Freddy the Cowboy (17 page)

“ 'Tain't possible to be as bad a shot as that,” said a prisoner.

“It is for Freddy,” said the sheriff. “I expect he could probably get to be famous as the worst shot in the world, if he set his mind to it. He's an awful smart pig.”

So Freddy explained about the blanks, and told them the whole story.

“Well, you're welcome to stay here as long as you want to,” said the sheriff.

“I thought nobody could stay in a jail unless he was a prisoner,” said Mrs. Wiggins.

“Generally speakin', that's so,” the sheriff said. “But we've made an exception before in Freddy's case. If there's any questions asked—well, we don't have to know he's Freddy, do we? He's a dangerous character—Snake Peters, claims his name is. Arrested for prancin' around town shootin' off guns and hollerin' and generally disturbing the public peace and creatin' a nuisance of himself. And if that ain't enough, I'll arrest him for wearin' that moustache. I never see such a thing in all my born days! Looks like two rat tails, tied together.”

“It was thicker when I bought it,” Freddy explained. “But I guess the hair wasn't fastened in very tight; it kind of sheds.”

Cy, who had been out in the barn getting some oats, came around the corner of the jail. He stepped very carefully on the lawn, so as not to cut it up with his iron shoes. “Say, Freddy,” he said, “that Cousin Augustus—I guess he had too much cake. He's out in the barn and he looks kind of greenish. Maybe you better come out—I ain't much of a hand nursing sick mice.”

So Freddy and the sheriff went out. The mouse was lying on his back on some hay in the manger, and moaning. When he saw his visitors he turned his head from them. “Go away,” he said weakly. “Let me die in peace.”

“No peace for the wicked, old boy,” said Freddy cheerfully. “How about it, sheriff?”

“Kinda fretful, ain't he?” said the sheriff. He looked thoughtfully at the sufferer. “H'm, I know what's the matter. We've got just the thing for it—just the thing. Yes sir, just the thing for what ails you.”

“Well, you needn't say it three times,” said Cousin Augustus crossly. “Because I know what it is and I won't take any.”

It isn't as easy as some people might imagine to give a mouse a dose of castor oil—even a mouse's dose, which is one drop. It took the sheriff and two of the prisoners to give it to Cousin Augustus. One prisoner held him, and the other held his nose, and the sheriff got the oil in his mouth and made him swallow it. And even then the prisoner named Looey got bitten in the thumb.

“I wonder how they give the animals medicine in these here zoos,” said Looey when they were back on the lawn. “Lions and like that.”

“Mr. Boomschmidt has a lot of animals in his circus,” said Freddy. “The way he manages it, he's got a tame buzzard that really likes cod liver oil and such things. Old Boom gets the buzzard to smacking his beak over whatever nasty medicine he wants to give his animals, and then the animals are all so ashamed of being more scared of it than the buzzard is that they swallow it right down.”

“Let's talk about something else,” said the sheriff, and he swallowed uneasily himself several times. “I don't know but maybe I ate a mite too much of that cake myself.”

So they talked about other things for a while, and then Bannister drove the dogs and Mrs. Wiggins back home, where the news that Freddy was alive and well was greeted with such a happy uproar that if Mr. Bean had been home, the animals would certainly have got a good talking to. It must have been midnight before they all quieted down and went to bed.

Chapter 16

For a couple of days Freddy stayed quietly at the jail. It was a nice place to visit. The sheriff was always thinking up little entertainments and parties to keep the prisoners contented and happy, and so there was never a dull moment. But Freddy was restless. It wasn't so much that he wanted to get back home, for he was, like most pigs, a sociable person, fond of games and banquets. But he felt that in the struggle between himself and Mr. Flint the man had come out ahead. Even though each time they came together Flint had got the worst of it, he still had the upper hand. He was free to move about the country, while Freddy was afraid to show so much as the tip of his curly tail in his own home territory.

