SOUTHWEST WILL HROBiNSON University of California Berkeley Gift of THE ESTATE OF BARTLETT B. HEARD U J\ -V YARNS of the SOUTHWEST BY WILL H. ROBINSON Published by THE BERRYHILL COMPANY Phoenix, Arizona CHANDLER ARIZONAN PRESS Chandler, Arizona OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR THE STORY OF ARIZONA A History THE MAN PROM YESTERDAY A Novel THE GOLDEN PALACE OF NEVERLAND A Juvenile THE WITCHERY OF RITA Short Stories HER NAVAJO LOVER A Novelette Copywright, 1921 by WILLIAM HENRY ROBINSON All rights reserved TO HERBERT F. ROBINSON Who came to the Southwest in stage-coach days, and for years took his place in camp-fire circles and "swapped" yarns and fables of the Desert Country. CONTENTS THE DESERT 4 FOREWORD 5 THE MULE THAT DIED OF TOO MUCH IMAGINATION 9 SOUTHWESTERN JUSTICE 12 THE GROWING SALVE 14 HE WOULDN'T LET HER SUFFER 15 HEAVEN, HELL AND HEAT 17 WITH HEALING ON ITS WINGS 21 THE GRAND BOUNCE 22 TO THE BITTER END 24 THE WAY THEY GROW AT SALOME 27 MYTHICAL ANIMALS 29 THE SIDE^HILL BEAR 30 THE GILAOPOLIS 31 A BASHFUL ONE 33 OSTRICH EGG FOR ONE 36 THE GRATEFUL RATTLESNAKE 44 THE LADY AND THE LARIAT 49 LITTLE BILL'S BANDIT 65 MY ARIZONA BEDROOM . .. 86 THE DESERT Gaunt cacti menace with their cruel thorns ; The air is filled with quivering, scorching heat ; A sky of molten brass, a withering sun that scorns To mercy give. A traveler reels with staggering feet. The wind's hot breath a palsy brings ; Thirst maddens with its gripping pangs ; The rattler strikes; the scorpion stings These are the flame-mad desert fangs. And then November's cooling breezes blow, And with reviving softness comes the rain; In quiet spots sweet herbs and flowers grow. And beauty broods o'er rock and hill and plain. The mocker throats a song in rapturous The palo verde flowers in rarest art ; The desert, healed of all its heat-wrought pain, To those who love it, shows a golden heart. YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST FOREWORD THE TENDERFOOT The impressions that greet the tenderfoot upon his arrival in the American Southwest crowd each other in rapid succession. One of the first convictions to sink into his mind, and perhaps one that never leaves it, is that its denizens are as friendly a people as are to be found upon the face of the earth. The true native will share al- most anything with him especially his climate, his dinner, his debts and his favorite story. Naturally the Southwest flaunts much that is strange and unfamiliar. The newcomer asks many questions; the Arizonan, Texan or New Mexican is more than glad to answer them. He answers some questions before they are asked. Usually after about the third day the tenderfoot's thoughts crystalize into some such formula as follows : "If a native tells you anything, it's a lie." A week later he changes it. "If the story sounds like the truth, it undoubtedly is a lie; but if it sounds like a lie, it may be true." However, along toward the end of the month, 6 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST the man from Elsewhere, if he is of the elect, begins to have his ears quickened by the real heart-beat of the West, and is ready to accept that article in the creed of the Hassayamper averring that sometimes the hyperbole of the ra- conteur may contain more truth, which after all is often only relative, than the exact numerals of the statistician. THE HASSAYAMPER But perhaps exactly what a Hassayamper may be needs explanation. Just as the gold-seekers of California were called "Forty-niners" and the pioneers of the Yukon are "Sourdoughs," so those hardy souls who came to the deserts and mountains of the Southwest when one still trav- eled in stage coaches, when flour and bacon and beans were brought overland in sixteen-mule freight wagons, when national banks were scarce and faro banks were plentiful, when springs of amber-colored fluid gushed perennially at such moist oases as the "Palace" or "Congress Hall" these were the Hassayampers. Now be it known that the Hassayampa is a river, sparkling, beautiful and picturesque in its upper reaches in the pine-covered mountains of Yavapai, but later losing both sparkle and char- acter in flat, torrid sands of the desert south- ward where it joins the Gila. In the early days painted savages fought many YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 7 a battle along its bed, Spanish friars used its crystal drops in holy baptism and miners drew from its depths water for their arrastras; and from then until now, along its banks, men have toiled and quarreled, gambled and loved. In time legends were born about the mystical qualities of its waters. Some say that he who drinks above the ford can never tell a lie, while the antithesis of this is true of one who drinks below. Others turn the saying around, only na two will agree upon which is the proper ford! The legend, though, that has the sound verifi- cation of time as well as the sanction of antiquity- is that any one who drinks from any place along the river will never know either the extremes of poverty or riches, in thought will always be the most incorrigible of optimists, in speech the most graceful of romanticists, and should he ever be so unfortunate as to leave Arizona, he will always come back. So, gentle stranger, if you arrive in Arizona too late to be a Hassayamper by the rule of an- tiquity, drink from the pellucid waters of the stream after the sediment has settled and thus, so to speak, become one of the Brotherhood by bibulation. THE YARNS The following yarns have been collected from many sources. To get the true flavor, imagine 8 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST them told in golden sunshine on a winter after- noon by some ancient Uncle Noah in an old-time Tucson, Phoenix or Albuquerque corral where stages stopped, where freighters rested their stock between trips and where, on Sunday after- noons, a young man could rent a shining "side- bar" runabout from "Back East" to take his best girl buggy riding. Others of the yarns were doubtless first related around a camp-fire at night, at the spring round-up, at a chance meet- ing of a couple of prospectors or on a hunting expedition. In any event, there is an odor of fried bacon and flapjacks in the air, smoke ris- ing from hand-rolled cigarets like incense to the gods of out-of-doors, with the far-away yipping of coyotes for orchestration. YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST THE MULE THAT DIED OF TOO MUCH IMAGINATION We had been looking for cattle along Tonto Creek and after supper one night, as is the cus- tom, mingled yarns with our devoirs to Lady Nicotine. "Speaking of imagination/* began a big, awk- ward, good-natured cowboy, rejoicing in the out- rageous cognomen of Petty Briggs, "the most imaginative being I ever knowed was a mule." "Two legs or four?" asked old Dad Huddle- ford. "Four," replied Petty. "All rapid actors. He was a beautiful animal, too and smart why he could tell how many drinks I had aboard just by looking at me." "How high could he count?" asked Dad mo- rosely. "But he died," continued Petty, his voice chok- ing with emotion, "froze to death last August down at Gila Bend." The resentful look of a man who suspects his credulity is being trifled with came swiftly into the old man's face. "Don't you lie to me, Petty Briggs! Gila Bend! August! Freeze! It never 10 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST got below a hundred the whole enduring month' T "That's just it," assented Petty sadly. "You see, I had been foolish enough to plant ten acres of popcorn. The neighbors warned me agin it, but I didn't take their advice. I had a fine crop. It had been growing so fast that the noise of it used to keep me awake nights. It was all ready to pull when that terruble hot day came a hun- dred and thirty-two in the shade and no shade! By ten o'clock the leaves began to wilt, by eleven they started to crisp and fall back from the ears of corn. You can imagine what happened then corn began to pop, of course! "I was standing under the brush shade taking a drink from the olla. It was an amazin' grand sight, like white fireworks and a hailstorm all in one and the noise it was as if a hundred rapid-firers was all going off at onct. Neighbors heard it for three miles and thought it was the Mexican insurrectos that had come across the Ene." "But the mule," insisted Dad crossly. "If I wa going to tell a story about a mule I'd mention him onct in a while." "The mule was in the story all right," said Briggs, "only you couldn't see him for the corn. He was a-standin' right in the middle of the patch, lookin' like Stonewall Jackson at the battle of Bunker Hill, with the shells burstin' " YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 11 "Shells?" interrupted Dad. "Be ye talkin' about popcorn or walnuts?" "And in less than five minutes," went on Briggs, "the corn had covered the ground and be- gun to drift into the fence corners. By this time there was so much popcorn in the air that it quit lookin* like fireworks and began to look like now the way it slewed around and drifted into the fence corners. I could see the mule thought it looked like snow, too. You remember about his imagination. He tuk one look around and began to shiver just a little bit at first, then harder and harder. His hair got all rough, and he humped himself up like an animule does in a blizzard. Pretty soon you could see that he was so cold that he couldn't even shiver, and he stood there stiff-legged with his head hanging almost to the ground. I could barely see him through the falling popcorn, and started out to rescue him when he fell over in his tracks. I tried my best to get to him but had to give it up. The popcorn drifted clear up to my waist before I got to the fence, and I was darned lucky to get back to the house. "Well, the neighbors come the next morning and helped me dig the pore mule out. He was froze plumb solid when we found him. Believe it or not, gentlemen, just as you please, but he 12 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST was so cold that when we touched him he frosted our fingers." Petty Briggs sighed sentimentally, and with be- coming modesty dropped his eye lids. With one accord we looked at Dad, who promptly rose to the occasion. He poured a cone of tobacco on a cigarette paper, rolled it and ceremoniously handed it to the blushing Briggs. It was the ac- colade the token of the knightly order of Mun- chausen given by the Master Fictionist to the novice, who had fairly won his spurs. THE MULE THAT DIED OF TOO MUCH IMAGINATION Originally appeared in "Arizona Magazine." Republished by permission. SOUTHWESTERN JUSTICE One of the many remarkable men who lived in the early Southwest was Roy Bean, of Langtry, New Mexico, whose sign read, "Iced Beer and Law West of the Pecos River." Some men achieve public office by appoint- ment, others by the suffrage of their admiring constituents; Bean assumed the ermine of the YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 13 justice court with as little legal formality as a man might employ in going into the barbering^ business. He decided that there was a good open- ing for a live justice of the peace at Langtry and so hung out his shingle. That was all there was to it. As a side line he ran a saloon and a gen- eral store. His legal library consisted of a copy of the Kansas statutes and Webster's dictionary, and he said that every word that was worth reading about law was in one book or the other. Also, he never troubled himself about limits in his jurisdiction or authority. One day he tried a man for cattle stealing. There was no doubt about the prisoner's guilt, the smell of the altered brands was still on him. "I sentence you to be hanged at sundown," said Bean. The rustler laughed at him. "You can't hang me," he said, "you're only a justice of the peace." "You wait till sundown and see," said Bean. And the man saw 1 At another time a stranger fell off the Pecos bridge and was killed. Bean, promptly assuming the authority of a coroner, searched the body and found two twenty-dollar bank notes and a ten, besides a six-shooter. "The court," said Bean, "fines this gentleman fifty dollars for carrying concealed