Then they all begun to talk at once, jabbering about the peanuts and popcorn that crowds of people will come to buy from us to feed back to our stock, and how there's more meat in an elephant than in six steers, and about how the punchers will be riding round in these little cupalos up on top of their big saddle elephants; and they kept getting swifter and more excited in their talk, till at last they just naturally exploded when they made sure Safety got the idea and would know he'd been made a fool of. They had a grand time; threw their hats in the air and danced round their victim and punched each other, and their yells and hearty laughter could of been heard for miles up and down the creek. Two or three had guns they let off to add to the gleeful noise. Oh, it was deuces wild for about three minutes. They nearly died laughing.
Then the whole thing kind of died a strange and painful death. Safety wasn't taking on one bit like a man that's been stung. He stood there cold and malignant and listened to the noise and didn't bat an eye till he just naturally quelled the disorder. It got as still as a church, and then Safety talked a little in a calm voice.
"Elephants?" says he, kind of amused. "Why, elephants ain't no good stock proposition because it takes 'em so long to mature! Elephants is often a hundred and twenty years old. You'd have to feed one at least forty years to get him fit to ship. I really am surprised at you boys, going into a proposition like that without looking up the details. It certainly ain't anything for my money. Why, you couldn't even veal an elephant till he was about fifteen years old, which would need at least six thousand dollars' worth of peanuts; and what kind of a stock business is that, I'd like to know. And even if they could rustle their own feed, what kind of a business is it where you could only ship once in a lifetime? You boys make me tired, going hell-bent into an enterprise where you'd all be dead and forgotten before the first turnover of your stock."
He now looked at 'em in a sad, rebuking manner. It was like an icy blast from Greenland the way he took it.
Two or three tried to start the big laugh again, but their yips was feeble and died quickly out. They just stood there foolish. Even Sandy Sawtelle couldn't think of anything bright to say.
Safety now climbs on his horse, strangely cheerful, and says; "Well, I'll have to be getting along with them new mules of mine." Then he kind of giggled at the crowd and says: "I certainly got the laugh on this outfit, starting a business where this here old Methusalem hisself could hardly get it going good before death cut him off!"
And away he rides, chuckling like it was an awful joke on us. Not a single scream of agony about what had been done to him with them stunted mules.
Of course that was all I needed to know. One deadly chill of fear took me from head to foot. I knew perfectly well our trench was mined and the fuse lighted. Up comes this chucklehead of a Sawtelle, and for once in his life he's puzzled.
"Well," he says, "you got to give old S.F. credit for one thing. Did you see the way he tried to switch the laugh over on to us, and me with his trusty check right here in my hand? I never would have thought it, but he is certainly one awful good game loser!"
"Game loser nothing!" I says. "He's just a game winner. Any time you see that old boy acting game he's won. And he's won now, no matter how much the known facts look against it. I don't know how, but he's won."