Fortune was so delighted that his mirth was infectious. Clancy saw no occasion for all that abandon of happiness, and yet it was impossible not to join in his companion’s rollicking mirth.
“All right, Jimmie,” said he, “we’ll be pards, and we’ll go on together. Suppose we travel?”
“I allow we’ll have to travel if we ever reach Phoenix. Pasear it is, Reddy!”
Side by side they continued on along the treacherous trail.
“I got to uncork,” remarked Fortune, “and tell you more about myself. Some folks calls me a desert rat, but that there’s a libel. I’m jest a rollin’ stone, but I’d stop rollin’ blame’ quick if anybody ’u’d hire me and keep me hired.”
“Why don’t you stay hired?”
“Mainly because I do the wrong thing while ketchin’ onto a new line o’ work. An assayer gave me a chanst in Prescott, and set me to grindin’ at a muller board. I tipped over the table and busted a carboy o’ sulphuric acid, and got run out o’ the place. That’s where I lasted fifteen minutes. ’Nother time I took a throw at a general store in Tempe, and believe me, I was busy-izzy for one hull day. Store was crowded and I had to be in about six places to oncet. The boss reckoned he had a prize, from the way I flew around; but he changed his mind when he diskivered I’d left the spigot o’ the molasses bar’l open. The floor o’ the back room was ankle deep in sweet stuff, and the old man made a pass at me with his foot. I dodged the foot and he slipped and went down in the black strap. He rolled over and over, and when he chased me through the front door of the ‘Emporium’ he had gathered up purty nigh everythin’ in the store like a piece o’ fly paper. A bolt o’ calico, a couple o’ feather dusters, fifteen or twenty pounds o’ crackers—oh, I can’t begin to tell all the stuff that was stickin’ to him. The damage was right considerable, and I ain’t had the nerve to go back to Tempe since.”
Clancy enjoyed Fortune’s reminiscences. There was no doubt that the wanderer drew heavily on his imagination, but that merely made his recital the more interesting.
“It’s been a year since I tackled Phoenix,” went on Jimmie. “I worked that bunch of adobes up and down and across, but maybe some of ’em have kind of forgot me, and I’ll get another show. What field of industry are you aimin’ to hit, Brick Top?”
“Want to get a job in a garage,” said Owen.