So they raged and wrangled, apparently on the very verge of a personal conflict; but as the play wore on Bowles became increasingly aware of a contemptuous twinkle that dwelt in the eyes of the man called Hardy Atkins. Then it came over him suddenly that other eyes were upon him; and instantly the typical Western scene was wrecked, and he saw himself made the fool. No burst of ruffianly laughter gave point to the well-planned jest—it passed over as subtly as a crisis in high society—but as he turned away from the game Bowles found himself in possession of a man-sized passion. Back where he came from an open, personal hatred was considered a little outré; but the spirit of the wilds had touched him already, and Hardy Atkins, the green-eyed, familiar friend of Dixie Lee, was the man that he hoped would choke.
As interest in the pitch game languished and a scuffle made the bunk untenable, stray cowboys began to drift outside again, some to seek out their beds beneath the wagon-sheds and others to foregather about the fire. First among these was the red-headed man called Brigham; and when Bowles, after sitting solitary for a while, followed after them, he found Brigham the center of attraction. Perched upon an upturned box, and with one freckled hand held out to keep the firelight from his eyes, he was holding forth with a long story which had everybody listening.
"And I says to this circus feller," he was saying, "'Well, I ain't never done no bareback work, but if you cain't git no one else to jump through them hoops I'll guarantee to take the pretty outer one of 'em. But you be mighty p'ticular to pop that whip of yourn, pardner,' I says to the ring-master, 'or that ol' rockin'-hawse will git away from me.'"
He cocked one eye up to see if Bowles was listening, and then indulged in a reminiscent chuckle.
"Well, I climbed up on that ol' rockin'-hawse—I was dressed like a clown, of course—and after the regular people had gone round the ring I come rackin' along out of the side-tent, a-bowin' to all the ladies and whistlin' to all the dogs, until you'd think I was goin' to do wonders. But all the kids was on, and they begin to laugh and throw peanuts, because they knowed the clown was bound to git busted—that's what the rascal is paid fer. Well, we went canterin' around the ring, me and that old white hawse that had been doin' it for fifteen years, and every time we come to a hoop I'd make my jump—the ring-master would pop his whip—and when I come squanderin' out the other side the old hawse would be right there to ketch me. Trick he had—he'd slow down and kinder wait fer me—but that dogged ring-master put up a job on me—he shore did; but the scoundrel tried to lie out of it afterwards.
"You see, them people that come out to Coney they expect somethin' fer their money, and bein' as I was only the fill-in man and the other feller was comin' back anyway, the management decided to ditch me. So when I made a jump at my last hoop the ring-master forgot to pop his whip—or so he said—and I come down on my head and like to killed me. Well, sir, the way them people hollered you'd think the king had come, an' when a couple of fool clowns come runnin' out and carried me off on a shutter they laughed till they was pretty nigh sick. That's the way it is at Coney Island—unless somebody is gittin' killed, them tight-wads won't spend a cent."
The red-headed raconteur laughed a little to himself, and, seeing his audience still attentive, he launched out into another.
"Yes, sir!" he began. "That's a great place—old Coney. You boys that's never been off the range don't know what it is you've missed. There's side shows, and circuses, and shoot-the-chutes, and whirley-go-rounds, and Egyptian seeresses, and hot-dog joints, and—well, say, speakin' of hot-dog reminds me of the time I took the job of spieler fer Go-Go, the dog-faced boy. This here Go-Go was a yaller nigger that they had rigged up like a cannibal and put in a big box along with a lot of dehorned rattlesnakes, Gila monsters, and sech. It was my job to stand up over the box, while the ballyhoo man outside was pullin' 'em in, and pop a whip over this snake-eatin' cannibal, and let on like he was tryin' to escape. I had a little old pistol that I'd shoot off, and then Go-Go would rattle his chain and yell 'Owww-wah!' like he was sure eatin' 'em alive.
"That was the barker's cue, and he'd holler out: 'Listen to the wild thing! He howls, and howls, and howls! Go-Go, the wild boy, the snake-eatin' Igorotte from the Philippines! Step right in, ladies and gentlemen! The price is ten cents, one dime, the tenth part of a dollar——' and all that kind of stuff, until the place was filled up. Then it was my turn to spiel, and I'd git up on the box, with a blacksnake in one hand and that little old pistol in the other, and say:
"'La-adies and gentle-men, before our performance begins I wish to say a few words relatin' to Echigogo Cabagan, the wild boy of Luzon. This strange creature was captured by Lieutenant Crawford, of the Seventy-ninth Heavy Artillery, in the wilds of the Igorotte country in the Philippines. At the time of his recovery he was livin' in the tropical jungles, never havin' seen a human face, an' subsistin' entirely upon poisonous reptyles, which was his only pets and companions. So frequently was he bit by these venomous reptyles that Professor Swope, of the Philadelphia Academy, after a careful analysis of his blood, figgers out that it contains seven fluid ounces of the deadly poison, or enough to kill a thousand men.