Part 1

A BULL MOVEMENT IN YELLOW HORSE

By W. C. Tuttle

Author of “Magpie’s Nightbear,” “Psychology and Copper,” etc.

“Cobalt” Williams and “Slim” Hawkins crawled around on their hands and knees in the road and gazed frowningly at the dust.

“What is she, Slim?” asked Cobalt. “’Pears to me that she’s tracks uh some kind.”

“Unha,” agreed Slim, standing up and brushing the dust off his trousers. “She shore is all yuh said, Cobalt, but I never saw anything like ’em. Looks to me like uh stump had crow-hopped down th’ road. Golly, ain’t them some feet?”

“As they say in th’ army, we will now proceed with caution in skirmish formation,” announced Cobalt. “And also keep yore six-gun handy, Slim.”

“Can yuh figger out which way she’s goin’?” asked Slim.

“These marks don’t show no re-markable difference on either end.”

“Jist enough for me,” replied Cobalt. “They’re headin’ fer Yaller Hoss, and bein’ as that is our ultimate destination we’ll jist sorta foller up as it were.”

Cobalt hitched up his belt and started off briskly down the road, but Slim didn’t seem to be in a hurry. He took out his .45 Colt and twirled the cylinder reflectively.

“Say, Cobalt!” he yelled. “Did yuh ever stop to think that mebby th’ critter which made them tracks is so all-fired e-normous that uh six-gun ain’t no adequate life insurance a-tall?”

Cobalt stopped and took a fresh chew.

“Mebby she is and mebby she ain’t, Slim. I knowed uh Polock who had uh number six foot and he used to buy number twelve boots so he could wear all th’ socks he owned to oncet.”

“Huh!” snorted Slim. “Yo’re oratin’ about human bein’s. No Polock ever made them tracks. Them was made by uh regular he-animal, and right here I goes on record as havin’ said that no animile which makes tracks like them can ever be taken to th’ bosom of Slim Hawkins.”

“Aw, come on, Slim, let’s find out what she is anyway. All this time she’s gittin’ further and further away. Mebby she’s uh harmless beast and we can haze her into Yaller Hoss and have some fun. I’d shore like to show that alleged bad man’s town something new. Let’s hit th’ old highwater trail, Slim. She cuts off about two miles, and mebby we can ambush her, eh?”

Slim agreed and they swung off the road and over a higher trail which was only used in early Spring when the waters of Roaring Lion were on a rampage. They plugged along the trail for about an hour and then dropped down to the road again.

“She ain’t come along yet,” announced Cobalt, examining the road. “We’ll lay down here in th’ brush and plug her as she comes out of th’ crossin’.”

They made themselves comfortable behind some down timber and peered up the road. Pretty soon there was a splash on the further side of the ford and they drew their guns.

“Hup!” yelled a voice. “Hup, you doggoned bull!”

“Bull!” exclaimed Slim. “Cobalt, that may be uh bull-- Holy smoke!”

Cobalt jumped to his feet and started to run, but a treacherous vine threw him over a log and Slim sprawled across him. They extricated themselves and sat up. The animal was standing in the middle of the road and the frowsy-looking person on its back was looking them over with astonished eyes. Slim rubbed his eyes and snorted--

“What in ---- is that thing?”

“Gentlemen,” began the frowsy one, “this is Frederick the First. I may state that he was the star performer of Buckley Brothers Gigantic One-Ring Circus. Him and me are the last of the circus-- I’m Buckley.”

“Pleased to meet yuh,” remarked Cobalt. “And jist about what are yuh doin’ here with a elephant?”

“Gentlemen, I am a creature of misfortune. I heard that these mountain towns of the West were starving for a circus, so I routed my aggregation accordingly. The report was erroneous. I finished my tour at Silver Bend. Granite got my lion and trained monkey and Silver Bend took the camel. My clown went to work in the mines at Silver Bend, one of my shell men is in jail at Silver Bend and the other, I have heard, just beat the sheriff to the Canadian border. They gave me and Frederick sixty minutes to get out of Silver Bend and here we are. No money and no friends. Lost all I had, too.”

