The Fountain Of Youth

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Title:     The Fountain Of Youth
Author: Henry Wallace Phillips [More Titles by Phillips]

"Once upon a time," said Mr. Scraggs, "there come a profound peace on my household. It was 'Zeke, what kin I give you for dinner to-day?' and 'Zeke' this and that, until I says to myself, 'We're going to have cyclones followed by a heavy frost if I tarry here,' so I pulled my freight to Arizona, till this unnatural condition of things passed away. I understand Mrs. Scraggs in her war-paint, but Mrs. Scraggs with her eyes uprolled to Heaven and a white dove perched on each and every ear is a thing I'm not goin' to witness the spoilin' of, if I kin help it.

"I loafed around a little town, wearin' the counters shiny, entertainin' myself every minute by wonderin' what in thunder I'd do with the next one, till Fate, that's always seemed ready and eager to butt into my affairs, sent me down to the railroad station one morning.

"There got off'n the train a little stout man, with a clean baby skin and clean baby eyes. He looked as if he'd got born into this wicked world with a bald spot, gray side-whiskers and a pair of gold-rimmed specks. He made me feel sad--not that he weren't cheerful enough, but his rig was that of a parson, and a parson naturally reminded me of matrimony, and there was only one thing worse than loafing around Jim Creek, and that was matrimony. 'Yes,' I says to myself, lookin' at that nice, clean old gentleman, 'he little knows the trouble he's made in this world. And yet,' thinks I, willing to be square, 'I don't know as you could have kept 'em apart, even if there weren't no ministers. Man is born to trouble as a powder-mill is to fly upward. Male and female He made 'em, after their kind; and it's only reasonable that they've been after their kind ever since. And more'n that, that gentleman would have checked my wild career--he'd have held me down to one. So why should I wish to walk on his collar?'

"Whilest I was Hamlettin' to myself like that the old boy talked to the station agent. Billy leaned on the truck and pointed to me. 'There's your man right now,' says he; 'Mr. E. G. Washington Scraggs, the most famous guide and hunter in Arizona. I ain't got a doubt you can secure his services,' and off goes Billy.

"Railroad men get used to takin' life on the run, from eatin' to jokes. Bill never waited to see the effect of his little spring on me.

"My friend comes up to me. 'Is this Mr. Scraggs?' he says.

"'I am a modest man by nature,' says I; 'and yet I cannot deny it.'

"He made me a bow. I made him a bow.

"'I am told, Mr. Scraggs,' says he, 'that you are a celebrated guide and hunter?'

"'If you go through this land believing all that's told you,' says I, 'you'll have a queer sensation in your head. However, I can do plain guiding and hunting, all right. What am I to guide, and who am I to hunt?'

"'I shall explain to you," says he, taking off his specks and tapping his hand with 'em--he was a nice, home-raised old gentleman, but he sure did think his own affairs was interesting. 'It is this way,' says he: 'my ministerial labors have--er--exhausted, that is to say, prostrated me. My physician insisted I should come to this climate, where I am told it is exceedingly dry and healthful, and live entirely out-of-doors; to return to our healing mother, Nature; to salute the rosy youth of Morning from a couch of sod, to bid farewell to Day from some yearning height, far from the petty madness of cities--what did you say, Mr. Scraggs?'

"'I said "Ya-a-s,"' says I, quick, because I'd forgot myself a trifle.

"'Ah!' says he, waving his specks in enthusiasm. 'The abiding peace of a life like yours!--I beg your pardon?'

"'I have an attack of this here bronco-kitus,' says I. 'I cough almost like conversation--go on.'

"'To live,' says he, 'in the great peace of these enormous spaces--to spread God's clean sky above you and pass into a sleep where this sweet air shall hush me through the night, like the wind from angels' wings. With what a sick longing have I looked for this!

"'That's it!' says I. 'Pardner, you've struck it. There ain't one man in a thousand thinks of tuckin' the sky around him when he turns in, but many a time when I've shoveled the last batch of centipedes and tarantulas into the fire, petted a side-winder good-night, and fired a farewell shot at a scalplock vanishin' over the hill, I've thought that same thing. Oh! the soothin' gooley-woo of windin' yourself up in a bright-colored sunset and lyin' down to peaceful dreams! I sleep too hard to remember about the angels' wings.'

