Happy Hawkins

AT SLOC

nd enough stuff to about pay expenses, they couldn't get back on the main track. Both the Eastern capitalists showed up along toward

compromised by sayin' that if they would give me two other fellers for company I'd stay; otherwise they'd have to rustle up some poor devil 'at needed the money. They knew 'at I was reliable, so they agreed

lked kin' o' blotchy, an' it was divertin' to listen to him. One day we was kiddin' him about bein' so thumby, an' he sez, "That's right, boys, laugh while you can; but I'll hav

ery blessed man in camp passed out about six jokes apiece relatin' to local color. He never saddened up n

em lean, chinny faces. He claimed 'at he had been a show actor, but his lungs had give

alf the fellers you meet strayin' around out here are a bit one-sided, but we don't care so long as they're peaceable. When you'd guy this one a little stout, he'd fold his arms, throw back his head

crowd upon my brain." Said Hamlet, "I thank thee, sir, for this, thy proposition fair. In sooth I'll try the cold-air cure, and in the majesty of prime-evil silence, I shall make the snow-capped mountains echo to the wonderful rhaps

ld rope an' tie 'em. When everybody begun to get ready to pull out, I took the twenty-mule team down to town to get our needin's. I took the children along

an' busts out cryin' an' sez, "Happy, it is the inflexible destiny o' the human race t

store an' got three bushels o' nickle libraries, enough grub to do six men six months, enough tobacco to do

tuff was loaded on the wagon the' wasn't room for the men; so Miller, the youngest capitalist, who was a bit of a highroller, an' had been shakin' up the coast off an'

asn't lookin' at the ceiling an' tryin' to think. Hammy, he walked barefoot in the snow, on' hollered at the snow-capped mountains. I read nickle libraries, an' we didn't care a dang for the Czar of Russia, until along toward Christmas a spark lit in my pile of litachure, an' doggone near burned the hotel down. Then we began to feel snowed-in.

if he guesses before he falls asleep, he wins. Well, Hammy, he breaks in on our game just the same as if we hadn't been doin' anything at all, an' I knew by his action that the' was somethin' afoot. Whenever Hammy was ready to speak something, he alwa

wned an' went on in a scoldy, indignant voice. "When Wisdom speaks, Folly replies with

elves in the clothes, an' give a show. He said he knew parts to fit any make-ups we'd find; an' after Locals found out what it was 'at Hammy had schemed out, he joined in enthusiastic, an' said that if the' had never been a part writ to fit 'em

ords." I used to say over the things 'at this pair made up, until I had 'em by heart, an' since then I've had a lot o' fun springin' 'em on strangers. They used to speak to me as though I was

lus made me feel like a fish out o' water, somehow, but I stored

nds of vests an' pants an' neckties 'at a feller could imagine. But best of all was a book 'at we found at the bottom of one o' the trunks. It was a hard-shelled book, an' I never took

n' had the darndest set o' Dago names in it ever a mortal human bein' laid eyes on. I tried to mine it out by myself at first, but pshaw, every cuss in the book had a name like an Injun town, an' the' was about as many characters in the book as the' is on the earth; so I delegated Hammy to read h

s steady, but all his friends turn in an' stack the cards on him, an' get him chucked into the rottenest dungeon in France. He knowed how they soak it to a feller

o wait for results, not him. He was one o' these nervous, fretty fellers what like to do their own drivin', an' he makes him a set o' minin' tools out of a tin

. This Abbey, he cottoned to Eddie right from the start, an' durin' the next few years they mine around in the prison til

a little holler island, chuck full o' diamonds an' money an' such like plunder. Then he dies, an' Eddie gets in the sack. They chain a round shot to Eddie's feet an' hurl him off

Hoyle. He only stays with 'em long enough to learn all their secrets, an' then he gives 'em the slip an' goes to his little holler island. He pu

think of any one like him bein' turned loose on the earth, 'cause a feller might do somethin' 'at didn't suit him, an' the' wasn't no place you could hide in afterward. He kept watchin' all the while, an' nobody couldn't commit a crime nowheres on earth but what he knew of it, an'

t, 'cause he was notionable to a degree. He'd make plans for a little party, an' he'd send one man to Siberia for a fish, an' another to Asia for a fowl, an' another to Chinee for a bird's nest-to make soup of-an' so on. He never give his guests n

of Chince, your Excellency." Then Monte Cristo, he'd say, "Ah, yes, so it was

him cold, an' say, "Never mind the details, Bill-get the vase. If you think you need the British Navy, why, buy i

ou transplanted. You come out o' this prison, get an edication, an' on the ninth o' next June you show up at number forty-nine, Rue de Champaign, Paris, at two fifteen P. M.-

e Capitol at Cheyenne, with full-grown trees from all over the world, standin' in the front yard. Then he 'd give a party to all the substantial citizens who had once used those rooms to commit murders in, an' he'd bring 'em face to face with the ones they thoug

t of a cellar. They don't run things over in France like they do here; they make Counts an' Markusses an' Bankers out of the bad men, an' slap the innocent ones into dungeons to keep 'em from g

ristmas time, while his enemies turn to an' poison an' stab an' mutilate each other in a way to turn a butcher pale; but hi

