Part 2

“Matches all wet!” wailed Magpie. “Got any dry ones, Ike?”

“Two. But, before I find out if they’re dry, I’m going to find something to set on fire.”

Then I fell over a box and hit my head on the floor. That made me sore. I got up and kicked the box as hard as I could.

“Cut that out!” yelps Magpie. “Who hit me with that box? Who threw it?”

“Shut up!” I howls. “Nobody threw it-- I kicked it! Reckon I tore a toe plumb off. Next time I----”

“Sh-h-h-h!” hisses Magpie. “Somebody coming! Let’s get out.”

He swung the door open and ducked out in the storm. That’s just like Magpie. In danger he forgets his responsibility, and Ike Harper, who is very cool, picks up the two babies off the bunk and follers in his wake. Man, it sure was pouring out there. Ever’ once in a while comes a flash of lightning, which is fine while she lasts but harder when she’s gone. I sure flounders around a lot.

“This way, Ike!” yelps Magpie, and I follers the best I can.

A flash of light shows me a couple of fellers on horseback milling around in the rain, and then we sure hit the high spots out of there.

After a mile or so we stops in the shelter of a washout and puffs plentiful.

“Suffering sidewinders!” groans Magpie. “I ain’t got no feet left! Honest to grandma, I’m a wreck from stem to stern, Ike.”

“Feller sufferer, I know how you feel,” says I. “But that ain’t no reason for you to forget what you owes to humanity. I don’t wish to chide no man for being absent-minded, Magpie, but I’m asking why you left me the responsibility of both offsprings in this direful e-mergency?”

“Meaning what?” he groans.

“Magpie Simpkins, do you mean to set there shivering and tell me that you got so scared that you forgot we had two suffering infants when we entered that cabin?”

“My ----!” he grunts. “You didn’t forget yours, did you?”

“No, but you did, Mister Simpkins.”

“Like ----! I’ve got mine.”

“Well,” says I after due consideration, “somebody did. I’ve got two.”

And then three voices blended in the night air. The last one seemed to be a little bit stronger than the others.

“Suffering sidewinders!” wails Magpie. “Where did the last one come from? I thought this was a cow country and I finds it’s kids. Hungry kids! Aw-w-w-w, shut up!”

They did. Magpie got up on his feet and fussed with a damp cigaret-paper.

“You’ve got to show ’em who’s boss, Ike,” he states. “They recognizes the voice of authority, and, believe me, I know how to quell ’em. Now we’ve got to take ’em home.”

“Be it ever so humble,” I agrees.

Then we pokes out into the damp night, Magpie ahead with the tenor and me behind, with the soprano and alto. It is becoming some perade, if you asks me.

They may be sweet little darlings--we ain’t never gazed upon their faces--but I know that what I’ve called ’em under my breath ain’t going to be of great cheer to ’em in the life to come.

About a mile farther on we sees the lights of a house and points our perade accordingly. We’re too miserable to think of anything except making a wholesale delivery. Maybe Magpie had a vision of a pair of boots; I don’t know.

“Do we lie to them about things, Magpie?” I asks as we nears the place.

“We do not, Ike. No more lies. A certain measure of precaution but not a prevarication. I won’t be the father of triplets--not barefooted.”

We stumbles right up to the door. Magpie hammers on the middle panel with the butt of his six-shooter.

A feller sticks his head out of the door and stares at us. He’s got a face like a full moon.

“Ahem!” says Magpie. “Have you got any babies?”

_Bang!_ He slammed the door in our face, and we hears him drop a bar across it. Then from the window we hears:

“Mosey, you bums! Hop out or pick lead out of your hide the rest of your lives.”

We went. Also and moreover we went fast.

“What do you think you’re doing--taking the census?” I asks when we’re out of shotgun range and stops to gather our wind.

“What do you reckon I ought to have asked him--if he wanted any babies?”

“Why speak of them at all? We could ’a’ sneaked in and then came away without ’em, Magpie.”