So one day he saddled Cy and started out to do a little scouting. They were an odd-looking pair. Freddy wore his Snake Peters disguise; there were only about three hairs left on each side of the long moustache, which gave him a very sinister appearance. And the Easter egg tint was beginning to wear off Cy's coat, so that he looked, as the sheriff remarked, more like a leopard than a horse.

But Freddy's luck was out that day—at least the first part of the day. He was cantering along happily in the sunshine, the black hair of his wig flopping on his shoulders with the gentle rocking motion, when out from a patch of woods up a slope perhaps half a mile away rode two horsemen. Freddy recognized them easily—they were Mr. Flint and Jasper. He saw Jasper pull up sharply and point, and heard him shout; then the two spurred their horses to a gallop and came flying down towards him. Cy didn't wait for Freddy to say anything. He reared, pivoted, and set off towards Centerboro at a dead run.

They had been off the road, riding through some abandoned hill pastures, several miles north of town. But there was no use taking to the road. On level ground, Mr. Flint's horse would overhaul them in another mile. The only hope of escape was to hide in a patch of woods, or to try to slow up the pursuit in rough country, where Flint's horse would be at a disadvantage. There was a marshy stretch below them, and Cy headed for that.

Cy went slowly in the wet ground, jumping carefully from one clump of dry grass to another. At first the men overhauled them rapidly, but once the horses got into the swampy piece they slowed down, and although Flint got close enough to throw two or three rapid shots after the fugitive, when he got through to solid ground again he had lost half a mile.

And the chase went on. It was rather like playing Follow The Leader. Cy picked the toughest going and the others had to follow. He was getting farther and farther ahead, and Freddy began to think that they might escape. The jail, he felt, was the only safe place, and Cy agreed that they should do their best to reach it. But pretty soon they began to get close to town, and with so many gardens and cultivated fields and wire fences, they could no longer go cross country. Cy cut down to the road, which soon became a street, and then, although Jasper had fallen way behind, Mr. Flint came up fast. Freddy knew that he could never reach the jail, which was on the other side of town.

The people living on upper Main Street heard a rattle of hoofs and the bang of a six-gun, and they ran to their doors. Down the street, running like a scared rabbit, came a queer spotty-looking pony, and on his back crouched a small but wild looking desperado, with long black hair that streamed behind him. And close on his heels came a grim sour-faced cowboy, brandishing a big Colt .45, and lashing his horse with a heavy quirt. Judge Willey came to his window, looked out, said: “H'm, taking movies, I expect,” and pulled down the shade. Old Mrs. Peppercorn was out mopping her front porch. She ran down to the gate and waved her mop as Freddy came by, and called: “Ride 'em, cowboy!” And then she looked again and thought: “Why that's my friend, Freddy!” So when Mr. Flint came opposite her, she swung the mop around her head and let it fly at him.

She was a quick-witted old lady, but not a very good shot. The mop whirled across in front of Mr. Flint, and the handle rapped his horse smartly on the nose; but the mop went right on across the street, and the long trail of wet rags went smack! against the front parlor window of Mrs. Lafayette Bingle. As Mrs. Bingle was looking out of the window at the time, it made her jump; and that made her mad; and what made her madder was that she had just washed that window that morning, and now it was all dirty again. She came out and told Mrs. Peppercorn what she thought of her. So that made Mrs. Peppercorn mad, and
she
told Mrs. Bingle what
she
thought of
her.
It was the beginning of a feud between Mrs. Peppercorn and Mrs. Bingle that lasted for a long, long time.

But in the meantime Freddy had gained a little. The rap from the mop handle had naturally surprised Mr. Flint's horse, and he reared and bucked for a minute, and Mr. Flint yelled at him and whacked him with the quirt as if he was beating a carpet, so he started again. By that time Freddy had got down into the shopping section of Main Street. He had to go slower here, weaving in and out among the cars; and indeed he practically stopped all traffic, for the people on the sidewalks crowded to the curb to stare at him. Some of them recognized him as the Snake Peters who had been at the rodeo, but many just stared because they had never seen anything like him before.

