The peculiar thing about the gwinter is his legs. Instead of havin’ four legs of equal length like a critter ought to have, or two short legs in front and two long ones behind, like the glyptodont, these brutes have two long legs on the downhill side and two short legs on the uphill side. This is mighty convenient for ’em, since they don’t live on level ground nohow. Some of ’em has their right legs long, and some of ’em has their right legs short, dependin’ on which way they graze around the mountains. The Chisos and the Davis and the Guadalupe mountains used to be full of ’em. Up there, them critters was thicker than the buffalo or the antelope on the plains, but they’re gittin’ mighty scerce now. Still, they took off many a cow-hand in the early days, and sometimes yet a tenderfoot gits in the way of one of ’em and don’t come back home to the chuck wagon at night.“If one of them critters ever starts toward you, Lanky, don’t for anything let him know you’re scered. If you try to run, he’ll git you shore. Jest stand there and look him right in the eye like you was glad to see him. He’ll be comin’ right toward you with his head down like a bat shot out of a cannon. Still, don’t move, and if you’re in the saddle, hold your hoss. Jest let that gwinter alone till he gits in two steps of you, then take a couple of steps down the hill. He can’t run theother way, and you’ll be safe. Ten to one he’ll be so mad about it he’ll try to foller you, anyway, and when he gits his short legs down hill, he’s a goner. Jest stand by and watch him roll down the mountain and break his fool neck. That’s one reason why they’re so scerce, the cowboys learned that trick. Another reason is that they fought among themselves too much. You see, them that has their long legs on the right used to meet them that has their long legs on the left as they grazed around the mountains. And when two of ’em met like that, they always tangled up. Finally they fought till the weaker side all got kilt, so now there’s only one kind on each mountain. On some mountains it’s the right-leggers, and on some mountains it’s the left-leggers.”“If somebody would capture one alive,” said Lanky, “he could sell him to a circus for five thousand dollars.”“That’s been tried, son; that’s been tried,” replied Joe. “However, your figger’s too small. Once when I was punchin’ cattle in the Chisos, Barnum and Bailey sent a feller all the way down from New York City with fifty thousand dollars to pay any man that would cage him a gwinter. For a long time he couldn’t git nobody to try it, till finally he come to our outfit.“‘I won’t endanger the lives of my men in any sech manner and fashion,’ says the boss. ‘However,’ he says, turnin’ to us, ‘if any of you men want to try it on your own hook, you can. They ain’t much work to do right now, and I’ll let you off for a few days.’“Well, we gits our best mounts and ropes, and looks after our cinches, and sets out. We scouts around awhile, and shore nuff we hears one snort right near the foot of Egg-shell Mountain. We lets out our wildest yells and fires off our six-shooters, and somehow, by luck I guess, we gits the critter buffaloed, and he goes tearin’ around the mountain and us after him. Each time he goes around the mountain he gits a little higher. We sees our hosses is goin’ to give out if we don’t figger out some way to spell ’em. We ’lows that since we got the critter on the run, two of us will be enough to go around the mountain, and the others stays put. Then on the next round, two more goes, and so on and so forth. Each time we gits a bit nearer the top. Finally, we all joins in, in order to be there when he gits to the top and can’t go no further. And purty soon there he is at the top.”“How did he escape?” asked Lanky.“Why, the brute jest turned right through his self, jest clean wrong side out like a sock, and run the other way.”“And that was the last you saw of him?”“Oh, we used to see him occasionally, as we knowed by his long legs bein’ on the other side; but when winter come, he caught cold and died. And that’s what you’ll do, Lanky, if you set there by the coals and shiver. You’d better git a little shut-eye before you stand guard.”
It was Lanky’s third night in cow camp. The herd had been bedded, and the first night shift had gone on. Lanky, sore of muscle, but extremely contented, sat by the fire with Red Wallace, Hank Williams, and Joe Martin, the men who on the first night had imparted to him the esoteric lore of the rattlesnake, and who on the second night had entertained him with yarns of marvelous speed.
Lanky had proved a good listener. He had done his best to appear credulous. He had interrupted seldom, and when he had, he had always followed his cue, and had propounded only the questions that the narrators wanted him to ask. It is not surprising, therefore, that on this night the older men were loaded for him.
It was Red Wallace that discharged the first missile.
“We ’as speakin’ of milamo birds last night,” he observed. “I seen sign today, lots of sign.”
“That’s funny; I done that very same thing,” said Hank. “I seen, I reckon, a hundred holes where they’d been feedin’.”
“Do you suppose we’re likely to see any of them?” asked Lanky.
