Humorous stories; Washington (State) -- Fiction; Western stories
Jimmie thrust the bundle into Boogies' arms and valiantly led a
desperate way to the North River. Boogies panted under his burden as
they dodged impatient taxicabs. So they came into the maze of dock
traffic by way of Desbrosses Street. The eyes of both were lit by
adventure. Jimmie pushed through the crowd on the wharf to a ticket
office. A glimpse through a door of the huge shed had given him
inspiration. No common ferryboats for them! He had seen the stately
river steamer, _Robert Fulton_, gay with flags and bunting, awaiting the
throng of excursionists. He recklessly bought tickets. So far, so good.
A momentous start had been made.
At this very interesting point in his discourse to me, however, Boogies
began to miss explosions too frequently. From the disorderly jumble of
his narrative to this moment I believe I have brought something like the
truth; I have caused the widely scattered parts to cohere. After this I
could make little of his maunderings.
They were on the crowded boat and the boat steamed up the Hudson River;
and they disembarked at a thriving Western town--which, I gather, was
Yonkers--because Boogies feared his stepmother might trace him to this
boat, and because Jimmie Time became convinced that detectives were on
his track, wanting him for the embezzlement of a worn but still
practicable uniform of the Western Union Telegraph Company. So it was
agreed that they should take to the trackless forest, where there are
ways of throwing one's pursuers off the scent; where they would travel
by night, guided by the stars, and lay up by day, subsisting on spring
water and a little pemmican--source undisclosed. They were not going to
be taken alive--that was understood.
They hurried through the streets of this thriving Western town,
ultimately boarding an electric car--with a shrewd eye out for the
hellhounds of the law; and the car took them to the beginning of the
frontier, where they found the trackless forest. They reached the depths
of this forest after climbing a stone wall; and Jimmie Time said the
West looked good to him and that he could already smell the "b'ar steaks
br'iling."
Plain enough still, perhaps; but immediately it seemed that a princess
had for some time been sharing this great adventure. She was a beautiful
golden-haired princess, though quite small, and had flowers in her hair
and put some in the cap of Jimmie Time--behind the nickel badge--and
said she would make him her court dwarf or jester or knight, or
something; only the scout who was with her said this was rather silly
and that they had better be getting home or they knew very well what
would happen to them. But when they got lost Jimmie Time looked at this
scout's rifle and said it was a first-class rifle, and would knock an
Indian or a wild animal silly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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