weapons. Constable, give me the fifty dollars you keep the gun." 14 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST THE GROWING SALVE "Yes, sir," began old Uncle Noah, "them sur- geons over in France did some right clever patchin' up of our soljers, but I'll bet if old Doc Goodfellow hadda gone over he'd beat the hull lot. Did I ever tell you about his wonderful growin' salve? No? The time he made his big hit at the Territorial Fair? Well, you see, some hoys were puttin* a tame coyote into a pen when his tail caught in the door and was cut plumb off at the roots. "I tell you them boys felt bad, and the coyote wasn't very cheerful himself. They sent for old Doc Goodfellow, of course, and the Doc rubbed some of his growing salve on the stub, and blame my cats if a new tail didn't grow right out while they was watchin' it. "Then them boys had a fine idee, and rubbed some of the stuff on the cut place on the tail, and sure as I'm a truthful man, another coyote grew out of the tail, only," here Uncle Noah spat reminiscently, "he was a wild coyote and they bad to kill him." YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 15 HE WOULDN'T LET HER SUFFER No collection of Southwestern yarns would be complete that did not contain at least one of the many wonderful stories told by John Hance, the Teteran raconteur of the Grand Canyon. One day when conducting a party down the Bright Angel trail, a vivacious young lady with sentimental blue eyes insisted that John should tell them some of his own personal history. "Surely you haven't always been single, Mr. Hance," she insisted, "an attractive man like you! Honestly, weren't you ever married?" Hance looked at her solemnly. "Once, but it's a private matter, and I don't often speak of it except to intimate friends." "But aren't we intimate friends?" challenged the blue-eyed one. "I feel as though I knew you very well, indeed." "Do you?" brightened old John. "All right, only don't ever repeat what I tell you; it's a sort of family secret. You see, when I was first building this trail, for quite a spell I used to let myself down over one of the cliffs by a rope. "One day my wife wanted to go with me, but as she weighed about two-fifty I tried to keep her from it She was headstrong though, insist- 16 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST ing that I let her try. You can imagine my feel- ings when letting her down with the rope, it snapped in two and she fell and plumb broke her kg. "I tied the rope around her waist and tried to pull her up, but she was too heavy. "You can see the fix we were in. There we were down at the bottom of a hundred-foot cliff and no living human within fifty miles or more. I finally found a fissure where I could climb out, but couldn't possibly carry my wife. It was awful sad! We both cried when I kissed her good-bye for the last time and started up alone." "But surely you didn't leave her there to suffer and go off by yourself?" exclaimed the senti- mental one in righteous indignation. "Oh, no; I didn't leave her to suffer," ex- pilained old John soothingly. "I shot her first and put her out of her misery." YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 17 HEAVEN, HELL AND HEAT The summers of the Southwestern deserts are hot. The native doesn't deny it; he boasts of it. It is summer sunshine that gives him five or six crops of alfalfa, that improves his cotton, that makes his grape fruit so sweet it needs no added sugar, that adds tonnage to his raisins and flavor to his crop of figs. Still one must confess that it does wilt collars,, make coats superfluous and waistcoats actual ob- jects of suspicion. In the real pioneer times when shade trees were non-existant and ice was some- thing one occasionally read about in eastern news- papers but never saw, it must in truth have been a thirsty and a tropic land. No wonder so many of the old time stories have scenes laid in that orthodox post mortem abiding place of the un- regenerate sinful, which the Hassayamper be- lieved could easily be compared to the burning air on summer desert trails. The earliest of these yarns, as everybody knows, had to do with the soldier from Fort Yuma who found hell so much cooler than what he had been used to that he sent back for his blankets. (Our apology for mentioning this hoary tale is, that like the story of Eve and the? 18 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST apple, its very antiquity gives it a certain pres- tige.) Equally honored by long and hardy hand* ling is the saying regarding the alleged necessity of shipping in cracked ice from California to feed the hens to keep them from laying hard- boiled eggs. Along the same line is the story about the corpse from Parker who, after the fire in the crematory was going nicely, sat up and politely asked the attendant to close the crack in the door as the draft made him shiver. To offset these, however, there is the tale re- lated by a returned visitor to heaven; how, no- ticing that all the people from Prescott were kept in gilded cages, was given the explanation that even the delights of the celestial abode could not make these folk forget the beauties of the Yav- apai hills, and if they didn't keep them locked up they'd all go back. This is a kindlier story than the one told about the hooks in the lower regions where they had to hang the arrivals from B up to dry for a week, as they came too green to burn. There is a persistent tradition that if a tender- foot is caught looking askance at thermometer maximums for July there is always a real estate agent hard by who will say : "But, my dear sir, YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 19 you must remember that owing to the extreme dryness of the atmosphere, 110 degrees in the Southwest is really no hotter than eighty in New York." The worm finally turned and we have the fol- lowing story: Once there was a real estate agent from (here insert not your town but the other fellow's) who died and went to his proper reward, and when he got there the devil was very glad to see him and asked him if he would like to inspect his quarters. The real estate man yawned delicately, said "Yes," and remarked that he wanted a private bath and a pitcher of ice water. At this an imp of a bell boy, with little horns sticking out under his cap, grinned openly and his majesty started leading the way down a very long hall. The further they went the hotter it grew until the pitch began to ooze out of the woodwork. "Aren't we almost there?" asked the real estate man, who finally was beginning to get de- cidedly nervous. "It's the last room!" said the devil. After a half hour more of going they reached an apartment where they found the furniture all of iron and glowing a nice warm pink. Through an open door they could see the bath tub full of bubbling pitch. 20 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST The devil picked up a red-hot shingle nail from an ash receiver and lighted his cigaret. "How do you like your quarters?" he asked easily. The real estate man looked at the smoking sul- phuric acid in the imp's water pitcher and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "If s a little hot, isn't it?" "Not the sensible heat," smiled the devil pleas- antly. "Some times our thermometer registers pretty high, but owing to the extreme dryness of the atmosphere 110 here is no hotter than eighty in New York." "Seems to me," sneered the real estate man, "I have heard that chestnut before." "Yes," replied the devil cheerfully. "You're told it. That's why you're here!" However, no one ever summarized the climate of the Southwestern desert country more happily, perhaps, than did the minister at a Yuma ban- quet who stated that while the people were most hospitable and the town beautiful, the local field presented unusual difficulties to the spiritual shepherd. In ministering to his flock he found the winters were so delightful that heaven could offer no further charms, while in summer the weather was so hot that hell had no terrors! YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 21 WITH HEALING ON ITS WINGS There is the story of the vivifying qualities of Southwestern air. A man "Back East," lying #t the point of death, wires his friend in Albu- querque to come and receive his last messages. The Westerner is on his bicycle when the message is handed him. He rides hastily to the station just in time to catch his train, upon which he checks his wheel. Arriving "Back East," our hero peddles madly to his chum's house, and is so excited he trundles his bicycle directly into the dying man's room. In so doing, just as he enters the chamber, he runs over a tack and the air, direct from the Rio Grande, hisses through the puncture. Laden with healing in every breath, it reaches the stricken patient's lips. The effect is instantaneous; the man sits up half well already. The New Mexican, on the moment realizing what has happened, jabs a pen knife into the other tire and holding the aperture to his friend's mouth, completes the cure. Selah! 22 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST THE GRAND BOUNCE We asked Bill Huggett, one time chief guide at the Grand Canyon, if he knew any yarns about the big ditch. He shook his head. "I used to leave the yarns to John Hance, but," he added thoughtfully, "I know a true fact I saw once personally, that might interest folks. "It was about nine years ago last June when a fellow wearing a new pair of rubber boots, on account of it raining, slipped off a cliff down near Grand View and dropped three thousand feet to a flat ledge of rock. When those rubber soles hit, he was falling so fast he bounced right back plumb up to the rim of the Canyon. Down he went again and up he came again, and kept on a-doing it. "Sometimes he would only get half way up, some times two-thirds, once in a while he would strike the ledge just right and shoot way up above the edge, where the whole push from El Tovar over a hundred people finally stood on the trail watching, their eyes fairly bulging out of their heads. "It was a terrifying sight, him keeping at it YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 23 that way, bouncing up and down for three days and nights! "We tried to rope him, but he was going too fast; then we tried to get down to the ledge and grab him, but couldn't make it. Finally it seems awful to tell, but you can see it was the only way out of it we had to shoot him to keep him from starving to death." 