“Yeah? You never have, Ike. You usually add instead of subtract; so I’m making a few inquiries before I take a chance. _Sabe?_”

We pilgrims along for a while sort of aimless-like.

“Where had we ought to go now?” wonders Magpie.

“----!” says I.

“Brilliant thought,” agrees Magpie. “They say that all babies are angels; so so you’d be safe--that’s a cinch.”

“They don’t wear yaller boots there; so that would help some,” says I.

Under ordinary circumstances I reckon we would have argued the point; but the triplets start a concert, and we decides to pilgrim on. The rain still visits the earth, and, if you think it’s any cinch trying to walk in the dark with rain in your eyes and a squalling baby on each arm, you’re all wrong.

Pretty soon Magpie stops.

“Ike, I see another light. It may mean disaster, and it may mean deliverance. Shall we try it?”

“Any port in a storm, Magpie. Lead us to the light. My arms are cramped, and my ear-drums are sore, but I’m game for anything from milk to murder.”

Magpie is some pilot, if you asks me. We drifted into a section of plowed ground which has got soaked with rain, and it hung to our feet like molasses. I sat down twice during the voyage, and we sure are a sticky-looking mess when we arrive at the door of that forlorn-looking shack.

Magpie knocks on the door. After a while we hears a commotion inside, and the door opens. The face that leans out to us looks like a busted mattress. The hair on it seems to grow straight ahead like the quills on a peevish porkypine.

“Milk?” pronounces Magpie.

The bushy-faced person seemed to take it under consideration.

“Milk?” says Magpie again.

“_Vizoffvufforskilloff?_” he asks deep-like.

The babies renew their concert, and the carbonated critter stretches his neck a little longer.

“_Mffvuffzizzskoyiffsky?_” he asks.

“Yes’m,” says Magpie. “All three of em are.”

The feller nods and spits out into the rain.

“Milk,” states Magpie. “Milk for the babies.”

“Beebus?” he asks. “_Skilloffvizzmffovitch?_”

Then he stepped back into the room.

“I didn’t know you could talk Russian, Magpie,” says I.

“Lot of things you don’t know, Ike. Now we’ll get the----”

Comes a lot of charged language and couple of squalls, and here comes Bushy-Face with a squalling infant on each arm. He stops in the doorway, and his haystack whiskers open in a wide grin.

“_Zoffuffzizzovitckski_,” says he proud-like.

“Don’t mention it,” says Magpie foolish-like. “You’re welcome as the flowers in May.”

Then he walks right away from there, leading me by the arm.

“What did he say?” I asks as we fall through a pole fence and skid out into another plowed field.

“----!” snorts Magpie, tearing the seat of his pants out of the mud, where he had sunk about a foot. “I don’t know for sure, but I think he wanted to bet that his two could yelp louder than all three of ours.”

“Let’s go back,” says I. “I’ve got forty-three dollars that says mine alone can out-yelp anything on earth.”

“You’d lose,” says Magpie sad-like. “I’ve got a high-class yelper myself Sweepstake entries, Ike.”

Then came the cows. Range cows are funny critters and have strange and awful ideas on men on foot. The first thing we knowed we’re plumb surrounded there in the dark and they’re closing in on all sides, rattling their horns, talking low and doing other things that don’t make us feel absolutely safe.

“Stand perfectly still, Ike,” whispers Magpie. “They’ll think we are part of the secenery.”

We groups together and looks as much like inanimate objects as possible. The cows sniffs and grunts all around, wondering in cow talk what kind of a growth we are. Then Magpie’s armful opens up--

“_Wa-a-a-a! Wa-a-a-a!_”

“Ma-a-a-a-a! Yah-a-a-a-a!” sings mine together.

Then I got kicked by a cow. Absolutely! The critter was so close to me when the chorus opens up that, when it whirls and starts to run, I got both hind feet in the calves of my legs.

They’re so close to me that I says my evening prayer. Magpie lets a whoop out of his system--

“Grab one by the tail, Ike, and play safe!”

And then I gets a glimpse of his fish-pole figure disappearing out of the main herd, swinging on to the tail of a scared cow.