“Not likely,” said Joe, “not likely. They’re mighty scerce these days, mighty scerce, and mighty shy, mighty shy. I ain’t seen one in years. You might keep your eye peeled though; we might happen on one any time. We might. You never can tell.”
“Yeah, we might,” broke in Hank. “Still we’re more likely to hear one than to see one. They’ve got a way of knowin’ when somebody’s about, though he’s a mile off. Yeah, they’re mighty hard to see, ’specially these days; mighty hard to see.”
“What sort of a bird is the milamo?” asked Lanky. “What is he like?”
“Oh,” replied Hank, “he’s like a milamo. They ain’t nothin’ else jest like him.”
“Is he large or small?” asked Lanky.
“He’s rather large,” said Hank, “though not as big as an ostrich I reckon, though somewhat bigger than a crane, which he somewhat resembles in general makeup and conformation.
“In the fall when the rains comes and fills up the lakes, like they are now, the critters comes in, or used to, and feeds around the edges of the water. They’ve got long legs like stilts for wadin’ in the water, a long neck, and a long beak that they uses to bore into the soft ground for the earthworms, which is their principal food and diet.
“I ain’t talkin’ about the little puny earthworms like school boys use to fish with. Naw, sir, a milamo bird would be ashamed of his self if he et one of them kind. He digs down into the ground and ketches the big fellers, shore-nuff he-man worms that looks like inner-tubes. I’ve seen holes you could hide a hoss’s leg in where them critters ’ad been escavatin’ for grub. More than one good cow hoss has had to be shot from steppin’ in holes that these birds has made, not to say nothin’ of the good cow-hands that has had their necks broke.
“But as I was sayin’ about the milamo bird, he jest has a way of knowin’ where the big worms lives, and when he comes to a place where he knows one of them big fellers is all curled up takin’ a nap down under the ground, he sticks his bill into the soil and begins to bore and bore, walkin’ around and around. Purty soon his bill goes out of sight, then his head, then his neck, clean up to his shoulders. That’s the way you can slip up on one of ’em. If you can ketch him in jest that stage, maybe you can git sight of him.
“Well, he bores around a while in the hole he has dug; then all at once he sets back like a hoss when there’s a big steer on the other end of the rope; and you know then he’s got a-holt of one of them big worms. The more he pulls, the more the worm stretches. If he lets up the least bit, the worm jerks his head and neck back into the hole. I seen one once a-bobbin’ up and down like that for two hours and fifteen minutes before he finally got his worm.
“Well, he pulls and tussles and yanks and jerks, and finally the worm jest can’t stand it no longer and has to let go. He shoots out jest like a nigger-shooter when you turn it loose, and like as not he hits the milamo in the eye. But he’s a good-natured bird and don’t git ringy about it. Jest why he does it, I don’t know; maybe he’s so glad to git the worm out, or maybe he sees the joke’s on him, after all; anyhow, when the worm comes out and hits him in the eye, he jest naturally gits tickled and rears back on his hind legs and laughs through his beak so you can hear him a mile or more.”
“I see,” said Lanky. “A strange bird.”
“But mighty shy,” replied Hank, “mighty shy.”
“Yeah, they’re shy critters all right,” agreed Joe, “but they ain’t near as shy as the whiffle-pooffle. Why, them things is so bashful they don’t feel comfortable unless they’re hid in the bottom of a bottomless lake.”
“Are they a fish?” asked Lanky.
“Not exactly a fish,” explained Joe, “a sort of cross, I reckon, between an eel and a gila monster.”
“Are there any around here?” asked Lanky.
“Well, maybe,” replied Joe; “maybe a few. Still I doubt it. You see right around here the lakes go dry sometimes in the dry season, and the whiffle-pooffle wants water, and plenty of it,mucha agua. Still there may be a few. Out in the Roswell country, they used to be numerous. Also in Toyah Creek and Leon waterholes. I expect, though, they’re gittin’ scerce out in them parts now. All game is gittin’ scerce. Still, them critters is mighty hard to ketch, and it’s jest a few that knows how to do it. Mighty few in fact.”
“Do people fish for them, then?” asked Lanky.
“Some does,” replied Joe, “but it ain’t no use to fish for ’em with a regular fishin’ outfit. I’ve seen them rich dudes from the East come out with their fine tackle, rods and reels and all that fool finery, and fish and fish for ’em all day long and never git a nibble. Still they can be caught.”
“How does one catch them?” asked Lanky.
“So far as I know it was Pecos Bill that discovered the method. Durin’ Pecos Bill’s time there was a lot of people that didn’t believe there was any sech animalas the whiffle-pooffle livin’ in the bottom of the lakes. Bill said he knowed there was, and he’d show ’em. So he studied and studied, and finally he found a way to capture the critters. First he gits together a rowboat, a long post-hole auger, and a can of oil. Then he hunts up the funniest story-teller he can find and takes him along and sets out.