24 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST TO THE BITTER END "What was the queerest thing I ever seed on the desert?" repeated Uncle Noah to Miss Ten- derfoot. "Lemme think. I reckon it must have been a set-to I once watched between a road run- ner and a rattler. Now, of course, you know that the only thing on the desert that isn't afraid of a rattlesnake is a road runner, and, contrary wise, the very thought of a road runner will almost drive a rattler to drink. "Don't know what a road runner is? Well, ma'm, a road runner is a bird that's somewhat larger than a quail and smaller than a chicken; it can't fly and it can't sing, but it can run so fast that it makes a coyote look as though he was standing still, and when it comes to eating, an ostrich whetting its appetite on rough quartz and shingle nails is a plumb amateur to it; horn toads and rattles off 'en the end of snakes of that name being the favorite hunger-breakers of our feathered highway scooter. "But what I started to say was, that for all a road runner is so fond of rattlers it don't get much chance at them on straight hunting be- cause if a rattlesnake hears a road runner com- ing a mile off, he goes hiking for home as fast as YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 25 his legs can carry him if you get my meaning. "Then how do they catch rattlers? That's easy; they trap 'em ! I remember well the first time I ever seed one do it, though he didn't exactly get away with it after all. "Onct when I was prospecting down in the Chiricahuas I was sitting under an ironwood tree having a snack of tortillas and frijoles when a lady road runner walks past carrying a piece of cholla branch in her bill. Just about twenty feet beyond me she drops it, goes and gets another piece and puts that just beside it and hikes off after a third. I begins to get interested and, keeping mighty quiet and still like, soon gets on to what she's doing. She was making a little cir- cular fence of cactus thorns around a snake hole, the same fence being about a yard across it. " 'Ah, ha !' sez I, having heard of it before, 'A rattlesnake trap!' Sure enough it was. "It was about a hafan hour before the bird got the thing done nice a little corral as you ever seed, about five inches high on the fence line and not a loophole in it. "Then, with another piece of cholla cactus be- tween her teeth, she steps outside the fence and waits. At the end of about an hour, out cornea Mr. Rattlesnake. He goes as far as the fence, then stops, and seeing Mrs. Road Runner, tries to get back into the hole again, but she is too 26 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST spry for him, jumping over the fence quick as a wink and stopping up his hole with her last piece of cactus. "Commencing at that minute was the prettiest fencing match you ever seed, like those the old time bully boys used to have when they fit with swords instead of civilized guns like they do now. Only you must 'magine one sword tipped with pizen and the other opening and shutting on the p'int like scissors, snapping like castanets and quicker'n lightning. "First, Mrs. Roadrunner would strike at the rattler and then the snake would vicy versy, 'round and 'round without ever stopping a second for over twenty-five enduring minutes by my old key-winder, and me almost holding my breath in excitement one critter seeming just as fast as the other, and each just a hair quicker at dodging than he was at hitting. "At last I seed that it was like when a man and his wife gets to argufying it's endurance that counts, with odds in favor of the woman,. Mr. Rattlesnake was getting about tuckered out while Mrs. Roadrunner, seemingly, was a pert as when she started. "Finally she gets him backed up agin the fence and going groggy, but he doesn't intend to let no female bird kill him, not much, I could see YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 27 that in his eye. He was a proud soul if he was a rattler. "What does he do? At the very instant Mrs. Roadrunner is pulling back her head to give him what the bull fighters call the coop de gracy, that snake nachuly twists his head around, ties a knot in his neck and chokes hisself to death." [Note by Editor. This yarn might have been sug- gested" to Uncle Noah by the tradition that if a chaparral cock catches a rattlesnake asleep he will build a cactus fence around' him. When the reptile awakens and discov- ers that he cannot pass the barrier, he will suicide by striking his fangs into himself. Uncle Noah, however, in- sists that if a road runner ever did find a rattlesnake asleep, it wouldn't wait to build a fence; one stroke of his bill would end things forever for his snakeship. Be- sides, he says: "It's plumb true! I seed it just as I spoke it!" Who are we to cast aspersions at a truthful man?] THE WAY THEY GROW AT SALOME Even the newspapers of the Southwest, at times, seem to exhibit a certain characteristic 28 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST exuberence in their articles that in a more con- servative community might seem almost overly optimistic. The following is taken from Dick Wick Hall's Salome Sun, printed on a mimeo- graph and published when the spirit moves the editor, for his own amazement : "Almost everything grows well here. Squint Eye Johnson built a barn last year and, on account of the high price of lum- ber, cut four big cottonwood posts and set them in the ground for the corners; nailing boards on to complete the barn. It rained soon after and the corner posts started to grow and it kept Squint Eye busy all sum- mer nailing on more boards at the bottom to keep the cows from getting out and now he has a two-story barn and uses the top story for a hen house. Squint Eye says one more wet year and he will have to buy an aeroplane to feed his chickens. "Melons don't do very well here becuz the vines grow so fast they wear the melons out dragging them around the ground and in dry years we sometimes have to plant onions in between the rows of potatoes and then scratch the onions to make the potatoes' eyes water enough to irrigate the rest of the garden and the kids sure do hate to scratch the onions on moonlight nights." YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 20 MYTHICAL ANIMALS There is one particular reservoir of yarns oc- casionally drawn upon by certain prevaricators in the back-country of the West that deserves special mention. Just as the story teller of ancient Greece de- lighted to fill the classic land of Attica with such mythical animals as the centaur or the gryphon, so his modern western prototype conjures from his fertile brain a little imaginary fauna of his own and scatters it about his neighboring valleys and hills. As a necessary ingredient of a successful wonder tale is a credulous auditor, so this par- ticular type of story was, and still is, reserved for the specially innocent, often being used to bait a particularly callow arrival from such guile- less communities as Manhatten-on-East-River or the "L" district of Chicago. Also, it is occasionally employed as part of the ritual in advancing a neophyte in a cow camp from the open range of the tyro to the sanctuary of the inner corral, so to speak, of the fellow craftsman and master. 30 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST THE SIDE-HILL BEAR The commonest of these animals is the side-hill bear. This interesting beast for thousands of years, perhaps, inhabited such remote mountain peaks as the San Franciscos in Arizona where, generation after generation, it circled its steep slopes, always moving in one direction and with its left side up hill. The inevitable happened. Fol- lowing the law of physical adaptation of life to environment, in time the left legs of the side-hill bear became very short while the right ones grew very long. So unusual were these interesting creatures that the Indians revered them as sort of demi- gods and never molested them. Perhaps a second reason for their leaving them alone was that not only were the bears savage and fearsome fighters but their hides were so thick as to render them impervious to arrows and bullets alike. However, when the white men did appear upon the scene with their guns, a hunter, it was said to have been old Bill Williams, discovered a sure means of destroying them. With the intrepidity that was characteristic of the veteran frontiers- man, he would hide by a trail until one was YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 31 fairly upon him, when he would fire his rifle di- rectly into its face, which would cause the fright- ened beast to turn around, and as his legs would then be upon the wrong sides for equilibrium, down the mountain would roll the bear and break his neck! Bill Huggett, the San Marcos guide, says that the species are now all but exterminated. THE GILAOPOLIS The Gilaopolis, which still roams along the more sequestered canyons of the upper Salt and Gila rivers, belongs to the same general family as the Gila monster, being a pinkish salmon in color with a tasteful over-pattern worked out with black markings, but there is this great differ- ence between the two, where the smaller lizard usually is not more than fifteen to eighteen inches in length, the Gilaopolis is often as large as a big calf. For most of the year it is gentle and inoffen- sive, but at the time of the spring round-up it is attacked by a high fever which nothing seems to allay so well as canned fruit juice. For this rea- son, when in a country frequented by these pe- culiar saurians, a chuck wagon is liable to be 32 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST raided by one of them almost any night when, breaking open a fruit case with its powerful claws, it will melt the solder on the cans with its fever-laden breath and greedily drink the juice. If molested it will retire quietly, wholly cured for another year, but if interfered with, par- ticularly by a meddling tenderfoot, it will fight with great ferocity. As an illustration of how harmless a Gilaopolis may be under normal conditions, it may be said that Dick Bowersox larietted one once at his homestead in the Sierra Anchas and kept him with him for nearly a year, where he used to fol- low him about like a dog and even do simple chores like carrying in wood or bringing up the cows. The following spring, though, when its fever came up, there being no canned fruit handy, the big reptile broke into the cellar and imbibed three quarts of green paint and two gallons of home brew. Naturally "Heely," as they called the pet, acquired a beautiful jag. He chewed up a week's wash that was out on the line, half killed Dick's white faced bull, pushed his flivver over a cliff and then ran for the hills. Dick now uses a new recipe and reverts to strong language every time he sees a lizard. [Note by Editor. We don't think much of this yarn, but as it helped the artist out with the cover design we are letting it stand.] YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 33 A BASHFUL ONE The next animal we introduce has different characteristics in different localities. It is gen- erally described as having a body like a zebra, legs like an ostrich, only four of them instead of two, and a head and tongue not greatly unlike those possessed by a South American ant eater. In spite of its head the creature is herbivorous, its diet usually being confined to the fibers of the yucca, the hair-like growth on the pincushion cactus, and other similar ropish herbage. While naturally bashful, seemingly sensitive about its looks, at times it develops a curiosity that would shame a blue jay. A few summers ago, on a moonlight night, one of the species visited the camp of a hunting party in the Mogollons, where, tempted by the luxuri- ous whiskers of a distinguished California au- thor, who lay asleep, it bit them off so quietly its owner did not even waken. The beast, though, seemed to try in a meas- ure to atone for this liberty by an attention ahown another member of the party. Sleeping next to the Californian was a professor from an Illinois university, whose head was as innocent of hair as a billiard ball. After swallowing the 34 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST last of the whiskers, the animal shyly ap- proached the shining dome of the man of learn- ing and thoroughly licked it with his long and rasping tongue. The professor sat up, grasping his head and swearing that he had been scalped. The pain from which he suffered subsided in a few minutes, and although several of the party saw the beast plainly, it escaped before they could get their guns. The most peculiar thing about the occurrence was that within a month a thick covering of hair appeared upon the college man's head. Unfortu- nately, though, its texture resembled Yucca fiber and in color it was quite green. The name of the animal ? Pardon the omission* It is usually called the Hellidid. [Second Note by Editor. This yarn, if possible, is worse than the last, so instead of repeating similar atrocities we will simply append the names of a few more of the creatures when the reader, by letting his imagination soar, can fill in description, habitat and cus- toms to suit himself. If any one, in following this sug- gestion, is specially proud of his handiwork he might send the result on to us. If it is bad enough, or even good enough, to be interesting we might use it in the next edi- tkm.] Here we have them: The sneeze-duck, the whiffletit, the koohopper, the giant goober-bug, the hoop and glass snake and the left-footed bee- chaser. There are, naturally, others; but too much is a plenty! YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 35 In telling these yarns it is easy to appreciate the advantage the Western Ananias has over the credulous listening stranger, leading him gently from the known to the unknown. If there can be scorpions, tarantulas, centipedes, collar-lizards, chuckawallas, horn toads and Gila monsters all about, cluttering up the country, why shouldn't there be other unusual and fearsome things? 