He wiped away a self-sympathizing tear and patted Frederick on the ear with his iron-pointed club.

“Huh,” grunted Slim. “What do yuh intend to do now?”

“I hope to sell this noble beast for enough to take me home and make a fresh start.”

Cobalt walked around the elephant, keeping a safe distance from its swinging trunk. Frederick was a small elephant, but to Cobalt and Slim it was of massive proportions.

“Sell him, eh?” mused Slim aloud.

“Who in ---- would want to buy uh thing like that?” inquired Cobalt. “Nobody in these parts wants to start uh circus, I reckon. Ain’t he good fer nothin’ but circusin’?”

“Gentlemen,” stated the circus man in his best spieling tones, “this animal is good for a thousand things. He can lift and place timbers it would take a dozen men to move. He can move or shift a loaded wagon that six horses could not start. As a means of conveyance he is supreme. Why, he could carry a ton of ore out of these hills as easily as you could carry a lunch-pail. Slow and sure-footed, gentlemen, and a great pet. Pet? Why, gentlemen, I may well say that he’s affectionate to a startling degree. I hate to sell him, but I need the money.”

Slim sat down on a log and rolled a smoke. He grinned at Cobalt and blew a cloud of smoke towards the elephant.

“How much?” he asked.

“Well, my friends, Frederick the First is valued at five thou----”

“Unha,” interrupted Slim, “I know; but what I asked yuh is how much yuh want fer it?”

“Give it uh name,” agreed Cobalt.

“Make me a price,” replied the wary Buckley. “I can’t give him away, you know.”

Slim sized the animal up with an appraising eye.

“Well, it ’pears to me thisaway. Uh burro is worth about twenty dollars and this brute is about as big as ten burros. Say, two hundred dollars, eh?”

“But this is an elephant!” exclaimed Buckley.

“Don’t blame us,” replied Cobalt. “We never ordered elephants.”

“Two hundred will take me to New York,” mused Buckley. “Well, I’ll let him go for two hundred,” he declared, sliding to the ground.

“How do yuh operate this wrinkled bronk?” asked Slim, after the money had disappeared in Buckley’s pocket.

Buckley explained as well as he could.

Slim grinned and felt of the iron brad in the club.

“As I gets it, this ‘Hup’ means anything from ‘Good mornin’, Freddy,’ to ‘Whoa, yuh Injy-rubber pile driver,’ eh?”

“Just about,” replied Buckley. “Where can I find the nearest railroad station?”

“Well,” replied Cobalt, “yuh take that trail down th’ crick until yuh comes to uh big flat about six miles from here and then turn due east fer uh bout uh mile and you’ll come to uh water-tank. They’ll stop fer uh flag.”

“Say, what did yuh send him ’way off that way fer?” asked Slim, after Buckley had gone. “Yaller Hoss is about six mile closer.”

“Huh!” snorted Cobalt. “Me and you and Freddy are goin’ to Yaller Hoss. Between here and there we can fix up uh story that will make ’em all sit up. Punch that animule over to that pile uh down timber and we’ll ride him double. Doggone, his clothes do need pressin’ plumb bad. Two hundred, Slim! Why, he’s worth that jist to look at. Ain’t nothin’ like him ever been in these hills before, and when we rides him into Buck Masterson’s saloon, won’t there be something doing, Slim? I asks yuh, won’t there?”

“Somethin’ doin’ is right,” agreed Slim. “They’ll shore date time from today. Hup, yuh doggone bull!”

* * * * *

Buck Masterson grinned at the five cards in his hand and shoved in a stack of blues.

Pete Gonyer toyed with his chips and frowned at the jack-pot.

“Yuh out on uh limb again, Buck?” he queried.

