It did seem strange enough to see a town again after what appeared to us
such a long acquaintance with deep, still, almost lifeless and houseless
solitude! We tumbled out into the busy street feeling like meteoric people
crumbled off the corner of some other world, and wakened up suddenly in
this. For an hour we took as much interest in Overland City as if we had
never seen a town before. The reason we had an hour to spare was because
we had to change our stage (for a less sumptuous affair, called a “mud-wagon”)
and transfer our freight of mails.
Presently we got under way again. We came to the shallow, yellow, muddy
South Platte, with its low banks and its scattering flat sand-bars and
pigmy islands—a melancholy stream straggling through the centre of
the enormous flat plain, and only saved from being impossible to find with
the naked eye by its sentinel rank of scattering trees standing on either
bank. The Platte was “up,” they said—which made me wish
I could see it when it was down, if it could look any sicker and sorrier.
They said it was a dangerous stream to cross, now, because its quicksands
were liable to swallow up horses, coach and passengers if an attempt was
made to ford it. But the mails had to go, and we made the attempt. Once or
twice in midstream the wheels sunk into the yielding sands so
threateningly that we half believed we had dreaded and avoided the sea all
our lives to be shipwrecked in a “mud-wagon” in the middle of
a desert at last. But we dragged through and sped away toward the setting
sun.
Next morning, just before dawn, when about five hundred and fifty miles
from St. Joseph, our mud-wagon broke down. We were to be delayed five or
six hours, and therefore we took horses, by invitation, and joined a party
who were just starting on a buffalo hunt. It was noble sport galloping
over the plain in the dewy freshness of the morning, but our part of the
hunt ended in disaster and disgrace, for a wounded buffalo bull chased the
passenger Bemis nearly two miles, and then he forsook his horse and took
to a lone tree. He was very sullen about the matter for some twenty-four
hours, but at last he began to soften little by little, and finally he
said:
“Well, it was not funny, and there was no sense in those gawks
making themselves so facetious over it. I tell you I was angry in earnest
for awhile. I should have shot that long gangly lubber they called Hank,
if I could have done it without crippling six or seven other people—but
of course I couldn’t, the old ‘Allen’s’ so
confounded comprehensive. I wish those loafers had been up in the tree;
they wouldn’t have wanted to laugh so. If I had had a horse worth a
cent—but no, the minute he saw that buffalo bull wheel on him and
give a bellow, he raised straight up in the air and stood on his heels.
The saddle began to slip, and I took him round the neck and laid close to
him, and began to pray. Then he came down and stood up on the other end
awhile, and the bull actually stopped pawing sand and bellowing to
contemplate the inhuman spectacle.
“Then the bull made a pass at him and uttered a bellow that sounded
perfectly frightful, it was so close to me, and that seemed to literally
prostrate my horse’s reason, and make a raving distracted maniac of
him, and I wish I may die if he didn’t stand on his head for a
quarter of a minute and shed tears. He was absolutely out of his mind—he
was, as sure as truth itself, and he really didn’t know what he was
doing. Then the bull came charging at us, and my horse dropped down on all
fours and took a fresh start—and then for the next ten minutes he
would actually throw one hand-spring after another so fast that the bull
began to get unsettled, too, and didn’t know where to start in—and
so he stood there sneezing, and shovelling dust over his back, and
bellowing every now and then, and thinking he had got a fifteen-hundred
dollar circus horse for breakfast, certain. Well, I was first out on his
neck—the horse’s, not the bull’s—and then
underneath, and next on his rump, and sometimes head up, and sometimes
heels—but I tell you it seemed solemn and awful to be ripping and
tearing and carrying on so in the presence of death, as you might say.
Pretty soon the bull made a snatch for us and brought away some of my
horse’s tail (I suppose, but do not know, being pretty busy at the
time), but something made him hungry for solitude and suggested to
him to get up and hunt for it.
“And then you ought to have seen that spider legged old skeleton go!
and you ought to have seen the bull cut out after him, too—head
down, tongue out, tail up, bellowing like everything, and actually mowing
down the weeds, and tearing up the earth, and boosting up the sand like a
whirlwind! By George, it was a hot race! I and the saddle were back on the
rump, and I had the bridle in my teeth and holding on to the pommel with
both hands. First we left the dogs behind; then we passed a jackass
rabbit; then we overtook a cayote, and were gaining on an antelope when
the rotten girth let go and threw me about thirty yards off to the left,
and as the saddle went down over the horse’s rump he gave it a lift
with his heels that sent it more than four hundred yards up in the air, I
wish I may die in a minute if he didn’t. I fell at the foot of the
only solitary tree there was in nine counties adjacent (as any creature
could see with the naked eye), and the next second I had hold of the bark
with four sets of nails and my teeth, and the next second after that I was
astraddle of the main limb and blaspheming my luck in a way that made my
breath smell of brimstone. I had the bull, now, if he did not think
of one thing. But that one thing I dreaded. I dreaded it very seriously.
There was a possibility that the bull might not think of it, but there
were greater chances that he would. I made up my mind what I would do in
case he did. It was a little over forty feet to the ground from where I
sat. I cautiously unwound the lariat from the pommel of my saddle—”
“Your saddle? Did you take your saddle up in the tree with
you?”
“Take it up in the tree with me? Why, how you talk. Of course I didn’t.
No man could do that. It fell in the tree when it came down.”
“Oh—exactly.”
“Certainly. I unwound the lariat, and fastened one end of it to the
limb. It was the very best green raw-hide, and capable of sustaining tons.
