“So while the botanist went glarin’ around the town with his glasses to see if he could spot a prairie-dog and an owl usin’ the same hole, I was diggin’ in a hole I’d seen an owl run down. And that’s what I got.” He held up his thumb again.
“The snake!” I exclaimed.
“Yes, sir. Mr. Rattler was keepin’ house that day. Took me right there. I hauled him out of the hole hangin’ to me. Eight rattles.”
“Eight!” said I. “A big one.”
“Yes, sir. Thought I was dead. But the woman—”
“The woman?” said I.
“Yes, woman. Didn’t I tell yu’ the botanist had his wife along? Well, he did. And she acted better than the man, for he was losin’ his head, and shoutin’ he had no whiskey, and he didn’t guess his knife was sharp enough to amputate my thumb, and none of us chewed, and the doctor was twenty miles away, and if he had only remembered to bring his ammonia—well, he was screeching out ’most everything he knew in the world, and without arranging it any, neither. But she just clawed his pocket and burrowed and kep’ yelling, ‘Give him the stone, Augustus!’ And she whipped out one of them Injun medicine-stones—first one I ever seen—and she clapped it on to my thumb, and it started in right away.”
“What did it do?” said I.
“Sucked. Like blotting-paper does. Soft and funny it was, and gray. They get ’em from elks’ stomachs, yu’ know. And when it had sucked the poison out of the wound, off it falls of my thumb by itself! And I thanked the woman for saving my life that capable and keeping her head that cool. I never knowed how excited she had been till afterward. She was awful shocked.”
“I suppose she started to talk when the danger was over,” said I, with deep silence around me.
“No; she didn’t say nothing to me. But when her next child was born, it had eight rattles.”
Din now rose wild in the caboose. They rocked together. The enthusiast beat his knee tumultuously. And I joined them. Who could help it? It had been so well conducted from the imperceptible beginning. Fact and falsehood blended with such perfect art. And this last, an effect so new made with such world-old material! I cared nothing that I was the victim, and I joined them; but ceased, feeling suddenly somehow estranged or chilled. It was in their laughter. The loudness was too loud. And I caught the eyes of Trampas fixed upon the Virginian with exultant malevolence. Scipio’s disgusted glance was upon me from the door.
Dazed by these signs, I went out on the platform to get away from the noise. There the Virginian said to me: “Cheer up! You’ll not be so easy for ’em that-a-way next season.”
He said no more; and with his legs dangled over the railing, appeared to resume his newspaper.
“What’s the matter?” said I to Scipio.
“Oh, I don’t mind if he don’t,” Scipio answered. “Couldn’t yu’ see? I tried to head ’em off from yu’ all I knew, but yu’ just ran in among ’em yourself. Couldn’t yu’ see? Kep’ hinderin’ and spoilin’ me with askin’ those urgent questions of yourn—why, I had to let yu’ go your way! Why, that wasn’t the ordinary play with the ordinary tenderfoot they treated you to! You ain’t a common tenderfoot this trip. You’re the foreman’s friend. They’ve hit him through you. That’s the way they count it. It’s made them encouraged. Can’t yu’ see?”
Scipio stated it plainly. And as we ran by the next station, “Howard!” they harshly yelled. “Portland 1256!”
We had been passing gangs of workmen on the track. And at that last yell the Virginian rose. “I reckon I’ll join the meeting again,” he said. “This filling and repairing looks like the washout might have been true.”
“Washout?” said Scipio.
“Big Horn bridge, they say—four days ago.”
“Then I wish it came this side Rawhide station.”
“Do yu’?” drawled the Virginian. And smiling at Scipio, he lounged in through the open door.
“He beats me,” said Scipio, shaking his head. “His trail is turruble hard to anticipate.”
We listened.
“Work bein’ done on the road, I see,” the Virginian was saying, very friendly and conversational.
“We see it too,” said the voice of Trampas.
“Seem to be easin’ their grades some.”
“Roads do.”
“Cheaper to build ’em the way they want ’em at the start, a man would think,” suggested the Virginian, most friendly. “There go some more I-talians.”
“They’re Chinese,” said Trampas.
“That’s so,” acknowledged the Virginian, with a laugh.
“What’s he monkeyin’ at now?” muttered Scipio.
“Without cheap foreigners they couldn’t afford all this hyeh new gradin’,” the Southerner continued.
“Grading! Can’t you tell when a flood’s been eating the banks?”
“Why, yes,” said the Virginian, sweet as honey. “But ’ain’t yu’ heard of the improvements west of Big Timber, all the way to Missoula, this season? I’m talkin’ about them.”
“Oh! Talking about them. Yes, I’ve heard.”
“Good money-savin’ scheme, ain’t it?” said the Virginian. “Lettin’ a freight run down one hill an’ up the next as far as she’ll go without steam, an’ shavin’ the hill down to that point.” Now this was an honest engineering fact. “Better’n settin’ dudes squintin’ through telescopes and cipherin’ over one percent reductions,” the Southerner commented.
“It’s common sense,” assented Trampas. “Have you heard the new scheme about the water-tanks?”
“I ain’t right certain,” said the Southerner.
“I must watch this,” said Scipio, “or I shall bust.” He went in, and so did I.
They were all sitting over this discussion of the Northern Pacific’s recent policy as to betterments, as though they were the board of directors. Pins could have dropped. Only nobody would have cared to hear a pin.
“They used to put all their tanks at the bottom of their grades,” said Trampas.
“Why, yu’ get the water easier at the bottom.”
“You can pump it to the top, though,” said Trampas, growing superior. “And it’s cheaper.”
“That gets me,” said the Virginian, interested.
“Trains after watering can start down hill now and get the benefit of the gravity. It’ll cut down