“He’ll let yuh know fer about twenty-five dollars, Pete,” laughed Art Miller, who had the next “say” in the pot. “Go on, Pete. Play ’em high and sleep in th’ street.”

Andy Johnson yawned and threw his cards on the table.

“Doggone it, I ain’t held uh hand all day. I’m tired uh poker anyway. Wish something would happen in this man’s town fer uh change.”

His wish was partly gratified, for at that moment the front door flew open and an Indian galloped through the room, with his blanket streaming out behind him like a striped comet, and as he tore through the back door he yelled:

“_Hy-ak! Diaub chahko!_”

Rickey Henderson, the bartender, dropped a glass of spirits and climbed on top of the bar. “What did he say, Buck?” he gasped.

Buck threw back his head and laughed.

“I reckon Texas Charley has been hittin’ th’ lemon extract again. He yelled fer us to run ’cause th’ devil is comin’. Charley’s gittin’ too danged thick with that Chink cook at Dutch Fred’s. Them lemon jags are apt to make an Injun----”

Came a loud crash of splintering boards out in front of the saloon and the false front wabbled dangerously. The doors were built wide enough to drive a team through, but happened to be closed and latched. Suddenly they bent inward as from a great weight and the lock spinned off across the room.

“Hup!” yelled a voice from the outside. “Hup, yuh doggoned bull!”

Masterson tried to slide his chair back to get up, but the rest of the players, frantic to get out of the way of those bulging walls, climbed over the table and fell on Buck in a heap.

“Hup!”

_Splinter! Smash!_ The doors gave way and in surged Frederick the First, with Cobalt and Slim lying flat on his back to keep from being swept off.

“Hey!” yelled Masterson, trying to pull the overturned table on top of himself for protection. “Why don’t somebody shoot it?”

The rest of the crowd seemingly got started at once like a flying wedge of football formation and all hit the back door at the same time. Unluckily for them the door opened inside and no one seemed inclined to back away and give the door a chance.

Frederick leaned against the bar and over it went. Just in time, too, because Rickey Henderson was lying behind it trying to put a couple of cartridges into the muzzle end of a shotgun.

“Help!” yelled Rickey as the avalanche hit him, but subsided after a few weak groans.

Frederick the First hated whisky. He hated men who drank it, and even the scent of alcohol threw him into a panic. A stream of it flowed from under the overturned bar and eddied around his front feet. He swung his trunk over it a few times and trumpeted loud enough to shake the building.

“Whoa, you son-of-a-gun!” yelled Cobalt, as the elephant lurched forward and reached for Masterson’s booted leg. “Look out, Buck!”

Masterson twisted like an eel and slid off down the room and under the antiquated pool table, while Frederick whirled the boot back and forth over his head. Suddenly he let it fly in the direction of the tongue-tied mob at the back door. It glanced off Art Miller’s head and banged against the wall.

“Somebody shoot it,” quavered Masterson from under the table. “Go back, yuh son of uh sea cook, or I’ll shoot!” his voice finished in a shrill crescendo, and he waved a six-shooter over the farther end of the table.

“Bang!” His first shot hit the swinging oil lamp over Slim’s head and deluged him with kerosene. The next one thudded into the armor plating of Frederick’s shoulder. The elephant never flinched, but his little eyes grew redder.

“M-m-m-m-make him behave, Slim,” quavered Cobalt. “He’ll wreck this hull blamed town. Lemme down.”

The elephant moved ponderously down the room and the rough pine flooring snapped and groaned under his tread. He turned to the pool table and swept all the balls into a heap with his trunk.

“Woosh!” he announced, as he gathered one of the balls in the loop of his trunk.

_Bing!_ He threw his trunk forward and drove one of those pool balls through the door over Pete Gonyer’s head, and then reached for another.

“Duck!” yelled Pete, and the whole mob piled up on the floor.

Another and another smashed against the wall until five had been thrown. The elephant paused and shook his head.