' talked about millions as easy an' natural as though we each had little holler islands of our own. Miller was about my size, so 'at all his clothes fi

m a receipt in full if they'd give me their interest in the yeller pup. As long as the pup had three bosses he wouldn't mind no one, an' I wanted to teach him somethin' besides eatin' an' sleepin; but them two cusses wouldn't sel

stand it no longer, an' we heaved him out into a drift. Under ordinary circumstances he would have rolled his eyes, pulled his hair, an' r

"What is it?" asked Hammy. "Is it a bird?" asked Locals. Under such conditions I never say nothin' until I h

fed an' warmed him, an' he was about as much surprised at us as we was at him. I was wearin' a Prince Albert coat an' a high plug hat, Locals had on a white flannel yachtin' rig, an' Hammy was sportin' a velvet suit with ye

als an' Hammy open their eyes, an' I knew

his most gorgeous manner. "I am Gene De Arcy. You

ves me great pleasure to make your acquaintance. My uncle, Silas Martin, the late copper king, has just died, leavin'

with 'em, tellin' 'em to just cut out his title, as

had been corralin' a heap o' city langwidge since I had been cooped up with Locals an' Hammy, but my heart failed me. I knew I w

e; but it only pays about ten million a year now, so I've made up my mind not to bother with it, but to shut it down an' go on a tour of the world with my two friends here. I never cared much for school, so this will be a good way to finish my edication. We was up here last fall seein' that things was closed in pro

faces 'at they were takin' pride in my work. They was about the best qualified judges o' that kind o' work I ever met up with, an' I'll own 'at I never felt prouder in my life 'an I did when Hammy slapped me on the

t for a lark. We was so full of that doggone Monte Cristo book that we believed our own lies

o face with work-he didn't recognize it. Now he didn't try to dodge it, nor he didn't apologize for not doing it; he just didn't seem to know the' was such a thing. It never occurred to him that the only way to have clean dishes was to wash dirty ones. Hammy a

where in the hotel, an' he drew me to one side an' sez, "Hush, presumptu

of it will flow down this mountain side

more. He said 'at this balloon had been exhibited in Los Angeles, an' he had got into it just for fun; but the rope h

e fell back on draw, settlin' by checks at night. By a dazzling piece of luck Artie had his money in the same New York bank 'at Miller had, so he could use our checks

of March, an' by that time Artie owed me two million real dollars. Locals an' Hammy was into me for close to a billion, but I didn't treasure their humble offerings much, 'ceptin' as pipe-lighters. We was keyed up to a high pitch by this ti

rted. I see 'em comin' up the grade, an' I piked down an' told'em 'at I had landed a good

lame if I didn't feel a little sorry for him. Still, I'd played fair all the while, an' I 'lowed 'at

e real thing to make it easy for him to act his part. He came in an' blurted out, right while we was boostin' up a jack-pot. "That'll do, me good man," sez I, "wai

ed until two relief parties had been drove back by storms, an' then it pulled out for 'Frisco. We are all re

tle. I promised Locals an' Hammy a generous rake-off, an' w

ie wasn't around, but Locals an' Hammy was, so I opened the letter an

untry, I came with him but left him an' became a waiter in New York City. I went to an excursion to Long Branch an' got to flirting with a widow just for pastime. She dogged my life after that and my wife is something terrible so I took her and came to Los Angeles. We was as happy as any one coul

rs t

A.

ng was rotten and you did not wash the dishes clean but I knew if I worked you would not

had fallen too far to have any breath left for talkin'; but

a little. "I would I had his treacherous throat within my grasp, that I m

The' 's just as much of Alfred's blood flow

t's finding out that a man can become so degenerate that he will im

s to the money YOU'VE lost, that'd be a small matter to get mad over. He risked j

is bitter truth that all the world's a stage; yet Fate, however cruel, never decreed that I should play the second season, as servile serv

an take this thing and have a runaway boy and a lost orphan and a rich

hout food and the balloon coming into sight! Think of the scenic effects, the low music as the orphan kneels in the m

Barbie and what a great girl she must be by this time. I thought of the big-eyed winter calves huggin' up to their mothers and wonderin' what it all meant. I thought of old Mount