HORT STORY.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 97, 16 December 1902, Page 7

HORT STORY.

- The landscape consisted chiefly of the railroad depot, two or three broad sheds, one with 'Saloon' painted on a shingle over the door, and the straight, shining railroad track, which climbed out of the eastern horizon and faded into the weßt. The rest was alkali and sage. The OBly man in Btore clothes on the depot platform was a quiet, middle-aged person waiting for the 230 east. He wore glasses and a trimmed beard. The other parties were Messrs. Brindle and Pesrleg Eummeiß, and the gentleman from Kentucky, who was known as 'Bluegrass' for that reason. They sat around on packing cases and smoked. The stranger in store clothes was so obviously an Easterner and a city man that it seemed inhospitable not to start a conversation which might include him Mr. SommT« looked round for inspiration, but tho ecenery aa deecribed above was not inspiring. A small, white object some distance from the track glistened in the sun. and drew the eye of Mr. Summers.- it was a buffalo skull bleached with years of weatner. * I remember/ said Pegleg, 'i a the construction times, when I was fixing op telegraph wires alongside the railroad, how the buffaloes uoeter come and scratch their hides agin the poles, and juat rub and rub till they boosted the poles out'n the yearth. It was calculated to worry a man to look one morning along a few miles of poles he'd been fixin' and see 'em saggin' like a Bnake fence. We tried fixin' twelve-inch spikes with sharp pints into the peloß. Why, them buffaloes just Bmiled cheerful, and combed their ole pelts harder'n ever.' ' I was tole/ said Bluegrass, ' that one of them ole Roman fellers, Caies J. Ctesar, wrote a book about the fightin' in the backwoods in Europe in his time. He slung some pretty tough remarks about hnnfcin', too. Said the bnll-elieks — or maybe it was the mouse-deer — anyhow he said they'd no knee j'ints, and didn't lie down to sleep, 'cause if they had they couldn't git up agin. So they slept leanin' against trees. And then the settlers took off their boots and sneaked round with a rip-saw, and just sawed the tree ' ' Seems to me/ said Pegleg, ' tbat C. J. Cesar was makin' a statement. Any bull-elik ever I encountered north would have been in Alaska before that rip-saw got in its second yank. What's the use of him givin' that sorter mush to gro wedup folks ?' ' I'm hearin'/ said Hunky, cantiously. ' That thiahyer C. J. Caesar was a bad man in a scrap. Maybe it was onhealthy to insinuate that he was handlin' the truth kinder keerless.' ' *I think/ sp-id the quiet man in store ' clothes, who seemed to be interested in the conversation, ' that Csesar was only repeating some tales the German tribea- | men told him. These sort of people are i given to decorating facts.' I Bluegrass began to look rather aggressive. Perhaps he felt that the German frontiersmen of Roman times were not so unlike the American frontiersmen of these days, and resented the stranger's ' that sort of people.' ' I daresay/ he said, drily, ' that some city dudes who never saw any sort of a bull>elick thought the joke was on Caiua Casar/ 'Well/ said the stranger, good-natur-edly, 'I'm afraid I'd as soon believe a man who said he'd seen a mastoden as an elk without knee-joints.' Bluegrasa looked fixedly at the Rtranger as one who bluff eth his neighbour aceHigh. ' I've seen a mastoien/ said' he. ' The mastodon is extinct, and a fossil/ the stranger said, mildly. Mr. Summers, who was in the line of fire between Bluegrass and the Easterner, shoved back bis pack ing- box slowly. * In this part of the country/ aaid Bluegrass, ' it is unusual for a tender-foot to inform an old inhabitant on the products of the region.' ' I beg your pardon/ said the stranger, amiably. ' I am always open to receive new facts. Indeed, I am rather anxious to hear your account of this— -cr — remarkable occurrence. ' ' Hunky, here/ said Bluegrase, ' or Pegleg, will tell you that they have rid around these parts for years, and have never sot eyes on a mastodon. And they'll say it honest. But, again, they may hare seen a mastodon without recogniflin' the animal.' •I've hearin'/ said Pegleg, meekly, 1 that a mastodon is a sort oi elephant, only bigger. I think I should know him if 1 saw one. 1 •PegUg/ said Bluegrass, 'that's where your toe turns in, wusser'n an Injun's. You look across a big canyon, say Rieay Canyon, and you see a black dot movin' at the bottom. It may be a goat or a Wavajo pony, but as you oayn't tell to several mile how far off it is it may likewise be a mastodon. A large calibre mastodon don't look big in the Ricay agin a cliff five thousand fest high.' ItThe stranger, who, to the delight of Hunk and Pegleg, was busy taking notes in a memo, book, looked up and tapped his teeth with his pencil. ' Did you say five thousand feet ?' he asked. ! 'Four thousand eight hundred and fifty/ said Bluegrass with apologetic precision. 'You'll say, perhaps, that a mastodon wouldn't be all the time too far away for recognition. But he is a shy animal, and powerful keen in the smell. Stands to reason, he havin' a nose as long as a fire hose, than he should be keen in tii« smell.' * But nobody ever came upon one even k by chance/ said Hunky. m 'Somebody did/ said Bluegrass 'It * was me Tom Bonner and I were camping in Ricay Canyon. You will ask — Why were we camping in Ricay Canyon ? Ton will inquire— lb there anything for a white man to do in Ricay Canyon 'cept heave rooks at honed toads and ache for . a civilised drink P It was Bonner's par- ' ticular brand of foolishness. Somebody - bad filled him up that the dead and gone natives who built them stone ruins agin the cliffs and dug out caves in the rocks hid hidden a pile of gold in the further end of a particular cavern. But when we arrived we found that a big rock had slid down and blocked up the entrance completely. We couldn't tackle it nohow, bo