“Look out, he’s comin’!” yelled some one, and the bunch scrambled for points of safety.

The elephant ignored the scrambling crowd and backed off a few steps.

“Hrr-r-rump!” he announced, and bowing his neck he started straight for the back door.

Buck Masterson had not builded well. That no cyclones or earthquakes had been anticipated by the builders was attested by the fact that when Frederick the First hit that door he not only took the door but the greater part of the rear of the saloon as well.

“Woosh!” he grunted, and moved forward.

Cobalt and Slim were swept off in the demolition and lit running.

“Where yuh goin’?” panted Cobalt, running and looking back at the elephant trying to get rid of the door-casing.

“Goin’ away while th’ goin’ is good,” replied Slim, ducking around the corner of a corral. “Git behind that shed, Cobalt! Hell’s goin’ to break loose pretty soon. Mama mine, didn’t he make uh mess! Look out, here they come!”

Pete Gonyer and Andy Johnson came galloping around the corner with a gun in each hand.

“Which way did they go?” yelled Pete. “See anything of them, Buck?”

Masterson ran across the street to where the horses were hitched at a rack, and Art Miller was at his heels.

“Come on!” yelled Masterson. “They can’t git far, and doggone ’em, I want to git my rope on that pair. Bust up my house, will they!”

“Look out!” roared Rickey Henderson, weaving across the street and leaving a trail of bad whisky, torn clothes and profanity.

But he yelled too late. Frederick the First was on the job again. Unable to part company with that door-casing he ambled around the corner and came bumping over towards the hitch-rack.

* * * * *

Masterson’s mount, a Roman-nosed roan outlaw, took one look at the elephant, and sun-fished on the space of a saddle blanket. Caught unawares, Masterson described a parabola over Wick Smith’s wire fence and lit sitting down.

Art Miller’s latigo busted and left him on his right ear in the middle of the road. Gonyer’s and Johnson’s horses saw the elephant at the same instant and collided in midair. Pete’s horse turned a somersault, spilling Pete under the board sidewalk. Andy dropped his reins and pulled leather as his buckskin pitched off down the street and around the corner. Rickey Henderson forgot the elephant in the excitement.

“Haw! Haw!” He doubled up with mirth. “Masterson shore went high wide and handsome. Wonder if-- Wow!”

Frederick had sneaked up and playfully tried to wrap his trunk around Rickey’s neck. Rickey dropped his two guns and galloped wildly up the street out of sight.

“We got to catch that danged chunk uh animated rubber,” announced Slim, peeking around the corner. “He’s got that door off his neck now. Come on, Cobalt.”

“Not fer mine,” replied Cobalt with conviction. “Not any a-tall. I hereby renounces all claim to li’l Freddy.”

“Aw, come on, Cobalt. Doggone, there he goes towards th’ post-office! Come on, we got to head him off. We can’t let him assault th’ Gover’ment.”

Frederick was sizing up the little post-office as Slim ranged alongside.

“Hup!” yelled Slim, but Frederick had different views.

Miss Harris, the post-mistress, faded, slim and forty, and much admired by Buck Masterson, opened the door of the post-office and glanced out. It was only a glance and it encountered the waving trunk of Frederick. She yelped once and a second later there was a flash of petticoats out the back door and Miss Harris faded out of the picture.

The front of the office was built with a porch, a post on each corner and one in the middle. To Frederick they were something to play with.

“Look out!” yelled Cobalt.

“Hup!” shouted Slim, and raced away just in time to miss being pinned under the falling timber.

The elephant backed away and looked satisfied.

“If I could only git on his back I could handle him,” wailed Slim. “He’s so danged big he can’t see us on th’ ground.”

“I’ll give yuh uh boost,” volunteered Cobalt.

Slim reached up on the elephant’s back as far as he could. Cobalt took hold of Slim’s left foot and boosted--but not far. Frederick reached around, grabbed Cobalt by the slack of his trousers and threw him twenty feet away and Slim fell flat in the dust.