36 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST OSTRICH EGG FOR ONE We had been rounding up a bunch of stam- peded ostriches on the desert south of Salt River, and after a most exciting day, squatted about the camp fire for supper. Petty Briggs, a big raw-boned cowboy, took a tin plate from the cook and looked at it hungrily. "If I had some ham, I'd have some ham and eggs if I had the eggs." "You've got your wish," replied the cook, con- cealing a glow of triumph with a large air of in- tiifference. "Ham and eggs is just what we're a-eatin' tonight!" "Ham?" repeated Petty incredulously. "The same," replied the cook. "I found it in the boss's war bag. He thought it was one of his shoes." "An' eggs?" insisted the cowboy. "Swipes, don't you trifle with my tender appetite." Swipes looked absently at the waning sunset "Juno laid one this afternoon." "Juno? The ostrich?" The question came dubi- ously, almost gingerly. "Why not?" replied the cook. "It tastes ex- actly like a hen egg." YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 37 "Hum," said Petty. "One, did you say? I usually take two." Old Dad Huddleford, who was never far from the chuck wagon at meal time, looked at his co- worker with pitying scorn. "Do you know the bigness of an ostrich egg?" Petty assumed an air of boredom. "Certainly, I said I usually ordered two." "You do?" sneered Dad. "I'll bet my saddle against yours, you can't eat one." Petty jumped at the challenge, and the rest of us crowded about to witness the spectacle. Ex- pectancy trembled in the air. The cook produced an elongated spheroid from a water pail. In both size and looks it had the general appearance of the shining dome of a bald-headed man. Petty's lower jaw dropped involuntarily. "Is that it?" "It is," said the cook. There was a gulp from the cowboy, then he rallied bravely. "A little small, isn't it?" "Oh, about the usual size. Of course, Juno be- ing half Nubian, keeps her out of the bantam class." Petty, now in full possession of his usual sang froid, yawned gracefully. "Fm sorry you haven't another to go with it, but if there are plenty of vegetables I guess I can make out a meal." 38 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST Hatchet in hand, with a firm stroke the cook broke the shell and dropped its contents into a bowl. Heaven knows the thing looked big enough before now it was appalling. The yolk was a giant's yellow door-knob swimming in a veritable sea of glutinous liquid. "You don't want to double your bet, do you?" taunted Dad irritatingly. Petty turned his back on him. Appreciating the momentous nature of the con- test, the cook ordered us all away from the fire. Soon there was a terrific sizzling in the big fry- ing pan, and shortly afterwards Swipes handed the cowboy a huge platter heaped with golden scrambled egg and garnished with strips of deli- cately browned ham. It looked good and smelled good. Petty grinned his appreciation and fell to with gusto. "Best stuff I ever tasted," he said with smack- ing lips. "Sorry I can't let the rest of you in on this. Maybe Juno will lay another tomorrow." "Tastes like hen eggs?" asked the Tenderfoot. "Better. I'm plumb ashamed to take all this good stuff away from you." The contents of the plate diminished by half, then by three-quarters. "Honest," asked Petty, "couldn't I have some canned corn, an' spuds an* tomatoes an' a little more ham to go with it?" The cook seemed about to protest, but Old Dad YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 39 stopped him. "Sure, give him a good meal. I don't mind his winning my saddle when he does it fair. Petty, you are sure some little feeder. He took the platter, and hurrying to the fire brought generous helpings of various dishes. There were more gastronomic performances on Briggs' part, and again the platter was clean. He handed it to Dad with an air of ennui. "Sorry to take it away from you so easily, old man. Just put your saddle with mine, back of the chuck wagon." Swipes coughed apologetically. "Of course, you know that there is still more of the egg?" "Eh!" exclaimed the startled Petty. "More!" "The spider wouldn't hold it all, and I was waiting to cook the rest of it so you could have it hot." Petty glared unprintable things at Old Dad, then smiled airily. "Sure, I knew there was an- other spider full. I was just forecasting, so to speak, when I mentioned about the saddle." He pressed his fingers softly against his lips. "Fix it sort of straight up, this time and put in plenty of pepper." Swipes did as he was bid, and Briggs made a gallant attack on the yellow mass. It is hard to run a race a second time after you have thought it already won, and the cowboy was sadly handicapped by the extra viands Dad had 40 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST given him. Still, he was half through before he showed the first signs of wavering. "Could you give me a little black coffee?" he asked of the cook. "Just a little, and extra strong?" He drank the coffee cautiously, and ate another section. "A little more pepper," he said softly, and, after using it generously, swallowed down the last forkful. "Didn't think I could do it, Dad?" he asked with an uncertain smile. "Well, the saddle's mine." Dad regarded him with the hardened look of an inquisitor. "Of course, it is when you have finished the egg." Briggs turned very pale, and there were al- most tears in his voice when he asked, "Swipes, is there really more?" "There is." "Would you mind letting me see it?" As the cook brought him the bowl the rest of us looked over his shoulder. So far as I could see there was just about as much as when the cook had started, only it had been beaten with a fork, and it didn't look quite so well. Petty leaned weakly against his bed roll. "An- other little drink of coffee!" he said huskily. After he had finished the coffee he ventured a question. How many eggs hen eggs does it take to make one of those" he waved his hand feebly toward the bowl "of those things?" YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 41 "Ginnerly from nineteen to twenty-two" said Swipes. "Juno's run about twenty-six." "Two dozen and two!" said Petty solemnly. He set his teeth. "Cook me another spider full and fry'em hard!" Swipes fried them hard, while Dad Huddleford went around and inspected Petty's saddle. The cowboy started in on the new lot with well feigned vigor then stopped. "Swipes," he said plaintively, I believe you've scorched this mess." He appealed to the rest of us. "Do I have to eat the rest of them if they are scorched?" "Sure you don't," replied Dad cheerfully, "only one of the ladigo strings on the saddle I just won from you is busted. You'll fix it, won't you?" Hate gleamed in Briggs' eye, and he doggedly ate some more of the egg. "How many have I taken now, Swipes figured as hen fruit?" "Thirteen," and the cook commenced stirring the rest of the egg. Petty looked imploringly at Dad. "Would it do if I just chawed them and not swallow?" he asked. "The tree of that saddle what used to be yourn is a little wider than I like, but it'll do," said Dad. Petty took another knifeful. "Do you know," he said thoughtfully, "we are awful careless to be way off on the desert this way with no doctor around? Suppose one of us should get sick!" 42 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST "It's like enough, too," put in Dad, speaking impartially to the circle. "After you've done et thirteen of 'em, eggs in the stomach turns to rank pizen. I knowd a man onct " "Heaven help the man if you knowed him in- timate," remarked Briggs feelingly. "It's on account of the albument," continued Dad. "When you get past a dozen they glue the stomack right agin the back bone. That man I knowed, he " Petty raised his eyes beseechingly to the cook. "Take him away, Swipes, will you, I don't re- quire him any more." Three more forkfuls were eaten slowly and methodically, then the cowboy stopped and the usual ruddiness of his face seemed to fade. "I left my spurs on a bush over yonder," he said wistfully. "I think I'll go over and see if they are all right." Dad smiled beamingly. "You don't need to go. I'll be glad to get 'em for you." The delicate color of the cowboy's face grew almost ethereal. "If you get 'em I'll murder you." "I could stew the next lot," suggested Swipes. Briggs put down the platter and rose to his feet "Thank you," he said with careful polite- ness, "I I won't bother you." "Or boil" Petty departed into the darkness. Ten minutes YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 43 later he returned with a look of angelic peace upon his face that a seraph might have envied. "I could eat the rest of that egg if I wanted to, and do it easy," he announced serenely, "but I don't want to. There is just enough left for supper for the ten of you, omelet for breakfast and griddle cakes for the rest of the week. Beau- tiful weather we're having, don't you think?" 44 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST THE STORY OF THE GRATEFUL RATTLESNAKE "Yes," said Uncle Noah, "there are still a few rattlers left in Arizonay, but, land, they're not a patch on what they used to be when I first came to the country. Never was a night when I'd go out walkin', but what I'd most bust my toes stumbling over them, and when I'd get back home like as not there'd be a half dozen or more I'd have to kick offen my door step. Dangerous to kick them? Well, that depends upon how you done it. If a man was rough about it well he'd probably be bitten, but if a feller kicked them in kindness, so to speak, they would rather cut off their right hand than to harm him. I tell you even a rattler appreciates good treat- ment. "Now there was Doc Goodfeller, him that used to live up on Cortez Street. He was awful fond of animals butterflies, Gila monsters, and sich; is yet. Whenever he meets a nice dog, he always stops to pat him you know, that kind of a man. "In the summer of '81, after it got pretty hot, he sent his family to Prescott and, every eve- ning, to pass away time, he'd go on the desert and look for cottontail. One day when he was mosey- YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 45 ing around among the greasewood with his gun over his shoulder he found a rattlesnake with a broken back. Doc was going to kill him, but the poor thing looked so reproachful at him that he didn't have the heart. Instead, he took some of the inside ribs of a dead suhuaro and used them for splints, tearing off the back of his shirt for bandages ,and honest to goodness he set that reptile's back the same as he would a man's leg. Doc said it was the most intelligentest snake he ever seed knowed just what he was doing, and tears of gratitude ackchully came to his eyes when he got through and turned him loose on the desert. "Most anybody but Doc would have thought he had done something pretty big, but not him; he- was so used to being kind to animals that he plumb forgot it within a week. About a month after that, though, it all came back to him. You see, he was out on the desert again, and at almost the same place he saw what he thought was a wild rattlesnake coming at him as though he wanted to fight. Doc picked up a club and was going to lam him one, when he noticed curious scars on the critter's back. You get me? It was the same snake he had fixed up. Doc caught on in a minute, and saw fhe reptile was coming up to greet him out of pure affection. He told me: afterwards that the meetin' was awful touching 46 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST Snake came up and rubbed agin his leg just like a cat does and purred! "Well, Doc stayed there and petted him for quite a spell, but it was gettin' late, and so he finally said 'good-bye' and started for home. Of course, he thought that was the last he would ever see of his friend, but when he got almost to the town limits he happened to look back and there was that rattlesnake following him along through the dust, just like a dog. That sure reached Doc's heart. He got right out his buggy, picked up the snake and took him home, and on account of the Scotch markings on his