About twenty feet away, them two broncs get their first look at the East, and they don’t like it. They dig their heels into that hard street, set down in their harness, and out of that cloud of dust comes Pete Gonyer, all spread out like a flyin’ squirrel, and he lands all spraddled out on the head of Gunga Din, still hangin’ onto his lines.
As old Judge Steele might say—“Pandyammonium reigns.”
The two broncs regains their equilibrium, ducks sideways and tries to go around us. They were goin’ pretty good when they took up the slack on them lines, and Pete Gonyer lifted right off the dome of Gunga Din, sailed off through the air and butted Dirty Shirt plumb off his camel. He not only butted him off, but took him along.
Then Gunga Din lifted his trunk high in the air and bugles loud and free—
“Ra-a-a-a te ta-a-a-a ta ta-a-a-a!”
Right then I want to get down. I don’t reckon that any Harper ever lived that wanted to get down as badly as I do; but there ain’t no safety on the ground. Every horse at them hitch-racks are heavin’ and surgin, folks yelpin’. I want to yell, but that darned paint has set, with my mouth half open, and all I can do is say—
“Hoo, hoo, hoo!” like a darned owl.
Then cometh Victory—and Progress. Pete Gonyer has made a riggin’ to fit over the top of Scenery Sims’ automobile, kinda like a platform, and there’s a railin’ all around it, decorated with flags and colored cloth. The driver ain’t in sight, and the danged thing looks like a runaway raft.
On the front of the arrangement stand Mrs. Wick Smith, all gauded up in cheese-cloth and a silver crown, which is settin’ down over one ear, kinda rakish-like. One hand is grippin’ the rail, while the other hangs to a big banner.
Behind her stands Mrs. Gonyer, dressed in white, tryin’ to hold up one hand, like an Injun givin’ a peace-sign, and hangin’ onto her is Mrs. Mighty Jones, wearin’ a nightgown and a pair of paper wings, one of which has climbed up on her shoulder, makin’ her look like a broken-winged duck.