“He rows out on the lake to where the water’s deep; then he takes the post-hole auger and bores a hole clean down to the bottom so as the whiffle-pooffle can come up to the top. Then he has the story-teller tell the funniest stories he can think of—all about Pat and Mike and an Englishman and a Scotchman, and all that.
“Purty soon the whiffle-pooffle gits interested and pricks up his ears. Then Bill tells the story-teller to git funnier. Then purty soon the whiffle-pooffle is so amused that he comes up through the hole and sticks out his head. Bill tells the man to keep on gittin’ funnier and funnier till the whiffle-pooffle comes clean out on top of the water. Then Bill begins to ply the oars, very gentle-like at first. The whiffle-pooffle is so interested and amused that he jest naturally can’t help but foller the story-teller, who all the time is gittin’ funnier and funnier. Bill rows faster and faster, all the time makin’ straight for the bank.
whifflepooffle“Purty soon the whiffle-pooffle gits interested and pricks up his ears.”
“Purty soon the whiffle-pooffle gits interested and pricks up his ears.”
“Jest before he gits there, when he is rowin’ as fast as he can, he pours the oil out on the water and cuts sharply to the left. By that time the whiffle-pooffle has got up so much speed on the slick water that he can’t stop, and he jest naturally slides right out onthe bank. Then Pecos Bill lands on him. If you ever git one of the critters on the land, he’s jest as helpless as a year-old baby. But they’re mighty bashful, mighty bashful.”
“In that particular, thay ain’t a-tall like the club-tailed glyptodont,” said Red, “which is a very ferocious and vicious beast. I’ll tell you, Lanky, when you’re ridin’ around in the canyons and meet one of them fellers, you’d better not git into any disputes with him about your highway rights. Jist give him the whole road and don’t argue with him. And be careful you don’t hang around under the rim-rock when them critters is around.”
“I take it they are animals,” said Lanky.
“Yeah, I guess they belong to the kingdom of beasts,” replied Red. “Some people call ’em whang-doodles, but they ain’t real whang-doodles, bein’ much bigger and more ferocious. They’re purty scerce now, but when we work the canyontomorrow, I can show you places where they have been. Yes, sir, I can show you the very spot where one of them fellers took off one of the very best friends I ever had in this world.”
“A sort of mountain lion, I suppose,” said Lanky.
“Son, one of them babies would make a mountain lion look like a kitten. Besides, they don’t belong to the feline species nohow, bein’ more like a kangaroo in build, and about sixteen hands high when on all-fours, though most of the time they hop along on their hind legs and tail and keep their forepaws ready to biff anything that gits in their way. And if one of themcritters hits you—well, you’re lucky if they find anything to bury.
“However, that ain’t their main method of combat; that ain’t the way one of ’em took off my dear friend—Jack Snodgrass was his name. The glyptodont has got a big flat tail made out of stuff like cow’s horn, except there ain’t no bone in it. This tail bein’ springy is a great aid and help in more ways than one. He can jump along with it and clear the brush, and he can land on it when he wants to jump off of a cliff, and he don’t feel no bad effects from the jar.
“Well, I started to tell you how one of them beasts took off my dear friend Jack Snodgrass. Jack used to work on this outfit, and one fall he was workin’ the canyon, jist like we’ll be tomorrow, and Jack gits a glimpse of the glyptodont. Jack was always a curious lad; so he tarried around to see what the critter was about. Jack was on the other side of a canyon, anyway, and he ’lowed he’d have plenty of time to make his stampede if the critter showed any signs of combat. So Jack jist looks across to see what’s goin’ on.
“Directly the glyptodont gits wind of him and looks at him right straight for a minute or two. But Jack still ain’t worried none, havin’ the canyon between him and the ferocious beast. He jist stands there and watches him to see what he is about. Purty soon he notices that the glyptodont is spadin’ around on the ground with his tail. Presently he scoops up a big boulder, jist like you’d lift it with a shovel. He carries this on his tail, bein’ careful not to let it fall off, and backs up and eases it off on the top of a bigger boulder.Jack begins to try to figure out a way to capture the brute; he ’lows if he ever could git him broke, he’d be a mighty handy animal to have around the place about tankin’ time.
“Well, the glyptodont walks over to the other side of the rock he’s set up and squats on his hind legs; then he draws up his front legs and begins to whirl around and around on his hind legs, jist like a spool of barbed wire on a crowbar when you’re stringin’ fence. After he spins around a while, he lets down his tail, which hits the rock he’s set up, which comes through the air like a cannon-ball. That was the last thing pore Jack ever knowed. We buried him, pore feller, next day—that is, all of him we could find. When we’re over there tomorrow, I’ll show you the place where he got kilt, as well as a lot of other places where them critters has catapulted rocks up and down the canyons jist to keep in practice and for the fun of seein’ ’em roll. Yeah, them club-tailed glyptodonts is ferocious animals.”