"I spoke so earnest he swallowed me whole. 'Centipedes and tarantulas,' says he, musin' (evidently he hadn't figured on 'em); 'an' what is a "side-winder," Mr. Scraggs?'

"'A "side-winder," sir,' says I, 'is a rattlesnake who travels on the bias, as I've heard my wife remark about her clothes--he's a kind of Freemason; he lets you in on the level and out on the queer."

"'Rattlesnake?' says he; 'ha--hum--rattlesnake, yes, yes, yes--not dangerous, I hope?'

"'Oh, no!' says I. 'He bites you up somewhat, but it's only play.'

"Right here he got off a joke. It took some time--I see it comin.'

"Rather dangerous _play_, that, Mr. Scraggs, heh?' says he. 'Ha, ha, ha!'

"Well, I reckon I enjoyed that joke as much as he did--the two of us laughed for five minutes. But, somehow, he looked so simple and innocent and foolish, my heart bucked on guyin' him. There wasn't no bad pretensions about him; it was only that the old ladies had told him he was a wonder so long, he'd been more'n a man if he hadn't come to believe it--it's pretty medium hard to keep to cases under them conditions. That's what made him cough so deep and important, and stand there with a frown on his brow, lookin' as if he knew a heap more than he could understand.

"I side-stepped. 'I gather,' says I, 'you want to go campin',' and you want me to pilot you?'

"He just beamed on having the puzzle solved so simple, 'That's it exactly,' says he.

"'I guessed it almost from the first,' says I. 'Well, we want a team and blankets and a camp kit; that'll cost something.'

"'It isn't a question of cost,' said he, pulling out a cucumber and skinnin' much money off the top of it. 'You take that and secure what we need.'

"'I'll do what's right by you,' says I, and meant it. That afternoon the Rev. Percival Mervin and Mr. E. G. W. Scraggs pulled out with a team of mules for parts unknown. I had no more idee what kind of land we were runnin' into than Percival himself; howsomever, one country's a great deal like another, after all. But I gave him the history as we journeyed--oh, sure! Hadn't he come out for pleasure?

"'There,' says I, p'inting with the whip, 'is Dooley's Pillar, so called because a man by the name of Dooley, helped only by his widow, stood off eight ravagin', tearin' savages there for three weeks.'

"'Good-ness gra-cious!' says Percival. 'And did they escape?'

"'The Injuns? Oh, yes; they got away.'

"'No, I mean the Dooleys.'

"'Yes, they got away, too; everybody got out all right--only the name stayed.'

"'I should have thought there would have been bloodshed,' says he, astonished and a little disappointed, too, for all he was such a kind-hearted little man.

"'It come mighty near it,' says I; 'mighty. The only reason there weren't was because the Injuns couldn't get at 'em--don't you notice that cliff at the bottom?'

"'Yes.'

"'Well, that goes completely around, and it ain't climbable, so the Injuns had to stay down.'

"'I see,' says he; and we rode three mile before he said: 'But how did the Dooleys get there?'

"'They was ketched by a tornado in Sore-toe Canon, over yonder,' says I, 'and blowed right to the top--the Injuns chasin' 'em horseback and shootin' at 'em on the wing.'

"Percival he cleaned his glasses, looked hard at Dooley's Pillar, and give me his honest opinion.

"'It,' says he, 'is very remarkable.'

"I looked at him. It was; but too much like taking a loan out of a blind beggar's hat. 'F I'd been a decent man I'd quit. There was a fatal fascination about Percival, though--you wondered how much he _would_ swaller--kind of spurred you up to heave something at him he'd see wasn't so. It needed a better man than me to do it. You never in all your life heard of such things as took place along that route. As he said, it made him glad to think he'd got holt of a man who had the history of the country at his fingers' ends.

"He showed nothing but a thirst for information when I pointed out Grant's Leap--the place where General Grant hopped to safety with three Apache arrows sticking in the fulness of his pants.

"'Why!' says Percival, 'I never heard that General Grant was out in this country.'

"I shook my head wise. 'No,' says I; 'he kept it dark.'

"'Nothing against his good name, I hope?' says he, anxious.

"'Not at all,' says I, warm. 'He done it to oblige a friend--it was told me in confidence, so I can't say more.'

"Just then we made a turn that brought Grant's Leap into better view. I'd thought it was a narrer slit, but it 'ud be a good horse-pistol that could carry across.

