Cowboys -- Fiction; Montana -- Fiction; Ranch life -- Fiction; Western stories
Big Medicine grinned suddenly and came forward. "Honest to grandma,
I'm happy to know yuh!" he bellowed, and caught the cook's hand in a
grip that sent him squirming upon his toes. "These here are my
friends: Happy Jack up there on the wagon, and Slim and Weary and Pink
and Cal and Jack Bates and Andy Green--and there's more scattered
around here, that don't reely count except when it comes to eating. We
like you, by cripes, and we like your cookin' fine! Now, you amble
along to town and load up with the best there is--huh?" It occurred to
him that his final remarks might be construed as giving orders, and he
glanced at Weary and winked to show that he meant nothing serious. "So
long, Jakie," he added over his shoulder and went to where his horse
waited.
Jacques--ever afterward he was known as "Jakie" to the Flying
U--clambered up the front wheel and perched ingratiatingly beside
Happy Jack, and they started off behind the riders for the short mile
to Dry Lake. Immediately he proceeded to win Happy from his glum
aloofness.
"I would say, Mr. Happy, that I should like exceeding well to be
friends together," he began purringly. "So superior a gentleman must
win the admiration of the onlooker and so I could presume to question
for advisement. I am experience much dexterity for cooking, yes, but I
am yet so ignorant concerning the duties pertaining to camp. If the
driving of these several horses transpire to pertain, I will so gladly
receive the necessary instruction and endeavor to fulfil the
accomplishment. Yes?"
Happy Jack, more in stupefaction at the cook's vocabulary than
anything else, turned his head and took a good look at him. And the
trustful smile of Jakie went straight to the big, soft heart of him
and won him completely. "Aw, gwan," he adjured gruffly to hide his
surrender. "I don't mind driving for yuh. It ain't that I was kicking
about."
"I thank you for the so gracious assurement. If I transgress not too
greatly, I should like for inquire what is the chuck for which I am
told to fill the wagon. I do not," he added humbly, "understand yet
all the language of your so glorious country, for fich I have so
diligently study the books. Words I have not yet assimilated
completely, and the word chuck have yet escape my knowledge."
"Chuck," grinned Happy Jack, "is grub."
"Chuck, it is grub," repeated Jakie thoughtfully. "And grub, that
is--Yes?"
Happy Jack struggled mentally with the problem. "Well, grub is grub;
all the stuff yuh eat is grub. Meat and flour and coffee and--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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