by B. M. Bower
HAPPY JACK, WILD MAN.
Happy Jack, over on the Shonkin range, saw how far it was to the riverand mopped the heat-crimsoned face of him with a handkerchief notquite as clean as it might have been. He hoped that the Flying Uwagons would be where he had estimated that they would be; for he wasaweary of riding with a strange outfit, where his little personalpeculiarities failed to meet with that large tolerance accorded by theHappy Family. He didn't think much of the Shonkin crew; grangers andpilgrims, he called them disgustedly in his mind. He hoped the Old Manwould not send him on that long trip with them south of theHighwoods--which is what he was on his way to find out about. WhatHappy Jack was hoping for, was to have the Old Man--as represented byChip--send one of the boys back with him to bring over what Flying Ucattle had been gathered, together with Happy's bed and string ofhorses. Then he would ride with the Happy Family on the familiar rangethat was better, in his eyes, than any other range that ever layoutdoors--and the Shonkin outfit could go to granny. (Happy did not,however, say "granny").
He turned down the head of a coulee which promised to lead him, by themost direct route--if any route in the Badlands can be calleddirect--to the river, across which, and a few miles up on SuctionCreek, he confidently expected to find the Flying U wagons. The couleewound aimlessly, with precipitous sides that he could not climb, evenby leading his horse. Happy Jack, under the sweltering heat ofmid-June sunlight, once more mopped his face, now more crimson thanever, and relapsed into his habitual gloom. Just when he was tellinghimself pessimistically that the chances were he would run slap out ona cut bank where he couldn't get down to the river at all, the couleeturned again and showed the gray-blue water slithering coolly past,with the far bank green and sloping invitingly.
The horse hurried forward at a shuffling trot and thrust his hotmuzzle into the delicious coolness. Happy Jack slipped off and, lyingflat on his stomach, up-stream from the horse, drank deep and long,then stood up, wiped his face and considered the necessity ofcrossing. Just at this point the river was not so wide as in others,and for that reason the current flowed swiftly past. Not too swiftly,however, if one took certain precautions. Happy Jack measured mentallythe strength of the current and the proper amount of caution which itwould be expedient to use, and began his preparations; for the sun wassliding down hill toward the western skyline, and he wished very muchto reach the wagons in time for supper, if he could.
Standing in the shade of the coulee wall, he undressed deliberately,folding each garment methodically as he took it off. When the pile wascomplete to socks and boots, he rolled it into a compact bundle andtied it firmly upon his saddle. Stranger, his horse, was a goodswimmer, and always swam high out of water. He hoped the things wouldnot get very wet; still, the current was strong, and hischaracteristic pessimism suggested that they would be soaked to thelast thread. So, naked as our first ancestor, he urged his horse intothe stream, and when it was too deep for kicking--Stranger was everuncertain and not to be trusted too far--he caught him firmly by thetail and felt the current grip them both. The feel of the water wasglorious after so long a ride in the hot sun, and Happy Jack reveledin the cool swash of it up his shoulders to the back of his neck, asStranger swam out and across to the sloping, green bank on the homeside. When his feet struck bottom, Happy Jack should have wadedalso--but the water was so deliciously cool, slapping high up on hisshoulders like that; he still floated luxuriously, towed byStranger--until Stranger, his footing secure, glanced back at Happysliding behind like a big, red fish, snorted and plunged up and on todry land.
Happy Jack struck his feet down to bottom, stumbled and let go hishold of the tail, and Stranger, feeling the weight loosen suddenly,gave another plunge and went careering up the bank, snorting back atHappy Jack. Happy swore, waded out and made threats, but Stranger,seeing himself pursued by a strange figure whose only resemblance tohis master lay in voice and profanity, fled in terror before him.
