“Well, his name’s Jeddo—Abishua Jeddo. He’s a tall, bony shanty man with only one arm. And his eyes and his hair are black as a crow. So the stiffs monikered ’im ‘Jeddo the Crow.’ And what Jeddo the Crow begat is called Joy. She’s twenty-one years old, as dark as her dad; and say—you c’n look at her just as easy!
“Her ma’s dead. The girl was born in her dad’s gypo outfit, and she’s a gypo queen. But not like the rest of ’em. Oh, no! She don’t slip none of ’em a kiss on the side to keep ’em followin’ Jack and Ned for Jeddo the Crow. No, no! Get fresh with her, and she’ll bend a pick handle over your frontispiece. She works in the cook shack, waits table, washes the dishes, and then goes out and hitches up a team and moves dirt till mealtime again. Or she c’n stick pigs”—load scrapers without wheels, commonly called “slips”—“swing a drillin’ hammer, skin four-up or six-up or jerkline—do anything on a railroad grade, by golly! And purty! Say, am I gettin’ talkative?
“Well, anyway, she’s her dad’s right-hand man. Bein’ one-armed, he couldn’t run the outfit without Wing o’ the Crow. And now d’ye savvy where she gets that moniker! Ole Jeddo the Crow is shy a wing, but he’s got the girl. So she’s Wing o’ the Crow to the stiffs. And purty—— But now I know I’m gettin’ talkative!”
“You’re very entertaining,” admitted Falcon the Flunky. “But I’m curious to know what brought Jeddo the Crow and Wing o’ the Crow to your mind just now.”
“Huh! That’s easy! ‘Phinehas begat Abishua,’ and Abishua gotta do what Phinehas says. An’ ole Phinehas he says: ‘Jeddo the Crow he’s so reckless with giant powder and things he’s likely to lose his other wing. And he’d better prepare for it by gettin’ another wing in the family beforehand.’ That’s what Jeddo the Crow’s begatter says.”
“Oh-ho! I think I begin to understand. It may be that out over the desert there Wing o’ the Crow is in camp, waiting for her Phinehas.”
“Well, if she ain’t there now she’s gonta be soon. Say, mule, poke yer neck furder into that, will you? Gonta be soon, ole Falcon. And Phinehas crossed four States like a ramblin’ kid to be there, too.
“Oh, when I’m a-ramblin’ down to rest,
Just ramble me out into the Golden West,
On a ramblin’ train, on a ramblin’ quest.