There, in the slanting rays of the declining sun, and stretched out upon the sedgy brink of the clear mountain stream, far from the reach of man and miles beyond the outer line of civilization, lay Pumpkin Jim, the Yipping, Yelling Yahoo of Dirty Woman's Ranch. He lav there partially submerged in the stream and partially in the clear, bracing atmosphere. Wild-eyed and beautiful he lay there, looking up into the glad realms of space, with that murderous glitter in his eye that wins a woman's love, and the sympathy of kind hearted philanthropists. Occasionally he would raise his broken limb and try to use it, but it generally wilted and drooped like the leg of a rag doll. Then he would struggle to raise himself up and drag his body out upon the bank, but the broken rib would tear out large chunks of his liver, and make him feel wretched and unhappy. "Curses upon thee, thou base and treacherous mule!" he murmured, brokenly. "By my beard, thou hast poorly repaid me for my unremitting kindness to thee. Ah, alack, alack, alack--" He was just about to alack some more, when a mellow, girlish voice came floating down the gulch and fell in large fragments near where he lay. He gathered up some of the chunks of melody to see what the song might be. It was that wonderful masterpiece of Mozart's, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." Then he swooned. The gurgling brook still continued to gurg. We will let it gurg. CHAPTER II.--GERALDINE CARBOLINE O'TOOLE. |The melodious voice referred to in the preceding chapter was owned and operated by Geraldine Carboline O'Toole, the heroine of this classic tale. Anon she came down the valley like a thing of life. The limber sunbonnet which she wore had drifted to leeward and revealed her Grecian profile and peeled nose. All at once her fawn-like eyes fell upon the prostrate figure, pale and still, and its toes turned toward the center of the zodiac. A wild, frightened look came into her starry eyes, and a ghastly pallor overspread her young face, throwing her intellectual freckles into strong relief. She stole forward and looked at the pale face of Pumpkin Jim as it lay upturned with the rosebud mouth slightly ajar, like the mouth of the Mississippi river. Then she stooped, and, dipping up some of the clear, cold water in his hat, poured it into the rosy mouth. Slowly it trickled down his throat, and the wild panic and surprise created in his stomach by the novel fluid brought him speedily to consciousness. "Where am I, and whence cometh this burning sensation in my liver?" faintly murmured Pumpkin Jim. "Methought some new and peculiar beverage didst cool my parching throat." "Hist!" said Geraldine; "you must not excite yourself. You must brace up. Everything depends upon your keeping quiet instead of tearing up the ground with your broken rib." "And whence comest thou, O beauteous vision, with the Aurora Borealis hair?"