Happy Jack, crippling painfully on the stones, fled fruitlessly after,still shouting threats. Then, as Stranger, galloping wildly,disappeared over a ridge, he stood and stared stupidly at the placewhere the horse had last been seen. For the moment his mind refused tograsp all the horror of his position; he stepped gingerly over the hotsand and rocks, sought the shelter of a bit of overhanging bank, andsat dazedly down upon a rock too warm for comfort. He shifted uneasilyto the sand beside, found that still hotter, and returned to the rock.
He needed to think; to grasp this disaster that had come so suddenlyupon him. He looked moodily across to the southern bank, his chinsunken between moist palms, the while the water dried upon his person.To be set afoot, down here in the Badlands, away from the habitationsof men and fifteen miles from the probable location of the Flying Ucamp, was not nice. To be set afoot _naked_--it was horrible, andunbelievable. He thought of tramping, barefooted and bare-legged,through fifteen miles of sage-covered Badlands to camp, with the sunbeating down on his unprotected back, and groaned in anticipation. Noteven his pessimism had ever pictured a thing so terrible.
He gazed at the gray-blue river which had caused this trouble that hemust face, and forgetting the luxury of its coolness, cursed itvenomously. Little waves washed up on the pebbly bank, and glinted inthe sun while they whispered mocking things to him. Happy Jack gaveover swearing at the river, and turned his wrath upon Stranger--Stranger,hurtling along somewhere through the breaks, with all Happy's clothestied firmly to the saddle. Happy Jack sighed lugubriously when heremembered how firmly. A fleeting hope that, if he followed the trailof Stranger, he might glean a garment or two that had slipped loose,died almost before it lived. Happy Jack knew too well the kind ofknots he always tied. His favorite boast that nothing ever workedloose on his saddle, came back now to mock him with its absolutetruth.
The sun, dropping a bit lower, robbed him inch by inch of the shade towhich he clung foolishly. He hunched himself into as small a space ashis big frame would permit, and hung his hat upon his knees where theystuck out into the sunlight. It was very hot, and his position wascramped, but he would not go yet; he was still thinking--and the brainof Happy Jack worked ever slowly. In such an unheard-of predicament hefelt dimly that he had need of much thought.
When not even his hat could shield him from the sun glare, he got upand went nipping awkwardly over the hot beach. He was going into thenext river-bottom--wherever that was--on the chance of finding acow-camp, or some cabin where he could, by some means, clothe himself.He did not like the idea of facing the Happy Family in his presentcondition; he knew the Happy Family. Perhaps he might find someoneliving down here next the river. He hoped so--for Happy Jack, whenthings were so bad they could not well be worse, was forced to giveover the prediction of further evil, and pursue blindly the faintestwhisper of hope. He got up on the bank, where the grass was kinder tohis unaccustomed feet than were the hot stones below, and hurried awaywith his back to the sun, that scorched him cruelly.
In the next bottom--and he was long getting to it--the sage brush grewdishearteningly thick. Happy began to be afraid of snakes. He wentslowly, stepping painfully where the ground seemed smoothest; he nevercould walk fifteen miles in his bare feet, he owned dismally tohimself. His only hope lay in getting clothes.
Halfway down the bottom, he joyfully came upon a camp, but it had longbeen deserted; from the low, tumble-down corrals, and the unmistakableatmosphere of the place, Happy Jack knew it for a sheep camp. Butnothing save the musty odor and the bare cabin walls seemed to havebeen left behind. He searched gloomily, thankful for the brief shadethe cabin offered. Then, tossed up on the rafters and forgotten, hediscovered a couple of dried sheep pelts, untanned and stiff, almost,as shingles. Still, they were better than nothing, and he grinned insickly fashion at the find.
Realizing, in much pain, that some protection for his feet was anabsolute necessity, he tore a pelt in two for sandals. Much searchresulted in the discovery of a bit of rotted rope, which he unraveledand thereby bound a piece of sheepskin upon each bruised foot. T
heywere not pretty, but they answered the purpose. The other pelt hedisposed of easily by tying the two front legs together around hisneck and letting the pelt hang down his back as far as it would reach.There being nothing more that he could do in the way ofself-adornment, Happy Jack went out again into the hot afternoon. Athis best, Happy Jack could never truthfully be called handsome; justnow, clothed inadequately in gray Stetson hat and two meagersheepskins, he looked scarce human.
