As drinks in Palomitas was sighted for a thousand yards, and carried to kill further, by the time Boston had three of ’em in him––on top of the ones he’d had with Wood at supper––he was loaded enough to be careless 146 about what was happening among the sunspots and ready to take things pretty much as they come along. The boys was ready for what might be coming too: allowing for sure the Hen was getting a circus started, and only waiting to follow suit to the cards she put down.
What was needed, it turned out, was stacked with Shorty Smith; and the Hen sort of picked up Shorty with her eyes and says to him: “Your little boy Gustavus––he is such a dear little fellow, and I do love him so!––was telling me at recess to-day, Mr. Smith, that you saw a lion when you were out in the mountains day before yesterday prospecting. I think that very likely you may have seen the fierce creature even more recently; and perhaps you will have the kindness to tell us”––the Hen winked her off eye at Shorty to show him what was wanted––“where he probably may be found at the present time?”
Some of the boys couldn’t help snickering right out when the Hen took to loading up Shorty with little Gustavuses; but Boston 147 didn’t notice nothing, and Shorty––who had wits as sharp as pin-points, and could be counted on for what cards was needed in the kind of game the Hen was playing––put down the ace she asked for and never turned a hair.
“Gustavus will be tickled out of his little boots, Miss,” says Shorty, “when I tell him how nice you’ve spoke about him; and I’m much obliged myself. He give it to you straight, the kid did, about that lion. I seen him, all right––and so close up it most scared the life out of me! And you’re right, Miss, in thinking I’ve ketched onto him since––seeing I was a blame sight nearer to him than I wanted to be less’n four hours ago. Yes, ma’am, as I was coming in home to-night from the Cañada I struck that animal’s tracks in the mud down by the ford back of the deepo––he’d been down to the river for a drink, I reckon––and they was so fresh he couldn’t a-been more’n five minutes gone. When I got to thinking what likely might a-happened if I’d come along them five minutes sooner, Miss, I had cold creeps crawling all up and down the spine of my back!”
Them statements of Shorty’s set the boys to snickering some more––there not being no ford on the Rio Grande this side of La Chamita, and the wagon-bridge being down back of the deepo where he said his ford was––but Shorty paid no attention, and went on as smooth as if he was speaking a piece he’d got by heart.
“As you know, Miss, being such a hunter,” says he––making up what happened to be wanted about lions, same as he’d done about fords––“them animals takes a drink every four hours in the night-time as regular as if they looked at their watches. Likely that feller’s bedded just a little way back in the chaparral so’s to be handy for his next one; and I reckon if this sport here feels he needs lions”––Shorty give his head a jerk over to Boston––“he’ll get one by looking for it right now. But for the Lord’s sake, Miss, don’t you think of taking a hand in tackling him! He’s a most a-terrible big one––the out and out biggest I ever seen. The first thing you knowed about it, he’d a-gulped you down whole!”
“How you do go on, Mr. Smith!” says the Hen, laughing pleasant. “Have you so soon forgotten our hunt together last winter––when I came up and shot the grizzly in the ear just as he had you down and was beginning to claw you? And are you not ashamed of yourself, after that, to say that any lion is too big for me?”
Without stopping for Shorty to strain himself trying to remember that bear-hunt, round she cracked to Boston––giving Shorty and Santa Fé a chance to get in a corner and talk quick in a whisper––and says to him: “We just are in luck! These big old ones are the real fighters, you know. Only a year ago there was a gentleman from the East here on a lion-hunt––it was his first, and he did not seem to know quite how to manage matters––and one of these big fierce ones caught him and finished him. It was very horrible! The dreadful creature sprang on him in the dark and almost squeezed him to death, and then tore him to pieces while he still was alive enough to feel it, and ended by eating so much of him that only a few 150 scraps of him were left to send East to his friends. This one seems to be just that kind. Isn’t it splendid! What superb sport we shall have in getting him––you and I!”