CHAPTER XI
CONEY ISLAND
It is wonderful how much a smile, or even a grin, will do for adisconsolate lover. Bowles woke suddenly to the beauties of nature andthe wild joy of living; and that evening, instead of dropping into hisblankets like a dead man, he tarried by the fire. A chill wind swept infrom the frigid north, and the smoke guttered and flurried from theburning logs; but the cowboys sat about in their shirt-sleeves andblinked patiently when they caught the smoke. Inside the bunk-house thenoise of the perpetual pitch game told where battles were being lost andwon, a secret understanding that every game was worth a quarter onpay-day being the contributing cause for the excitement, since Henry Leeallowed no gambling among his punchers. But outside everybody was eitherbroke or in the hole, and so there was nothing but peace and amity andlong-winded arguments.
The talk for the moment was centered upon "ring-tail" in horses, asubject upon which Brigham Clark claimed to be an authority, althoughBowles had never even heard of it before.
"No, sir," asserted Brigham, addressing the company at large; "you showme a ring-tailed hawse, and I'll show you a hawse with weak kidneys,every time. Now, I don't say how he gits them weak kidneys,y'understand; he may git 'em from bein' rode too young, the way UncleJoe claims; or he may git 'em from drinkin' bad water, like folks; or hemay jest be born that way. But that ain't the point--when you take anice young hawse and turn him up a hill, and he quits and goes toringin' his tail around--that hawse is weak, I say, or he wouldn't quit.A ring-tailed hawse is a weak hawse, and you might jest as well give 'imto the kids to play with--he'll never be no good fer a cow-pony."
Coming as this did at the end of a long and technical argument, it wasallowed to pass by the company. A quiet fell, and three or four men toleeward got up to avoid the smoke; but all the time Brigham Clark sat onthe box he had captured, his big black hat pushed back on his head, hishand held out to the fire, and his shrewd eyes twinkling as he gazeddown into the flames. Then he shook with silent laughter, and they knewhe was off on another one.
"Heh, heh, heh!" he chuckled. "Speakin' of ring-tails reminds me of aring-tailed monkey I used to have to take care of when I was on theroad. He was the orneriest little brat you ever see in yore life--alittle, spider-legged proposition, with a long, limber tail, and bigeyes that he'd always be winkin' and a-blinkin' while he was figurin'out some new kind of devilment--and all the time he'd be sneezin' andcuddlin' and snugglin' up ag'inst you like he loved you more'n hismammy. The boss's wife kept the little snifter fer company-like, andshe'd pet and coddle and talk foolish to 'im until the boss would nighhave a fit. Jest like when a woman keeps a lap-dog, I reckon--kindermakes a man want to kill 'im, to keep her from muchin' 'im all the time.
"Well, this here lady was shore foolish about that monkey, and everymornin' when we were in a town I had to take 'im out fer a walk.Leastways, somebody had to do it; and rather than not see the town atall I'd take him along under my arm. If I'd had a hand-organ I'd shoremade a lot of money that trip--but I was thinkin' about the time I tookthe ring out of his tail. Every time we'd come to a tree, or afire-escape, or something like that, the little devil would begin tohook up at it with his tail; and this time I'm speakin' of we was goin'through a little park, and I'm a son-of-a-gun if he didn't git away onme. Jest reached out with his tail where it was hangin' down behind, andgrabbed a limb, and slipped the collar on me.
"Yes, sir! And then he begun doin' circus stunts through them trees.First he'd climb up one, and then another, and then he hooked on to afire-escape, and I chased him clean over a house. Policeman came alongand wanted to arrest me, but I give 'im a talk and kept travelin',because I knew if I didn't ketch that monkey I didn't need to go back tothe tent. Well, I chased him till my tongue hung out, but about the timeI'd reach out to ketch 'im he'd swing off with his tail and git into thenext tree; so I went over to a fruit store and tried to ketch 'im withbananas. Last chance I had, and I was gittin' pretty mad. All the kidswas there to tease me, the policeman was tellin' me to move on--and thatcussed monkey kept hangin' down by his tail and makin' faces at me,until, by grab, I reached down and took up a rock.
"'Now, hyer,' I says, holdin' up the banana, 'you'd better come downbefore I git hot and soak you with this,' and I showed him the size ofthat pavin' stone.
"'Etchee-etchee-etchee!' he says, swingin' up for a limb; and then I let'im have it. They wasn't any ring in his tail when he come down, believeme; and when I showed the remains to the missus she like to tore my hairout. Boss he fired me--mad as the devil--then when she wasn't lookin' heslipped me a twenty, and told me to go back to Coney. There was a happyman, fellers, but he had to let on different--married, you know. So Itook the twenty and went back to old Coney, where they shoot the chutesand loop the loops, and any man that's got a dime is as rich as John G.Rockefeller. Big doin's back there, fellers--you don't know what you'remissin'."
