CHAPTER XII
PROMOTED
There was quite a little excitement in the bunk-house that night, and when it was at its height Brigham Clark came tottering out with his bed.
"Say, where's that friend of mine—that Coney Island feller?" he inquired, addressing the recumbent forms of men as he scouted along the wagon-shed. "I'm skeered to sleep in the same house with them cotton-pickers and old Bar Seven—they might rise up in the night and throw me into the hawse-trough. Huh? Oh, that's him over there, hey? Well, so long, fellers—kinder cold out hyer, ain't it? But I cain't sleep in that bunk-house no more—them fellers, they doubt my veracity!"
He was still chuckling with subdued laughter as he dropped his bed down in a far corner beside Bowles; but nothing was said until he had spread his "tarp" and blankets and crept in out of the cold. Then he laughed again, quivering until the earth seemed to shake with his contagious merriment.
"Say, pardner," he said, "you're all right. We capped 'em in on that proper, and no mistake. Did you see old Bar Seven's jaw drop when he saw how he was bit? I'll have that on him for many a long day now, and it'll shore cost him the drinks when we git to town next month. Gittin' too lively for me over in the bunk-house, so I thought I'd come out here with you."
"Sure!" responded Bowles, who had secretly been lonely for company. "It's rather cold out here, but the air is better."
"Yes—and the company," added Brigham meaningly. "Ain't these Texicans the ignorantest bunch? W'y, them fellers don't know nothin' till they see you laugh! I could've got away with that strong-arm business if I could've kept my face straight, but old Bar Seven was too many fer me—I jest had to snicker or I'd bust! Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh!"
"There was one thing which kind of puzzled me, though," observed Bowles. "Would you mind telling me where you got that absurd idea of the three Hassan brothers?"
"W'y, sure not," giggled Brigham, creeping closer and lowering his voice. "Don't tell anybody, but I got it off a drummer in the smokin'-car when I was comin' back from the Fair in Phœnix. The way he told it, there was an Englishman and a Frenchman and an Irishman talkin' together, each one braggin' about his own country; and the Englishman began it by tellin' about his younger brother, who wasn't nothin' hardly in England but could do that first stunt with the clay pipes. Then the Frenchman told about his brother, who wasn't nothin' for a balancer but was pretty good at rope-work; and the Irishman, in order to trump 'em right, he tells about his youngest brother that was strong in the arms. Say, that shore knocked the persimmon, didn't it? Them fellers was like the man that come out of Loony Park—they didn't know straight-up! Their eyes was stickin' out so you could rope 'em with a grape-vine, but they didn't dare to peep. Been called down too often. But say, pardner, on the dead, how about that divin' hawse?"