The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains by Owen Wister (beach read book txt) 📗

“Died?”

“No, sir. Saw a man.”

“But how do you know they're not sick skunks?”

“No, sir! They're well skunks. Well as anything. You'll not meet skunks in any state of the Union more robust than them in Arkansaw. And thick.”

“That's awful true,” sighed another. “I have buried hundreds of dollars' worth of clothes in Arkansaw.”

“Why didn't yu' travel in a sponge bag?” inquired Scipio. And this brought a slight silence.

“Speakin' of bites,” spoke up a new man, “how's that?” He held up his thumb.

“My!” breathed Scipio. “Must have been a lion.”

The man wore a wounded look. “I was huntin' owl eggs for a botanist from Boston,” he explained to me.

“Chiropodist, weren't he?” said Scipio. “Or maybe a sonnabulator?”

“No, honest,” protested the man with the thumb; so that I was sorry for him, and begged him to go on.

“I'll listen to you,” I assured him. And I wondered why this politeness of mine should throw one or two of them into stifled mirth. Scipio, on the other hand, gave me a disgusted look and sat back sullenly for a moment, and then took himself out on the platform, where the Virginian was lounging.

“The young feller wore knee-pants and ever so thick spectacles with a half-moon cut in 'em,” resumed the narrator, “and he carried a tin box strung to a strap I took for his lunch till it flew open on him and a horn toad hustled out. Then I was sure he was a botanist—or whatever yu' say they're called. Well, he would have owl eggs—them little prairie-owl that some claim can turn their head clean around and keep a-watchin' yu', only that's nonsense. We was ridin' through that prairie-dog town, used to be on the flat just after yu' crossed the south fork of Powder River on the Buffalo trail, and I said I'd dig an owl nest out for him if he was willing to camp till I'd dug it. I wanted to know about them owls some myself—if they did live with the dogs and snakes, yu' know,” he broke off, appealing to me.

“Oh, yes,” I told him eagerly.

“So while the botanist went glarin' around the town with his glasses to see if he could spot a prairie-dog and an owl usin' the same hole, I was diggin' in a hole I'd seen an owl run down. And that's what I got.” He held up his thumb again.

“The snake!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, sir. Mr. Rattler was keepin' house that day. Took me right there. I hauled him out of the hole hangin' to me. Eight rattles.”

“Eight!” said I. “A big one.”

“Yes, sir. Thought I was dead. But the woman—”

“The woman?” said I.

“Yes, woman. Didn't I tell yu' the botanist had his wife along? Well, he did. And she acted better than the man, for he was losin' his head, and shoutin' he had no whiskey, and he didn't guess his knife was sharp enough to amputate my thumb, and none of us chewed, and the doctor was twenty miles away, and if he had only remembered to bring his ammonia—well, he was screeching out 'most everything he knew in the world, and without arranging it any, neither. But she just clawed his pocket and burrowed and kep' yelling, 'Give him the stone, Augustus!' And she whipped out one of them Injun medicine-stones,—first one I ever seen,—and she clapped it on to my thumb, and it started in right away.”

“What did it do?” said I.

“Sucked. Like blotting-paper does. Soft and funny it was, and gray. They get 'em from elks' stomachs, yu' know. And when it had sucked the poison out of the wound, off it falls of my thumb by itself! And I thanked the woman for saving my life that capable and keeping her head that cool. I never knowed how excited she had been till afterward. She was awful shocked.”

“I suppose she started to talk when the danger was over,” said I, with deep silence around me.

“No; she didn't say nothing to me. But when her next child was born, it had eight rattles.”

Din now rose wild in the caboose. They rocked together. The enthusiast beat his knee tumultuously. And I joined them. Who could help it? It had been so well conducted from the imperceptible beginning. Fact and falsehood blended with such perfect art. And this last, an effect so new made with such world-old material! I cared nothing that I was the victim, and I joined them; but ceased, feeling suddenly somehow estranged or chilled. It was in their laughter. The loudness was too loud. And I caught the eyes of Trampas fixed upon the Virginian with exultant malevolence. Scipio's disgusted glance was upon me from the door.

Dazed by these signs, I went out on the platform to get away from the noise. There the Virginian said to me: “Cheer up! You'll not be so easy for 'em that-a-way next season.”

He said no more; and with his legs dangled over the railing, appeared to resume his newspaper.

“What's the matter?” said I to Scipio.

“Oh, I don't mind if he don't,” Scipio answered. “Couldn't yu' see? I tried to head 'em off from yu' all I knew, but yu' just ran in among 'em yourself. Couldn't yu' see? Kep' hinderin' and spoilin' me with askin' those urgent questions of yourn—why, I had to let yu' go your way! Why, that wasn't the ordinary play with the ordinary tenderfoot they treated you to! You ain't a common tenderfoot this trip. You're the foreman's friend. They've hit him through you. That's the way they count it. It's made them encouraged. Can't yu' see?”

Scipio stated it plainly. And as we ran by the next station, “Howard!” they harshly yelled. “Portland 1256!”

We had been passing gangs of workmen on the track. And at that last yell the Virginian rose. “I reckon I'll join the meeting again,” he said. “This filling and repairing looks like the washout might have been true.”

“Washout?” said Scipio.

“Big Horn bridge, they say—four days ago.”

“Then I wish it came this side Rawhide station.”

“Do yu'?” drawled the Virginian. And smiling at Scipio, he lounged in through the open door.

“He beats me,” said Scipio, shaking his head. “His trail is turruble hard to anticipate.”

We listened.

“Work bein' done on the road, I see,” the Virginian was saying, very friendly and conversational.

“We see it too,” said the voice of Trampas.

“Seem to be easin' their grades some.”