“Doggone yer hides, I’ll show yuh!” yelled a voice, and Slim looked up into the scratched face of Buck Masterson.

Buck glared at Slim for a moment and then glanced at the post-office.

“My Gawd!” he yelped. “Tore down th’ post-office and--oh, Mis’ Harris! Mis’ Harris!”

He ran over and started to lift up the broken boards. He never noticed that it was only the porch. Slim got up, ignoring Masterson’s wails and hobbled off down the street in the wake of Frederick. Cobalt limpingly brought up the rear.

“Sufferin’ Moses!” groaned Cobalt. “He took up th’ slack uh my pants so danged sudden that he busted my wishbone. Let him go, Slim.”

“We ain’t stoppin’ him none, are we?” replied Slim peevishly. “Go round and head him off, Cobalt.”

“Not me. If I attacks at all it will be from th’ rear. That trunk uh his’n is too previous. Look, Slim, he’s headin’ fer th’ crick. Mebby he acted thataway ’cause he was dry.”

The elephant waded knee-deep in the little creek and began to drink.

“Now’s yer chance to git on his back and control him,” whispered Cobalt.

Slim sneaked along the bank above the elephant and slid on to his back. Frederick never moved.

“Come on, Cobalt, he’s plumb docile now.”

Cobalt sidled up the bank and slid on.

“It’s all over but th’ shoutin’,” gleefully announced Slim.

“By golly, we shore----”

Slim’s words were cut off by a stream of dirty water which hit him full in the mouth with terrific force, and the next instant he and Cobalt were reposing in the creek, while Frederick splashed out the other side and headed for town.

They sat there and pawed the mud out of their faces and looked foolishly at each other. Suddenly they heard the thump of horses’ hoofs and then the voice of Andy Johnson remarked:

“They ain’t here, Pete. They must be back up-town some place. I reckon we’ll find ’em where we find that blasted beast. Better leave th’ bronks here and go on foot, eh?”

“Reckon that’s right, Andy. Them bronks shore don’t kumtuks that animule. By golly, them fellers shore have got uh bunch uh trouble comin’ to them, eh, Andy?”

They dropped their reins and their voices died off in the distance as they hobbled off toward town and Frederick the First.

Slim looked at Cobalt for a minute and then broke into a wide smile.

“Th’ Good Book says that th’ ravens fed Elijah, Cobalt, and I takes it that them hosses are uh heap opportune, eh?”

They crawled out of the creek bed and peered over the bank. There was considerable shouting going on up-town, but their view of the action was obstructed.

Slim walked over and caught both horses.

“Take yore pick, Cobalt,” he announced. “An elephant is uh hy-iu animile; but bein’ brought up with ordinary critters and not bein’ finicky a-tall I nacherally prefers uh common or garden variety of outlaw bronks.”

Cobalt chose the roan, and they swung around and raced off across the sage-covered flat away from Yellow Horse.

Behind them they heard a muffled crash and the faint report of a gun as they raced out of hearing distance.

At midnight they swam their horses across Little Wind river and entered another state. As they halted on the opposite bank to roll a smoke and give the horses a breathing-spell Slim turned in his saddle and gazed back toward Yellow Horse.

“Hoss thieves and outlaws, Cobalt. That’s me and you. Outlawed by uh danged Injy-rubber ox that don’t know Whoa from Hup! But, Cobalt, he was all that he was represented. He shore could move things.”

Cobalt shifted uneasily in his saddle.

“Unha. He shore was, and did, Slim. Also he was affectionate to uh startling degree. I’m goin’ to walk uh ways.”

* * * * *

Slim Hawkins yawned heavily and tried to pull the covers closer around his chin and, after an effort or two, sat up with a look of wonderment on his face. He rubbed a long, freckled hand across his prominent nose and grinned foolishly.

He contemplated the snoring individual at his side for a few seconds and then flipped a small rock in the general direction of the recumbent form.