Cheered a bit, he set out sturdily over the hills toward the mouth ofSuction Creek. The Happy Family would make all kinds of fools ofthemselves, he supposed, if he showed up like this; but he might notbe obliged to appear before them in his present state of undress; hemight strike some other camp, first. Happy Jack was still forced to behopeful. He quite counted on striking another camp before reaching thewagons of the Flying U.
The sun slid farther and farther toward the western rim of tumbledridges as Happy Jack, in his strange raiment, plodded laboriously tothe north. The mantle he was forced to shift constantly into a newposition as the sun's rays burned deep a new place, or the stiff hidegalled his blistered shoulders. The sandals did better, except thatthe rotten strands of rope were continually wearing through on thebottom, so that he must stop and tie fresh knots, or replace the bitfrom the scant surplus which he had prudently brought along.
Till sundown he climbed toilfully up the steep hills and thenscrambled as toilfully into the coulees, taking the straightest coursehe knew for the mouth of Suction Creek; that, as a last resort, whilehe watched keenly for the white flake against green which would tellof a tent pitched there in the wilderness. He was hungry--when heforgot other discomforts long enough to think of it. Worst, perhaps,was the way in which the gaunt sage brush scratched his unclothed legswhen he was compelled to cross a patch on some coulee bottom. HappyJack swore a great deal, in those long, heat-laden hours, and neverdid he so completely belie the name men had in sarcasm given him.
Just when he was given over to the most gloomy forebodings, a whitesquare stood out for a moment sharply against a background of pines,far below him in a coulee where the sun was peering fleetingly beforeit dove out of sight over a hill. Happy Jack--of a truth, the mostunhappy Jack one could find, though he searched far and long--stoodstill and eyed the white patch critically. There was only the one; butanother might be hidden in the trees. Still, there was no herd grazinganywhere in the coulee, and no jingle of cavvy bells came to his ears,though he listened long. He was sure that it was not the camp of theFlying U, where he would be ministered unto faithfully, to be sure,yet where the ministrations would be mingled with much wit-sharpenedraillery harder even to bear than was his present condition ofsun-blisters and scratches. He thanked the Lord in sincere ifunorthodox terms, and went down the hill in long, ungraceful strides.
It was far down that hill, and it was farther across the coulee. Eachstep grew more wearisome to Happy Jack, unaccustomed as he was tousing his own feet as a mode of travel. But away in the edge of thepine grove were food and raiment, and a shelter from the night thatwas creeping down on him with the hurried stealth of a mountain lionafter its quarry. He shifted the sheepskin mantle for the thousandthtime; this time he untied it from his galled shoulders and festoonedit modestly if unbecomingly about his middle.
Feeling sure of the unfailing hospitality of the rangeland, be thetent-dweller whom he might, Happy Jack walked boldly through the soft,spring twilight that lasts long in Montana, and up to the very door ofthe tent. A figure--a female figure--slender and topped by thin faceand eyes sheltered behind glasses, rose up, gazed upon him in horror,shrieked till one could hear her a mile, and fell backward into thetent. Another female figure appeared, looked, and shrieked also--andeven louder than did the first. Happy Jack, with a squawk of dismay,turned and flew incontinently afar into the dusk. A man's voice heheard, shouting inquiry; another, shouting what, from a distance,sounded like threats. Happy Jack did not wait to make sure; he ranblindly, until he brought up in a patch of prickly-pear, at which heyelled, forgetting for the instant that he was pursued. Somehow hefloundered out and away from the torture of the stinging spines, andtook to the hills. A moon, big as the mouth of a barrel, climbed overa ridge and betrayed him to the men searching below, and they shoutedand fired a gun. Happy Jack did not believe they could shoot verystraight, but he was in no mood to take chances; he sought refugeamong a jumble of great, gray bowlders; sat himself down in the shadowand caressed gingerly the places where the prickly-pear had puncturedhis skin, and gave himself riotously over to blasphemy.
