Freddy the Cowboy (7 page)

“You aren't very quick on the draw, pardner,” said Cy. “S'pose you could hit anything with it?”

Freddy backed off about ten feet from the pig pen, aimed at a knothole in the side wall, and pulled the trigger. There was a terrific bang, and a small round hole appeared about three feet to the left of the knothole.

The mice giggled and Jinx gave a sarcastic laugh. “Two-Gun Freddy, the Terror of the Plains!” he said. “Boy, I sure would hate to get in a shooting mix-up with you, specially if you were on my side.”

Cy just shook his head. “You ain't supposed to shut your eyes,” he said. “Try it again and keep 'em open.”

“Oh-oh!” said Jinx warningly. “Here comes trouble!” For Mr. Bean had come out of the back door and was walking up towards them.

Jinx and Freddy stood their ground, but the mice quietly ran off. Mr. Bean came up, holding out his hand for the gun. “Don't allow my animals to have firearms,” he said. He hefted the pistol in his hand, looking from it to the knothole. “That your mark?” And when Freddy said it was, he raised the gun and fired. The bullet hit about two feet to the right of the knothole.

Mr. Bean shook his head. “Gun's no good,” he said. “Shoots high and to the right.”

Jinx winked at Freddy. If that was really so, then both bulletholes should have been to the right. But Freddy's was to the left.

“Say, Freddy,” said Jinx, “what's back of that knothole—inside your house, I mean?”

“Oh, my land!” said the pig and dashed inside. Mr. Bean followed him. Perched on the typewriter where he had tossed it, was Freddy's ten gallon hat with a hole drilled neatly right through the crown. The other bullet had smacked into a framed enlargement of a snapshot of Mr. and Mrs. Bean, taken on their honeymoon, smashing the glass and replacing Mr. Bean's pictured head with a round black hole.

Mr. Bean made a sound which might have been hiccups or might have been chuckles—you couldn't tell behind all those whiskers. “Ain't such bad shots after all,” he said. “Plugged each other. Guess I ought to thank you—you certainly improved my looks.” He put a finger in the hole in the hat. “I'll get you a new hat. But I guess it ain't safe for either you or me to go round with a loaded gun in our pocket.” He looked thoughtfully at the pig. “I suppose you want it to go with your cowboy suit, hey? Tell you what I'll do. I'll let you keep it if you promise to shoot nothing but blanks.”

Freddy agreed readily enough. The damage they had done scared him. Suppose a bullet had smashed his typewriter? Or even gone right through the pig pen and hit one of his friends?

They came outside and Mr. Bean stood for a minute looking down towards the house. “Nice view,” he said. Freddy thought it was, too, although as a matter of fact all anybody could see was the barnyard with the buildings grouped round it. I guess no stranger would have thought it specially beautiful or picturesque. But of course it was their own home, and that made a difference.

“Yes, sir; nice view,” said Mr. Bean again, and before Freddy could stop him, he dropped down into the canvas chair where the mice had been sitting, and immediately smashed it and went down with a yell and a crash onto the ground.

Mrs. Bean came rushing to the back door. “Mr. B?” she called. “Oh, my land, wait a minute, I'll be right up. You want I should call the doctor?”

“Great grief!” Mr. Bean called back, as he got slowly to his feet. “Can't I sit down to rest for half a minute without you thinking I've collapsed?”

“What else do you want me to think?” she said. “I hear shooting, and then I see you lying on the ground. I never saw anyone sit down to rest that way before.”

Mr. Bean just waved his hands at her and she turned and went into the house, and he said to Freddy: “Guess I'll go down before I bust anything else. I'll get you a new chair tomorrow.”

When he had gone the mice came back, and after talking it over it was decided that if they were going to try to rescue Taffy, they ought to do it before he was made up into a pot pie. Whatever was done they would have to do by themselves, for the other farm animals were not due back from their adventuring for another day or so. So they decided to go up to the ranch that evening.

Freddy hadn't said anything when he came out about the damage the pistol bullets had done. He knew he'd never hear the last of it if Jinx knew about it. But he had not forgotten the letter from the Horrible Ten with which the cat had tried to scare him, and by and by he said, “Oh say, Jinx, I guess I didn't show you this,” and brought it out.

“Golly!” said the cat. “Boy, you
are
in a spot if the Horrible Ten are after you! I've heard about those babies, and are they tough!”

Freddy shot a warning look at Quik, who seemed inclined to giggle. The mouse knew, of course, that Jinx was the one who had made up the Horrible Ten in the first place. “That's right,” Freddy said. “But I had a talk with one of 'em and I fixed it up.”

“You had a wh-what?” Jinx demanded. He looked pretty startled.

“Seems they were after the wrong party,” Freddy went on. “They said they were sorry they scared me, and promised they wouldn't bother me any more.” He frowned gloomily. “But I sure would hate to be that other party.”

“Yeah,” said Jinx slowly. “Yeah. But this—well, now, this one you talked to: Who was he? What did he look like?”

“They don't have names,” Freddy said. “They're just Horrible One, Horrible Two, and so on. He was Horrible Five. Little, and sort of black all over, with long pointed teeth. Blue teeth. And a knife. A little sharp knife, sort of like an ice pick. He was really an awful looking thing—made me shiver.—Oh well, we don't have to worry about them.”