“Wake up, Cobalt!” he yelled.

Cobalt drew a dusty hand across his mouth and woke up with a sneeze.

“Doggone it, yuh don’t need to paralyze uh feller with uh rock to wake him up,” he protested. “I wasn’t--say, Slim, what th’--huh!”

Slim grinned weakly and made a sweeping gesture with his hand.

“Here we are, Cobalt. Right here in th’ corral with th’ rest of th’ jackasses. Them two mules and me and you jist makes uh quartette. We will now proceed to sing, ‘Lips which touch liquor----’”

“Aw, let me think!” wailed Cobalt.

“Think? Say, if you had any thinks comin’, why didn’t yuh cut some uh them loose last night? Golly, they shore have got some whisky in this man’s town. I never in my whole life--say, we must ’a’ been like uh pair uh timber Willies last night. Ugh! Do yuh remember about bein’ put to bed in this corral, Cobalt?”

Cobalt shook his head wearily and picked absently at the wool on his chaps.

“I’ve heerd tell,” murmured Slim, “that when uh patient gits to th’ point where he picks at th’ covers they goes right out and buys him uh nice li’l shiny, wooden box.”

“Funny, ain’t yuh!” groaned Cobalt. “Mama mine, this is th’ worst room I ever had. My mouth tastes like uh Flathead Injun had jist moved out. I can’t remember nothin’, Slim--that is, I can’t remember nothin’ that happened last night. I know I dreamed about that danged elephant again. That makes three nights hard runnin’ that I’ve chased Li’l Freddy in my sleep, and I don’t reckon it’s lucky to do uh thing like that.”

“I’ll bet she was some dream,” yawned Slim. “That tanglefoot liniment which they sells fer whisky in this man’s town would make uh feller dream of-- Oh, Jerusalem my happy home! Look!”

Cobalt was reaching for the fence as an assistance to getting to his feet, when Slim’s exclamations hit his ear-drums. He turned his head, got one good look and slid weakly back into the dust.

“Buck Masterson!” exploded Slim.

Cobalt merely groaned and rubbed at the six-days’ growth of black stubble on his pudgy face and shuddered as he gazed at the rangy, dust-covered individual at the corral gate. Masterson held a six-shooter in his right hand, while with his left he slapped his worn sombrero against his leather chaps to remove the dust.

His grizzled hair was unkempt and his mustache hung like a pair of discouraged buck tails on each side of his crooked mouth. A half-smile chased across his face and broke into a thousand tiny wrinkles at each side of his eyes as he sized up the pair lounging in the corral dust.

“You shore got to come and git it,” he announced slowly.

“Unha,” agreed Slim wonderingly. “I reckon we shore do.”

“Come and git it,” he repeated.

“You go git it,” implored Cobalt. “I ain’t a-feelin’ spry, and it only takes one to----”

“Shut up!” roared Masterson, waving the gun. “None uh that funny stuff! Are yuh comin’ to git it?”

Slim grinned weakly.

“Jist throw it over this way, Buck. Let down th’ hammer so she won’t go off.”

“Say, yuh danged menagerie mutt, I ain’t talkin’ about no gun. I’m oratin’ about elephants--e-l-e-f-a-n-t-s, _sabe_?”

“Slimmie,” wailed Cobalt, “he means Frederick th’ First. He wants us to come and git it! Mama mine, he invades th’ sanctity of our bood-wah jist to ask us to come and git that--thing!”

“‘Quoth th’ raven, Nevermore,’” quoted Slim. “Buck, I asks yuh as mason to mason----”

“Not any a-tall,” stated Buck, with an air of finality. “You and yore pardner in crime are in bad over my way and even with th’ hull community, includin’ greasers and Chinks, to back up my play I shore hates to shoot yuh down in cold blood, but--again I asks yuh in uh ladylike manner and without rancor in my heart, are yuh comin’ to git it?”