Adventure, February 20, 1922 — page 91: what you’re looking at

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

Wise Men and a Mule her hind legs, and, as I look, them humps, which wasn’t well cinched, being as she was laying down at the time, swing down and just about fill up all the space between her front and hind legs. “Ho-hold her!” wails Dirty; but Maud S thinks she’s a circus animal. Hold her? Man, that mule, after all these years, found out that she had authority to go to some place. She waltzes around a couple of times, busts a hole in the stage and falls over backwards into the orchestra. Wick Smith falls over backwards, pulling his new drum over with him, thereby saving his part of the orchestra. “Whoo-o-o-ee! Pow-w-w-w-der_ Ri-i- ver!” yowls a puncher, and a circle of chairs lands around Maud S, trying to block her, but Maud S ain’t to be stopped. She bucked plumb over the top of Wick Smith, and that drum rattled against her heels. Zowie! She telescoped and lifted that drum with both hind feet. Dirty Shirt was just going to jump off the stage to attack her from the rear, and that drum caught him in midair. Dirty comes plumb back onto the stage and lands setting down in that bed of cactus. The drum hit me in the knees, and I went plumb over the top of it and dug my chin into the desert. When I got my senses again I sees that about seven punchers have hold of Maud S, and are trying to hold her. “Lights!” yelps Wick. “Light some lamps. My , my drum is busted!” “. your old drum!” howls Dirty Shirt, standing on the stage, trying to lift the seat of his pants loose from himself. “O-0-0-0-oh, the tab-lew is ruined!” wails Mrs. Smith. Everybody helped light the lamps, and then we stands and looks at each other. Maud S looks like her course was about run, but them punchers don’t take any chances. “Sandy Claws has come!” yells a voice at the door, and we all takes a look. I never seen anything like that apparation. It’s a two-year old steer, wearing a bear-skin over- coat, with a string of sleigh-bells around it, and on the lower lip of the danged animal is Tellurium Wood’s false whiskers, and over one horn is that tall hat. The steer is about half way into the hall when we see it coming, and its tail is twisted over its back. Around its mouth is twisted a rope, a= eR fe — = ‘ Goes ne - ee a =e ee ~ » door. ‘“‘Ba-a-a-tr!”’ blats that steer, like it hurt = all over, and right up that room it comes, romping regardless of life or limb. I know it was Chuck’s voice that yelled— “Sandy Claws has come.” ““Ho-o-old fast!” yells a puncher, and just then the steer lams into poor Maud S, | scattering the punchers. Hair Oil Heppner tries to bulldog that locoed animal, but he | might as well ’a’ tried to bulldog a box-car. Then Maud S gets enervated again, and — things begin to boil a-plenty. “‘Ba-a-a-a-w!” bawls the steer. “‘Ha-a-a-a-w!” sings Maud, and the both of them starts gamboling toward the stage. “Git ba-a-a-ck!” yowls Pete Gonyer. “Daw-w-w-gone yuh, git back!” Rip-i-i-p! The steer gets its horns into the curtain, rips about twenty feet of it loose, and starts to climb the stage. Crash! danged old oil lamp inside exploded. “Fire! whales away at the steer with it. Clank! The judge was left-handed, which — might account for the poor throwing, but he got his feet tangled in some of that loose — curtain and hit Scenery Sims right in the head with that heavy moon. Bang! Somebody took a shot at the steer __ and knocked several bells, and one of them | danged bells hit me in the nose. I hate to get hit in the nose with a bell. I hates to get. hit in the nose with anything, but I sure does detest a bell. I can see folks going out of the door as fast as they can travel. I : seen Hair Oil climbing onto poor Maud S, and then my time is all taken up with that danged steer. All this stuff is taking place a lot faster than I can tell it. I bulldogged that steer. It was the first steer I ever tried to bulldog, and if all future steers will keep away from me it will be the last. es ae helped my act quite a lot. The steer upends I HOOKED onto his horns just in time to feel my feet dangle off the from my weight, and me and that steer << landed into a jumble of chairs, and over the top of us goes Maud S, celebrating her second childhood by making Hair Oil pull leather. 89 | which is yanked off as it humps into the The moon went down, and the © Fire!” howls Judge Steele, and ; then he picks up that blazing moon and — edge of the stage, the same of which 4786" BS a i Paro / : > -/* war ' ay : 46 > .) MA? 2 ‘yo, RATS SS pd ac S a od yee. | ' i bat ae Th AS + em -! Pere, TL Sel f LYN hee AG Re ag ge tall ied a : hoes vet «* ai vs an A Wy Oy IPL 5 i " “ : i‘ yyy Ca) e ; 4 o>. nd + A ee mA 7 4 ji 4 + 4" “A Viel @ « : cv et Sa He gD Mas ¥ Ege tbs 2B he, t- iy oe MS tie a ‘ a\h nae 4 , i ‘as ‘fs we wie . ee rt ta rs i} y ; + * et FLOM byt a | : ue | 4 FEW aatral LA Si x . { ‘ rae 4 deat hy inh SEF dhe Eomiecbooks _—