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Crawfish Jim
by
“While grub’s cookin’ an’ Crawfish an’ me’s pow-wowin’, a little old dog Crawfish has–one of them no-account nce-dogs–comes up an’ makes a small uprisin’ off to one side with Julius Caesar. The dog yelps an’ snaps, an’ Julius Caesar blows an’ strikes at him, same as a rattle. snake. However, they ain’t doin’ no harm, an’ Crawfish don’t pay no heed.
“‘They’s runnin’ blazers on each other,’ says Crawfish, ‘an’ don’t mean nothin’. Bimeby Caribou Pete–which the same is the dog–will go lie down an’ sleep; an’ Julius Caesar will quile up ag’in him to be warm. Caribou, bein’ a dog that a-way, is a warm-blood animal, while pore Julius has got cold blood like a fish. So he goes over an’ camps on Caribou, an’ all the same puts his feet on him for to be comfortable.’
“Of course, I’m a heap interested in this yere snake knowledge, an’ tells Crawfish so. But it sorter coppers my appetite, an’ Crawfish saves on sheep-meat an’ sow-belly by his discourse powerful. Thinkin’ an’ a-lookin’ at them blessed snakes, speshul at Julius Cmsar, I shore ain’t hungry much. But as you says: how about Crawfish Jim gettin’ killed?
“One day Crawfish allows all alone by himse’f he’ll hop into Wolfville an’ buy some stuff for his camp,–flour, whiskey, tobacker, air-tights, an’ sech.
“What’s air-tights? Which you Eastern shorthorns is shore ignorant. Air-tights is can peaches, can tomatters, an’ sim’lar bluffs.
“As I was sayin’, along comes pore old Crawfish over to Wolfville; rides in on a burro. That’s right, son; comes loafin’ along on a burro like a Mexican. These yere sheep-men is that abandoned an’ vulgar they ain’t got pride to ride a hoss.
“Along comes Crawfish on a burro, an’ it’s his first visit to Wolfville. Yeretofore the old Cimmaron goes over to Red Dog for his plunder, the same bein’ a busted low-down camp on the Lordsburg trail, which once holds it’s a rival to Wolfville. It ain’t, however; the same not bein’ of the same importance, commercial, as a prairie-dog town.
“This time, however, Crawfish pints up for Wolfville. An’ to make himse’f loved, I reckons, whatever does he do but bring along Julius Caesar.
“I don’t reckon now he ever plays Julius Caesar none on Red Dog. Mighty likely this yere was the bull-snake’s first engagement. I clings to this notion that Red Dog never sees Julius Caesar; for if she had, them drunkards which inhabits said camp wouldn’t have quit yellin’ yet. Which Julius Caesar, with that Red Dog whiskey they was soaked in, would have shore given ’em some mighty heenous visions. Fact is, Crawfish told Jack Moore later he never takes Julius Caesar nowhere before.
“But all the same Crawfish prances into camp on this yere occasion with Julius bushwacked ‘way ’round back in his shirt, an’ sech vacant spaces about his person as ain’t otherwise occupied a- nourishin’ of minor bull-snakes plenty profuse.
“Of course them snakes is all holdin’ back, bein’, after all, timid cattle; an’ so none of us s’spects Crawfish is packin’ any sech s’prises. None of the boys about town knows of Crawfish havin’ this bull-snake habit but me, nohow. So the old man stampedes’round an’ buys what he’s after, an’ all goes well. Nobody ain’t even dreamin’ of reptiles.
“At last Crawfish, havin’ turned his little game for flour, air- tights, an’ jig-juice, as I says, gets into the Red Light, an’ braces up ag’in the bar an’ calls for nose-paint all ’round. This yere is proper an’ p’lite, an’ everybody within hearin’ of the yell lines up.
“It’s at this crisis Crawfish Jim starts in to make himse’f a general fav’ritc. Everybody’s slopped out his perfoomcry, an’ Dan Boggs is jest sayin’: ‘Yere’s lookin’ at you, Crawfish,’ when that crazy-boss shepherd sorter swarms ’round inside his shirt with his hand, an’ lugs out Julius Cesar be the scruff of his neck, a- squirmin’ an’ a-blowin’, an’ madder’n a drunken squaw. Once he gets Julius out, he spreads him ’round profuse on the Red Light bar an’ sorter herds him with his hand to keep him from chargin’ off among the bottles.