Upside Down or Backwards
“Well, she ain’t changed an awful lot since I left,” remarks MagpieSimpkins, as he cuddles his long legs up under his chin and tilts hischair against the side of the cabin.
“You can’t expect no big changes in uh wilderness like this in thirtydays,” says I, and he nods emphatic like and spits at uh lizard.
“The East looks good, Ike,” he proclaims.
“Did the East look good to you or did you look good to the East?” Iasks. “Seems to me that you gets uh heap civilized in thirty days.What’s the idea uh that hard hat?”
“Last word in head-gear, Ike,” he states, picking the yaller,pot-shaped thing off the ground, and patting it affectionate like.“They calls ’em Darby hats. Did yuh notice that green and red shirt inmy valise? I annexes that in Chicago, Ill., U. S. A., and she sure isuh humdinger. Got uh necktie pin in that valise, too, that onlyassessed me ten dollars and eighty-five cents, and nobody what neverseen uh real diamond could tell the difference.”
“Being as ignorance is bliss around here yuh may make uh hit, Magpie,”I replies. “The fact that yuh hangs your person full uh Christmas treeornaments don’t lessen my hankering to hear yuh tell about how muchcapital yuh got interested in the Silver Threads.”
Magpie Simpkins is Ike Harper’s pardner, and I’m Ike Harper. We ownsthe Silver Threads mine, four burros, uh little grub and uh desire tofind somebody with money to promote us.
Magpie’s physique is impressing, unless yuh views him edgeways, whenyuh can’t get more’n uh glimpse. He’s six feet several inches tall,wears uh kind look and uh long mustache, and has the ability to let meinto more trouble than man is heir to.
When we gets nine hundred dollars’ worth uh gold out of our placermine on Plenty Stone Crick, Magpie gets the promoting itch. He oratesthat in the East is uh tribe uh philanthropists who spend their timehunting for uh shaft to sink their money in.
Also he opines that as uh hunter and finder uh this certain person hecan’t be beat or even tied. I protests audibly and often that we oughtto let gold enough alone, but when Magpie gets an idea like that it’sall off until he’s proved that my objections were well founded.
Therefore and immediate he packs his valise—or rather one he borrowsfrom Buck Masterson, the saloon-keeper at Piperock, and pilgrims East.
I holds down uh chair on the shady side of our cabin for thirty days,and tries to figure out how long it will take ’em to get Magpie’s ninehundred away from him. He indicates in his departing words that hisstay is indefinite and his destination problematical, but he comesback on the thirtieth day.
He pilgrims up from Piperock, with the taste uh ashes in his mouth, uhyaller, hard hat on his head and kid gloves on his hands. I hands himuh welcome and uh cigaret, and he humps up in my chair.
“She’s uh hard drag, Ike,” he states. “The tribe I mentioned is eithergetting scarce or somebody has declared uh closed season on ’em. Iinvades Pittsburg and Chicago and other places too numerous tomention, but all I could find was folks who were kind enough to listenwhile they took uh drink on me. When the drink was gone they all losttheir hearing, Ike.”
“Did yuh expect to find capitalists