The men below were prowling half-heartedly, it seemed to him--as ifthey were afraid of running upon him too suddenly. It came to him thatthey were afraid of him--and he grinned feebly at the joke. He had notbefore stopped to consider his appearance, being concerned with moreimportant matters. Now, however, as he pulled the scant covering ofthe pelt over his shoulders to keep off the chill of the night, hecould not wonder that the woman at the tent had fainted. Happy Jacksuspected shrewdly that he could, in that rig, startle almost any one.
He watched the coulee wistfully. They were making fires, down therebelow him; great, revealing bonfires at intervals that would make itimpossible to pass their line unseen. He could not doubt that some onewas _cached_ in the shadows with a gun. There were more than two men;Happy Jack thought that there must be at least four or five. He wouldhave liked to go down, just out of gun range, and shout explanationsand a request for some clothes--only for the women. Happy was alwaysill at ease in the presence of strange women, and he felt, just now,quite unequal to the ordeal of facing those two. He sat huddled in theshadow of a rock and wished profanely that women would stay at homeand not go camping out in the Badlands, where their presence wasdistinctly inappropriate and undesirable. If the men down there werealone, he felt sure that he could make them understand. Seeing theywere not alone, however, he stayed where he was and watched the fires,while his teeth chattered with cold and his stomach ached with thehunger he could not appease.
Till daylight he sat there unhappily and watched the unwinkingchallenge of the flames below, and miserably wished himself elsewhere;even the jibes of the Happy Family would be endurable, so long as hehad the comfort afforded by the Flying U camp. But that was milesaway. And when daylight brought warmth and returning courage, he wentso far as to wish the Flying U camp farther away than it probably was.He wanted to get somewhere, and ask help from strangers rather thanthose he knew best.
With that idea fixed in his mind, he got stiffly to his bruised feet,readjusted the sheepskin and began wearily to climb higher. When thesun tinged all the hilltops golden yellow, he turned and shook hisfist impotently at the camp far beneath him. Then he went on doggedly.
Standing at last on a high peak, he looked away toward the sunrise andmade out a white speck on a grassy side-hill; beside it, a gray squaremoved slowly over the green. Sheep, and a sheep camp--and Happy Jack,hater of sheep though he was, hailed the sight as a bit of rare goodluck. His spirits rose immediately, and he started straight for theplace.
Down in the next coulee--there were always coulees to cross, no matterin what direction one would travel--he came near running plump intothree riders, who were Irish Mallory, and Weary, and Pink. They wereriding down from the direction of the camp where were the women, andthey caught sight of him immediately and gave chase. Happy Jack had nomind to be rounded up by that trio; he dodged into the bushes, andthough they dug long, unmerciful scratches in his person, clung to theshelter they gave and made off at top speed. He could hear the othersshouting at one another as they galloped here and there trying tolocate him, and he skulked where the bushes were deepest, like acriminal in fear of lynching.
Luck, for once, was with him, and he got out into anotherbrush-fringed coulee without being seen, and felt himself, for thepresent, safe from that portion of the Happy Family. Thereafter heavoided religiously the higher ridges, and kept the direction more byinstinct than by actual knowledge. The sun grew hot again and hehurried on, shiftin
g the sheepskin as the need impressed.
When at last he sighted again the sheep, they were very close. HappyJack grew cautious; he crept down upon the unsuspecting herder asstealthily as an animal hunting its breakfast. Herders sometimes carryguns--and the experience of last night burned hot in his memory.