Bluegrass's Mastodon.

Bonner said he'd stay by and see that nobody stole the cave, while I rode over ro Port Filjee and got some giant powder. It was a four days' ride there and back. I «m not a miner anyways, and didn't LUe taa 1>« k of the sticks of onpleasant, greasy-look i u' stuff they called giant powder. They said it was all right so long as I carxied the detonators separate from the powder. I did so, you bet. I Btowed the detonators in a bag on my pony, and I packed the powder tight into a little tin pail and gave it to my dog Grab to carry. This was rough on Grab you might say, but he liked to carry things, ai d his feelings were not hurt, as he didn't know the piil was loaded. The last day's rid 6 on the plateau I had trouble. My pony went lame. It was pretty late before I reached the canyon, and then 1 missed the trail and got along a narrer ridge which stuck ont into the canyon, with straight- down cliffs on each side, until I reached a sort of flat- top bluff about a mile across each way and perpendicular down a few thousand feet into the canyon. It was so dark now that I concluded to camp and earch back for the trail in the mornia'. The moon wab due in three hours or so. I didn't hobble my horse — him being so lame— but just turned him loose. I ate some cold grub I bad, and fed Grab after tellin' him to put his pail down beneath a tree a few yards away. I rolled up in my blanket and went to sleep, tellin' Grab to watch. •' I slep' a good while, and was woke up by Grab pullin' my blanket and whinin'. He never barked — too much Injun blood in him. I sat up sharp. The moon had riz, but was still low and shinia' level, with it's lower edge touohin' a rise in the gronnd. The sky was clear, without a reg of cloud. I turned to look at Grab, and right then the moon went out ! I swung round in time to see the moon dodge into view agin round a corner, so to speak, with something like an almighty sarpint twistin' acrost the face of her. 'lam a Bober man, and not given to seem' snakes, onlike my late lamented pardner, Tom Bonner. Poor Tom, he died about four years ago over at the Gila. He bad never seen the poisonous lizards, what we call the Gila monsters, which are the very diabolishest-lookin' reptiles you ever sot eyes on. Tom be came upon a reglar posse, about seven or eight, one day when he was soberer than a deacon. He dida't believe them reptiles was genuine — he hadn't seen wusserlookin' when he was on the jag — and to prove to himself that they wasn't real he sat down right atop of the biggest. It was the bitin'est phantom, and it hung on when it took hold. I killed it, but poor Tom was a goner. He feebly drank a gallon and a half of straight whisky out of a jug, which is good for poisin bites, and then he swolled up and expired.' ' Perhaps/ said the Easterner, thoughtfully, 'the lizard was not so deadly after all.' ' You don't know the Gila monster/ said the narrator. 'I mean/ explained the other, 'that perhaps the whisky killed him.' ' The whisky — the whisk . You didn't know Tom Bonner !' said Bluegrass. He smoked a few moments in silence, and the stranger feared lest the digression after the Gila monster had diverted the tale of the inconstant moon. ' You were telling us/ ho said, invitingly, 'of a strange appearance like a large serpent across the mc.o n P' • Yaaß,' said Bluegrass. • That is what it resembled. I was badly rattled, which is unusual for me, and I acted foolish. I drew my gun and fired two shots. The next moment I was lightin' out on the dead run with something after me — something twenty feet high, and screeching like a locomotive. I'm a good runner — I useter foot-race with the Navajos — but I would have been caught in the first rush if my onfornit pony hadn't been hobblin' in the way. He was snatched and whirled into the air like a rabbit. I looked back and saw this awful-lookin' zoological freak jasb flafctenin' out the poor equine's remains. The beaat was twenty foot high, as I said, with long, straight tusks, and, and more bony and slab- Bided khan an ornery fed- up circus elephant. His hide was black and bristly with grey patches like an ole rock, an' I guess he was ole. 1 1 ran t >wards the moon bo's to let the light into his eyes as he followed me. My, how I ran ! I soon found out that if I snaked left and right I could keep ahead, as he wasn't spry at turnin'. I think I ran twice round the top of the bluff, missin' the black trail along the ridge to the plateau- There was bo other way out — the cliff was Bheer Grab, he came boundin' along with me, and when I recovered my Bonses enough to take notice, I Baw he had that darned tin pail in his mouth. Even a dog may be too conscientious. I don't think he was scared, but just came whiskin' along in a sporty manner, while the tin pail clanked agin stumps and rocks. I yelled at Grab pretty savage with what breath I could spare, for it is tryin' to the temper to have a keerleas dog gettin' around among your feet with a pail of high explosive, while an extinct fossil, twenty feet high, is gamboll ia' behind. ' Of course this sort of obstacle-race by moonlight couldn't last long. I was gettin' blown with divin' under fallen trees and boundin' over gullies which that blamed mastodon took in his stride. Poor Grab, too, began to find his tin pail too much te tote, as he couldn't hang his tongue out on account of the handle. As I recovered after a handspring over a stump I saw the mastodon close upon Grab, stop, and rope the pore dog in with his trunk. He opened a cavernyous mouth, licked pore Grab ia, and swallowed him like a pie. Last thing I saw wan the tinjrail which the faithful old dog kept holt of t<-> the end. It follexed him down.' 1 But the mastodon/ said the stranger, with a startled air, 'is not held to have been a carnivorous animal.' ' I have before mentioned/ said Bluegrass, with a pained expression, ' that it is unusual in Arizona for an uninstructed person to correct ttn expert on matters of observation. This mastodon was carnivorous — also dognivorous. You sabeP 1 'I see/ said the stranger, making a note, ' the mastodon is a carnivorous animal.' His face was funereal. • We resumed/ said Bluegrass, ' but the end was nigh. I thought that soon I would be travell^i* inside passage, with Grab, and the pail of powder. In death