back named him Mc- Gregor. "It was a rather fortunate thing that Doc's wife and children were up in the mountains you know how fussy some women are about snakes. The Chinaman, though, who was taking care of the house, rather liked reptiles and sich, and got him an eight-foot section of three-inch pipe for him to sleep in, only it was about two foot short at one end." A look of suspicion that had been growing on one of Uncle Noah's listeners, a tenderfoot from New York, intensified. "Pardon me, Uncle," he interrupted firmly, "do I understand you to say that this snake was ten foot long? I have al- ways understood " "So have I, my friend," replied the old man YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 47 frankly. "As man to man, it's a mighty excep- tional rattler that's over seven feet long. It must have been the result of kindness that influenced even his growth. I tell you that snake appre- ciated all that Doc done for him, too, and tried his best to pay it back. The first week he cleaned out every mouse there was in the house; the sec- ond he learned to retrieve collar buttons from under the bureau ; and by the third well, if you didn't know em so well you'd hardly believe it he started slipping out on the desert and killing cottontails and bringing them back for Doc to eat." "You don't mean to say " interrupted the Tenderfoot again in some irritation. "Of course not," replied the old man sooth- ingly, "the Doc didn't eat them. They might have had pizen in them that the snake dropped accidental like, so he gave them all away to his friends" "Oh!" said the Tenderfoot. "But it was in September," went on Uncle Noah blandly, "that the snake taught Doc what gratitude really was. It was the night the folks came in on the Prescott stage. In the excitement of getting them all home again the Doc plumb forgot about the snake. He didn't think a thing about it until he woke up in the middle of the night and wondered what would happen if one 48 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST of the kids would get up for a drink and find the snake taking a swim in the bath tub. McGregor -sure loved to do that. "Just as he was thinking about it, he heard a yell and then a most terrible crash upstairs, right over his head. It made his heart almost stop beating. Up he ran in those pink pajamas he used to wear and a-carrying an old army sword that hung over his bed. But he didn't need it. By the time he got to the top of the stairs the racket stopped, and there was the most awful moaning you ever heered a comin' from a corner in the front room near the winder. There was a kind of a buzzing sound, too, that didn't listen a bit good. Well, he lit a match and what do you suppose he seed?" We shook our unanimous heads. "There was a burglar, lying flat on the floor, and on his manly bosom was about five feet of coiled rattlesnake, with McGregor's head weav- ing back and forth about six inches from the feller's nose! The rest of McGregor the tail end was a-hanging out the winder " "To tie a Carnegie medal on?" asked the Ten- derfoot in mild sarcasm. "Oh, no," replied Dad simply, "nothing like that. He was rattling for the sheriff!" YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 49 THE LADY AND THE LARIAT Pepita's mother was Margarita Lenora Felicia Manuela Lucia Portales y La Reux, which was a good deal of a name to wear in a twelve-by- sixteen adobe, even though said adobe be kalso- mined a shrimp pink on the inside and be flanked by a porte cochere of cottonwood boughs. The La Reux descended from Pepita's paternal grandfather, Francois Victoire La Reux, a gal- lant, red-trousered zouave who drifted from Al- geria to Mexico in Maximilian's time, and who tarried long enough to become an ancestor. Pepita's father, son of the dashing Francois, was a degenerate, with a handsome face and promiscuous habits. Much to his wife's relief, he drank himself to death the third year of their marriage. As for Pepita herself Pepita's eyes were as black as sloes; Pepita's cheek was as smooth and soft as a violet's petal; Pepita's lips were like unto pomegranate blossoms Pepita's heart? That is more difficult to describe. There were those who lived in Pepita's princi- pality, which extended from the Upper Verde to Gila Bend, who had been known to say that Pepita's heart was entirely an imaginary quan- 50 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST tity a cipher, indeed surrounded only by a vacuum. The authors of these heresies, however, were, for the most part, mothers of other Pepitaa Doroteas and Raquels and, of course, under the circumstances, were only exercising their in- alienable maternal rights. Certainly, no such lese-majesty had ever passed the lips of either Jim Sibley, who ran sheep on the Mogollons, or Lem Dressier of the Gridiron ranch. Sibley was an old admirer, who had formed Pepita's acquaintance at the Otero baile some time in the dim antiquity of the previous year, and had remained constant through twelve long sheep-blatted months. It had been but thirty days since Dressier had first visited the La Reux jacal. He had stopped to inquire concerning a missing two-year-old, and had been smitten into dumb worship at the sight of the Senora La Reux's bewilderingly charming seventeen-year-old. The age, you see, is given baldly; seventeen, and still unmarried. But in Spanish Arizona, even that extreme age is better, with wit and aplomb, than the usual budding debutanteism of fourteen without Pepita's charm. It must not be inferred from their prominent mention that Sibley and Dressier were the only members of Pepita's corps of admirers. On the YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 51 contrary, the society of perpetual admiration of Pepita numbered including honorary and dis- honorary members almost every gentleman of prominence in the valley. Indeed, the young lady was a sort of Burke's Peerage. A name inscribed on Pepita's calling- list established beyond cavil one's social position. Sibley's special bid for distinction was the fact that he was Pepita's only sample of predatory wealth, his tainted money being represented by a sixth interest in a band of three thousand sheep. On the other hand, Dressler's being a cowboy, entitled him to a social position that a sheepman could never hope to attain; but, like many an- other proud member of an exclusive aristocracy, financially, he was a rope of sand, wasting his patrimony and procrastinating his matrimony at the palace crap-game with monthly regularity. A second advantage that accrued to Sibley's credit was propinquity. Following his usual cus- tom, with the coming of cool weather he had driven his sheep down from the Mogollons to browse on the winter's growth along the river, almost in Pepita's back yard. For Dressier, it was all of forty miles, as his sorrel cow-horse traveled, from the Gridiron chuck-wagon to the hacienda La Reux. 62 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST II. This explains why on Sunday morning, as early as breakfast-time, the sheepman was indus- triously taking advantage of the sunshine to make his hay. Outstretched on the clean-swept ground he lay, his face in the shade of the cot- tonwood porte cochere and his one hundred and ninety pounds of flabby muscle in the sun, mak- ing love to his lady after the manner of his kind. "I don't know what I'm going to do if that girl down in Tucson don't quit pestering me with her letters," he began modestly. "Now, what do you suppose all these girls see in a man like me, Pepita.?" "I dunno. Why don' you marry that Tucson girl, Meester Sibley?" It is impossible to indicate the delicate ennui and the lack of interest the girl managed to in- clude in her question. "Because I'm going to marry you." "Ees it possible? Many other men say like that, too?" "Then why don't you marry them?" This was rare repartee for Sibley. "Maybe I will," said the girl ; "but only one of them. That ees a plenty. And he mus' have lots of money." "What's the matter with me having lots of money, Pepita? You say the word, and you'll YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 53 have more silk dresses than you can stick in a trunk." Before she could answer, there was borne upon their ears a strident tenor, accompanied by the steady jog of a cow-pony: I thought one winter, just for fun After cow-punching all was done Pd rest my bronc' and rest my gun And hunt me up a girl. I'd take her in to all the shows; I'd corral her everything that goes; I'd cut out all the other "That mus* be Meester Dressier," said Pepita softly. "You know Meester Dressier? He's very old friend of mine. He's a very fine caballero." Sibley bristled like a fat house-dog when the keen call of a hill-wolf smites his ear; which was right and proper, he being a sheep man and Dressler's line being cows. The horseman's smile, however, included them all, even the portly Senora La Reux, who was spatting tortillas by the bake-oven in the back yard. "Como esta V. Senora? Howdy, Jim? Here again or yet? Gee, Peetie, it seems good to see you. Honest, it's been so long I was afraid I wouldn't know the place." Pepita flashed him a fascinating smile. "Yes," she assented, "it hass been the mos' lonesomles* week off my life except" and now the sheep- man got the glance "when Meester Seebley 54 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST would come to drive the lonesomeles' away." "You bet! That's my long suit," asserted the sheepman defiantly. He wasn't to be bluffed out by a new pair of chaparejos and a red silk hand- kerchief, not while he weighed one hundred and ninety pounds, and still had his sixth interest in the sheep. "Wass that a new song you were singing?" be- gan Pepita. "Bah! That's Lon Woody's old song," put in the sheepman. "I heard that song years ago." "You blat just like your muttons, don't you, Jim?" returned Lem genially. "Now, you sing us a nice song. Peetie, bring the young man a guitar." "You mussin' begin so much quarrelsomeness," began Pepita softly, her nostrils quivering pleas- urably at the belligerent attitude of her admirers. "We will smoke a pipe of peace yes?" Mysteri- ously she produced the "makings" and deftly rolled a cigarette. "The firs' ees for Meester Dressier, because he came las'; the nex' ees for Meester Sibley ; the las' ees for me. Now, Meester Dressier can give me a light." She stood so close to the cowboy that her hair touched his cheek, and as she tilted her face to raise her cigarette to his, her eyelids drooped a little, and the look she gave him from beneath the long black lashes meant anything you choose. YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 55 It was playing with fire, with the big sheep- man at her back, but it was a game Pepita had played before, and she evidently liked it. Her cigarette at last was lighted, and she turned to Sibley, who was also standing. "Oh, so big a man! Why don* you sit down and res' yourself? So strong a man!" She put her slim fingers around his big biceps and pressed them softly. "See, Meester Dressier, ees he not so big a man? Now, we mus' sit down, and I will tell you all about the circus. It comes to Phoenix in three weeks. A very good circus. I see the pictures." "Sure! I saw them, too," said the cowboy promptly; "at Granite Reef, on my way down. We'll see it together, Peetie. I was just going to break the news to you." "Twenty minutes late," interrupted the sheep- man gruffly. "She's going with me." "How about that, little girl?" asked Dressier. Pepita looked doubtful. There was no question but what the good-looking cowboy cut much the more dashing figure, still, wool was going up. "I theenk it would be very nice to go with both of you." "No family circle for me," said Dressier de- cidedly. "Let's leave the children at home, Peetie, and have a good time." "Mighty big talk for a mighty little man," put in the sheep-herder belligerently. "And, while 56 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST I'm talking about it, I'm growing particular about the landscape around here. That red rag of yours spoils it for me. If you get a little gayer I'll ask you to take it home. You're not very popular around here, anyway." III. The cowboy turned his back on his