"'General Grant must have been very agile as a young man,' says Percival.

"'Not at all,' says I. 'It ain't mor'n fifty feet, and that was before he was all wore out runnin' for the Presidency.'

"'Oh, I see,' says Percival. 'Don't think I meant to doubt you.'

"'I didn't,' says I, my conscience biting me again.

"There was no help for it, though; he had to have a story of every queer-looking hole, rock, tree, or mud-puddle we saw. There was one spooky-looking tree, dead on one side. 'Now,' thinks I, 'I shall lay you out and quit.'

"So I told him about how the vigilantes had wrongly suspected a man who peddled rubber hose of a murder, overtook him under that very tree, and, lacking rope, strung him with a section of his own goods, riding away without a look behind them. When the poor lad was yanked off the horse the hose stretched so his feet touched the ground: he gave a jump, went up high enough to loose the strain, swallowed a mouthful of air, and so forth. His hands being strapped behind him he couldn't help himself, but for three days he hopped up and down there, securing light refreshment by biting the leaves off the tree, which, strange to say, never put out green leaves on that side again.

"'And then he was rescued? Who did it?'

"'He was--the vigilantes did it. The reason they suspected him was that they found a receipted bill for fifty feet of garden hose in Ike's, the murdered man's, pocket. Knowing perfectly well that Ike never paid a bill in his life, that looked suspicious, but when they come to look at it closer they see the bill was made out to another man, and they hustled back. The pedler was game, though weary. They raised an ax to free him, but he hollers--one word to the jump--"Don't--waste--too--much--hose!"'

"Percival put his hand on my shoulder. I thought my little effort would receive at least a smile, and was preparin' to join in, when he says:

"'Think of the state of that innocent man's mind for those three days!'

"Well, I tried to, to oblige Percival, but I just naturally couldn't; if it hadn't been a nut come loose under the wagon there'd been nothing left for me but to die right there.

"Only one thing marred the trip. We run across a man who asked where we was going.

"'Oh, out a little way!' says I.

"He looked at Percival. 'Here a minute!' says he. I went over to him. 'Look out for your eye!' he whispered. 'The 'Paches are up.'

"Well, I never paid any more attention to a man predictin' Injun troubles than I do to a farmer's kickin' about the weather, so I thanked him and we strolled on. I explained to Percival that the man was the well-known desperado, James Despard, of the Bloody Hand, and he was askin' me if I'd met any of his enemies.

"'He didn't look fierce,' says Percival.

"'That's his lay,' says I; 'he goes up to a man and don't look fierce, and the first thing you know there's a funeral.'

"About sunset we hit the place we aimed for: a nice, high spot with a pool of water, overlooking the valley for miles. It was straight on three sides, and a hard pull for the mules on the other; but a patch of grass to the back, timber handy, and the lookout it gave you, together with the water, made it worth the climb. Besides, it was the very spot where the Roosian Prince Porkandbeansky camped, time I guided him ten years before. I told Percival all about the Prince whilest I was cooking supper, thus giving him a line on the proper way to behave. It was enough to say the Prince done so-and-so--or didn't--to bring Percival into line easy for the rest of the trip.

"Well, we couldn't get under that blue coverlid of Percival's any too quick that night. I didn't mind a blanket thrown in, nor him, neither, for it was colder'n sin. We was good and tired. Broad sun-up when we woke.

"Percival, he flew around like a cock-sparrer. Happy! The Lord save us! He sung little hymns, and trotted every step he took, his sun-burnt little nose gleamin' with joy. It done you good to look at him. I took as much pride in him as though he was my sister's eldest--taught him to do this and that, till he was fit to bust with the glory of bein' such a camper. And forty times a day he'd explain to me how glad he was that I'd been his guide; how much he'd have missed otherwise. I suppose them yarns I told him had added to his romantic ideas about living uncomfortably out-of-doors, but every time he said it I felt mean again.

"Still, Satan mischief always finds for idle hands to do. After about five days of loafin' I turned the conversation to the uncertainty of things in general; we talked a good deal about it. I gradual come to particulars, and producin' a pack of playin'-cards, proceeded to show Percival how odd five of 'em dealt at a time would come out. He was interested, and I suggested that he sh'd take five, too, and he did; and the first thing you know I had everything that Percival owned, owin' to his misjudging the way them cards would fall. Then we divided again and went at it. At the end of the next week I was proud of Percival. He fronted me out of a plump jackpot without a tremble of a gray whisker, but, to save me, I couldn't get him to play cards. He said it was wicked and led to gamblin'--I dunno but what he's right at that. We had lots of fun with the Uncertainty of Things, anyhow, and saved our morals.

