Ajax gets a little skittish about sleeping outdoors, so he rolls up in a blanket on the floor. Me and Magpie are heavy sleepers, but he woke us up in the night. We sets up in bed and listens to him. He’s making a lot of noise like he was trying to move the cabin.
Magpie is just getting up to see what the trouble is when Ajax comes in, grunting and wheezing. Comes a big bump on the floor, a deep sigh from Ajax, and then everything is still again; so we goes to sleep.
In the morning Magpie kicks me in the ribs, and I sets up in bed. There is Ajax laying on the floor with his bare legs bent up over a section of pine log about thirty inches in diameter. Magpie snorts right out, and Ajax sets up.
He looks all around the cabin and then reaches for his pants.
“I thank you for the information, my dear Mr. Simpson,” says he. “I feel that the section of the genus Pinus was the means of saving my life. Several times after securing it I felt the deadly hipwiggler travel my entire length, only to fall off the log in surprize. It was a sensation I can not wish for again, but one I feel fortunate to have experienced. I thank you for your timely advice.”
Magpie smoothed his mustache and stared at me and we both danged near choked. Ajax sure offered himself as a highway for pack-rats that night.
Then cometh Judge Steele. He’s the educatedest hombre in the county. If there’s anything he don’t know he won’t admit it. He owns half-interest in a claim up the creek, and is on his way up there with a pack-load of grub for his pardner.
We asks him in to breakfast ’cause you never can tell when you’ll need the friendship of a judge.
“Good morning,” says he to me and Magpie, and then he sees Ajax.
“Good gosh!”