antagonist. "Peetie," he said to the girl, "you see how it is. The atmosphere is getting kind of crowded. Don't seem to be room for us all. You heard the fat boy's little bluff. I think I'll call him. It's up to you to tell us what we've got. "If you want to execute matrimony with a band of sheep, that's your business, and lets me out ; but if you should happen to prefer cows, it'd please me most to death. The boss says my cow- punching's going to be worth sixty a month after this. Next spring he's going to plant me on an alfalfa patch. There'll be a house and money- enough for frijoles and circuses, too. How about it?" "Don't forget what I told you, Pepita," warned the big sheep-herder earnestly. "There'll be four thousand more lamb>s in the spring." Pepita looked disturbed. She had evidently been enjoying matters very well as they stood. Still, she was seventeen. "It ees so hard to Imow." "I think we could talk it over better," said YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 57 Sibley truculently, "if there weren't so many around. You crook your finger and I'll take the little man down and throw him in the river. Then there wouldn't be so many left to choose from." Dressier whirled upon his rival like a cat. "I'll fight you with fists, rifles or six-shooters, you big four-flusher/' "Oh, mus' you fight?" asked the girl, with de- mure lips and dancing eyes. "An* you will fight, too, I suppose, Meester Sibley? You are so beeg and strong." She gave him the full battery of her trouble-making eyes. "It's up to you, Peetie. What do you say?" de- manded the cowboy. "I'll be good to you, little girl, if you give me the chance." "Oh, I like you both too much," said Pepita. "Only you mus' not fight." "Peetie," said Dressier bluntly, "I am begin- ning to believe that you would as soon see us scrap as not." "No, no, no!" lied the girl. "But you are so quarrelsomeness; like two men down in Chihua- hua who lofe a girl. They fight on horseback. They ride fast at each other. The guns ga 'Bang! Bang!' like that. Mos' excitement." She drooped her lashes, and looked demurely at the floor. "But it wass very wicked to make fight like that." "I'll play you seven-up for it," suggested Sib- 58 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST ley. "Got the cards right here in my pocket/' Dressier looked at the sheepman in amaze- ment. "What a ladylike arrangement," he drawled. "What do you say to that, Pepita?" "Ver* well," agreed the girl reluctantly. "If you theenk it would be wrong to fight, maybe that would be a good way." "And you will marry the one who wins?" "Si. Will you play, Meester Dressier?" "I'll tell you what I will do. Seven-up is a little too much like sheep-herding for me. I'll cut for the lady, Jim. Ace is high. Ace of hearts, top of the pile. Is it a go ?" Sibley swallowed hard, nodded, and threw the pack of cards on the table. "Shuffle them, Peetie," said Dressier. The girl did so. "Who cuts first?" asked the sheepherder. Pepita looked at Dressier and smiled. The cowboy turned over the top card. It was the ace of diamonds. Sibley went white, and with the returning wave of color shook his fist in his rival's face. "I be- lieve you knew just what that card was, you mis- erable shrimp." "Play the game," said Dressier sternly, "or get out. You forget that Pepita shuffled the cards." "I don't forget that you watched her," re- torted Sibley, "but I'll show you a trick worth YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 59 two of yours. Ace of hearts is high, is it? Well, you watch me cut it." He drew from his belt a six-inch sheath-knife and with the full force of his arm drove the blade down through the pack of cards until the point reached the table. "I guess that cuts the ace, doesn't it? When I want a thing, I usually get it, and if you want any- thing more, Mr. Cowboy, I'll give it to you right now." He looked as big as a grizzly bear as he leaned, roaring, across the table. The strife in the air was as wine to Pepita, and she smiled frank encouragement at the big combatant. At the glance, the sheepman swelled with the spirit of battle. Dressier caught the full significance of the look and its effect. Indolently he stepped toward the table, then, with incredible swiftness slapped Sibley first with his right palm and then with his left across the face. "Ah, you will fight for me!" whispered Pepita softly to the cowboy. While she was still speaking the sheepherder stripped the cards from his knifeblade, and slashed frantically across the table. Dressier jumped lightly aside, and laughed scornfully. Instinctively he felt for his revolver, but, alas! that familiar weapon lay carefully rolled in his bedding in the Gridiron bunk-house. 60 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST IV. Sibley, too crazy with rage to go round the table, crashed it down like an angry bull. Dress- ier whirled in his tracks, ran diagonally through the court shaded by the cottonwood boughs, and almost fell over the Senora La Reux as she steamed around the corner of the house. By the time the cowboy had regained his bal- ance Sibley was on him. Again the knife swooped through the air, and Dressier felt its sharp sting as its point pricked his skin. Swiftly he ran across the clearing to his horse, and placing his hand on the saddle-horn, vaulted clear over the animal. The second thus gained, he used to untie his lariat, and was clear of the horse again before Sibley could reach him. Now he ran back to the cleared level space in front of the house. The sheepherder came rush- ing toward him like a whirlwind. Coolly the cowboy swung the coiled rope around his head, and then launched the noose. The rope whistled through the air like a rifle bullet, and the loop, four feet across, dropped over Sibley's shoulders. Quick as a flash of light, Lem Dressier pulled the rope taut and gave it a cowboy's jerk. The sheep-herder fell to the ground like a roped steer. A moment later, however, he was on his feet again, but quick as he was, he could not free his arms from the noose or reach it with his knife, YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 61 though his forearm tugged against the rope until the skin turned purple. In the center of the clearing stood a snubbing- post, about five feet high, used in the subduing of unruly horses. With the dexterity of a prestidigitator the boy ran to it, still keeping tight the rope, and cast a half -hitch over its top. The sheep-herder, seeing that his only chance of escape lay in speed, ran to the post to throw over the rope, but the boy was too quick for him. With a rapidity that made the wood smoke, the rope whined over its smooth surface and Sibley was jerked up against the cotton wood stake with a jolt that made him grunt like a pig. Then round and round ran the cowboy, the rope in his hand ever as taut as a fiddle-string, until, from neck to ankles, the sheepherder was wrapped as helpless, in the uncompromising sunlight, as a calf waiting the branding-iron. Dressier stopped and smiled a cheerful, im- personal smile at the world in general. Then he walked up to the frightened sheepman and, as a watchful parent might remove a dangerous plaything from a baby, loosened Sibley's fin- gers from the knife-blade. Next, he addressed him in a few virile, pic- turesque sentences. He expatiated on the vari- ous merits of the sheep and cattle business, dis- cussing Sibley's probable ancestry, made a few 62 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST remarks on the ethics of card-playing, the cour- tesy due to women, and a few more on errors in judgment in the selection of weapons. Tiring of this, he sat down in front of the big man and regarded him curiously. Suddenly a shadow fell upon him from be- hind, and an instant later a soft cheek pressed against his own. It belonged to the fair and guileless Pepita. "Bneno! Bueno! hombre. Muy bonito! Oh, so quick you are! So quick! like the gato jumps. I have so very much proud that I am to be your querida, your what you say your goodheart. Now, what you do with the beeg man, you smart boy?" "Eh?" said Dressier. "Oh, yes; we were cutting cards to see which of us was going to marry you. Gee; I'd almost forgotten about that. Was just having a little pipe-dream. Never wake a man up until it's morning, Peetie ; it's bad luck." "What are you going to do with heem?" "Him?" grinned the boy. "Oh, I'll fix him." Slowly he walked around his victim, unwind- ing the rope, and finally threw off the ropes. The sheep-herder stood free. Painfully, one by one, Sibley spread apart his stiffened fingers, and slowly and awkward- ly raised a hand to his face to wipe away the YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 63 sweat that stood in great beads upon his fore- head. "I was just joking with you; you know that, Lem," ventured the herder. It was the first words he had spoken. Every particle of fight was out of the big man. He was as mild as a Sonora dove. The boy laughed in pure joy. "Sure," he said, "I knew it. I knew you were joking. Anybody could see that." "You don't hold it up against me, do you, Lem? You won't try to get even?" There were actually tears in the man's eyes. Dressier rubbed the soft adolescent bristles on his chin thoughtfully. "Yes," he said, "I reckon I'll have to get even with you. You were pretty pizen, you know. I almost hate to treat even a sheepman so, but I guess you'll have to take your medicine." "For Heaven's sake, Lem," mumbled Sibley, "what you going to do to me?" "The worst ever, Jim. Give you Peetie, here. Guess that'll hold you for a while. Here's your toad-sticker for a wedding present. My, but you'll make a peachy couple." He dropped the weapon at Sibley's feet, grin- ned expansively at Pepita, sauntered over to his horse, and jumped lightly to the saddle. A mo- ment later he was jogging along the sage-brush 64 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST trail, his song filling the peaceful morning air with buoyant lightheartedness : Says the boss to the cowboy: "You never can tell; Sometimes they are angels, Sometimes they raise " The rest was lost in the clatter of the horse's hoofs. THE LADY AND THE LARIAT Originally appeared in "The Cavalier," under the title, "Dressier Gets Even." Republished by permission. YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 65 LITTLE BILL'S BANDIT This story, which is of Arizona's yesterday, properly begins with the shipping tag that was sewed to Little Bill's coat. "Bill Nolan. Going to his mother, Nell Nolan, Maricopa and Phoe- nix Railroad Grading Camp, via Old Maricopa Wells and Phoenix," which directions had been sufficient to bring the big-eyed, small boy of five years or so all the way from Los Angeles to Phoenix without mishap. There I had met him at the stage office where the commissary wagon was waiting to take us out to camp. The vehicle thus designated was a three- seated affair with the two rear seats facing each other and, as we started out little Bill and myself, who occupied the middle seat, had per- sonages of no less distinction facing us than the governor of the Territory and the sheriff of the county. The conversation of these gentlemen was of enthralling interest to little Bill, concerning it- self as it did with two hold-ups that had taken place in our section within the space of ten days. The first robbery was that of the Wick- enburg-Phoenix stage, which had been com- 66 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST mi tied by a solitary masked man just north of the Agua Fria; in the second it was the stage from Maricopa that had been held up also by an unaccompanied man wearing a mask. This gentleman of the road, just after sunset only two nights before, had stepped out from behind a bunch of arrowweed as the stage was cross- ing the Gila bottom, and, after he had stopped the horses, had lined up the passengers at the point of his gun. There were two things that added interest to this second crime, one being that the gover- nor himself was one of the victims, the other, that after filling his hat with valuables be- longing to the various people, the bandit had counted out four twenty dollar gold pieces and two ten dollar bills which he thrust into his