Part 2

“Raw beefsteak is hyiu stuff,” suggests Magpie. “Ever try it?”

Ajax almost hopped out of his shoes. He peers at us, and then:

“Ah! Raw steak? I greatly prefer mine medium, _en casserole_.”

“It’s no use, Ike,” sighs Magpie. “I had hopes that he’d been hit so hard that he’d talk our language, but I’m a poor guesser. You take one side, Ike, and I’ll take the other.”

* * * * *

Ajax led like a old pack-horse and didn’t have much to say. We asked him why he was sore at Doleful, and he said the idea was absurd. We tied some raw meat over his eyes, and by supper-time he was able to feel the difference between a knife and a fork.

“Maybe some day you _hombres_ will stay in the East where you belong,” says Magpie disgusted-like. “You sure gallop in where natives fear to sneak.”

“We scientists must suffer that the masses be informed,” explains Ajax.

“You ain’t going to get a lot of publicity by fighting a boot duel with a half-witted herder,” says I.

“It was no violence of my making, I assure you, Mr. Harper. I was chasing the elusive Ovius when this vulgar person came between us. He used very insulting adjectives--very! My lips could never repeat the strange things he said. Naturally I resented. I descended to the level of a brute, and fought as my ancestors fought.”

“I’ve heard of boot-leggers,” says Magpie, “but you must ’a’ sprung from a family of boot-fighters, Ajax. Did you hit him first?”

“I did not. Nor second or third. In fact he pummeled me for some time before I seemed to grasp his intentions, and then I retaliated.”

“You ought to carry a boot,” advises Magpie. “Feller like you ought to go heeled all the time. What do you aim to do next?”

“Next?”

Ajax rubs his sore eyes and looks up at Magpie.

“I shall certainly persevere until I have observed fully the effects of astragalas splendens upon the----”

But me and Magpie went out and left him talking to himself.

We helped Ajax bring in his foot-rest that night and watched him go to bed with his feet thirty inches higher than his head. He’s so all-in that he never felt the pack-rats that night, and the next morning he’s a sorry-looking hunk of scientific humanity.

His clothes are about seven-eighths to the sere and yaller leaf. His valise don’t contain nothing but a book, some papers and a box of pills. Magpie looks him over from all angles.

“Somebody will kill you, Ajax, if you dress thataway,” says Magpie. “In memory of Professor Middleton me and Ike will have to dress you civilized-like, I reckon.”

We got him into an old pair of boots, one of my shirts and an old sombrero of Magpie’s. He looks like ----, but he don’t know it. Then he wants another length of rope.

“You going back to the same place?” I asks.

He considers it a moment, and shakes his head.

“I don’t believe I will. That vulgar person might accost me again, and I have no time to waste in combat. I will try in another direction, if it makes no particular difference.”

“Me and Ike are neutral,” says Magpie.

“If you’d tell us just about what in ---- you’re hunting for, maybe we’d advise you.”

“Oh, thank you. You see I wish to observe the effects of astragala----”

“You’re welcome!” yelps Magpie. “Go ahead, and may you die in your boots.”

“I fear that is impossible,” says Ajax. “The boots belong to you.”

“Happy birthday!” yelps Magpie. “They’re yours, Ajax. Go to it.”

“I will do my best, sir,” says he, and we watches him going over the hills, dragging his rope behind him.

“Just plain crazy, Ike,” declares Magpie. “Plain crazy.”

“Not Ajax,” says I. “Nossir! That feller is plumb fancy crazy. He’s gilt-edged, perfumed and embroidered, Magpie. He knows a million dollars’ worth of things that won’t never do him any good--things that other fellers like him have found out; and now he’s out here to find out something to pass on to them. It won’t never do him nor anybody else any good--but they’ll be glad.”

* * * * *

We knocked off work late in the afternoon. I laid down on the bunk while Magpie fixes a kettle of beans. He’s standing in the door of the cabin, pouring the water off them beans, when all to once there comes a hunk of lead, knocks the kettle out of Magpie’s hand, and hives up in the foot of our bunk. Then comes the crack of a rifle.

I sees Magpie elevate his hands, and I slips loose my six-shooter. Then here comes “Mighty” Jones, covering Magpie with a rifle.

Mighty owns the only herd of goats in the county, and each and every one of them shaggy things is nitroglycerin on legs. I figures that Mighty has gone crazy from herding same, so when he turns sideways to me I slams a .45 slug into the loading-plate of his rifle.

That slug seems to cause consternation, being as it explodes some of Mighty’s magazine, and when a magazine full of 45-70s begin to heave and surge, it’s no place for a timid person.