But he was being overtaken rapidly. Mr. Flint wasn't as careful as Freddy, and he drove his horse right through the people. He knocked over two little boys, and he slashed savagely at Dr. Winterbottom, who didn't get out of the way quickly enough. And he deliberately rode down a Mr. Abraham Winkus, who didn't even live in Centerboro but had come there to visit his married stepdaughter who ran a beauty shop, a Mrs. Nellie Champoux. Fortunately Mr. Winkus was tough, and he wasn't hurt much. He only got a broken arm.

Freddy didn't think Mr. Flint would dare shoot at him with such a lot of people around, but he saw that the man was in a terrific rage, and he decided he had better not take a chance. As he passed Beller & Rohr's radio and jewelry shop, he saw Mr. Beller looking out of the door, and he shouted to him to phone the sheriff, but Mr. Beller didn't hear him. Then he pulled Cy up sharply so that the pony skidded to a stop right in front of the Busy Bee Department Store, threw himself out of the saddle, and darted in through the revolving door.

A number of sales had been announced for that day in the Busy Bee, and the store was crowded. Very few people noticed Freddy at first, for their eyes were searching for bargains, and they didn't look at anything but what was displayed on the counters. A dozen cannibals with spears and rings in their noses could walk through the average bargain day crowd in a department store and nobody would ever see them. Freddy slipped through and took the elevator to the second floor.

And this, I guess, was where he made a mistake. For there were no bargains displayed on this floor, which was given up mostly to women's suits, coats and dresses. And people began to look. They began to crowd around him. And a young lady pushed through and said: “Excuse me, sir, is there something I can show you?”

“You can show me the back stairs, if you will be so kind,” Freddy said.

She was a very haughty young lady with hair so neat that it looked as if it was made out of tin and painted, and she drew herself up and said: “I don't know what you mean, I'm shaw!”

Freddy really didn't mean to mimic her, but you know how it is when someone has a funny way of talking, and you find yourself doing the same thing before you know it. “Well, I'm shaw you do, miss,” he said. “I'm shaw you know where the back staws aw.”

She gave him a very dirty look, and standing on tiptoes, stared over the heads of the crowd and called: “Mr. Metacarpus!”

Mr. Metacarpus was the manager of the store. He had a big moustache which hung down over his mouth, and he drew it in and then blew it out again before he said anything. Now he came bustling up. “Yes, Miss Jones? No trouble here, I hope?”

“Perhaps you can take care of this—this gentleman,” she said. “He has insulted me.”

“Oh, rats!” said Freddy. “I just asked where the stairs were.”

“Rats, is it?” Miss Jones drew herself up and glared. “The eye-dawcity!” And she flounced off.

Mr. Metacarpus blew out his moustache. “I don't think there is anything on this floor that would interest you, sir,” he said. “May I show you to the sporting goods department?”

“I don't know why the sporting goods department would want to have me shown to them,” Freddy said. He heard a vague distant sound of shouting that seemed to come from the floor below. Mr. Flint was probably tearing the store to pieces looking for him. “Haven't you got any back stairs to this place?”

“Stairs?” said Mr. Metacarpus, looking puzzled. “I'm sorry, sir, we have only ladies' wear up here: coats and suits, dresses; cosmetics over there in Aisle F—”

“I don't want to
buy
stairs, Metacarpus,” said Freddy angrily. “I want you to put 'em
under
me, so I can go down 'em. There's a man downstairs chasing me with a gun, and—” He broke off as the elevator door opened with a clang and Mr. Flint's voice shouted: “Where is he? Where's that pig?”

The shoppers had crowded so close around Freddy that he couldn't push through them. He whipped out his gun and swung it in a half circle. “Stand back!” he shouted, and as they shrieked and melted away from him he darted down one aisle, up another, then ducked behind a counter. He looked around cautiously. He was behind the perfumery counter, and there was no one there but him. The girl in charge had run out to see what the excitement was.