pocket, and then had tossed the rest of the col- lection and there was quite a lot of it into the open door of the stage, remarking airily that what he had taken would do him over Christmas and that the passengers could keep the change. As soon as the news of this second affair reached Phoenix the sheriff had immediately sent out a couple of deputies to the scene of the crime, but as they had been unable to find either trail or substantial clue, the chief was now on his way to the grading camp, which was only a few miles from the scene of the rob- bery, to do some personal investigating. YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 67 So far, the only evidence that might later re- veal the robber's identity had been given by the governor, who said that the bandit had a scar, that looked like a pencil mark, across the right wrist. Now the governor was traveling to Maricopa Junction to catch a train for Tucson, where hp was to be toastmaster at a Christmas banquet the following night and, as we journeyed, en- livened the tedium of our trip by telling with quiet humor how the bandit had first taken a hundred and eighty dollars from him, and then when he had returned all but twenty, a peroxided lady in apricot pink had insisted that the hundred and sixty was hers. Pertinent, one might almost say, impertinent remarks made by the sheriff concerning a hypothetical conversation between the gover- nor and the peroxided lady were interruted by the small boy asking what a scar was. The governor, only too glad to thus stop the sheriff's jibes, explained at length. Little Bill then said that if the bandit held up their wagon he hoped he wouldn't take his heart, and the sheriff replied that it was only ladies in apricot pink who took liberties with such in* timate belongings. This naturally, was quit** beyond little Bill who now confidentially showed the governor the object he had in mind,. 68 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST a wonderful work of art made of candy and wrapped in the corner of a newspaper, which he had been carrying in his small, moist palm. When I was a boy there used to be many such hearts as Bill revealed to the governor that afternoon, but some way hearts nowadays seem to be less magnificent, and in candy, es- pecially, much more commonplace. This one was pink, all of three inches in length, with rococo embossing in white, and in a little place in the center, surrounded by forget-me-nots, a motto shone on silver paper "Love the Giver." The governor said that even a lady in apricot pink would not hurt a heart like that, and the little boy was reassured. However, our journey was not interfered with by covetous or predatory members of either sex, and as we pulled through the Gila River bottom a bright star broke through the clouds that had hung heavy in the sky all day. "The Star in the East!" said the governor sententiously. Little Bill understood the allu- sion. They both lived in that land of sentiment and imagination where poets, politicians and real estate agents are all influential citizens. "Sure it is," said Little Bill, "and you and him," indicating the sheriff, "are Wise Men." He eyed me doubtfully. "You might do, too, if you weren't so young." Then with confi- YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 69 dence: "Mother's the Virgin Mary, of course, and I'm the Christmas baby, because its's my birthday." The governor looked at the sheriff signifi- cantly. "The Wise Men brought frankincense and myrrh." "Good Lord," returned that official, "and all I have is a plug of Climax, a warrant for a stage robber and a pair of handcuffs." "Peace on earth!" supplemented the gover- nor grimly. "My pockets contain a stylo- graphic pen and a six-page speech. Bill, it is with humiliation I confess it, we have neither wisdom nor its accessories." Bill looked at me for a translation, and I was glad to explain that what the governor meant was that there was a box under the seat which the three of us were going to give him for his Christmas, and it was full of candy, nuts and oranges. In that moment I had made three people my friends for life. "You are a Wise Man," after all," said little Bill with conviction. "Mother'll be awful glad to see us." Then as an afterthought: "I hope it's peppermint." I told him it was peppermint, chocolate and "assorted." The sheriff had only one bad habit an in- corrigible itch for "prying." "It's too bad your 70 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST father couldn't have come, too," he said sug- gestively. "Oh, I never had a daddy," replied Bill with a blithe chirrup. "Mother's so smart she said we never really needed one." A vision of the deep-lined face and tired eyes of Mrs. or Miss Nolan she answered to either prefix came before me. "Have you and your mother lived much together?" I asked, and then blushed to realize that I was as prying as the sheriff. "Oh, I live with Aunt Josy," said little Bill, "only she ain't any real relation." He sighed. "She says I eat a nawf ul lot for what she gets out of it." "Bill, your mother will give you two kinds of pie for Christmas," I said with rash conviction, "apple and mince and that's tomorrow big pieces, too." I was a false prophet. When we reached camp, Morton, the foreman, met us with the in- formation that Sorrel Nell, as the boys called her, was dead dead and buried. We stood there looking at the man, stunned and appalled. "Yep," he went on with the cheerful importance that sometimes attaches it- self to the bearer of ill tidings "appendiceetis ! Died as soon as the doc clapped his eyes on her. He'd come out to see the feller that drop- YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 71 ped off the bridge Sunday. Killed two birds with one stone, so to speak." It was the shock, more than the conscious- ness of loss that made little Bill cry ; but it was neither I nor the governor nor the sheriff, but the new cook who took him out of his grief. The new cook was quite a wonderful person. The men had dubbed him "Frenchy" at once, from his waxed mustache. They were pro]?- ably right about it at that. Certainly his effer- vescent bouyancy, amazing vitality and good spirits suggested gallic antecedents, and with it he had a sympathy and kindliness like a woman's. As soon as he learned who little Bill was, he took him under his wing with the same awk- ward tenderness displayed by an old turkey gobbler I once owned in adopting a brood of motherless chicks. He showed Bill his watch and the tattoing on his arm a wonderful fish on a hook from which a line ran down and tied to his little fin- ger, and sang him a song about a fox that loved a chicken. So it was that little Bill ate his supper from Frenchy's lap and a good supper, too said his prayers at Frenchy's knee, gave him the precious candy heart, and was carried in the cook's arms to his cot in my quar- ters, where he was to sleep. Afterwards 72 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST Frenchy hung about for a half hour pretending to look over the kitchen supplies I had brought out, but really watching little Bill lying there with cheek on palm with greedy eyes. The governor retired with the expectation of leaving by daylight; the sheriff, too, had ar- ranged for an early departure, but the gods of storm had decreed otherwise. Shortly before midnight it began to rain, and from then until morning there was an unremitting downpour such as is seldom seen in the Southwest. It came in great masses of water, blowing against the sides of the tent until it seemed as though the canvas would give way. As soon as it was light enough to see, I got up and stuck my head out of the door. The desert was a sea of water as far as the eye could carry, with creosote bushes, if the meta- phor is permissible, standing knee-deep in the wet, and shivering with cold. "Beautiful day for trailing criminals, Jim!" I heard the governor call to the sheriff. "Why don't you worry about your own trou- bles?" came the rumbling response. "Bet you fifty to one that the S. P. is washed out half the way to Tucson." The pessimistic surmise was but little exag- gerated. After breakfast a horseman, envel- oped in a slicker, came floundering in with the YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 73 word from the junction that all trains would be tied up for at least two days. "We might make the leetle keed a Christmas tree," said Frenchy. "The wagon, she no can get back to Phoenix today." The suggestion was accepted with enthusi- asm. We left little Bill at the cook-tent, with the dishwasher, while the governor, the sheriff, Frenchy and myself repaired to the commissary, which was my headquarters. Protected by hip boots, Morton had already waded out and cut down a small palo verde. Now we made a pedestal for it out of a soap box, after which the governor and I strung chilis for garlands, the sheriff fastened candles to the branches and Frenchy cut grinning faces in the oranges and made grotesque little ani- mals out of potatoes with sticks for legs. "But we've got to give the boy a real pres- ent," said the governor looking speculatively, if a bit foolishly, at his hundred dollar gold watch. "I know jus' the thing for that leetle Beel," gaid Frenchy. "I fix heem the locomotive." And he did. A baking powder can made the boiler, a chocolate can the cab, while some of Sorrel Kate's spools were converted into wheels and what I took for a faucet did very well for a smoke stack. 74 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST "Does it occur to you, your excellency," ob- served the sheriff, who was thoughtfully look- ing at his thumb which he had accidentally whittled instead of the candle, "that our small boy has no place to go no folks, and it is up to us to provide for him?" Frenchy waved his hands in vigorous protest. "No saire, you gentlemens don' need to worry about that. I take Sorrel Kate's place in the cook tent, so I also take her place with the small boy." "But a railroad camp is no place for a five- year old child," frowned the governor. "Surely, no ;" agreed Frenchy. "I send heem to Sister's school in Tucson. I like that leetle Beel." The governor gave the cook an approving look. "By George, Frenchy, you're a real man/' A smile on his mobile face included the rest of us. "The Three Wise Men will have to take the matter under advisement." It was at the Christmas dinner that noon that our short hour of comedy again took on the grim aspect of tragedy. In honor of the occa- sion the cook had rolled down his sleeves and wore a coat. He was helping little Bill to his two kinds of pie when the boy suddenly cried out : "Oh, Mr. Frenchy, you got a scar on your wrist, too; just like that hold-up man!" YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 75 We all looked, and there, just below the cook's cuff, like a penciled line, ran the cord from the wonderful fish down across the wrist to the little finger, answering only too perfect- ly the governor's description. Frenchy's face went pasty white and he al- most dropped the plate he was holding. It was a ghastly meal after that, all of us trying, for the sake of the boy, to act as though nothing; had happened. When the dinner was over and the men we^re gone, the governor and the sheriff, Morton and myself again took seats at the end of the table where we could thresh the matter out and still keep our eyes on the cook, who was working about the range. In response to the sheriff's question as to what he knew about Frenchy, Morton said the man had wandered into camp the day I had gone to Phoenix to meet Bill, and had asked for work. He said he had been a cook on a sailing vessel but could do most anything. As Sorrel Nell was more than half sick, Morton had put the man at work helping her. That afternoon, when chancing in the kitchen, the foreman saw the woman sitting on a bench crying, with Frenchy beside her, patting her shoulder in a caressing way, evidently try- ing to console her about something. After- 76 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST wards, he told Morton that he used to know her in San Francisco, and she was crying because she was sick and miserable. From then on he had done most of the cooking