Magpie turns a flip-flop into the cabin, and Mighty tries to dig himself into our chip-pile. I pilgrims out there and looks at Mighty.

“Why for the hands-up stuff, Mighty?” I asks. “You peeved?”

“You dang well know I am! You know why, too--blast you! I only seen one of you, but you two are pardners, and--I’ll see you in jail. I’m going to get the sheriff, me!”

“Plain crazy, Ike,” says Magpie sad-like. “Plain crazy.”

“Very plain,” I agrees.

“I’ll see you both in jail--betcher life!” wails Mighty. “Sure will.”

“Better see a eye doctor, Mighty,” advises Magpie. “You’re seeing things.”

“You’ll see something--dang you both!”

And Mighty fogs off down the trail.

“Poor old coot,” says Magpie. “Can’t help feeling sorry for him, Ike.”

“Uh-huh. He was a good old buggy but he’s done broke down.”

“No question about the buggy part, Ike.”

We fixed up our pot of beans and wondered where Ajax is. We ate supper and wondered some more about Ajax.

Then cometh Lindhardt Cadwallader Sims, knowed as “Scenery.” We always figured that Scenery was sheriff by default, being as two of Magpie’s friends forgot to vote, and Scenery won by one vote. He’s about knee-high to a he-human, and has darned near polished all the epitaph off his star in six months. He squeaks when he walks and squeaks when he talks, which makes him a pathetic person among his feller men.

The danged little imitation has a six-gun in his hand when he shows up in our doorway. He peers at us mean-like and clears his throat. I’m just about to pour some beans into my plate, but I takes one look at his gun and swings back with that kettle and let her fly. It was a good shot. She just turns over once and hit him right in the chin.

He staggers backward, drops his gun and begins to claw at them beans. Sudden-like he remembers his gun and goes pawing around for it. I swings the door about half-shut when I hears a biff and a grunt, and Scenery Sims comes into that door on his hands and knees. He hops to his feet fighting mad, and squeaks like a bull fiddle:

“You assassinators is all under arrest! Hear me? You can’t monkey with no officer of the peace thataway and get away with it. Magpie, you daw-gonned, long-whiskered----”

Magpie stopped his yelps by picking him up and throwing him out of the door. Scenery was just sailing out as Ajax starts to come in, and they met. When an irresistible jackass meets an immovable educated fool there is something going on.

Them two misfits of the human race went into a clinch and hugged each other like long-lost brothers. They got up fighting blind, went into another clinch and rolled under Scenery’s bronc.

For a few seconds there ain’t nothing but hoofs, boots and dust to be seen. Then it gets too warm for a buzzard-headed bronc, and said animal leaves its master to fate and an educated fool.

Ajax was a lot stronger than he looked. He squirmed loose, grabs the sheriff by the neck and the seat of the pants and cast him far away.

Poor Scenery! He rolls over a few times and staggers to his feet. He whales away with both fists at nothing, crosses his feet and falls down again.

Then he gets up and starts off down the road. He walks a few steps and then runs a few. Then he does it all over again, like he was expecting a kick in the rear every time he steps.

Ajax has set down on the ground and is trying to dig the alkali out of his mouth and eyes. He sure is a sight. Me and Magpie walks over to him, and Magpie says--

“Say, professor, we’d admire to know if it was you who knocked Scenery into our cabin.”

“Scenery?”

He peers up at us and then blinks shut again.

“The general aspect, as regards variety or beauty, or the reverse, of a landscape?”

“My ----!” says I. “He asked you in a lady-like manner: Who knocked Scenery into our cabin? The man you fought. _Sabe?_”

“The--the man I fought?” stutters Ajax. “Did I--I fight a man?”

“Say,” says Magpie, “did you get hit so hard that you don’t _sabe_ things? What did you think you was mopping the earth with?”

“I--er--really----” Ajax mops some more dirt out of his features and peers around-- “I--er--suppose I must take your unsupported word for it, but I--I thought at the time that I was being attacked by a specimen of the genus Ovius.”

Magpie kicks the empty bean-kettle into the cabin, and me and him follers it inside. Pretty soon Ajax looks in. He peers all around and then begins to search outside.

Me and Magpie went out there and looked around, too. Then Ajax starts circling the cabin, and me and Magpie follered him like a pair of bird-dog pups follering an old dog, but we don’t find anything. Pretty soon Ajax sighs deep-like.

“Well, it isn’t here, it seems.”

“Maybe you lost it some other place,” suggests Magpie.

“No. I had it when I arrived.”