Slipping warily from rock to rock, he was within a dozen feet, when adog barked and betrayed his presence. The herder did not have a gun.He gave a yell of pure terror and started for camp after his weapon.Happy Jack, yelling also, with long leaps followed after. Twice theherder looked over his shoulder at the weird figure in gray hat andflapping sheepskin, and immediately after each glance his paceincreased perceptibly. Still Happy Jack, desperate beyond measure,doggedly pursued, and his long legs lessened at each jump the distancebetween. From a spectacular viewpoint, it must have been a prettyrace.
The herder, with a gasp, dove into the tent; into the tent Happy Jackdove after him--and none too soon. The hand of the herder had almostclasped his rifle when the weight of Happy bore him shrieking to theearthen floor.
"Aw, yuh locoed old fool, shut up, can't yuh, a minute?" Happy Jack,with his fingers pressed against the windpipe of the other, had thesatisfaction of seeing his request granted at once. The shrieks diedto mere gurgling. "What I want uh _you_," Happy went on crossly,"ain't your lifeblood, yuh dam' Swede idiot. I want some clothes, andsome grub; and I want to borry that pinto I seen picketed out in thehollow, down there. Now, will yuh let up that yelling and act white,or must I pound some p'liteness into yuh? Say!"
"By damn, Ay tank yo' vas got soom crazy," apologized the herderhumbly, sanity growing in his pale blue eyes. "Ay tank--"
"Oh, I don't give a cuss what you _tank_," Happy Jack cut in. "I ain'thad anything to eat sence yesterday forenoon, and I ain't had anyclothes on sence yesterday, either. Send them darn dogs back to watchyour sheep, and get busy with breakfast! I've got a lot to do, t'-day.I've got to round up my horse and get my clothes that's tied to thesaddle, and get t' where I'm going. Get up, darn yuh! I ain't going t'eat yuh--not unless you're too slow with that grub."
The herder was submissive and placating, and permitted Happy Jack toappropriate the conventional garb of a male human, the while coffeeand bacon were maddening his hunger with their tantalizing odor. Heseemed much more at ease, once he saw that Happy Jack, properlyclothed, was not particularly fearsome to look upon, and talkedvolubly while he got out bread and stewed prunes and boiled beans forthe thrice-unexpected guest.
Happy Jack, clothed and fed, became himself again and prophesiedgloomily: "The chances is, that horse uh mine'll be forty miles awayand still going, by this time; but soon as I can round him up, I'llbring your pinto back. Yuh needn't t' worry none; I guess I got allthe sense I've ever had."
Once more astride a horse--albeit the pinto pony of asheepherder--Happy Jack felt abundantly able to cope with thesituation. He made a detour that put him far from where the three hemost dreaded to meet were apt to be, and struck out at the pinto'sbest pace for the river at the point where he had crossed sodisastrously the day before.
Having a good memory for directions and localities, he easily foundthe place of unhappy memory; and taking up Stranger's trail throughthe sand from there, he got the general direction of his flight andfollowed vengefully after; rode for an hour up a long, grassy coulee,and came suddenly upon the fugitive feeding quietly beside a spring.The bundle of clothing was still tied firmly to the saddle, and atsight of it the face of Happy Jack relaxed somewhat from its gloom.
When Happy rode up and cast a loop over his head Stranger nickered abit, as if he did not much enjoy freedom while he yet bore thetrappings of servitude. And his submission was so instant andvoluntary that Happy Jack had not the heart to do as he had threatenedmany times in the last few hours--"to beat the hide off him." Instead,he got hastily into his clothes--quite as if he feared they mightagain be whisked away from him--and then rubbed forgivingly the noseof Stranger, and solicitously pulled a few strands of his forelockfrom under the brow-band. In the heart of Happy Jack was a greatpeace, marred only by the physical discomforts of much sun-blister andmany deep scratches. After that he got thankfully into his own saddleand rode gladly away, leading the pinto pony behind him. He had gotout of the scrape, and the Happy Family would never find it out; itwas not likely that they would chance upon the Swede herder, or ifthey did, that they would exchange with him many words. The HappyFamily held itself physically, mentally, morally and socially farabove sheepherders--and in that lay the safety of Happy Jack.
