Pecks Bad Boy with the Cowboys | Page 9

let go and the chief wiped his hand on a dog,

and the dog got some of the electricity and ki yield to beat the band.
Then Pa shook hands with everybody, and they all went through the
same kind of performance, and were scared silly at the supernatural
power Pa seemed to have. The squaws seemed to get more electricity
than the buck Indians, 'cause Pa squeezed harder, and the way they
danced and cut up didoes would make you think they had been drinking.
Finally Pa touched them all with his magic wand, and then they
prepared a feast and celebrated their engagement to go with the circus,
and we packed up and got ready to go to a cattle round up the next day
at a ranch outside the Indian reservation, where Pa was to engage some
cowboys for the show. As we left the headquarters on the reservation
the next morning all the Indians went with us for a few miles, cheering
us, and Pa waved his hands to them, and said, "bless you, me children,"
and looked so wise, and so good, and great that I was proud of him.
The squaws threw kisses at pa, and when we had left them, and had got
out of sight, Pa said, "Those Indians will give the squaws a walloping
when they get back to camp, but who can blame them for falling in
love with the great father?" and then pa winked, and put spurs to his
pony and we rode across the mesa, looking for other worlds to conquer.
[Illustration: "The Chief's Knees Knocked Together."]
On the way to the ranch where we were to meet the cowboys and
engage enough to make the show a success, the cowboy Pa had along
told Pa that it might be easy enough to fool Indians with the great father
dodge, and the electric battery, and all that, but when he struck a mess
of cowboys he would find a different proposition, 'cause he couldn't
fool cowboys a little bit. He said if Pa was going to hire cowboys, he
had got to be a cowboy himself, and if he couldn't rope steers he would
have to learn, 'cause cowboys, if they were to be led in the show by pa,
would want him to be prepared to rope anything that had four feet. Pa
said while he didn't claim to be an expert, he had done some roping,
and could throw a lasso, and while he didn't always catch them by the
feet, when he tried to, he got the rope over them somewhere, and if the
horse he rode knew its business he ultimately got his steer, and he
would be willing to show the boys what he could do.
We got to the cow camp in time for dinner, and our cowboy introduced
Pa to the cowboys around the chuck wagon, and told them Pa was an
old cowboy who had traveled the Texas trail years ago, and was one of

the best horsemen in the business, a manager of a show that was adding
a wild west department and wanted to hire 40 or more of the best ropers
and riders, at large salaries, to join the show, and that Pa considered
himself the legitimate successor of Buffalo Bill, and money was no
object. Well, the boys were tickled to meet pa, and some said they had
heard of him when he was roping cattle on the frontier, and that tickled
pa, and they smoked cigarettes, and finally saddled up and began to
brand calves and rope cattle to get them where they belonged, each
different brand of cattle being driven off in a different direction, and we
had the most interesting free show of bucking horses and roping cattle I
ever saw. Pa watched the boys work for a long time, and complimented
them, or criticised them for some error, until the crazy spirit seemed to
get into him, and he thought he could do it as well as any of the boys,
and he told our cowboy that whenever the boys got tired he would like
to get on a buckskin pony that one of the men was riding, and show that
while a little out of practice he could stand a steer on its head, and get
off his horse and tie the animal in a few seconds beyond the record
time.
I told Pa he better hire a man to do it for him, but he said, "Hennery,
here is where your Pa has got to make good, or these cowboys won't
affiliate. You take my watch and roll, 'cause no one can tell where a
fellow will land when he gets his steer," and I took pa's valuables and
the boys