“----!” grunts Magpie. “What was it, Ajax?”

“The--er--specimen of the genus Ovius.”

I grabs Magpie just in time. Ajax never did know how close he skidded to the graveyard that time. Magpie was so mad that he wouldn’t come into the cabin while I throws a feed into Ajax.

“There should be a drastic legislation against the careless use of firearms,” states Ajax. “Would you believe it--” he pokes a fork at me like he was trying to see if I was done--“some careless person, evidently shooting at random, nearly struck me? I was a little south of here, returning with my specimen, when I detected a singing noise past my ear. Immediately following came the report of a firearm.

“In endeavoring to ascertain the location of the miscreant I became entangled with my specimen, and luckily we fell into a depression behind an outcropping of granite formation. Luckily the depression was filled with a thick growth of mimosaceous shrub, which screened us from view.

“I feel sure that the target was located upon or near that granite outcropping, because in a few minutes I could hear the marksman carrying on a conversation like this, omitting the vulgarity, of course:

“‘Pshaw! Missed entirely!’

“And then he seemed heartily ashamed of himself, as he said:

“‘Too bad! I should have had higher aspirations.’

“The last may not be correct, but at any rate he mentioned something about holding higher, which amounts to the same.”

“Yes,” says I; “he was careless, Ajax. I feel sorry for him.”

“Perhaps I should have extended my sympathy,” says Ajax. “But--er--really I was in no position to think of the niceties of social custom.”

“What was you doing all this time?” asks Magpie from the doorway.

“I--er--I was trying to preserve my hold upon the Ovius.”

* * * * *

I seen Magpie walk out about fifty feet, throw his hat on the ground and hop up and down on it. This Ovius is getting under his hide.

“I will persevere,” says Ajax determined-like. “I must persevere.”

“All right, Percy,” says I. “Don’t let us stop you.”

Me and Magpie talked things over, but we can’t figure it out.

“That’s the ---- of it, Ike,” says Magpie. “If Ajax was a human being he could tell us what he’s after, but education has plumb ruined him for conversation. I reckon we’ve got to give him plenty of rope, and he’ll hang up some place.”

“He’s used up enough rope to hang all the rustlers in Montana,” says I. “He had one specimen, Magpie, but somebody shot at him----”

“Rotten shooting!” snorts Magpie. “There is such things as mob law, and if he don’t give us a chance to see what he’s after I’m going to turn myself into a mob and make him talk something we can _sabe_.

“What in ---- is a Ovius? As far as I can remember there ain’t never been one seen here. None of the old-timers has ever spoke of any such a thing, Ike. There ain’t nothing in the Injun language that sounds like it.”

“Well,” says I, “what is astragalas splendens?”

“There you are!”

Magpie waves his arms and walks in a circle.

“There you are, Ike. Both of us holds a blank hand, so we just splits the pot. I reckon I’ll likely kill Ajax tomorrow.”

“And never find out what he’s after?”

“There are things better left unknown, Ike. Let’s go to bed before we mention something that we can’t explain.”

Ajax is writing in his little book by the light of a candle, and when we come in he stops.

“Pardon me,” says he to Magpie. “Has anything ever been written regarding the hipwiggler?”

“Nun-not that I knows about. It ain’t what you’d call popular.”

He thinks it over for a while, and then he sort of says to himself:

“It could be named after me. What an honor!”

“Yes’m,” admits Magpie. “You can be a father to it if you want to.”

“If I could only secure a specimen!” he wails. “I must! I will!”

He hops off his seat and walks up and down the cabin.

“You spoke of something about securing one by making a noise like a--a----”

“Loofmad?” asks Magpie.

“Exactly. A loofmad. Is it a--er--difficult sound to make?”

“Nope. Easy for lots of folks.”

“Would you mind giving me a demonstration?”

“Not me. I did once, and I almost got killed.”

“Ah! Is it dangerous?”

“It is and it ain’t. You’d be safe, Ajax.”

“Will you teach me?”

Ajax stops in front of Magpie and holds out his hands like Magpie had something to give him.

“Teach you? Man, you’re born to it. No, I can’t tell you how to do it, but the proper note is in your voice every little while, only you don’t know it.”

“Is it a gift?” asks Ajax.

“Merry Christmas!” explodes Magpie. “If it is I hope nobody knows when my birthday is, and that Sandy Claws goes blind.”

“Interesting but vague,” says Ajax, and goes back to his book.

Yes, Ajax slept with his feet in the air again.

Me and Magpie talks over the events of the day, but we can’t figure it out. We can’t figure why Mighty wishes to hold us up, and why he sends Scenery up there with blood in his eye. We asks Ajax the next morning if he’s done anything wrong, but he shakes his head.