An abashed silence followed this remark, calculated as it was to reducehis hearers to a proper state of humility; and then, to add to itseffectiveness, the Odysseus of the cow camps turned to Bowles.
"Ain't that so, stranger?" he said; and Bowles thought he detected atwinkle in his eye.
"Yes, indeed!" he replied. "There's no place in the world like ConeyIsland. Changing very rapidly, too. Have you been there lately? ThatDreamland is wonderful, isn't it? And Luna Park----"
"Hah!" exclaimed Brigham, slapping his leg. "That's the place! LoonyPark! Ain't that the craziest place you ever see? Everythingupside-down, topsy-turvy--guess I never told you boys about that. Didn'tdare to, by grab--not till this gentleman come along to back me up!"
He glanced at Bowles significantly and waited for the questions.
"What does she look like, Brig?" inquired Bar Seven, the stray man."Pretty fancy, eh?"
"Fancy!" repeated Brigham, with royal insolence. "Well, believe me,goin' through this Loony Park would make Tucson look like a cow camp!She's shore elegant--silver and gold, and big barroom looking-glasseseverywhere--only everything is upside-down. You go into the housethrough the chimney, walk around on the ceilin' and there's all thetables and chairs stuck up on the top. Big chandeliers standin' straightup from the floor, and all the pictures hangin' wrong side to on thewalls. Stairs is all built backwards, and when you're half way up, ifyou look like a Rube, they'll straighten 'em out like a flat board andshoot you into the attic. Talk about crazy--w'y, they's been a fellerwalked through this Loony Park and never knowed straight up afterwards.It's shore wonderful, ain't it, pardner?"
"Yes, indeed!" answered Bowles suavely; and, seeing that he could berelied upon, Brigham Clark cut loose with another one.
"Ain't that so, mister?" he inquired at the end; and Bowles, who saw achance for revenge, assured the gawking cowboys that it was. These werethe boys who had been gloating over him for a week and more, but now itwas his turn.
"Yes, indeed," he replied, with a blase, worldly-wise air; "quite acommon occurrence, I'm sure."
At this the ready Brigham took fresh courage, and his little eyestwinkled with mischief.
"Friend," he said, "if it's none of my business, of course you'll let meknow, but you've been around a little, haven't you? Seen the world,mebbe? Well now, what's the wonderfulest thing you ever see?"
A flush of pleasure mantled Bowles' sunburned face, for it was the firsttime he had been addressed as man to man since he struck the Bat Wing;but he did not lose the point--Brigham had a bigger story to bring outand he was waiting for a lead.
"Well," he said, "I _have_ seen a good many wonderful exhibitions, butthe one that I think of at this moment as the most striking was Selim,the diving horse. You remember him, I guess--out at Coney Island. He wasa beautiful horse, wasn't he? Snowy white, with a long, flowing mane,and intelligent as a human. He mounted to a platform forty-five feethigh and leaped off into a pool of water. That was the most wonderfulthing I ever saw, because he did it all by himself--climbed up to theplatform, stepped out to the diving-place, and jumped off when hi
smaster said the word. Yes, that was certainly wonderful."
"You bet!" assented Brig, regarding him with admiring eyes; but theothers were not so easily satisfied. That was one thing they claimed tobe up on--horses--and they looked the solemn stranger over dubiously.
"How high did you say that platform was?" inquired Uncle Joe cautiously."Forty-five--well, that was shore high. I cain't hardly git my hawse tocross the crick."
"How deep was that pool?" spoke up Bar Seven, the stray man. "Ten foot?Huh! Say, boys, this reminds me of that divin' story of Brig's!"
"Well, what's the matter with that divin' story of mine?" demandedBrigham orgulously. "You're behind the times, Bar Seven. While you wason yore way this gentleman come into camp, and he's seen that donehimself. What do you know about it, anyhow--spent all yore life punchin'cows and eatin' sand--what do you know about divin', anyhow?"
"Well, they's one thing I do know," retorted Bar Seven, "and that'shawses. I been with hawses all my life, and you cain't tell me about nohawse divin'--stands to reason he'd hit the bottom and break his neck,anyway!"
"Perhaps I would better explain," broke in Bowles politely. "When thehorse leaves the platform he slides down an inclined chute, below whichis hung a heavily padded board. As the horse slips off he naturallykicks and struggles, and his feet, flying out behind, strike the paddedboard so that, while he leaps off headforemost, he rights himself in theair and falls into the pool feet first. Of course, forty-five feet isquite a distance, but he probably never goes to the bottom at all."
"Well, that's all right," admitted Bar Seven. "I don't know aboutthat--but tell me this, stranger: How does the man git that hawse toclimb up there and take the jump? Tell me that, and I'll believeanything!"
