Curly

“ Curly looked a moment, and then, with a smile, strode across the room and took Archie's hand. Archie was embarrassed, and his face, white with the prison pallor, flushed--he thought of his clothes, quite as degrading as the hideous stripes he had exchanged for them, and of his hair, a yellow stubble, from the shaving that had been part of his punishment. But the grip in which Curly held his hand while he wrung his greeting into it, made him glad, and Bertha, going out of the room, left them alone. The strangeness there is in all meetings after absence wore away. ”

“ Back of the cabin is the spring where Curly used to splash me when she washed, the cave where she sang to me beside our camp fire. The bubble spring, the wind in the pines, the chatter of the birds, and the meadow flowers remind me of her always. She has put away her spurs and gun never to ride any more with free men on God's grass, because, poor soul! she's only a lady now and gone respectable. ”

“ I've had him four years, had him out all through Victoria's raid of the Gila, and he's a safer night guard than any ten men you can string around camp: nothing can approach he won't nail or tell you of. With Curly, a night-camp surprise is impossible."
Whatever cross Curly represented was a mystery. Two-thirds the height and weight of a mastiff, he had the broad narrow pointed muzzle of a bear, and a shaggy reddish-black coat that further heightened his resemblance to a cinnamon, with great gray eyes precisely the color of his master's, and as fierce. ”

“ He looked at Curly's wound all swollen up, her face which had gone gaunt with pain and weakness. They were afoot, they were hunted, they had no place to hide.
"Whar do you propose to take me?" says Curly.
"I don't know," says Jim; "perhaps your people aren't so bad after all—anyway, they tried to keep you clean."
"And what's the use of that? D'ye think I want to be alone in the hull world—clean with no folks, no home? Why should I want to be different from my father, and all my tribe? Would I want to be safe while they're in danger? Would I want to play coward while they fight? ”

“ This Curly will run to her mate, and whar they graze there ain't room for you in the pasture. The good Book says: 'No man shall put them asunder,' and the rules of Right and Wrong ain't got exceptions. Don't you try to steal Curly."
In all my life I never needed a friend so much as I did that night, but when Curly and I hit the trail the old scout reached me his hand.
"Put her right thar, Chalkeye," says he; "it's mighty hard at times to stick to the rules of the game. It's so easy to go crooked that it takes a man to play straight—and you'll play straight. ”

“ Half-way down the rock ladder I grabbed a root, which turned out to be a young rattlesnake, and was so surprised that I pretty near took flight. Curly saved me that time from being an angel—which leads me to remark that there's lots of people better adapted to that holy vocation than me. ”

“ On the field the blue-stockinged players of Willard's were scattered about, and on a bench behind third base a row of boys wearing the red of Durham Academy awaited their turns at bat. This much Curly saw as he crossed the terrace.
Then a tall, broad-shouldered man came toward him with a pleasant smile and outstretched hand. Curly recognized Harris, and sprang down the steps to meet him. At college they had been hardly more than acquaintances, yet to-day they met almost like fast friends. ”

“ Then as Curly and I sat on a rock together listening, I heard a bear cough because his nose got dusty, grubbing for ants; a coyote was singing the hunger-song, and miles away to the east a ranche dog answered him. Then Curly's horse scrunched up a tuft of grass, and my beast pawing, startled a rattlesnake. The little woman beside me whispered then—
"Shorely the Lawd makes His big medicine for us, for snakes and robbers, wolves and b'ars. Only the folk down tha cayn't see Him, 'cause they got electric lights instead of stars." ”

“ They made her look like a man. Her skin had the desert tan; she moved and talked like a cowboy. But most of all, her eyes gave her dead away—the steel-blue eyes of a scout, more used to gun-fights than to needlework, which bored right through me. Only a frontiersman has eyes like that; only the outlaw has the haunted look which comes with slaying of men, and Curly was branded that way beyond mistake.
This poor child was wanted as McCalmont's son, hunted like a wild beast, with a price on her head for murder and for robbery under arms. And yet she was a woman! ”

