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• Language: unknown
• Subjects: Corral; Hen; Meek; The Ribs; Beaver Creek
• Online Access: http://cdm16250.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15010coll4/id/345

PURPLE AND GOLD 7 and Beaver Creek for company. I had too much money those days, I guess. Anyhow, midnight saw me pulling into the home flats, a little more than good-natured loaded, singing and whoop- ing her up wonderful. The whole place was lousy with chicks about then. Uncle H. had a village of coops right outside his bedroom window. As luck would have it, I rode Dude that trip. Meanest critter that ever breathed. Nothing in these parts was ever ace-hight to him, Reddy. Well, as I pulls into home, a-feeling just a little happier than a governor, Dude rips it into me. That little cayuse tied bow-knots in my backbone and yanked them out so fast it made me sick. Then he dips under a wire clothesline that come all too near cutting me in two before it broke, and, with one long spring, carries destruction to the chicken coops. Reddy, it sounded plumb like h-- had broke loose; Dude pounding the earth and landing on coops right and left; hens a-flapping and screeching, and Uncle H. a-hollering "Police!" at the window. H. always kept a shotgun handy for prowling varmints, and all of a sudden he turns her loose. I felt a shot take me in the ribs, and I take it from the way Dude quit those parts that he stopped a few stray shot as well. Dude pulls up at the corral, meek as anybody, with Sandy, Beaver Creek, H. William and the rest in all manner of full dress about us. "Gracious sakes!" yells H ., "are you hurt, Hank? Are you killed I say? Man," said H., as he wrung my surprised hand, "I thought it was a coyote. I might have killed you." I caught a glimpse of Beaver Creek's face. It jest turned pink with joy. "A coyote," says he, when we were alone. "A coyote. Hanky, you better trail to the weeds. This is no place for you." And, Kid, I guess it wasn't. Somehow, Uncle H. had never clung to me, and after that he couldn't even speak pleasant to his obedient foreman. It got so that every cow puncher I met asked me how the eggs was hatchin', and other things no cal-lated to make a man proud, till the thoughts of Reddy and the old ranch began to stick in my dreams. Then H. took a flying trip East, while I stays by the chicks. One day every man Jack of us takes for town. We found a half dozen hay gangs in. Things sounded like a Fourth of July celebration, with trade following lively. There's no dodging hospitality. It's too wet. I can count three drinks, never higher. But I reckon my actions were matters for only the wildest imaginin's. I remember, though, that I heard Mr. Hotel Keep talking chicken; couldn't buy any nohow; wasn't none in the country. That last got my dander up. "Man," says I, solemn-like. "I got five hundred of those things at home, and. what's more. I'll sell the whole shebang --- ;-rooster, hen. jack and the game." Then I forgets it. But Mr. Hotel Keep don't. He goes after the whole outfit.