"At the end of three weeks us two was twin brothers. Old Percy told me in confidence he hadn't had a real friend for years before. And I liked him, you bet. We all has got our faults--why, even Mrs. Scraggs isn't free from 'em--but you scratch them off the top of Percival and you found a white man--the most trusting little critter in God and man, the kindest-hearted and the best-natured that ever lived. Honest, I couldn't sleep nights sometimes, thinking of the lies I told him, and if I'd never slept I couldn't 'a' quit--it was like leaving a starvin' nigger in charge of a hencoop.

"So things ambled along--not a jar. No rain, no crawling thing to spoil our fun, till one day just before dinner--Percy and me sittin' there with the blankets between us and our beans counted out at the side, raisin' and cross-liftin' each other, him having drawed one card whilest I took two to a pair of tens and a kicker, and made four tens--a shadder fell on the blanket. Percy was too busy wondering whether he'd better see my last raise to notice, but your Uncle Zeke has lived so long in lonesome and sometimes unhealthy places that the chill of that shadder, comin' so noiseless and unexpected, fell on his soul. Before I raised my eyes I looked at the shadder close; yes, there was a gun, and it was also an Injun.

"There ain't anything an Injun likes better than to sit tight and enjoy a cinch. He won't kill you as long as he can get some fun out of you.

"I ain't savin' what I felt, but old pink-and-white Percival was there, babe in the woods dependin' on me, and me covered by an Apache rifle!

"'How!' says I, throwin' it careless over my shoulder.

"There was a still second. Then the Injun answers, 'Huh!'

"Percy looked up, pleased and surprised.

"'Why, there's an Indian!' says he.

"'Go on with the game,' says I, cross. 'Don't stare at him--he has feelin's.'

"Percy got red. 'I beg your pardon!' he says to the Injun--then to me: 'What does he want?'

"I made up my mind Percy wasn't goin' to be scart if I could help it. If he _had_ to go let him go quick, without waiting. They made me wait once, and while it didn't come to nothing, I don't think I should ever really care for it.

"'He wants to rassel me,' I answers. 'Great people for sports, Injuns, and curious how they go at it. He expects me to surprise him--let's see, how many have you got there?'

"I bent over, to get my legs loose, so I could jump, and also to get a quick peep at circumstances. There wasn't but the lone buck. I worked the cat racket. You know how a cat does? She sits still, thinkin' 'I'm goin' to move fast in a minute--I sure _am_ goin' to move fast in a minute,' until she gets such a head of steam on, she's off before she knows it. That's just what I done, exactly. I was all over that Injun, kicked his gun out of reach and heaved him over the steepest side before you could say 'Keno.'

[Illustration: "I was all over that Injun."]

"Percy was surprised and displeased. He put on his specks and trotted quick to the edge.

"'Washington,' says he, 'you have hurt that man!'

"'Oh, I guess not,' says I. 'He's used to this country.'

"I hadn't hurt him half as much as I'd liked. If you slapped a white man straight down a hundred foot on top of a pile of rocks he'd depart like a Christian, but my red friend and brother promptly wriggled off behind the boulders.

"I dassen't shoot. There might be a twenty of 'em in hearing, and, besides, no need of worryin' poor Percy, trustin' E. G. W., any sooner than I had to.

"'It seems to me, Washington,' says Percy, 'that's _very_ rough play.'

"'Percy,' says I, 'as you may have read, an Injun don't care so much about being hurt as he does for supportin' his family pride. If I'd only chucked him fifteen foot or so he'd thought I didn't respect his powers of endurance proper, and like enough wouldn't 'a' spoke to me if we met.'

"'Well, of course, _you_ know all about these things,' he says. 'But to me it is very surprising.'

"'Percy,' says I to him again, real earnest, 'if a man took note of all the things in this world that are surprisin' it wouldn't be no time before every tree in the forest looked like an exclamation mark to him.'

"'I suppose,' says Percy, waggin' his head, wise, 'that's quite true.'