“I never have done anything wrong,” says he.

“This is a great little country to establish a precedent,” says Magpie. “A herder of goats comes here yesterday and shoots a bean-pot out of my hands. Later on the sheriff comes up--but you know that. Do you know why they comes here?”

“I haven’t an idea.”

“I know you ain’t, but I thought maybe you had a hunch.”

Ajax got himself a rope this time. He hunted around until he found an old sack, and then he sets down to look in his little book.

“Today,” says he, “I am going to make a supreme effort to secure valuable data, and I wish to ask a few questions. Is the hipwiggler a vegetarian or of the carnivora, and what is its habitat?”

“The hipwiggler,” says Magpie, “eats anything and is fond of children. It is of the hootchie-kootchie family. Hootchie, meaning hip, and kootchie, meaning to wiggle. The great difference between it and anything else is in its shape, size, actions, color and odor.”

“Hootchie-kootchie?” asks Ajax. “Is that--er--an Indian word?”

“Uh-huh. The Camelpunchers.”

“Has the hipwiggler a distinctive odor?”

“You dang well know it has. You look for something that you never seen nor smelled before. _Sabe?_ Catch it and bring it here, and if it ain’t a hipwiggler we’ll tell you.”

“I see. We will have an elimination proceedings.”

“Somebody will be, that’s a cinch,” grins Magpie.

Ajax tightens the rope around his waist, picks up his sack and faces the east.

“I gird up my loins and fare forth. Today I will complete my quest. I bid you good morning, gentlemen.”

We watches the blamed fool pilgrim across the hills.

“You’ve got to admire him for sticking,” says I, but Magpie snorts:

“Yeah? Might as well give three cheers for a cactus, Ike.”

* * * * *

“Doughgod” Smith comes past about dinner-time and stops to smoke a cigaret.

“Seen a posse today,” grins Doughgod. “Some bunch. Scenery Sims, Mighty Jones and Doleful Doolittle. Put them three on a two-by-four island and they couldn’t find each other.”

“Where did you see ’em, Doughgod?” asks Magpie.

“They left town about an hour before I started. Pointed towards Mighty’s place.”

Doughgod rode on, and me and Magpie ponders things. That’s some posse to go after anybody. Pretty soon Magpie sniffs the air. I sniff a little too, and then we hear Scenery Sims’ squeaky voice.

“Halt! You darn fool--halt!”

We steps around the corner of the cabin and sees a queer sight. In the middle of the trail stands Ajax. Standing between his long legs is a goat--a sick-looking goat.

Ajax has got the sack over his shoulder, and when he sees us he swings it to the ground.

Above him on the hill is Scenery with a rifle in his hands, and about sixty feet behind Ajax is Mighty, hanging on to his nose. Below Ajax, standing on the side of the hill with a rock in each hand, is Doleful.

“Stand still, dog-gone you!” squeaks Scenery. “You’re under arrest!”

“It is all very peculiar,” says Ajax sick-like. “I don’t know what it all means, and I----”

Ajax picks up his sack and starts for us.

“Stop him, Magpie!” yelps Scenery. “Shoot the darn fool!”

Ajax stops and looks foolish.

“Will somebody explain things?” asks Magpie, holding his nose.

“He’s a thief,” says Scenery. “Caught with the goods, too. He stole thet goat from Mighty Jones.”

“Well,” says I, “why don’t you arrest him, Scenery? He ain’t heeled.”

“Not me! I don’t want him.”

“I demand his arrest!” yelps Mighty.

“Shut up, Mighty!” squeaks Scenery. “He’s been arrested five minutes; ain’t you, feller?”

“You mentioned such a proceeding,” admits Ajax.

“The law is satisfied.”

“What you got in the sack, Ajax?” I yells.

“I am not sure, but I think it is a hipwiggler.”

“He tried to steal my sheep,” stated Doleful. “He assaulted me and----”

“Hipwiggler ----!” snorts Mighty. “He’s got a polecat in that sack. Him and that goat are inoculated against any smell from now on and forever. Amen.”

Ajax stands there and looks foolish. He can’t smell nothing. There is such a thing as getting too much. The goat swallers hard and leans against Ajax. I feel sorry for the goat.

“Well,” says Magpie. “you might as well take your goat, Mighty.”

“Not me!” yells Mighty. “I’m off that goat forever.”

“Well, it’s sort of a deadlock,” says I. “Ajax is arrested in name only and the owner of the stolen property refuses to take it back.”