I’ve got a fat chance, with both arms full. I backs into a mesquite bush, shifts both babies to one arm and pulls my gun.

Man, I sure smoked up them fool cows, and they stampeded. One went past me so fast that the wind blew me backward, and, when I got my whole family together again, there ain’t a cow in sight.

I yelps loud and long for Magpie, but he’s likely still hanging on to that critter and pointed for parts unknown.

Then I plods on alone--that is, there’s only three of us now. I’m sick in soul and body, and all I wants on this earth or the waters under the earth is a place to leave my bundles.

I got hung up on a barbed wire fence, losing a few inches of skin and my hopes for a reward in the hereafter, and all this time them two are keeping up a cross-fire of complaint. I tries to argue it out with ’em and then cautions myself out loud not to go too far, ’cause that’s what gets folks into the loco lodge.

Then I sees another light. Ike Harper ought to be getting skittish about lights, but he’s so near unto death that he loses his normal caution. Ike Harper is now a man unafraid.

I shifts the babies to one arm, grasps my empty gun in my right hand and hammers plentiful on that door.

My knock don’t seem to awaken no response; so I walks inside. There’s a lamp burning on the table, but nobody is in sight. I lays them offsprings on the bed and flops my aching bones into a chair.

My fingers are too stiff to even attempt to roll a smoke, and my arms are paralyzed. As soon as them kids hit the bed, they seems to ease off on the wailing, and my ears gets a needed rest. I sets there for a while, getting more normal all the time, and, when I hear noises outside, my nature asserts itself, and I crawls under the bed. Somebody is coming; my gun is empty, and I don’t feel like thinking up a lie.

Here they come, swearing and rattling. The door slams open, and they all clumps inside.

“Wife’s over at Jones’,” states a voice which comes in behind the bunch. “She slipped and sprained her ankle, Zeb.”

Several voices seems to all talk to once, but I seem to gather that somebody has been caught and deserves hanging. I sees a pair of big bare feet and a torn pants leg. When I peeks out a little more, I sees a rope hanging from above the feet.

“This is sure going hard with you, feller!” says a voice above the rest.

Then I hears Magpie’s voice, resigned-like:

“Why say ‘hard’? Human beings can’t hand me nothing more than I’ve already been through.”

“Here! Keep them dogs out of here!” yelps a voice. “Danged bloodhounds will track this carpet all up! Get under the bunk! Danged lop-earned trailers!”

They got under the bunk, all right. Four of ’em! All muddy and sloppy and full of affection, and they sure licked Ike Harper’s face around and around, upside down and crossways. They guzzled in my ears and rubbed noses with me, and I had to take it. After my bath they seems to sort of quiet down, and I hears what the men are saying.

“No; the kid’s all right,” states somebody. “Maybe it’s hungry.”

“Poor little Oscar!” squeaks some feller. “Lemme see him, Zeb. I ain’t never see him.”

“Sure thing, Otie. Never seen Oscar, eh?”

Comes a shuffling of feet, somebody clears their throat, and then silence. Even them danged hounds seem to feel the silence. Then I hears somebody clear their throat apologetic-like and say:

“Mister, I--I--we begs your pardon. Take that rope off him, Abe. Your story didn’t sound like much to us; so-- Well, dang it all, we’re sorry, mister. Honest to gosh we are. Ain’t we, fellers?”

“Such is Gospel,” agrees somebody else. “From now on I believes what I hears. Take your baby, old trailer, and go free as air. There ain’t nobody doubting your honesty. Our mistake.”

I hears a shuffling noise; the door shuts soft-like, and then all is silence again.

“----!” says somebody. “Don’t seem possible that it wasn’t one or the other.”

“I’m plumb glad my wife wasn’t able to come home,” states a voice, which I reckon is the father of one of my bunch. “The shock might ’a’ killed her.”

“_Wa-a-a-a! Ma-a-a-a-a!_”

Even the bloodhounds got excited, and I got licked all over again. A feller can protect himself from one dog’s affections, but, when four get him down under a bed and set on his chest, he ain’t got much show.