"And if there'd been fifty million Injuns ready to fricassee us the next minute I couldn't 'a' helped havin' another attack of that bronco-kitus that troubled me so.

"But your Uncle Zeke wasn't so cussed hilarious for the next four days. I expected that Injun back with his friends every minute, and what with watchin' all night and joshin' Percy all day I was plumb wore out. He made me kind of mad by not noticin' things was wrong, although that's the impression I'd labored to create upon him, as he'd say.

"The Injun didn't come, and he didn't come till I got mad at him, too. How was I to know that he finished up my idee by fallin' over, further down? So I fumed and I fussed, and I yearned inside of me to get square with somebody. And at last my chance come.

"Afternoon, hot and clear as usual. Percy asleep under a rock, and then, horses' footsteps! I jumped for the edge, and, boys, for a minute my sight give out. It wasn't Injuns; it was a lot of Uncle Sam's durned soldiers. I never expected to be so glad to see a soldier; I thought I despised 'em.

"I looked at 'em for a full half minute, thinking,' God bless old Percy's blistered nose, he's safe!' and then I done what I hadn't orter did out of that, desire to get even. I slid down the mountain and whanged away over their heads. It was like pokin' your finger in a hornets' nest. Up comes them soldiers, workin' the finest of Injun sneaks up the hill. If there ever was a grand sight in Nature it's a two-hundred-pound soldier entirely concealed by a rock twice the size of my fist.

"Y-a-as, here they come; and I flitted my red handkercher like it was a 'Pache's head-dress, leadin' 'em on to where Percy was. I got there first and crawled into a cave where I could watch. I looked at Percy, sleeping, remarkin' 'whooo-whisssh!' at regular intervals, his little baby face surrounded by his white handkercher, his little fat hands folded on his little fat stomach, and I could scarcely wait for the time when them soldiers' eyes should fall upon their treacherous, fierce, and implackibble foe.

"The lieutenant was a kid, just gradooated--one of the kind that thinks it's glorious to get killed and read about it in the papers. He led his men into the simple quiet of our camp, crouched and tur'ble, a gun in each hand . . . and there was the United States army and there was the sleepin' Percy, face to face!

"'What . . . !' says the lieutenant, falling back ten foot. 'What . . . !' says he, falling back twenty feet and losin' his voice. 'What . . . !'says he, gatherin'himself; 'what is this?

"And then I come out of the cave and rolled on the ground.

"The lieutenant walked over and patted me on the back with a rifle-butt.

"'What d'ye mean, you s-c-c-coundrel!' he says. 'Stop that laughing or I'll shoot the pair of you!'

"I come to quick when I heard that. 'Look a' here, young feller,' I says, 'you can beat me as much as you feel like, but if you make a crooked play at Percy I'll wrap you up in your diploma and send you home to your ma.'

"It just happened their half-breed scout knew me.

"'I wouldn't rile Mr. Scraggs, Lieutenant,' says he; 'it's bad luck.'

"Of course there was more talk, but the lieutenant was a good enough kid, and when he see all the boys laughin' he give in and smiled himself.

"'Well, you long-legged statue of melancholy,' says he, 'I suppose I'll have to let it go, but I'll shoot you, sure as there is shootin', if you ever play a trick like that on me again. What kind of a fool are you to stay here in the middle of an outbreak, anyhow? Now wake up your friend and come with us.'

"'Thanky,' says I; 'but hold--is the road safe to town?'

'"Sure; we've cleaned 'em, all but one bunch.'

"'Well,' says I, 'then Percy and me'll just amble back together the way we come. I don't want him to know nothing about any trouble.'

"After chewin' for a while he consented, and away went the army.

"So bimeby Percy woke up and said he'd had a nice nap and felt refreshed and--um--invigorated, and him and me went back to town, and he never suspicioned ther'd been an Injun risin', soldiers nor nothin'. I have felt like offering one hundred dollars' reward to the person who'd produce something that Percy would suspect. And whenever I think of that my spirits lift to that extent I could almost go out and get married again.

"And this here ticker I set great store by, because it come from Percy and says inside of it, 'To E. G. Washington Scraggs, in memory of our beautiful friendship, from Percival Mervin'--and that to a tough old Mormon like me! Well, he was one darned nice little man."

[The end]
Henry Wallace Phillips's short story: The Fountain Of Youth

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