It was nearly noon when he reached again the sheep camp, and the Swedehospitably urged him to stay and eat with him; but Happy Jack wouldnot tarry, for he was anxious to reach the camp of the Flying U. Amile from the herder's camp he saw again on a distant hilltop threefamiliar figures. This time he did not dodge into shelter, but urgedStranger to a gallop and rode boldly toward them. They greeted himjoyfully and at the top of their voices when he came within shoutingdistance.
"How comes it you're riding the pinnacles over here?" Weary wanted toknow, as soon as he rode alongside.
"Aw, I just came over after more orders; hope they send somebody elseover there, if they want any more repping done," Happy Jack said, inhis customary tone of discontent with circumstances.
"Say! Yuh didn't see anything of a wild man, down next the river, didyuh?" put in Pink.
"Aw, gwan! what wild man?" Happy Jack eyed them suspiciously.
"Honest, there's a wild man ranging around here in these hills," Pinkdeclared. "We've been mooching around all forenoon, hunting him. Gotsight of him, early this morning, but he got away in the brush."
Happy Jack looked guilty, and even more suspicious. Was it possiblethat they had recognized him?
"The way we come to hear about him," Weary explained, "we happenedacross some campers, over in a little coulee to the west uh here. Theywas all worked up over him. Seems he went into camp last night, andlike to scared the ladies into fits. He ain't got enough clothes on toflag an antelope, according to them, and he's about seven feet high,and looks more like a missing link than a plain, ordinary man. The onethat didn't faint away got the best look at him, and she's ready totake oath he ain't more'n half human. They kept fires burning allnight to scare him out uh the coulee, and they're going to break campto-day and hike for home. They say he give a screech that'd put acrimp in the devil himself, and went galloping off, jumping abouttwenty feet at a lick. And--"
"Aw, gwan!" protested Happy Jack, feebly.
"So help me Josephine, it's the truth," abetted Pink, round-eyed andunmistakably in earnest. "We wouldn't uh taken much stock in it,either, only we saw him ourselves, not more than two hundred yardsoff. He was just over the hill from the coulee where they were camped,so it's bound to be the same animal. It's a fact, he didn't have muchcovering--just something hung over his shoulders. And he was surewild, for soon as he seen us he humped himself and got into the brush.We could hear him go crashing away like a whole bunch of elephants.It's a damn' shame he got away on us," Pink sighed regretfully. "Wewas going to rope him and put him in a cage; we could sure uh mademoney on him, at two bits a look."
Happy Jack continued to eye the three distrustfully. Too often had hebeen the victim of their humor for him now to believe implicitly intheir ignorance. It was too good to be real, it seemed to him. Still,if by any good luck it _were_ real, he hated to think what wouldhappen if they ever found out the truth. He eased the clothingcautiously away from his smarting back, and stared hard into a coulee.
"It was likely some sheepherder gone clean nutty," mused Irish.
"Well, the most uh them wouldn't have far to go," ventured Happy Jack,thinking of the Swede.
"What we ought to do," said Pink, keen for the chase, "is for thewhole bunch of us to come down here and round him up. Wonder if wecouldn't talk Chip into laying off for a day or so; there's no herd tohold. I sure would like to get a good look at him."
"Somebody ought to take him in," observed Irish longin
gly. "He ain'tsafe, running around loose like that. There's no telling what he mightdo. The way them campers read his brand, he's plumb dangerous to meetup with alone. It's lucky you didn't run onto him, Happy."
"Well, I didn't," growled Happy Jack. "And what's more, I betche thereain't any such person."
"Don't call us liars to our faces, Happy," Weary reproved. "We toldyuh, a dozen times, that we saw him ourselves. Yuh might be politeenough to take our word for it."