"Why, certainly," said Bowles. "At the time of which I speak, a younggirl rode on his back when he made the plunge--just to make it moreexciting, you know--but I watched the man quite closely, and really itwas very interesting. First the girl went up the long incline, which hada railing and was provided with cleats, of course. Then the trainerbrought Selim out and gave him a handful of sugar from his pocket,rubbing his head and talking to him while he was begging for more, untilhe had him up to the chute. There he stripped the halter off and spoketo him, and the horse started up by himself, he was so eager for thereward. At the top the girl mounted him and turned him down thediving-chute; and, don't you know, the first thing he did when he got toland was to trot back and get his sugar!"
"Oh, sugar!" cried Bar Seven, in disgust; but somehow thecircumstantiality of the narrative seemed to carry conviction with theothers, and he found himself alone.
"What breed of hawse was that?" inquired Uncle Joe, after a pause.
"A pure-blooded Arabian," answered Bowles; "supposed to be the mostintelligent horses in the world. The Arabians, you know, keep theirhorses about their tents and raise them as if they were children,teaching them to understand the human voice and to answer like a dog."
"W'y, sure!" broke in Brigham, artfully taking the lead again. "Don'tyou fellers remember that story in the school book about Ali Ben Hassan,or whatever his name was, that was wounded in a battle and his hawsepicked him up by his belt and packed him back to his tent? I tell you,them A-rabs are a pretty smooth bunch of _hombres_. They not only savvyhawses from the ground up but they're the finest jugglers andstrong-armed men that the world has ever seen. I remember back at Coneythey was three brothers that did sech tricks you couldn't hardly believeit.
"They was called the Hassan brothers--all A-rabs is either named Hassanor A-li--and the oldest one was a balancer. That feller could balance apeacock feather on his nose--throw a flip-flap clean over it, and comeup with it still on his nose--but that was jest fer a starter. His bigstunt was balancin' clay pipes. He'd take a hundred and forty-fourlong-handled pipes, balance 'em one on top of the other, and then skipup to the top and set there while he took a smoke."
"What! One on top of the other?" demanded Bar Seven incredulously.
"Aw, no, you bone head!" replied Brigham impatiently. "What d'yethink--would he pile 'em up a hundred foot high? He made 'em into a kindof pyramid-like--but he was nothin' to his younger brother. That fellerwas a rope-sharp. You punchers think you can twirl the rope some, butyou're back in the calf corral alongside of him. He could throw a loopout on the floor, and send it quilin' around like a snake, hoppin' overchairs and tables like a trained dog, and then have it come back andhog-tie 'im at one lick, so that an expert couldn't unfasten the knotsin half an hour. But that was jest good rope work with him; his big playcome at the end when he tied a twenty-pound weight at the end of it andbegan to swing it round. By Joe, that was great! And then, right at theend, when he pulled his big stuff, he heaved that weight forty foot intothe air, clum up the rope and set down on top of it smokin' his cigar!Now, by grab, can you beat that?"
"Kin we beat it?" echoed Bar Seven and the bunch. "Kin we believeit--that's the point!"
"Well, what's the matter with it?" demanded Brigham irritably. "Seemslike every time I tell you cotton-pickers anythin' you up an' call me aliar. What's the matter, anyway?"
"What's the matter?" yelled Bar Seven, raising his voice above the rest."W'y, you ignorant devil, how could the feller set on the weight when itwas only throwed up in the air?"
A chorus of other demands followed, but Brigham only sat on his box,smiling easily.
"Say, what do you take me for?" he inquired, gazing about him pityingly."If I knowed how that A-rab did that rope-work, d'ye think I'd bepunchin' cows? Not fer me--I'd be drawin' a thousand dollars a week backat Coney. Of co'se I can't say how it was done--no more than youcan--but that's what makes the show! If the people knowed, they wouldn'tcome no more! Ain't that so, pardner?"
"Yes, indeed!" responded Bowles.
"W'y sure!" went on Brigham. "Anybody that knows anythin' about the showbusiness knows that. No matter how good a stunt is, it's got to bemysterious or the people won't pay to see it. Either that, or it's gotto be feats of strength and darin'. Now this youngest Hassan brother wasa strong-armed man. He'd wrap a piece of chain around his arm, tightenup his muscle and _pop!_ it'd break right square in two. Same thing withhis chest--he'd wrap a loggin' chain around his breast, suck in hisbreast, and snap it like a thread. You've seen fellers like that,haven't you?"
"Sure!" said Bowles.
"Yes--all right!" continued Brigham apologetically. "Seems like thesimplest thing I tell these fellers some rabbit-twister from Texas upand contradicts me. Well, this youngest brother had a pretty good stuntto end up with--nothin' flashy, of co'se, but pretty good fer a kid. Hewas powerful strong in the right arm and he'd hold it out likethis"--Brigham held out his brawny arm--"and then he'd muscle up, realslow-like, and then, by grab, he'd raise himself right up, and come downover, and set right down on that thumb!"
He elevated his thumb as he spoke, and the cowboys gazed at it as ifhypnotized. Then Bar Seven rose up slowly and, walking over to thedefenseless Brigham, mashed his hat down over his eyes at a single blow.
"Brig," he said, his voice trembling with conviction, "you're adad-burned liar!"
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