we would aot be divided, leastways I didn't perceive that the mastodon had ohewed any before he gulped, I could J hear his feet poundin' behind me like thunder. I doubled again down a gentile Blope, but found all at once that I had 1 run ctut upon, a spur with the lip of the 4 canyon right down before me. I just had . time to fall flat, with my face over . nothin*. That is, I was looking straight down four thousand eight hundred and fifty feet. I remember in a second or two 8f em' the Ricay. Eiver glistenin' m the moonlight at the bottom of the arroys* and a small spark in the distant shadow below, which was Tom Bomber's camp-fire. And then the mastodon jumped clean over me. 'I watched him/ said Bluegrass, impressively, 'a-fallin*, and a-fallin'. He turned over slowly, spreading his forelegs and quiling his trunk round his off hind leg, while his tail, which was bristly at the tip, stuck straight ont. He grew smaller and smaller as he fell, but he kept on falliaV Pegleg Summers leant a somnolent head against Mr. Brindle. • Wake me,' he whispered, ' when the critter touches the bottom. 'Four thousand eight hundred and fifty feet/ repeated Bluegrasa. 'It was too far. He was twenty foot high, and thereabouts in length, bat he grew too small for me to Bee him. But at last he must have fetched the floor of the canyon. I txpect he hit a rock. He weighed several tons, of course, and I guess he bit it hard. Under which circumstances giant powder will explode without a detonator. I saw a bright flash, and a long time after a muffled bang came fl satin' up. 'Is the mornin' I struck the trail and got down on foot to the camp I found Tom Bonner trying to wash his shirt in a pail of the gummy mud and alkali alleged to be the Ricay River water. 1 Bluegrass/ says be, ' last night one of them bung-3tarted aerolites kerplunke^ iifcfco the canyon not far from here and busted like thunder. And I'm jimblasted/ says Tom, • if it didn't just kiver thisyer camp and me with half-cooked sassidge-meat. Whar's Grab ?' ' Jed gin' from them yaller bahs in the pail/ says I, 'be reached carap last eveninV All arose, for the 230 bad pulled in The stranger pocketed his notebook, and shook hands with the crowd before boarding his car. ' Sir/ he said to Bluegras*, ' your talents are gieat, bat unsuited for the sceptical East. Even if from motives of humanity you spared half of those who would be sure to dissent from your statements, the toil of killing the other half would probably exceed yourpowers. Still, if you do come ay far as Washington, DC, I shall be pleased to see you.' He handed Bluegrass an envelope from the car platfoim, and the express left. Mr. Brindle read the address over the shoulder of the recipient. ' H. Griscom Shearer, B Sc , U.S. Geographical Survey.' , I have before mentioned/ said Pegleg to the sky, ' that it is unusual in Arizona for an uninstructed person to correct an expert on matters of observation.' • The mastodon,' added Hunky, 'is a carnivorous animal — also dognivorous.' • Boys/ said Bluegraas, ' the joke ia on me, a«d the saloon is near. Name your poison.' ' Straight whisky/ said Pegleg, ' out'n & 3 U B- * guess we know Tom Bonner/ — Walter MacEwan.