“They’re vicious brutes,” agreed Joe, “but they ain’t got much on the gwinter.”
“I never heard of a gwinter,” said Lanky.
“Well,” replied Joe, “did you ever hear of a godaphro?”
“No.”
“Did you ever hear of a side-swiper?”
“No.”
“Did you ever hear of a mountain-stem-winder?”
“No, I never heard of them, either.”
“Well, they’re really all one and the same thing,but the real true and correct name is gwinter.”
“And what sort of a beast is he?” asked Lanky.
“Well, he’s a grass-eatin’ quadruped,” said Joe, “something like a cross between a buffalo and a mountain-goat, only he’s a lot more ferocious. The peculiar thing about the gwinter is his legs. Instead of havin’ four legs of equal length like a critter ought to have, or two short legs in front and two long ones behind, like the glyptodont, these brutes have two long legs on the downhill side and two short legs on the uphill side. This is mighty convenient for ’em, since they don’t live on level ground nohow. Some of ’em has their right legs long, and some of ’em has their right legs short, dependin’ on which way they graze around the mountains. The Chisos and the Davis and the Guadalupe mountains used to be full of ’em. Up there, them critters was thicker than the buffalo or the antelope on the plains, but they’re gittin’ mighty scerce now. Still, they took off many a cow-hand in the early days, and sometimes yet a tenderfoot gits in the way of one of ’em and don’t come back home to the chuck wagon at night.
“If one of them critters ever starts toward you, Lanky, don’t for anything let him know you’re scered. If you try to run, he’ll git you shore. Jest stand there and look him right in the eye like you was glad to see him. He’ll be comin’ right toward you with his head down like a bat shot out of a cannon. Still, don’t move, and if you’re in the saddle, hold your hoss. Jest let that gwinter alone till he gits in two steps of you, then take a couple of steps down the hill. He can’t run theother way, and you’ll be safe. Ten to one he’ll be so mad about it he’ll try to foller you, anyway, and when he gits his short legs down hill, he’s a goner. Jest stand by and watch him roll down the mountain and break his fool neck. That’s one reason why they’re so scerce, the cowboys learned that trick. Another reason is that they fought among themselves too much. You see, them that has their long legs on the right used to meet them that has their long legs on the left as they grazed around the mountains. And when two of ’em met like that, they always tangled up. Finally they fought till the weaker side all got kilt, so now there’s only one kind on each mountain. On some mountains it’s the right-leggers, and on some mountains it’s the left-leggers.”
“If somebody would capture one alive,” said Lanky, “he could sell him to a circus for five thousand dollars.”
“That’s been tried, son; that’s been tried,” replied Joe. “However, your figger’s too small. Once when I was punchin’ cattle in the Chisos, Barnum and Bailey sent a feller all the way down from New York City with fifty thousand dollars to pay any man that would cage him a gwinter. For a long time he couldn’t git nobody to try it, till finally he come to our outfit.
“‘I won’t endanger the lives of my men in any sech manner and fashion,’ says the boss. ‘However,’ he says, turnin’ to us, ‘if any of you men want to try it on your own hook, you can. They ain’t much work to do right now, and I’ll let you off for a few days.’
“Well, we gits our best mounts and ropes, and looks after our cinches, and sets out. We scouts around awhile, and shore nuff we hears one snort right near the foot of Egg-shell Mountain. We lets out our wildest yells and fires off our six-shooters, and somehow, by luck I guess, we gits the critter buffaloed, and he goes tearin’ around the mountain and us after him. Each time he goes around the mountain he gits a little higher. We sees our hosses is goin’ to give out if we don’t figger out some way to spell ’em. We ’lows that since we got the critter on the run, two of us will be enough to go around the mountain, and the others stays put. Then on the next round, two more goes, and so on and so forth. Each time we gits a bit nearer the top. Finally, we all joins in, in order to be there when he gits to the top and can’t go no further. And purty soon there he is at the top.”
“How did he escape?” asked Lanky.
“Why, the brute jest turned right through his self, jest clean wrong side out like a sock, and run the other way.”
“And that was the last you saw of him?”
“Oh, we used to see him occasionally, as we knowed by his long legs bein’ on the other side; but when winter come, he caught cold and died. And that’s what you’ll do, Lanky, if you set there by the coals and shiver. You’d better git a little shut-eye before you stand guard.”