So finally
they fixed up a deal so Smith could go along with the show. They
shoved Clarence in a box in the baggage car, but after a while
Mr. Snake gets so lonesome he gnaws out and starts to crawl back
to find his master. Just as he is half-way between the baggage
car and the smoker, the couplin' give way--right on that heavy
grade between Custer and Rocky Point. Well, sir, Clarence wound
his head 'round one brake wheel and his tail around the other,
and held that train together to the bottom of the grade. But it
stretched him twenty-eight feet and they had to advertise him as
a boa-constrictor."
Windy Bill's story of the faithful bullsnake aroused to
reminiscence the grizzled stranger, who thereupon held forth as
follows:
Wall, I've see things and I've heerd things, some of them ornery,
and some you'd love to believe, they was that gorgeous and
improbable. Nat'ral history was always my hobby and sportin'
events my special pleasure and this yarn of Windy's reminds me of
the only chanst I ever had to ring in business and pleasure and
hobby all in one grand merry-go-round of joy. It come about like
this:
One day, a few year back, I was sittin' on the beach at Santa
Barbara watchin' the sky stay up, and wonderin' what to do with
my year's wages, when a little squinch-eye round-face with big
bow spectacles came and plumped down beside me.
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