Chapter 2

Comes a little bit of light, and I feels Scenery climb to his feet. There he stands in the gloom, pointing up and down and sidewise, and then he squeaks:

“Lo, there bringth a slight—uh—slineth a bite—I mean—a—a—lineth a—let’s go to it—uh—to it.”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” howls somebody. “Pete Gonyer’s lightin’ the moon!”

I turns and takes a look. There is Pete at the back of the stage. He’s got the cover off the moon, and is trying to get the old lamp to light.

“Dang it!” he howls. “I’ve turned the wick plumb into the bottom!”

“Whoa, Maud!” howls Dirty. “Help me hold her, Ike!”

I turns, and there is Maud S standing on her hind legs, and, as I look, them humps, which wasn’t well cinched, being as she was laying down at the time, swing down and just about fill up all the space between her front and hind legs.

“Ho-hold her!” wails Dirty; but Maud S thinks she’s a circus animal.

Hold her? Man, that mule, after all these years, found out that she had authority to go to some place. She waltzes around a couple of times, busts a hole in the stage and falls over backwards into the orchestra.

Wick Smith falls over backwards, pulling his new drum over with him, thereby saving his part of the orchestra.

“Whoo-o-o-ee! Pow-w-w-w-der Ri-i-ver!” yowls a puncher, and a circle of chairs lands around Maud S, trying to block her, but Maud S ain’t to be stopped.

She bucked plumb over the top of Wick Smith, and that drum rattled against her heels.

Zowie! She telescoped and lifted that drum with both hind feet. Dirty Shirt was just going to jump off the stage to attack her from the rear, and that drum caught him in midair. Dirty comes plumb back onto the stage and lands setting down in that bed of cactus. The drum hit me in the knees, and I went plumb over the top of it and dug my chin into the desert.

When I got my senses again I sees that about seven punchers have hold of Maud S, and are trying to hold her.

“Lights!” yelps Wick. “Light some lamps. My ——, my drum is busted!”

“—— your old drum!” howls Dirty Shirt, standing on the stage, trying to lift the seat of his pants loose from himself.

“O-o-o-o-oh, the tab-lew is ruined!” wails Mrs. Smith.

Everybody helped light the lamps, and then we stands and looks at each other. Maud S looks like her course was about run, but them punchers don’t take any chances.

“Sandy Claws has come!” yells a voice at the door, and we all takes a look. I never seen anything like that apparition. It’s a two-year old steer, wearing a bear-skin overcoat, with a string of sleigh-bells around it, and on the lower lip of the danged animal is Tellurium Wood’s false whiskers, and over one horn is that tall hat. The steer is about half way into the hall when we see it coming, and its tail is twisted over its back. Around its mouth is twisted a rope, which is yanked off as it humps into the door.

“Ba-a-a-rr!” blats that steer, like it hurt all over, and right up that room it comes, romping regardless of life or limb.

I know it was Chuck’s voice that yelled—

“Sandy Claws has come.”

“Ho-o-old fast!” yells a puncher, and just then the steer lams into poor Maud S, scattering the punchers. Hair Oil Heppner tries to bulldog that locoed animal, but he might as well ’a’ tried to bulldog a box-car.

Then Maud S gets enervated again, and things begin to boil a-plenty.

“Ba-a-a-a-w!” bawls the steer.

“Ha-a-a-a-w!” sings Maud, and the both of them starts gamboling toward the stage.

“Git ba-a-a-ck!” yowls Pete Gonyer. “Daw-w-w-gone yuh, git back!”

Rip-i-i-p! The steer gets its horns into the curtain, rips about twenty feet of it loose, and starts to climb the stage.

Crash! The moon went down, and the danged old oil lamp inside exploded.

“Fire! Fire!” howls Judge Steele, and then he picks up that blazing moon and whales away at the steer with it.

Clank! The judge was left-handed, which might account for the poor throwing, but he got his feet tangled in some of that loose curtain and hit Scenery Sims right in the head with that heavy moon.

Bang! Somebody took a shot at the steer and knocked several bells, and one of them danged bells hit me in the nose. I hate to get hit in the nose with a bell. I hates to get hit in the nose with anything, but I sure does detest a bell. I can see folks going out of the door as fast as they can travel. I seen Hair Oil climbing onto poor Maud S, and then my time is all taken up with that danged steer.