“ On this march north Curly's value was well demonstrated. The first two nights I divided our little party into four watches, so that one man should always be awake, and on the qui vive. But it took us no more than these two nights to discover that Curly was a better guard than all of us put together. Throughout the noon and early evening camp he slept, but as soon as we were in our blankets he was on the alert, and nothing could move near the camp that he did not tell us of it in low growls, delivered at the ear of one or another of the sleepers. ”

“ The shock stampeded them, but Curly swerved clear of their rush, rolled back into the saddle, raced abreast, and shot both horses down. A minute more, and the firing died away behind us, for we were racing neck-and-neck across the desert. Curly had left the police to follow afoot, but now she began to weaken, for, because she had played the man, she broke down and sobbed—a woman. ”

“ As to Jim and Curly, we held a council smoke, debating on their fate. The crowd agreed that these kids had been my pupils, and would be sure horse-thieves naturally. I felt they had gone afoot, but scouting around, I failed to find their sign. There was a track of a man with cowboy heels, going east, but it seemed to wiggle drunk. I never thought of Jim rolling along as he did with Curly on his back, but searched for the tracks of the pair running side by side. If I had only been a better scout I might have understood the lone track, and followed with horses to mount my youngsters for flight. ”

“ When Dog-gone Hawkins went off with his tenderfoot posse to hunt ghosts, I naturally slid out for home. So I met up with McCalmont, took charge of Cocky Brown's old buckboard, and delivered Curly at the back door of my cousins, the Misses Jameson. These ladies had to hear a whole lot which was pretty near true about poor Curly, and that consumed some time. Afterwards they got scared all to fits by rushes of horsemen, dynamite explosions, and such diverting incidents, ending with the arrival of Shorty Broach to have his prickles pulled. ”

“ Out at the fort he was a common foreman on a ranch. Talk about your graceful riders, he sat a horse in a manner that left nothing to be desired. Well, Curly made himself very agreeable with all the girls on the range, but played no special favorites. He stayed in the country, visiting among cousins, until camp meeting began over at the Alabama Camp Ground. During this meeting Curly proved himself quite a gallant by carrying first one young lady and the next evening some other to camp meeting. During these two weeks of the meeting, some one introduced him to Miss Sallie. ”

“ But if you will let go of the big apple you can easily run away from the fox, for he is old, and not a good runner. Drop the apple."
"No, indeed!" cried Curly. "I want the biggest one I can find!" So he held tightly to the apple, and also to the cornmeal, and on he ran, but the fuzzy fox was getting nearer and nearer, and almost had him.
"I've got you!" suddenly snapped the fox. "I'll have roast pork and apple sauce tonight all right!" and he was just going to grab Curly and the apple and bag of meal, when out from the bushes jumped Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman rabbit. ”

“ Man, who was working in the next field, heard him and came running. When Curly heard Mr. Man coming he thought, 'Now he'll take me home and make me a great pig, just as he did the little runt pig.' But Mr. Man didn't. 'Here, you rascal!' he said, what are you doing under my gate? I'll fix you.' Then he picked up a long, scratchy stick and commenced to beat Mr. Curly, first on one side and then on the other, till he squealed and howled so loud that you could hear him almost a mile. ”

“ Jim sat heaps thoughtful looking away across the desert. "Our breeding cattle," says he, tallying on his fingers, "then Holy Cross, then mother, then father, and now I'm being hunted for a murder I didn't commit."
"Now you know," says Curly, "why we robbers played a hand in yo' game."
"I understand. Say, Curly, I take back all I said about it being bad—this robbery-under-arms. It's the only thing to do."
"Don't you get dreaming," says Curly, "we-all ain't blind; our eyes is open a whole lot wide to truth, and we make no bluff that robbery and murder is forms of holiness." ”

“ The impish impulse to “devil” him had its way. “You’re a man of experience, Slats. Ever hold up a train?”
The foreman showed plainly his disgust at this foolishness. “Haven’t you sense enough ever to be serious, Curly? You’re not a kid any more. In age you’re a grown man. But how do you act? Talk like that don’t do you any good. You’re in trouble good and deep. Folks have got their eyes on you. Now is the time to show them you have quit all that hell raising you have been so busy at.”
“He sure is going good this mo’ning,” Curly drawled confidentially to the scenery. ”