I made a slip-noose in the other end, and then hung it down to see the
length. It reached down twenty-two feet—half way to the ground. I
then loaded every barrel of the Allen with a double charge. I felt
satisfied. I said to myself, if he never thinks of that one thing
that I dread, all right—but if he does, all right anyhow—I am
fixed for him. But don’t you know that the very thing a man dreads
is the thing that always happens? Indeed it is so. I watched the bull,
now, with anxiety—anxiety which no one can conceive of who has not
been in such a situation and felt that at any moment death might come.
Presently a thought came into the bull’s eye. I knew it! said I—if
my nerve fails now, I am lost. Sure enough, it was just as I had dreaded,
he started in to climb the tree—”
“What, the bull?”
“Of course—who else?”
“But a bull can’t climb a tree.”
“He can’t, can’t he? Since you know so much about it,
did you ever see a bull try?”
“No! I never dreamt of such a thing.”
“Well, then, what is the use of your talking that way, then? Because
you never saw a thing done, is that any reason why it can’t be done?”
“Well, all right—go on. What did you do?”
“The bull started up, and got along well for about ten feet, then
slipped and slid back. I breathed easier. He tried it again—got up a
little higher—slipped again. But he came at it once more, and this
time he was careful. He got gradually higher and higher, and my spirits
went down more and more. Up he came—an inch at a time—with his
eyes hot, and his tongue hanging out. Higher and higher—hitched his
foot over the stump of a limb, and looked up, as much as to say, ‘You
are my meat, friend.’ Up again—higher and higher, and getting
more excited the closer he got. He was within ten feet of me! I took a
long breath,—and then said I, ‘It is now or never.’ I
had the coil of the lariat all ready; I paid it out slowly, till it hung
right over his head; all of a sudden I let go of the slack, and the
slipnoose fell fairly round his neck! Quicker than lightning I out with
the Allen and let him have it in the face. It was an awful roar, and must
have scared the bull out of his senses. When the smoke cleared away, there
he was, dangling in the air, twenty foot from the ground, and going out of
one convulsion into another faster than you could count! I didn’t
stop to count, anyhow—I shinned down the tree and shot for home.”
“Bemis, is all that true, just as you have stated it?”
“I wish I may rot in my tracks and die the death of a dog if it isn’t.”
“Well, we can’t refuse to believe it, and we don’t. But
if there were some proofs—”
“Proofs! Did I bring back my lariat?”
“No.”
“Did I bring back my horse?”
“No.”
“Did you ever see the bull again?”
“No.”
“Well, then, what more do you want? I never saw anybody as
particular as you are about a little thing like that.”
I made up my mind that if this man was not a liar he only missed it by the
skin of his teeth. This episode reminds me of an incident of my brief
sojourn in Siam, years afterward. The European citizens of a town in the
neighborhood of Bangkok had a prodigy among them by the name of Eckert, an
Englishman—a person famous for the number, ingenuity and imposing
magnitude of his lies. They were always repeating his most celebrated
falsehoods, and always trying to “draw him out” before
strangers; but they seldom succeeded. Twice he was invited to the house
where I was visiting, but nothing could seduce him into a specimen lie.
One day a planter named Bascom, an influential man, and a proud and
sometimes irascible one, invited me to ride over with him and call on
Eckert. As we jogged along, said he:
“Now, do you know where the fault lies? It lies in putting Eckert on
his guard. The minute the boys go to pumping at Eckert he knows perfectly
well what they are after, and of course he shuts up his shell. Anybody
might know he would. But when we get there, we must play him finer than
that. Let him shape the conversation to suit himself—let him drop it
or change it whenever he wants to. Let him see that nobody is trying to
draw him out. Just let him have his own way. He will soon forget himself
and begin to grind out lies like a mill. Don’t get impatient—just
keep quiet, and let me play him. I will make him lie. It does seem to me
that the boys must be blind to overlook such an obvious and simple trick
as that.”
Eckert received us heartily—a pleasant-spoken, gentle-mannered
creature. We sat in the veranda an hour, sipping English ale, and talking
about the king, and the sacred white elephant, the Sleeping Idol, and all
manner of things; and I noticed that my comrade never led the conversation
himself or shaped it, but simply followed Eckert’s lead, and
betrayed no solicitude and no anxiety about anything. The effect was
shortly perceptible. Eckert began to grow communicative; he grew more and
more at his ease, and more and more talkative and sociable. Another hour
passed in the same way, and then all of a sudden Eckert said:
“Oh, by the way! I came near forgetting. I have got a thing here to
astonish you. Such a thing as neither you nor any other man ever heard of—I’ve
got a cat that will eat cocoanut! Common green cocoanut—and not only
eat the meat, but drink the milk. It is so—I’ll swear to it.”
A quick glance from Bascom—a glance that I understood—then:
“Why, bless my soul, I never heard of such a thing. Man, it is
impossible.”
“I knew you would say it. I’ll fetch the cat.”
He went in the house. Bascom said:
“There—what did I tell you? Now, that is the way to handle
Eckert. You see, I have petted him along patiently, and put his suspicions
to sleep. I am glad we came. You tell the boys about it when you go back.
Cat eat a cocoanut—oh, my! Now, that is just his way, exactly—he
will tell the absurdest lie, and trust to luck to get out of it again.
“Cat eat a cocoanut—the innocent fool!”
Eckert approached with his cat, sure enough.
Bascom smiled. Said he:
“I’ll hold the cat—you bring a cocoanut.”
Eckert split one open, and chopped up some pieces. Bascom smuggled a wink
to me, and proffered a slice of the fruit to puss. She snatched it,
swallowed it ravenously, and asked for more!
We rode our two miles in silence, and wide apart. At least I was silent,
though Bascom cuffed his horse and cursed him a good deal, notwithstanding
the horse was behaving well enough. When I branched off homeward, Bascom
said:
“Keep the horse till morning. And—you need not speak of this—foolishness
to the boys.”
