W. C. Tuttle

“ We pilgrims down to the main road, and ambles through the dust in the direction of Piperock. We comes to uh turn in the road, where we sees uh man setting alongside on uh rock. He’s all humped up, with his head between his hands, and don’t look up until I hails him. Then we recognizes him as being Chuck Warner, puncher for the Cross-J. I never did know just how to take that feller. He never growed none to speak of from his waist on down, and I figures that he’s the honestest-looking liar I ever met. ”

“ MAGPIE SIMPKINS
PIPEROCK
MONTANA
We reads it over several times, and then Magpie steps back, cocks his yaller hat over one eye, sticks his thumbs in his belt and snorts—
“That is Cassie!”
“Make it Caspar,” says I. “It’s uh male cassowary, Magpie.”
“Huh!” snorts Chuck. “You wise guys knowed all the time what it was, didn’t yuh? What yuh going to do with the thing? What in —— is it anyway?”
“That thing, Chuck,” says I, “is what uh man buys in the East when he’s drunk up seven hundred dollars’ worth uh mixed hooch. ”

“ Chuck, do what you please with that hooch-hen, and we’ll go on to town. I don’t sabe your play, young feller, but I’m for it all the way from the ace to the deuce.”
We got our stuff at Piperock, and pilgrims right back home. The crate and bird are gone when we returns.
“I wish I knowed what Chuck aims to do?” says Magpie, as we goes past the spot.
“And bust up our chances to get back that two hundred,” says I. “If you didn’t hunger and thirst for information so hard, Magpie, I’d be living uh life uh ease right now. You always wants to monkey with the wheels uh progress.” ”

“ It sizes him up, shakes its ears, sad-like, and pilgrims on. Magpie sure is dressed up like uh plush horse, and all he needs is uh cane to be uh cripple for life.
There seems to be uh certain degree of excitement in Piperock, when we arrives. Chuck Warner is setting on his bronc out there in the middle of the street, and he’s surrounded with uh crowd. Lying down in the dusty road is that blasted bird that Magpie bought, and uh rope runs from Chuck’s saddle to its long neck. The bird seems to be the coolest thing in town. ”

“ What’s the idea uh getting all heated up over uh overgrown fool-hen on stilts. First thing we knows there’ll be sorrow in our city. I got uh good scheme. I’ll make a hundred tickets at five dollars each, and raffle the blamed thing. You fellers can gamble your heads off if yuh feels inclined.”
That seems to suit the crowd, so Chuck puts the bird in Buck Masterson’s stable, and him and some of the rest gets busy on making tickets.
Me and Magpie sets there on the sidewalk and wonders what them Jaspers want of that bird. Art Miller comes over, but he don’t know any more than we do. ”

“ That stilt-legged, overgrown fool-hen sure can cut circles, and that pup ain’t no slouch either. All outdoors seems to beckon that bird, but he don’t sabe mirrors. He cuts his last lap about two feet in the lead of that pup, hops high, wide and handsome to the top of the bar and meets itself in Buck’s bar-mirror. ”

“ He orates that in the East is uh tribe uh philanthropists who spend their time hunting for uh shaft to sink their money in.
Also he opines that as uh hunter and finder uh this certain person he can’t be beat or even tied. I protests audibly and often that we ought to let gold enough alone, but when Magpie gets an idea like that it’s all off until he’s proved that my objections were well founded.
Therefore and immediate he packs his valise—or rather one he borrows from Buck Masterson, the saloon-keeper at Piperock, and pilgrims East. ”

“ I can’t find nothing but uh five-dollar bill in my pocket.”
“Let’s see the bill, Chuck,” says Buck, and Chuck hands it to him.
“Thanks,” says Buck. “It ain’t much but it will help to pay for that glass.”
“Dog-gone yuh, Buck!” wails Chuck, leaning against the bar, “that bird ain’t mine. It lays between Scenery Sims and Judge Steele.”
“The —— it does!” squeaks Scenery from the doorway. “That bird is too active to lay.” ”

“ What’s the idea uh that hard hat?”
“Last word in head-gear, Ike,” he states, picking the yaller, pot-shaped thing off the ground, and patting it affectionate like. “They calls ’em Darby hats. Did yuh notice that green and red shirt in my valise? I annexes that in Chicago, Ill., U. S. A., and she sure is uh humdinger. Got uh necktie pin in that valise, too, that only assessed me ten dollars and eighty-five cents, and nobody what never seen uh real diamond could tell the difference.”
“Being as ignorance is bliss around here yuh may make uh hit, Magpie,” I replies. ”

“ I asked, chiding like. “Moneyed men don’t get drunk—they gets intoxicated. Didn’t yuh do uh thing to be thankful for, Magpie?”
He shakes his head, sad-like, and fumbles in his pocket. After searching through all his clothes he comes back to the first pocket he looks in, where it was all the time and he knowed it, and pulls out uh letter.
“Ike, this is uh mystery,” he proclaims. “Honest to grandma, I don’t know what it means, but this letter says it was paid for and is on its way here. ”

“ I asks, but Art shakes his head, and digs his toes in the dirt.
“Danged if I know, Ike. I never seen folks so crazy before. I felt that there’s something in the wind for several days. Tellurium, Half Mile, Scenery, Ricky, Dirty Shirt and Judge Steele has been in conference several times up in the judge’s office. Here comes Tellurium. ”

“ Say, that bird simply turns over in the air and comes back like uh rubber ball. The coyote is yelping its fool head off, trying to climb the bar, when that mass uh feathers and legs hits him dead center on the rebound. ”

“ Sabe? That’s ten. The dollar I had to pay uh feller in Great Falls for writing that scientific letter, one dollar, and it cost me postage both ways. She totals up to eleven dollars and four cents, Magpie.”
“Say, Chuck, where did yuh invent the name ‘Railami’ for that bird?”
“Spell it backward, Ike,” says he.
“You are,” states Magpie. ”