himself. "Hum," said the sheriff. "Did he get supper on the night of the twenty-second?" That, of course, might easily be the crux of the matter. It was the night of the twenty-second that the stage was robbed. "Why, no;" said Morton. "The saddle horse that belongs to Bob," (that was I) "here, had broken away that morning with saddle and bridle, and Frenchy went off about the middle of the afternoon to see if he could find him. He came back with him about ten o'clock that night. Said he had run across him in a mes- quite thicket off east of here." "Oh, he did, did he?" commented the sheriff grimly. "He didn't say anything about riding him to the Maricopa crossing on the Gila, did he? And did you see him do anything suspi- cious after he came back?" Morton hesitated. "Nothing, I guess, till after the woman was dead. She died the next morning, and we buried her that afternoon. An hour afterwards I went into the tent where she used to sleep and saw him going through her valise. I asked him what he was doing. First he said, 'Nothing/ then he said she had asked YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 17 him to attend to some business for her and he was looking for a paper. He had an envelope in his hand, and after hesitating a bit more, gave it to me saying coolly that he had just come across it. The outside of the envelope had written across it, 'To pay for operation.' On the inside there was one hundred and twenty-three dollars and a few odd cents." So far the governor had remained a silent auditor. Now he said thoughtfully: "I sup- pose you took charge of the money. If you don't mind, I'd like to see it." Morton went out and upon returning handed the governor a soiled envelope inscribed as he had said. As the executive poured out the money I saw Frenchy, still at the range, start involuntarily, then appear very busy about his cooking. From the gold, silver and greenbacks before him the governor picked out four yellow double eagles and then two ten dollar bills. He handed one of the latter to the sheriff. "See that drop of red?" he asked, pointing to a small blot. "Blood?" asked the sheriff, aghast. "My God, Governor! You don't think he killed the woman?" The governor smiled. "Only red ink. The bill was mine and was on my desk the day be- fore the robbery occurred and I accidentally 78 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST made that blot upon it. Frenchy wasn't trying" to steal the money from the woman. He gave it to her, and, of course, was the bandit who took it away from me." The sheriff rose and, turning towards the kitchen, called to the cook who was nervously stirring away at a pot. "Frenchy!" The man came to us with twitching lips. "What did you do it for?" demanded the sheriff, sternly. "To make pay for operation," replied Frenchy. "The doctor in Los Angeles tell her maybe the desert be good for her. If that not make her well, then must have operation that cost hundred dollars. She tell me when I first come. I read in newspaper how easy that other feller rob stage, so I try." He looked pleadingly at the governor. "You know I only take what I need for that. I give the other back. I did not rob for myself." "Still you committed robbery," said the sheriff, inflexibly. "Laws are not made for a man to interpret as it may seem to suit his in- dividual case." He drew a legal looking docu- ment from his pocket. "I have a warrant for the arrest of John Doe for holding up a stage. I guess you'll have to be John Doe. And, by the way, I also reckon you'd better give me the gun you did your work with. You might be YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 79 tempted to use it again." Frenchy went back into the kitchen and re- turned with little Bill's locomotive in his hands. From it he extracted what I had taken to be the broken faucet, which now proved to be an antiquated pistol minus both hammer and trig- ger, and with a barrel diametered like a shot- gun. He handed it to the sheriff. "I got heem from old peddler man in Hong Kong for souve- nir. It not ver' good but the pepples on the stage they don' miss the difference." The governor, taking the ancient relic from the sheriff's hand, refused to be discounten- anced by the others broad grins. "I thought," said his excellency, slowly, "that the barrel was the largest I had ever seen. I am glad to know that even the excitement of the moment did not incite me to exaggeration." As the sheriff turned back to Frenchy, his severity returned. "Nevertheless it was a hold- up. I suppose you are prepared to take the consequences?" The cook sank back to the bench as though he had suddenly lost his strength. "Yes," he said, "I take those consequences, honly it be too bad for that Leetle Beel. You know I was goin' to take care of heem." The governor rubbed his chin awkwardly. "I I will see that someone looks after him." 80 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST "No one can do heem so well as me," insisted the cook. "Why?" Frenchy gulped hard. Because, monsieurs because I I'm hees pa!" We all stared blankly at Frenchy for a full minute. "You mean that you were Nell Nolan's husband?" demanded the governor, sternly. "Don' you theenk bad to that girl," said the cook, unsteadily. "That girl and me, I guess we belong to different kind of worlds from you, honly we not all the bad. We were going to get married; I swear it on the Book!" "Then why didn't you?" asked the governor, dryly. "And why didn't you take care of her afterwards? How long has it been since the last time you saw her?" Frenchy seemed greatly agitated. "I tell the truth," he said, with a voice choking with emotion. "I did not see her since my boy was born. We go to picnic; I get a little drunk; nex' day at sailor boarding house I drink some more. Some Portugee man give me some sweet, red wine, and by V by, I wake up on ship go to China. It be one whole year before I can get home, and nobody can tell me where Nelly Nolan, she have gone. Somebody theenk she go to Oregon. I go, but do not find her. I go to Sacramento, to Stockton, back to San Fran- YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 81 cisco, but nevaire find her. Then I mus' stop and earn money. After that? Gentlemens, 1 tell the truth, I get some forgetfuls. I theenk maybe she marry some other mans, and so I see some other girls. Honly listen, two weeks ag' I see Mexican woman in Los Angeles who kno .v my girl. By gar, when that Mexican woman tell me where Nelly Nolan she go and where I can find her, hall that old love he come back. They say she is leetle sick. I say, 'Sacre blue, I go see !' I don* know, though, that I have boy till Nelly tell me, and I nevaire see heem till las' night. You wonder I get the excitement? I nevaire have no other boy!" "Aren't you taking a good deal for granted?" asked the governor, who evidently did not pur- pose to be stampeded. "I don't want to cast a stone at Sorrel Nell, but mightn't little Bill be anybody's child?" Frenchy cast an inquiring glance at the sheriff. "May I go and get that leetle Beel? I no run away." "I'll see to it that you don't," replied the officer grimly. "But don't you make any breaks in your talk before that kid, or I'll wring your neck." It wasn't a minute before Frenchy was back, soberly leading little Bill by the hand. "Take off your left shoe, mon petit" said 32 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST Frenchy to the child. 'Won, the other one. Don' you know your left side, that is like me, close to your heart?" Little BJ11, evidently thinking that Frenchy was planning some new game for him, hurried- ly complied, and then sat expectant, wiggling his pink toes. "See that leetle toe and the nex' one," asked Frenchy, holding up the small foot "like duck what you say with webness." You theenk he gat that because he was born by beeg ocean?" Non. I show you where he get that!" He drew off his own shoe and stocking, and showed his audience how his own little toe was attached to its mate. "Now," said Frenchy, his excitement increasing, "look at my face, look at my skin, look at my hair! Is it not jus* the same as my boy?" Frenchy was right. The texture of his skin, the color of his eyes and hair were perfect counterparts of little Bills*. There was no doubting it. "And you took that money because you thought it would save Nell Nolan's life?" in- sisted the governor. "Are you sure the surgeon told her" Frenchy fumbled in his pocket. "You theenk I tell the lie? I keep that letter." When the governor had finished reading it YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 83 he said to the sheriff: "Jim, you have your political reputation to sustain. The people want law-breakers caught. Yet I think if our friend here should be arrested and convicted, I would pardon him." The sheriff looked at him severely. "You know the law does not permit a man to do crime because he thinks good may come from it." But, although the voice was the inflexible voice of justice, it was evident that he was in heavy mental seas. "I won't dispute you," agreed his excel- lency, "and while Frenchy would be properly behind the bars, where would little Bill be?" The sheriff blew his nose to cover his emo- tion. "Little Bill," he began, and his voice had a queer crack in it, "do you IOVTB Frenchy?" Little Bill nodded his head. "Do you love him more than me or the gover- nor or Bob?" The boy evidently felt that this was a time for absolute honesty rather than for mere politeness. "Yes," he confessed. "Would you like him for a daddy?" The child's eyes glistened. "Could you make him my daddy?" The sheriff, pulling fiercely at his mustache, let his eyes rest a moment on the boy, then he looked at Frenchy, who, with a white face, sat 84 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST very quiet. Finally he smote the table a tre- mendous blow with his brawny fist. "By George, we can and will! What's Christmas for?" A gentle note came into his voice as he turned again to the child a note, to be exact, about as gentle as a fog horn under half steam. "You see, Bill, we are Wise Men." He glared at Morton as though he dared him to deny it, then cleared his throat for a final climaxic ef- fort. "Wise Men, if they aren't too darned foolish, can pull off almost anything at Christ- mas and get away with it, and so and so the governor, Bob and me are personally and offi- ficially going to make Frenchy one hundred per cent your paternal ancestor." He looked at the governor and me solemnly. "Remembering that he held up a stage driver, a state executive, a peroxided lady and five common gents with a Chink's busted pistol, is it agreed?" With equal solemnity, we nodded. Then, very much satisfied with himself, the guardian of the law lit a match, held it under the corner of the warrant, and watched it flare up and burn to innocuous ashes. YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST 85 MY ARIZONA BEDROOM By J. WILLIAM LLOYD O my Arizona bedroom Is beneath the Milky Way, And the moon is in its ceiling, And the stars that tell of day, And the mountains lift the corners And the desert lays the floor Of my Arizona bedroom, Which is large as all outdoor. my Arizona bedroom Is ventilated right, Every wind that's under heaven Comes to me with blithe good-night, Comes to me with touch of blessing And of ozone one drink more, In my Arizona bedroom, Which is large as all outdoor. O my Arizona bedroom Has the lightning on its wall, And the thunders rap the panels And their heavy voices call ; 36 YARNS OF THE SOUTHWEST And the night birds wing above me And the owl hoots galore Through my Arizona bedroom Which is large as all outdoor. O my Arizona bedstead, It sometimes seems to me, Is afloat in middle heaven With each star an argosy : And the tide that turns at midnight Drifts us down to morning's shore Floats us, stars and bed and bedstead, On the ocean of outdoor. O my Arizona bedroom Is beneath the splendid stars, And the clouds roll up the curtains And the windows have no bars, And I see my God in heaven As the ancients did of yore, In my Arizona bedroom Which is large as all outdoor. MY ARIZONA BEDROOM Originally appeared in "The New York Son." Reprinted from "Songs of the Southwest," by courtesy of the author.