"If we had only got into camp earlier, we might have shot some ducks," regretted Bill.
"There isn't anybody here that could have made a duck stew," remarked Joe gravely.
"Can you make a duck stew, Colonel?" I asked laughingly—for this was his chef-d'œuvre in culinary art.
"Can I make a duck stew! Can I make a duck stew!" he echoed rapturously. "Well, you may talk about your chickabiddies, and you chickaweewees, and your Smart Alicks, and your Joe-dandies and daisies, but when it comes to making a duck stew, I'm a darling! I can show you a trick with a hole in it. I don't want to make any boast about it, though; I can't help cooking well any more than Joe can help cooking badly. It's a gift. But duck stews! Lord! I can make a stew with ducks, and teal, and snipe, and potatoes, and chilies, and—and things of that kind, that will make a rheumatic man go out after dinner, and begin jumping backwards and forwards over the house, he'll feel so good."
Joe grunted disparagingly. "If it weren't any better than this coffee, he wouldn't jump far before he lay down and died," he observed, grimly.
"The coffee is bad," assented the chef; "it's bad coffee. But all that you have to do, Joe, is to step right down to the store, close by here, and get some more. There is no reason why you should put up with anything bad when you're camping out in the middle of a big city like this." And he proceeded to prove conclusively, that the fact that the coffee was of inferior quality, was entirely the fault of the Deming store-keeper.
"When we get back, then, we must just drive up and shoot the handle off his door," said Joe cheerfully.
"Why, cer'nly," chimed in Navajo; "like those chaps used to up to Lone Mountain."
The particular incident to which he referred had taken place at a little mining village in New Mexico. It had become a custom amongst certain of the miners, when they came into town on Sunday "to have a time," sooner or later in the day to indulge in revolver practice at the handle of the door of Platt's saloon. Platt could not be said exactly to have encouraged this; but since it brought him custom, and opposition might have transferred the attentions of his clients from the door-handle to himself, he submitted to it with more or less grace. One day he engaged a quiet and industrious youth—a Dutch boy—to assist him in his business, and as he intended to be absent from home on the following Sunday, he informed him of the above circumstance. The good youth evinced a disposition to resist the ungodly miners. Upon the whole, Platt counselled him not to do so, but at his request left a Winchester and six-shooter with him, and gave him free permission to exercise his own discretion in the matter. On Saturday evening the young bar-tender removed an adobe brick from the wall beside the door, and commending himself to Heaven, slept peacefully, confident of the justice of his cause. The following morning the miners appeared as usual in town, and drank freely. But when the boy demanded payment for what he supplied them with, they took advantage of his youth, and replied that "There was no hurry about it, for he was still young; they thought that they might perhaps pay him some day. He might ask them again when his moustache had grown a little mite." Things got lively, and finally they repaired to the street and commenced shooting at the door-handle. This was where the real trouble originated. But it was soon over. Putting the muzzle of his Winchester through the loophole, the bar-tender began to shoot, too. When he had finished, five of his late customers lay stretched out on the road, four of whom died immediately, and the fifth shortly afterwards. It is recorded that so pleased was Mr. Platt with his assistant's devotion that he advanced him rapidly in his service, and subsequently took him into partnership with him. I suppose that he married his master's daughter eventually, and lived happily ever afterwards.
The history is, probably, the American version of the everlasting tale of that artful young clerk who dropped a pin unnoticed in the presence of his master, the great merchant, and when the latter was looking, ostentatiously picked it up again and set it in the collar of his coat.