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.”
