They lets out a cheer when we showed up, and we ain’t more than halfway to ’em, when up the street comes old Cod Liver Oil and Runnin’ Dog, both of ’em decked out in war-paint, nose-paint, war-bonnets, and ridin’ painted ponies.
I reckon it was a sight worth seein’. Honest to gosh, I sure did feel aboriginal. I was stoical, too. The only emotion I can show is with my right leg—the left one has gone to sleep. Then the East met the West.
We got within twenty feet of each other before them pinto horses got a good look at Gunga Din and Sahara. Cod Liver Oil’s pinto just spread its legs, bawled like a calf—and fell down, sendin’ the old buck into a somersault almost under Gunga Din. Runnin’ Dog’s pinto turns around on one hind leg, shuckin’ old Runnin’ Dog, and went past us like a streak.
Gunga Din reached down, wrapped his trunk around Cod Liver Oil, and stood the old boy on his head twenty feet away.
“Yee-ow-w-w!” yelps Liniment Lucas. “Some show!”
And into it all comes Pete Gonyer, drivin’ a team of broncs hitched to a covered wagon. He is the Comin’ of the White Man. He came—I’ll say that much for him. The yellin’ is too much for that team of broncs, and here comes Pete, feet braced against the front-gate of that wagon, haulin’ short on the lines, while behind him billows that wagon-cover, like a anchored balloon.
Runnin’ Dog has got to his feet, with the war-bonnet over one eye and blood in the other one.
“Whoo!” he screams. “Hyas masahchie mokst la tet!”
It was the first elephant he ever seen, and he called it a big evil with two heads.
There ain’t no chance for me to move Gunga Din out of the path of them two broncs; so I sets supine and lets death rush down upon us. But it don’t rush all the way.