“Gee mighty gosh, this is little Oscar!” yelps one of them fellers, dancing a jig.

“This one is Pete Patton’s Emmeline!” yelps another. “Pete, this is your Emmeline! Gee-lory!”

Everything gets sort of mulliganed again. The place is filled with so much joy that the hounds get infected, and they sure scrubbed my face plentiful again.

“Going to take Oscar right over to the wife!” whoops a voice.

“Foller me and Emmeline!” yelps the other. “Come on, boys! I know where there’s a keg of ten-year-old hooch. Come on!”

Nobody invited me and the dogs. As soon as everybody is gone, I crawls out of there. Them four man-trailers looks at me with such solemn expressions in their sad eyes that I ain’t got the heart to chide ’em.

“You pups want to go with me?” I asks, and they wags their tails.

“Come on,” says I. “I never did like to wash my own face.”

We pilgrims out into the rain, and after a while we hit the railroad track again. It ain’t good walking, but a railroad track will get you some place if you foller it long enough. And that’s what I did. I ain’t had nothing to eat for so long that I’m beginning to wish for something--even milk.

Then comes daylight. I’d say that Ike Harper ain’t much to look at. He ain’t got no hat, and the real estate lieth thick upon him. Some sheep are drifting along, and I finds the shepherd standing on the track. As I come up, he grins and says--

“Lookin’ fer a baby?”

My gun was empty, but rocks are plentiful. I chased that shepherd across country until one of my hounds runs between my legs and tripped me. Then I went back to the track and pilgrimed on.

Later on I comes to a town, which is what will happen to anybody if they follers a railroad long enough. I pilgrims up to the depot. In the shade of the building I sees a familiar figure setting on the edge of the platform. I sets down beside him.

There’s some crackers and cheese and sardines scattered around him, and I helps myself, while I watches him try to get his feet into a pair of new boots--yaller boots, too.

“Can I help you?” I asks.

But he yanks the boots away and sets on ’em.

“Not this pair!” he snorts, producing a pair of tweezers.

I watches him dig out a few more cactus spines and then try to get a number seventeen foot into a number twelve boot. He groans, puts the boots away and slips a pair of moccasins on his feet. Then he sighs and rolls a smoke.

“I delivered Oscar and Emmeline,” says I.

He squints at me and nods solemn-like. Then he says:

“I gave George Washington to his maw.”

We both nods. Then pretty soon he says--

“She got off the train to mail a letter, and the train pulled out and left her here. She wired to Cut Bank, which is the next stop, but the danged telegraph system got caught in the storm and lost its voice. She’s been whooping it up and down this here platform ever since. She hugged me seventeen times, Ike, when she finds it belongs to her, and I reckon I--I hugged her some, too.”

I finished up the rest of the lunch. Magpie got to his feet.

“Want to show you something, Ike.”

He limped around to the door of the depot, and I follered him. Near the door he stops and points at the floor. There’s a wet spot and a lot of busted glass. One piece of glass is still holding on to a rubber mouthpiece.

“Know what that is?” he asks.

I shakes my head.

“Bottle,” says he wise-like. “Bottle which contained milk for Georgie.”

“What’s the answer, Magpie?”

“When I gave Georgie to his maw, that bottle fell out of his blanket.”

“My ----!” says I. “Was it there all the time?”

“You didn’t see anybody put it there, did you?” he asks sarcastic-like.

We sat down on the edge of the platform and communed with our thoughts. After a while I says:

“Magpie, it’s easy to figure that the kidnaper got scared and left that baby in that shack, but what I don’t understand is this: All little babies being more or less alike in the face, how in ---- did them men know at a glance that your baby wasn’t little Oscar?”

“Huh! I never seen Oscar myself, Ike, but I’d ’a’ known it wasn’t Oscar. Little Georgie’s father was the porter that blacked my yaller boots, Ike.”

THE END

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the June, 1919 issue of _Adventure_ magazine.]