Just then Judge Steele rides in from the mine. We explains things to him, and he looks wise.

“Clean case against him, judge,” states Scenery. “He’s got the goods on him.”

“Think I can’t smell?” snorts the judge. “This is an open-air case.”

He pounds on his saddle-horn.

“Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye! This honorable court is doing business. The prisoner will stay where he is. Are you guilty or not guilty?”

“I have no idea,” says Ajax weary-like.

“Prisoner, does that goat belong to Mighty Jones?”

“I have no idea.”

“Call it and see if it comes to you, Mighty,” suggests Magpie.

“Like ----!”

“Let the goat loose and see who it goes to,” suggests the judge.

“Whoa!” yelps Mighty. “Don’t do that! I don’t know how he ever got the rope on it, but I do know it’s the champion butter of the world. You stick with it, feller, and get time off for good behavior.”

“This is the same one I had yesterday,” states Ajax. “It--er--struck the sheriff, I believe.”

“Haw! haw! haw!” whoops Magpie. “It upset our sheriff something awful.”

We considers things for a while, and then the judge says:

“According to my own reckoning there ain’t nothing to be done, but I has to pass an opinion. Being as the prisoner, smelling as he does, is of no value to the prosecution, and the plaintiff refuses to take back his alleged property, I adjudicates thusly:

“The prisoner will be banished on his own recognizance. Feller, you better go away off some place. _Sabe?_ Take your clothes and burn ’em and jump in the river or vicy versy. Given under my hand and seal this fifth day of August in the year of our Lord, and the County of Yaller Rock.

“Now I’d admire why a freak like that does things like he’s done?”

“I was desirous of observing the effects of astragalas splendens on the genus Ovius.”

“The ---- you was!” snorts the judge. “Find out?”

“No. I was almost prepared for the experiment when this unforeseen contingency arose.”

“My ----!” grunts Magpie. “He was sure going to do something awful.”

“It is nothing to----”

Ajax dropped his rope and stooped to pick it up; and didn’t finish his sentence, ’cause that goat hit him dead center and Ajax and his sack turned a cartwheel. The polecat came out of the sack and tangled with the goat, and then both of them started back down the trail towards Mighty.

Mighty must ’a’ got his property back, ’cause as far as we can see ’em Mighty is still in the lead, but it’s almost a cinch the goat will win out in the end.

Ajax watches ’em for a minute and then starts for the cabin.

“Wait!” snaps Magpie. “I’ll get your belongings for you.”

“I am going away,” says Ajax sad-like; “going where intellect is appreciated. I came here on a scientific mission, and I find that research work is not appreciated.”

“We may not be strong for you, Ajax, but it’s a cinch you’re too strong for us,” says Magpie, tossing the valise to Ajax.

“Good-by, Ajax,” says I. “Tell Middleton hello for us.”

“I shall tell him something for myself,” says he, picking up his valise. “Most surely I shall speak to Middleton about you both.”

We watches him pilgrim down the trail, exuding odors of which there is no imitation.

“Magpie,” says the judge, “have you any idea what he wanted?”

“Not in my language, judge. I’m going to write to Professor Middleton and ask him what it is. I reckon Ajax came to the wrong place.”

“Let me know, Magpie,” squeaks Scenery. “I’d admire to hear what it was.”

We didn’t hear no more about Ajax, and about three weeks later we’re down at Piperock and got a letter from Middleton. We got Scenery, and the three of us went up to Judge Steele’s office.

Magpie opens the letter and reads it aloud to us:

Dear Magpie and Ike:

Professor Green returned. Tell me about the thing he calls a hipwiggler. He dropped some information to Pettingill regarding it, but refuses even to nod to me. In fact he is very reticent over the whole matter.

He started to tell Pettingill about the “loofmad.” Pettingill wrote it out and happened to spell it backward. Now Green won’t speak to Pettingill. Please tell us why a vigilance committee in Silver Bend made him burn his clothes, which by the way contained his money. We are very anxious to hear all about it.

You ask the meaning of Green’s statement--to study the effects of astragalas splendens on the genus Ovius.

Magpie’s lips move slow-like over it, and then he hands the letter to us. The three of us bends over it and reads where he left off:

He meant that he wished to study the effects of loco-weed on sheep.

The four of us leans back against the wall and look at each other.

“Magpie,” says the judge, clearing his throat and brushing off his vest, “Magpie, what do you think of too much education?”

“On a par with astragalas splendens, judge.”

“To which,” says the judge, “I will say, ‘_E pluribus unum._’”

All of which might be true, but Ajax was our first example.

The End