“Now, ain’t that mean!” he asked, turning back again toward the trappers and emigrants. “My name is Leonidas Swipes, and me and these two gentlemen left New Haven, a year ago last April. All three of us teached school in districts that joined, but we concluded we was intended for better business, and so we put our heads and purses together and started for California.”
“What were you doing with such a number of sheep!” asked Mr. Bonfield.
“Taking ’em into California where mutton is five times as high as it is east.”
“But where did you get the sheep!”
“Wal, the way on it was this,” replied Mr. Swipes, ejecting a mouthful of tobacco juice, rolling his quid to the opposite cheek, and assuming a position of ease. “We started from St. Louis just at the beginning of Spring, lost our way and afore we knowed it fetched up in Santa Fe, five hundred miles off our course. Of course, we were considerably riled to think we had made such fools of ourselves, but there was no help for it, and we soon found there was as good chance to make money in Santa Fe, as in any other part of the world.”
“Yes,” said Harling, “it is one of the greatest gambling holes this side of the Mississippi.”
Mr. Swipes instantly straightened himself with righteous indignation.
“You don’t s’pose we ever gamble? No, sir; such things are frowned upon in Connecticut, and there aint one of this party that can tell one keerd from another. No, sir; we never gambled in our lives. If you aint mistaken there, then my name aint Leonidas Swipes,—no, sir; by jingo.”
“But how did you get the sheep?” pursued Mr. Bonfield, for there was something in the rattling loquacity of the Yankee that made him interesting and that caused the male members of the party to gather around him. As the horseman found himself in this pleasing position, he grew more voluble than ever, and declaimed in a style and manner, which demonstrated that while his two companions were mum, yet his party in the aggregate did enough talking to answer very well for one of its size.
“I’m saying it was rather queer, the way we come in possession of them sheep, I swan if it wasn’t. We hadn’t been in Santa Fe a great while, when a sickly looking Missourian and a gander legged Arkansian came into the town with this drove of sheep. They tried to sell ’em, but nobody would give their price, and one of ’em got out of patience, and turned his horse’s head around and started straight back for home. The other staid at the hotel where we was, and got took sick, and I soon seen he was going to die. As I’ve read law some, I axed him whether he hadn’t a will to make, and I’d be happy to draw it up for him. He said he hadn’t a single friend in the world, except the Arkansian, and he didn’t s’pose he’d ever see him again. He said he hadn’t any property except the sheep.