472 



RECREATION 



lights of Kansas City an' findin' he still sur- 

 vived, he got as far as Denver. Here he 

 mingled himself with th' maddenin' whirl of 

 social gaiety, durin' which fascinatin' occupa- 

 tion he had run across a gentleman who, 

 when he had mentioned his intention of seein' 

 th' Southwest that fall, had given him a let- 

 ter of introduction to a Mr. Bob Ross ! 



" 'Did you,' inquired J. Henry, in his gentle, 

 two-year-old voice, 'ever happen to hear of 

 Mr. Ross?' 



" 'Well,' says I, 'you don't often hear of 

 Mister Ross, but if you're lookin' for plain 

 Bob Ross of th' Hermosa Ranch you're talk- 

 in' to him right now !' 



"Well, sir, I thought J. Henry was goin' 

 to have some kind of a seasickness ! He 

 milled around for several minutes, diggin' up 

 apologies at every jump. Poco tiempo, 

 though I got him some soothed an' we was 

 soon friendlier 'n ever, 'specially when he 

 turned over a letter from my old pardner, 

 Jimmy Edmunds, who requested me to be 

 kind to J. Henry. 



"Well, son, I did my best, an' if ever you 

 meet J. Henry you just gather his impres- 

 sions ! They're sure lurid ! 



"A couple of days after this, havin' done 

 all I could to astonish him with El Paso an' 

 th' Northern metropolis of Mexico over at 

 Juarez, we got on th' train an' headed for 

 Arizona, which we reached without any mis- 

 haps, reachin' our particular station all right 

 an' findin' Billy with th' buckboard ready for 

 our forty-mile drive out to th' ranch. 



"We got J. Henry's trunk cinched on an' 

 started, arrivin' home that evenin' without 

 havin' any serious troubles barrin' th' loss of 

 J. Henry's hard-boiled hat, which got caught 

 in one of them little whirlwinds an' carried 

 up to where th' angels could laugh at it. 

 You see that cabin right over there under 

 th' big pine? Yes, th' one with that railed- 

 in porch. Well, formerly my foreman, Andy 

 Evarts, lived there. Andy has a nice little 

 family of youngsters an' to keep 'em from 

 strayin' his wife got him to build that corral 

 business around th' porch. There used to be 

 a gate there where th' steps go up, but when 

 Andy buit his new house over yonder he took 

 th' gate with him, needin' th' hinges. We 

 quartered J. Henry in Andy's ole cabin all by 

 his lonesome, an' for a week or so he got 

 along first rate. 



"We're always troubled more or less with 

 mountain lions 'round here. They're most 

 exceedin' fond of young stock, an' th' calves 

 an' colts have a tough time of it, so we have 

 to watch 'em mighty close. 



"One night a couple of weeks after J. 

 Henry landed we'd been sittin' right where 

 we are now until pretty late, smokin' an' lis- 

 tenin' to one of th' boys play th' banjo. It 

 was a plumb dark night, little bit cloudy an' 



no moon, an' 'long 'bout 'leven o'clock we all 

 made a move for bed. 



"J. Henry has a most amazin' fondness for 

 all kinds of animals, 'specially dogs, an' as 

 is always th' way, they liked him, too. Re- 

 sult was 'bout six or seven of these hounds 

 used to lie on his porch an' one or two would 

 sleep in th' cabin. 



"Well, on this particular night I'm tellin' 

 you of, J. Henry an' th' string of dogs mo- 

 seyed over to their sleepin' quarters an' th' 

 rest of us likewise turned in. 



"Everybody was sound asleep, when — must 

 have been 'bout three in th' mornin' — there 

 was th' allfiredest racket over to J. Henry's 

 cabin that ever shook this peaceful valley. 



"I jumped for my door, reachin' it just in 

 time to see some blazin' streaks of light bein' 

 squirted 'round promiscuous, over on J. Hen- 

 ry's porch. 



"Minglin' with them winkin', jumpin' light 

 squirts was sure th' most infernal rumpus 

 that ever happened — dogs howlin' an' yellin' 

 an' everythin' goin' slam! bang! Then J. 

 Henry hollers, 'Lookout! I'm goin' to shoot !' 

 an' sure enough he does ! Eight times he let 

 go, never stoppin', an' presently he yells, 'I've 

 got him !" 



"Meantime, 'bout everybody on th' place 

 come runnin' an' we all piles over to see how 

 much was left of J. Henry an' th' dogs. Sev- 

 eral of th' boys had lanterns, an' when we got 

 there, here comes our tenderfoot in his pa- 

 jamas holdin' a funny lookin' little gun in 

 one hand an' a black tube (which same was 

 his light squirtin' machine!) 'bout ten inches 

 long in th' other. He wasn't rattled a little 

 bit, an' said, 'I rather imagine I've killed what 

 you call a mountain lion.' By that same to- 

 ken it sure looked like he had ! A great, big, 

 lean beast with 'I'm hungry!' stickin' out all 

 over him. 



"Well, sir, as near as we could size it up 

 them dogs was all sleepin' calm an' peaceful- 

 like on th' porch, an' J. Henry was follerin' 

 suit inside. 



"Along comes Mister Lion, hungry clear 

 through — so hungry that he violates all th' 

 laws of botany, zoology an' th' other sciences 

 by ignorin' his instincts of caution an' jumpin' 

 that little corral fence, landin' square in th' 

 middle of them dogs ! Everybody gets scared 

 at once, an' every animal in th' bunch was 

 sure squanderin' time tryin' to get clear of th' 

 one next him ! It was sure a glorious ole 

 hullabaloo ! 



"Then out comes J. Henry an' mixes in 

 with his little light squirter an' his eight- 

 shootin', rapid-fire gun, an' as soon as he 

 could dissolve that group of strugglin' animal 

 nature into pieces an' pick out somethin' he 

 thought wasn't dog, he turns loose an' shoots 

 up Mister Lion plenty ! 



"A lion is a funny beast; sometimes it takes 



