Most of ’em won’t bite on th’ fool-hen stunt, fer th’ simple reason that there ain’t no joke about fool-hens. Now, if yuh spoke about snow-snakes they’d stay all Winter to git uh specimen.
It wa’n’t edzactly what you’d call chivalry that prompts us to give up our cabin to our employers that night. When uh two hundred and fifty pound fe-male occupies yore three by six bunk, and fills th’ air with snores which resembles th’ grunts of uh hungry bear trying to coax uh fat grub out of uh rotten stump, it’s jist human nature to grab uh blanket and move out in th’ brush. Th’ doc crawls into his sleepin’-bag alongside th’ cabin, but me and Magpie holes up down near th’ crick.
That night I wonders out-loud, in Magpie’s hearin’, what are we goin’ to do? Also I mentions in my oration that any man what ain’t got no more sense than to tie up with uh rattle-headed pardner, not mentionin’ any names, but givin’ uh fair description, ought to die early in life in self-defense.
“Field book!” I howls at th’ Big Dipper. “He’s got uh field book what shows th’ dwellin’-place of suitable female grizzlies. Them records will show jist which said grizzly has bears by adoption and which has ’em by maternal instinct. I’m a expert on sidewinders and gophers, eh? Shore. All my life I’ve laid on my belly and observed th’ home life uh said whistlin’ diggers and crippled crawlers. I’ve allus crawled in th’ best society uh Prairie Dog town. Accordin’ to th’ latest reports I’m livin’ in uh dug-out and cultivatin’ fangs. Pretty soon I’m due to coil up and bite somebody.”
Magpie don’t say uh word all th’ time I’m reflectin’ out loud, but after I rolls up in my blanket and drowses off to sleep he grabs me by th’ shoulder and hisses in my ear—
“Ike, I’ve got it!”
“Keep it,” sez I. “I don’t care if we are pardners, Magpie, I don’t wish to share it with yuh. I know you’ve had it fer uh long time, ol’ trapper, but I never mentioned it to anybody. If it hurts yuh worse than usual, I’d advise uh cold compress on yore dome.”
“‘Mighty’ Jones,” he yells joyful like. “By cripes. I can see it all!”
Sometimes when uh feller gits to ravin’ thataway he sez things about folks that he don’t like, so I don’t comment on him mentionin’ Mighty Jones.
Uh course his right name ain’t Mighty. He’s uh pore li’l runty person, with corn-colored hair, and whiskers which makes him resemble uh mountain goat gone to seed. One day he gits into a argument with uh whale of uh jasper named “Buzzard” Bell. Buzzard is big enough to tie Jones in uh bow-knot, and he grins down at Jones and informs him of th’ fact. Jones takes off his coat, throws it on th’ floor, jumps on it with both boots, spits on his hands and yells: