I got off to take a drink. Soon's I lay down there's a snort and a clatter, and my little horse Pepe is moving for distance, head up and tail up, and I'm foot loose forty miles from nowhere. This was after the time of Victorio, still there was a Tonto or two left in the country, for all the government said that the Apaches were corralled in Camp Grant, so I made a single-hearted scamper for a rock.
Then I looked around—nothin' in sight; I raised my eyes and my jaw dropped. Right above me on the side-hill sits a man, six foot and a half high and two foot and a half wide, dressed in a wool hat, short skirts, and bare legs. His nose and ears looked like they'd been borrowed from some large statue. His hair was red; so's mine, but mine was the most lady-like kind of red compared to his—a gentle, rock-me-to-sleep-mother tint, whilst his got up and cussed every other colour in the rainbow. Yes, sir; there he sat, and he was knittin' a pair of socks! For ten seconds I forgot how good an excuse I had to be vexed, and just braced myself on my arms and looked at him and blinked. "Well, no wonder, Pepe busted," thinks I, and with that my troubles come back to me. "I don't know what in the name of Uncle Noah's pet elephant you are," says I to myself. "Male and female he made 'em after their kind, and your mate may do me up, but if I don't take a hustle out of you there'll be no good reason for it." And feeling this way, I moved to him.
[Illustration: Yes, sir; there he sat,
and he was knittin' a pair of socks!]
"Now," says I, "explain yourself."
"Heugh!" says he, just flittin' his little gray eyes on me and going on with his knittin' as if he hadn't seen anything worth wasting eyesight on.
I swallered hard. "Another break like that," I thinks, "and his family have no complaint."
"One more question and you are done," says I. "Do you think it's fair to sit on a hill and look like this? How would you feel if you come on me unexpected, and I looked like you?"
By way of reply, he reached behind him—so did I. But it wasn't a gun he brought forth; it was a sort of big toy balloon with three sticks to it. Without so much as a glance in my direction, he proceeded to blow on one stick and wiggle his fingers on the others. Instantly our good Arizona air was tied in a knot. It was great in its way. You could hear every stroke of the man filing the saw; the cow with the wolf in her horn bawled as natural as could be, and as for the stuck pig, it sounded so life-like I expected to see him round the corner. But at the same time it was no kind of an answer to my question, and I kicked the musical implement high in the air, sitting down on my shoulder blades to watch it go, and also to acknowledge receipt of one bunch of fives in the right eye, kindness of Grandma in the short skirts. Beware of appearances! Nothin' takes so much from the fierce appearance of a man as short skirts and sock-knitting, but up to this date the hand of man hasn't pasted me such a welt as I got that day.