“ I sat on my tail to think, feeling lonesome then, looking east toward Texas and wondering if my poor old mother was still alive. Westward the sun was setting, and that way lay the great Pacific Ocean, bigger than all the plains, where the ships rode herd upon their drove of whales—I wanted to see that too. But then I looked south-east, the way I had come, through valleys of scrub and cactus; there, somewheres beyond the hills, was my little ranch, and all the good pasture away to Holy Cross. My heart was crying inside me, but I didn't know what I wanted until I thought of Curly. ”

“ While our citizens behind were having a check betwixt rock and wire, Jim struck the further gate of my pasture, and held it wide for Curly. Horsemanship had given the partners a mile of gain, but now, on level ground, where any fool could ride, our posse gained rapidly, for the youngsters had to go moderate and save their horses.
"Down on yo' hawss," says Curly, "you ride too proud," and a spatter of blue lead made Jim lie humble. The fool gallopers were right handy for war, when sudden the winding valley poured out its fan of débris upon the lower plain towards Mexico. ”

“ STORY II FLOPPY GETS HIS NAME One day, oh, I guess it must have been about a week after Curly Twistytail, the little pig boy, had the adventure with the bear, and his brother rescued him, as I told you in the story before this one,—one day Curly's brother, who hadn't any name as yet, said:
"Oh, Curly, let's go out for another walk, and maybe something will happen to us."
"All right," agreed Curly, "only I hope a bear doesn't happen. It's no fun to think you're going to be turned into roast pork and eaten with apple sauce," for that is what the bear was going to do, you know. ”

“ He acted faithful when ten men and a swab deserted you complete, and Curly is shorely braver than any man I ever seen in this world. I speaks for Curly and me, and for the Captain, when I says that it's a hull lot pitiful to see the way this Ryan person has acted straight to own up the wrong he done, and played his cyards honest in the matter of ransom. We asks you to spare the life of this yere Ryan. ”

“ Dressed for bulldogging and hence with no holster, Curly held the weapon in his hand as he stopped beside Millie and the Oklahoma Kid. Curly did not like the Kid, but, more, he did not like to see him talking to Millie. That he himself was thinking less of her, these days, than of the girl whose bright headdress set off her olive skin, did not alter this feeling; man in such matters is not consistent. ”

“ As he shied wide and spurred, he saw the ghost some better—a limewashed monument, the boundary mark of old Mexico.
"Saved!" he yelled. "They can't follow beyond the Line."
"They cayn't, but they will," says Curly; "fire the grass!"
Jim grabbed a hair from the buckskin's mane, took matches from his wallet and bound them into a torch, struck a light to the tip, and held it in his paws against the roaring wind. Then he made shift to swing himself down till the long grass brushed his fingers. He dropped his torch beside a greasewood bush, and cantered on with Curly knee to knee. ”

“ Jim began talking haughty, and wanted to know if Curly liked the notion of being hanged.
"That I shorely do," says Curly very soft. "You see, only a while back we was going to be taken out sudden and shot—which it was a caution to yaller snakes only to think of. That didn't make me happy a lil' bit, but now we got more prospects, a slow trial coming, time to turn around in, and think out how to escape."
That sobered Jim, but it made him hostile, too. "Youngster, will nothing scare you?" he asked; "can't get a whimper out of you even for company's sake—you're so beastly selfish." ”

“ That is queer," thought Curly Tail. "I wonder who that can be? I had better be careful, though, for it may be the fuzzy fox trying to fool me."
So, carefully hiding himself behind a stone, he peered over the top, and once more he heard the voice saying:
"Oh! isn't it dreadful to be afraid!"
"Why, it's a little mousie girl," exclaimed Curly Tail out loud.
"Of course, it is," said the little creature beside the river. "And I'm afraid of the water, and the cat-tails and the pussy willows and all that."
"There are no pussy willows out now, they only come in the spring," said Curly Tail. ”