Jinx eyed his friend suspiciously. He started to say something two or three times, then stopped. At last he gave sort of a hollow laugh and said: “Shucks, Freddy—the Horrible Ten! That's just strictly to laugh at. No gang ever had such a name. Somebody wrote that letter to you for a joke.”

“That's what I thought at first,” said the pig. “Until I saw one of 'em. Boy, they're nothing to laugh at. I'm glad it's not me they're after.”

Jinx didn't say anything more but he was pretty thoughtful the rest of the day.

Along about supper time, when Jinx had gone to the house to get his milk, Freddy went down to the stable, and up in the loft where Uncle Ben had had his workshop he found a big sheet of shiny tin. With heavy shears he cut out ten narrow, pointed pieces four or five inches long and then hunted up Rabbit No. 23, who sometimes worked for him in the detective business, and gave him certain instructions.

Shortly before dark Freddy saddled Cy, and with Quik and Howard in his pockets and Jinx riding double behind him, started for Mr. Flint's ranch. They went up through the pasture, and across the back road, and cut through a corner of the Big Woods. It was still light out in the fields, but in the woods it was already dark, and you couldn't see things clearly. They came to a place where a fallen tree trunk blocked the way, and Cy had turned aside to go around it when Freddy nudged him, and he stopped. His ears pricked up and turned forward towards the log. “Something queer going on here,” he said.

“Well, that
is
queer,” said Freddy, and both the mice said: “Gosh, yes!”

“Boloney!” said Jinx impatiently. “What's queer—you all scared of the dark?” And he laughed contemptuously.

But he only laughed for about a second, for up on the log jumped ten little creatures and each one held in his right forepaw a glittering knife. They capered up and down in a sort of dance and recited a verse in shrill little voices:

“We are the Horrible Ten,

Neither animals nor men;

Neither men nor animiles,

And we're meaner than crocodiles,

Much wickeder and horrider

Than alligators in Florida.

And we take our enemies' lives

With our ten sharp little knives,

In using which, our system

Is to stick 'em in and twist 'em.”

“We are the Horrible Ten—”

If Jinx hadn't been so disturbed by what Freddy had told him about talking to one of the Horrible Ten, it might have occurred to him that the voices sounded very much like rabbits' voices, although the creatures had queer round heads which certainly didn't have rabbits' ears.

But he had written the Horrible Ten note as a sort of joke, and to prove that he could make life interesting for the pig, and he simply couldn't figure out how these little horrors he had made up could have talked to Freddy, or how they could appear like this. That is the way with practical jokers: they never can understand it when someone turns the joke around and plays it on them.

And the Horrible Ten went on:

“Our teeth are blue and our eyes are red;

We've got bad manners; we're not well bred.

We think it silly to be polite,

So we snatch and snarl and scratch and bite.”

“Excuse me for interrupting,” said Freddy. “But you—I mean, you don't think that we're your enemies, do you?”

They stopped prancing up and down, and one of them said: “All animals are our enemies. But there's one special enemy we're after now—a cat named Jinx. You seen him around? What's that animal back of you on the saddle?”

“What's he done?” Freddy asked.

“He wrote a letter and signed our name to it,” said the creature. “That's forgery, pig. Forgery and blackmail and impersonating a Horrible. Say, isn't that him back of you?”

“Sure it's him!” said another of them. He waved his knife. “Come on, Horribles, let's get him!” And they jumped down from the log and began creeping slowly towards the pony.

This was too much for Jinx. He was a little suspicious that somebody was putting up a game on him, but not sure enough of it to wait and take a chance with those gleaming little knives. He gave a yell and jumped down and streaked for home.

“Thanks, boys,” said Freddy. “Quit laughing, will you, Cy? You'll shake me out of the saddle.”

“Look, Freddy,” said the head Horrible, “can we keep these imitation knives?” He came closer and I don't suppose you would have recognized him as a rabbit even then, for he had his ears tied down. That was one reason why Jinx hadn't known him. “We'd like to work this gag on Charles. He's been awful snooty to us rabbits lately.”

“Well,” said Freddy slowly, “I guess it's all right. Only go kind of easy. It never does to carry a joke too far. Somebody might get hurt.”

So the rabbit thanked him, and then as he and Cy started on up through the woods, the ten Horribles started back towards the Bean farm, marching two by two, and singing as they went:

“Oh, horrible indeed are we;

To look at we are awful!

We shout and howl and yell with glee

When doing deeds unlawful.

So let our enemies beware,

And hide in caves and cellars,

For when we catch one by the hair,

We pinch him till he bellers.

“Oh, we are the Ten, the Horrible Ten,

Bears, when they hear us, cower in their den,

Elephants tremble, and lions shudder—

Hide their heads and yell for their mudder.”

The sound died away. “Those dopes are going to get into trouble,” said Quik.

“They can run pretty fast,” said Freddy. “We've got troubles of our own to worry about. There are the ranch house lights through the trees.”

Chapter 7

At the edge of the open fields Freddy dismounted and unsaddled Cy, and the pony trotted on down towards the house. It was getting so dark now that there wasn't much chance of his being noticed, and if he was, nobody would be surprised to see another horse wandering around. As it happened, he made the rescue easily; the trap with the squirrel inside it had been hung up in the cookhouse, and Cy just lifted it down and brought it back to Freddy in his teeth.