Produced by Al Haines
By
Author of "Red Saunders," "Plain Mary Smith," etc.
Copyright, 1903, 1904, 1905, by The Curtis Publishing Co.
Copyright, 1903, by S. S. McClure Co. Copyright, 1905, by The
Grafton Press
Published January, 1906 Second edition February, 1906
"Made any other human countenance I ever see look like anigger-minstrel show"
"He was disappointed in love—he had to be"
"Scraggsy looked like a forlorn hope lost in a fog"
"'Dearly beloved Brethren,' says I"
"Put up a high-grade article of cat-fight"
"You will talk to my ol' man like that, will you?"
"So we rode in, right cheerful"
"I was all over that Injun"
I had met Mr. Scraggs, shaken him by the hand, and, in the shallowsense of the word, knew him. But a man is more than clothes and abald head. It is also something of a trick to find out more abouthim—particularly in the cow country. One needs an interpreter.Red furnished the translation. After that, I nurtured Mr.Scraggs's friendship, for the benefit of humanity and philosophy.Saunders and I lay under a bit of Bad Lands, soaking in the springsun, and enjoying the first cigarette since breakfast. In regardto things in general, he said:
"Now, there was the time I worked for the Ellis ranch. A ranch islike a man: it has something that belongs to it, that don't belongto no other ranch, same as I have just the same number of eyes andnoses and so forth that you drew on your ticket, yet you ain't meno more'n I'm you. This was a kind of sober-minded concern; it wasa thoughtful sort of a ranch, where everybody went about his workquiet. I guess it was because the boys was mostly old-timers,given to arguing about why was this and how come that. Argue!Caesar! It was a regular debating society. Wind-river Smithpicked up a book in the old man's room that told about the Injunsbein' Jews 'way back before the big high-water, and how one gang of'em took to the prairie and the other gang to the bad clothesbusiness. Well, he and Chawley Tawmson—'member Chawley and histooth? And you'd have time to tail-down and burn a steer beforeChawley got the next word out—well, they got arguin' about whetherthis was so, or whether it weren't so. Smithy was for the book,havin' read it, and Chawley scorned it. The argument lasted amonth, and as neither one of 'em knew anything about an Injun,except what you can gather from looking at him over a rifle sight,and as the only Jew either one of 'em ever said two words to wasthe one that sold Windriver a hat that melted in the firstrain-storm, and then him and Chawley went to town and made theHebrew eat what was left of the hat, after refunding the price, youcan imagine what a contribution to history I list