All this stuff is taking place a lot faster than I can tell it. I bulldogged that steer. It was the first steer I ever tried to bulldog, and if all future steers will keep away from me it will be the last.

I hooked onto his horns just in time to feel my feet dangle off the edge of the stage, the same of which helped my act quite a lot. The steer upends from my weight, and me and that steer landed into a jumble of chairs, and over the top of us goes Maud S, celebrating her second childhood by making Hair Oil pull leather.

The few remaining folks in the hall sort of celebrates by taking some shots at the lights, the same of which makes our immediate future kinda gloomy.

“Lo, I see a bright light!” squeals Scenery’s voice.

“Sus-sunfish, you crop-eared coyote!” yells Hair Oil, and then comes a crash of glass.

“My ——!” yells Magpie. “She throwed Hair Oil out of the window! Where are you, Ike?”

“Keep away!” I yells. “I’m paralyzed all the way down from my upper lip and I don’t know whether me or the steer is on top.”

“Paralyzed —— ——!” howls Dirty. “Wish I was. Who in —— got the idea of puttin’ cactus on the stage?”

“Look out for that mule!” yelps Magpie, and I looks up at the dim figure of that locoed mule, almost over me. I yanks away from my steer and the steer yanks right with me. Under ordinary conditions I’d ’a’ been able to get away, but I’ve got one leg through a string of them sleigh-bells, and when that steer starts for the door, Ike Harper E-squire went right along—on the back of his neck.

I hooked a lot of chairs on my way, kinda trying to impede the hoofs of progress, but that scared steer made funny little noises and keeps going. There’s a lantern hung at the head of the stairs, and I reckon the steer was hunting for light.

Just before we hits the top of the stairs I hears a strain of quartet music:

“Tentin’ to-o-o-o-night, tentin’ to-o-o——”

Crash!

We hit the doorway with our assortment of furniture, and the next thing I know I’m amid more feller mortals and we’re all traveling the downward path. I sees some red, white and blue lights, and I’m loose. I reckon the bell strap busted. I gets to my feet, dodging stars and other aerial impediments, when the stairs almost shakes out from under me, and I gets a glimpse of Maud S falling downstairs.

Folks, I jumped—but too late. Me and Maud S landed at the bottom together. I grabs the mule with both hands, and I feels her get up with me hanging to some part of her anatomy. It’s about twenty feet from the bottom of the stairs to the door, and I rode some part of that crop-eared mule as far as the exit, where the top of the door slapped me in the face and I went into the land of Once Upon a Time.

I’m just about to live happy ever afterwards, when something seems to wake me up. I feels a dragging sensation, along with other painful things, and then I dimly hears Dirty Shirt say—

“You’ve gotta help me, Muley.”

“I’ve gotta have a little help myself,” wails Muley. “I tell yuh that danged steer knocked me down and then the mule fell over me.”

“But poor old Ike is de-e-e-ad!” sobs Dirty.

“He’ll keep,” croaks Muley; “but I’ll spoil if I don’t have help.”

“Yuh gotta help me drag him home, Muley. You was to blame for his de-mise.”

“Naw, I wasn’t, Dirty. Chuck got the idea of dressin’ up that steer in Tellurium’s clothes. Tellurium was sore, too. We twisted a wire around the steer’s tail to make it bawl when the gag was pulled off.

“We just wanted to make it blat at Magpie. Nossir, yuh can’t blame us for it, ’cause that mule would ’a’ killed him anyway. I’d like to know what in —— woke up that gone-to-seed mule.”

“There ain’t nobody to hear,” says Dirty, “so I’ll tell yuh. I took a can of red pepper and a can of ginger and mixed ’em. Then I made a gob of dough in Dee’s shack and put the hot stuff in the middle.Sabe?Maud S. swallered it. That’s all.”

“They’d kill us if they knew,” groans Dirty.

“Death’s stinger wouldn’t hurt me,” groans Muley.

I crawls to my feet, and they don’t see me until I’m standing up beside ’em.

“You—you—uh—” stammers Dirty. “You won’t tell, w-will yuh, Ike?”

“Ain’t you dead—yet?” gasps Muley.

“Enough,” says I, “enough to foller out the old saying—dead men tell no tales. I’ve got eyesight enough left to see the lights of Buck’s place.”

“L-let’s go tut-to it,” stammers Dirty.

Which shows that Piperock never started anything that they couldn’t finish—after a fashion.

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