"Aw, gwan!" Happy Jack grunted, still not quite sure of how much--orhow little--they knew. While they discussed further the wild man, hewatched furtively for the surreptitious lowering of lids that wouldbetray their insincerity. When they appealed to him for an opinion ofsome phase of the subject, he answered with caution. He tried to turnthe talk to his experiences on the Shonkin range, and found the wildman cropping up with disheartening persistency. He shifted often inthe saddle, because of the deep sunburns which smarted continually andmaddeningly. He wondered if the boys had used all of that big box ofcarbolic salve which used to be kept in a corner of the mess-box; andwas carbolic salve good for sun-blisters? He told himself gloomilythat if there was any of it left, and if it were good for his ailment,there wouldn't be half enough of it, anyway. He estimated unhappilythat he would need about two quarts.
When they reached camp, the welcome of Happy Jack was overshadowed andmade insignificant by the strange story of the wild man. Happy Jack,mentally and physically miserable, was forced to hear it all told overagain, and to listen to the excited comments of the others. He wassick of the subject. He had heard enough about the wild man, and hewished fervently that they would shut up about it. He couldn't seethat it was anything to make such a fuss about, anyway. And he wishedhe could get his hands on that carbolic salve, without having thewhole bunch rubbering around and asking questions about something thatwas none of their business. He even wished, in that first bitter hourafter he had eaten and while they were lying idly in the shady spots,that he was back on the Shonkin range with an alien crew.
It was perhaps an hour later that Pink, always of an investigativeturn of mind, came slipping quietly up through the rose bushes fromthe creek. The Happy Family, lying luxuriously upon the grass, werestill discussing the latest excitement. Pink watched his chance andwhen none but Weary observed him jerked his head mysteriously towardthe creek.
Weary got up, yawned ostentatiously, and sauntered away in the wake ofPink. "What's the matter, Cadwolloper?" he asked, when he was closeenough. "Seen a garter snake?" Pink was notoriously afraid of snakes.
"You come with me, and I'll show yuh the wild man," he grinned.
"Mama!" ejaculated Weary, and followed stealthily where Pink led.
Some distance up the creek Pink signalled caution, and they crept likeIndians on hands and knees through the grass. On the edge of the highbank they stopped, and Pink motioned. Weary looked over and came nearwhooping at the sight below. He gazed a minute, drew back and put hisface close to the face of Pink.
"Cadwolloper, go get the bunch!" he commanded in a whisper, and Pink,again signalling needlessly for silence, slipped hastily away from thespot.
Happy Jack, secure in the seclusion offered by the high bank of thecreek, ran his finger regretfully around the inside of the carbolicsalve box, eyed the result dissatisfiedly, and applied the fingercarefully to a deep cut on his knee. He had got that cut while goingup the bluff, just after leaving the tent where had been the shriekingfemales. He wished there was more salve, and he picked up the cover ofthe box and painstakingly wiped out the inside; the result wasdisheartening.
He examined his knee dolefully. It was beginning to look inflamed, andit was going to make him limp. He wondered if the boys would noticeanything queer about his walk. If they did, there was the conventionalexcuse that his horse had fallen down with him--Happy Jack hoped thatit would be convincing. He took up the box again and looked at theshining emptiness of it. It had been half full--not enough, by a longway--and maybe some one would wonder what had become of it. Darn abunch that always had to know everything, anyway!
Happy Jack, warned at last by that unnamed instinct which tells of apresence unseen, turned around and looked up apprehensively. The HappyFamily, sitting in a row upon their heels on the bank, looked down athim gravely and appreciatively.
"There's a can uh wagon dope, up at camp," Cal Emmett informed himsympathetically.
"Aw--" Happy Jack began, and choked upon his humiliation.
"I used to know a piece uh poetry about a fellow like Happy," Wearyremarked sweetly. "It said
_'He raised his veil, the maid turned slowly round_ _Looked at him, shrieked, and fell upon the ground.'_
Only, in this case," Weary smiled blandly down upon him, "Happy didn'thave no veil."
"Aw, gwan!" adjured Happy Jack helplessly, and reached for hisclothes, while the Happy Family chorused a demand for explanations.
* * * * *