“You remind me some of a gent who dropped into Rogers County, Texas, two years ago,” said Grant. “He was from the East, and his name was Jim Lander. Any relation, I wonder?”
“I don’t know; never bother any about my relatives. How was it this Jim Lander reminded you of me?”
“Why, he gave out the same generous flow of hot air; he was always telling how good he was. The punchers christened him Hot Air Jim. Why, his line of talk would melt ice in zero weather, and he proved it, too. You know we don’t have much ice down that way, but that year there came a big freeze. It seemed to strike Rogers County in particular, and it was the worst ever known. Why, gents, it actually froze the Canadian River stiff clean to the bottom in a single night.”
“What are you giving us?” exclaimed Lander.
“I was starting in to tell you how this yere gent we called Hot Air Jim saved us from a terrible calamity,” answered Rod soberly; “but if you don’t want to hear it——”
“Go ahead,” urged Davis. “Spiel it off.”
“Well, as I was saying, that sudden freeze congealed the whole Canadian in those parts till the river was like an Alpine glacier. It was sure enough extraordinary, for such a thing never happened before. There wasn’t any snowfall accompanying the phenomenon, for I judge it was too cold to snow. What was more remarkable, the zone of that freeze didn’t seem to extend more than fifty miles or so into the mountains. Beyond that the river flowed on in the same old fashion, but when it hit the cold country it simply turned to ice and went to piling up higher and higher, choking its channel and overflowing in all directions. That dam of ice heaped itself up across the mouth of a huge valley, until the force of the water behind it began to push it along across Rogers County. We discovered the ice was moving slowly at first, but after a time you could see it creep along, groaning and cracking and complaining all the while. And don’t forget that it was spreading out over the country just as fast as the water behind it forced it down out of the mountains.
“You can perceive, I opine, that the whole Canadian country was threatened with devastation, for the irresistible force of that mass of ice was sure bound to sweep everything before it. People were in a panic when they came to realize this. The only thing that could save us was a sudden break in the cold spell, and we saw no signs of that. Then I thought of Jim Lander. It was a great thought, gents. I sent for him and brought him out there and set him to blowing off hot air about himself. Inside of half an hour the thermometer went up twenty points, and the temperature of the surrounding country for at least a hundred miles was modified amazingly.
“Pretty soon the ice began to melt and run, and this continued as long as we could keep that man Lander talking. Maybe you won’t believe it, but inside of two hours the ice was all melted and the river pouring down its bed in a perfect flood, while the surrounding country was a foot deep in water. Then we tried to shut Lander off; but he had started going, and he couldn’t seem to stop. Say! he kept on blowing until the water began to steam and get hot, and in his immediate vicinity it actually boiled. We had to capture the man and gag him in order to prevent the whole of Rogers County from being cooked then and there.”
“Gee!” said Bunk Lander. “That sounds me like a lie.”