Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1924 — page 161: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

790 ‘““*T donno how ye ever.shipped ez A. B. ‘an’ can’t come on deck from aloft,’ I sez. “ “You got any terbaccer?’ he asked me. ‘TI Jost mine when I was flyin’ fhrouge the air, I reckon.’ ce Come down outa there an’ I'll give ye a chew. Yer too high up to toss up the plug.’ . ““¢ Ef I drop, how’s the landin’ below?” _ “*There’s a pile o’ rock ter stabbo’rd an’ a crab apple bush ter port; ef ye miss them ye ken take yer choice of failin’ in a bog hole, or a blackberry patch.’ “ Barney let out a groan ez he looked down an’ seen [ was tellin’ him the truth. ‘* * D’ye reckon,’ he sez, ‘ that I’ve got ter stay up this tree the rest o’ my life. an’ be _ deprived of all the pleasant vices thet makes life wuth livin’ in this vale o’ tears?’ | ¢ Very talkin’ like a deck swab,’ I told him. ‘ Ain’t ye got no sense? Take yer -catridge belt an’ git that round the tree, then with thet ye can git a grip on the trunk like the blacks do on the coconut trees in the islands, when they climb ’em.’ ‘“‘ He got the idee, an’ shinned down the tree backward, like a bear, ,till when he . was about forty foot from the ground his belt busted an’ he fell, ketchin’ by the seat of his seal. hide breeches on a broken-off stub twenty foot up thé tree, an’ there he hung head down, clawin’ the air. “* How’m I goin’ ter make the rest o’ this trip?’ he asked after he’d quit wrig- glin’ and hung all sprawled out, like a bull frog floatin’ in a pond. ““¢ Ver ken take yer choice,’ I sez, ‘ of hangin’ thar till I ken chop down some poles with my butcher knife an’ make a ladder. It ‘Il take a couple o’ days, I reckon, fer my knife is only made fer cuttin’ meat an’ skinnin’, an’ ain’t no carpenter’s tool. But ef yer impatient. ter come down pronto, I ken shoot thet stuff off with my rifle an’ drop ye ter the ground in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’ “¢ Am I hangin’ over the crab apple tree, or the rock pile?’ he axed ‘me. “¢ Ver right over the bog hole, an’ it’s good an’ soft,’ I sez. “He shut his eyes an’ I seen his lips movin’ ez ef he was sayin’ his prayers, then he opened ’em, an’ spreadin’ his hands out sez ‘ Shoot!’ an’ I shot. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. __ in front of him, like fer makin’ a dive, he The ball cut the stub an’ he landed in the bog hole with nothin’ but his feet an’ legs stickin’ out, wavin’ distress signals. My dogs come run- nin’ up at the shot, thinkin’ I’d. brought down a bear or some: other varmint, an’ hot recognizin’ him by his legs, thet was all they was of him in sight, they grabbed him, givin’ me a lot o’-trouble to kick ’em away an’ pull Barney out before he was drowned. After I scraped the -mud off so he could breathe an’ took him to a spring ter wash the dirt outa his eyes an’ ears thet was all: plugged up with it we set down an’ took a chew an’ a drink o’ water. “When he was rested up a bit we went- over ter where his dogs was yelpin’ ter find the sled smashed ag’in’ a tree with a dog layin’ dead under it, while the others all tangled up in their traces, was howlin’ ter git loose. Barney’s rifle, also, was layin’ there. Ez we seemed ter be out of the snow an’ ice, sleds was no good an’ we packed our dunnage on the dogs an’. hiked fer it. ‘We didn’t know whar we was, nor whar we was bound, but we was on our. way. The mountains behind us looked a heap higher’n the ones we’d seen from the coast, an’ got blowed off of, an’ it was hard ter believe they was the same ones, with sech a different climate, fer the country we was in was jest cool enough ter be pleasant, with . plenty of wood an’ water, and nuts an’ ber- ries growin’ everywhere. We could kill a caribou any time we wanted meat, ez we, Seen ’em every day, so tame thet they’d Stand an’ look at us like gentle cattle ez we passed. . “ All the bears I ever seen before hedn’t a tail wuth speakin’ of, but a bear charged us up there thet hed a tail three foot long, an’ it stood up when he come at us like the tail of a mad bull. His meat was better’n the meat o’ them ice bears, I reckon, be- , cause he mostly fed on fruit an’ nuts an’ roots instead o’ fish an’ seal meat. _ “But the biggest diskivery in nacheral hist’ry thet we made was of a kinda wild goat thet ain’t found nowhere, exceptin’ on some sugar loaf mountain peaks up there. We called ’em ‘ Side-Hill Runners,’ ’cause © ANICLIOO 3 CO