第49章

Death; and the Donna Anna.

"Locoweed? Do I savey loco?" The Old Cattleman's face offered full hint of his amazement as he repeated in the idiom of his day and kind the substance of my interrogatory.

"Why, son," he continued, "every longhorn who's ever cinched a Colorado saddle, or roped a steer, is plumb aware of locoweed.Loco is Mexicano for mad--crazy.An' cattle or mules or ponies or anythin' else, that makes a repast of locoweed--which as a roole they don't, bein' posted instinctif that loco that a-way is no bueno--goes crazy; what we-all in the Southwest calls 'locoed.'

"Whatever does this yere plant resemble? I ain't no sharp on loco, but the brand I encounters is green, bunchy, stiff, an' stands taller than the grass about it.An' it ain't allers thar when looked for, loco ain't.It's one of these yere migratory weeds; you'll see it growin' about the range mebby one or two seasons, an' then it sort o' pulls its freight.Thar wont come no more loco for years.

"Mostly, as I observes prior, anamiles disdains loco, an' passes it up as bad medicine.They're organized with a notion ag'inst it, same as ag'inst rattlesnakes An'as for them latter reptiles, you can take a preacher's hoss, foaled in the lap of civilization, who ain't seen nothin' more broadenin' than the reg'lar church service, with now an' then a revival, an' yet he's born knowin' so much about rattlesnakes in all their hein'ousness, that he'll hunch his back an' go soarin' 'way up yonder at the first Zizzz-z-z-z.

"Doc Peets informs me once when we crosses up with some locoweed over by the Cow Springs, that thar's two or three breeds of this malignant vegetable.He writes down for me the scientific name of the sort we gets ag'inst.Thar she is."And my friend produced from some recess of a gigantic pocketbook a card whereon the learned Peets had written oxytropis Lamberti.

"That's what Peets says loco is," he resumed, as I handed back the card."Of course, I don't go surgin' off pronouncin' no sech words;shorely not in mixed company.Some gent might take it personal an'

resent it.But I likes to pack 'em about, an' search 'em out now an'

then, jest to gaze on an' think what a dead cold scientist Doc Peets is.He's shorely the high kyard; thar never is that drug-sharp in the cow country in my day who's fit to pay for Peets' whiskey.

Scientific an' eddicated to a feather aige, Peets is."You-all oughter heard him lay for one of them cliff-climbin', bone-huntin'

stone c'llectors who comes out from Washin'ton for the Gov'ment.One of these yere deep people strikes Wolfville on one of them rock-roundups he's makin', an' for a-while it looks like he's goin' to split things wide open.He's that contrary about his learnin', he wont use nothin' but words of four syllables-words that runs about eight to the pound.He comes into the New York Store where Boggs an'

Tutt an' me is assembled, an', you hear me, son! that savant has us walkin' in a cirkle in a minute."It's Peets who relieves us.Peets strolls up an' engages this person in a debate touchin' mule-hoof hawgs; the gov'ment sport maintainin' thar ain't no such swine with hoofs like a mule, because he's never heard about 'em; an' Peets takin' the opp'site view because he's done met an' eat 'etn a whole lot."'The mere fact,' says Peets to this scientist, 'that you mavericks never knows of this mule-hoof hawg, cannot be taken as proof he does not still root an' roam the land.Thar's more than one of you Washin'ton shorthorns who's chiefly famed for what he's failed to know.The mule-hoof hawg is a fact; an' the ignorance of closet naturalists shall not prevail ag'inst him.His back is arched like a greyhound's, he's about the thickness of a bowie-knife, he's got hoofs like a mule, an' sees his highest deevelopment in the wilds of Arkansaw.' "But speakin' of locoweed, it's only o'casional that cattle or mules or broncos partakes tharof.Which I might repeat for the third time that, genial, they eschews it.But you--all never will know how wise a anamile is till he takes to munchin'

loco.Once he's plumb locoed, he jest don't know nothin'; then it dawns on you, by compar'son like, how much he saveys prior.The change shows plainest in mules; they bein'--that is, the mule normal an' before he's locoed--the wisest of beasts.Wise, did I say? Amule is more than valise, he's sagacious.An' thar's a mighty sight of difference.To be simply wise, all one has to do is set 'round an' think wise things, an' mebby say 'em.It's only when a gent goes trackin' 'round an' does wise things, you calls him sagacious.An'

mules does wisdom.

"Shore! I admits it; I'm friendly to mules.If the Southwest ever onbends in a intellectual competition--whites barred--mules will stand at the head.The list should come out, mules, coyotes, Injuns, Mexicans, ponies, jack rabbits, sheepherders, an' pra'ry dogs, the last two bein' shorely imbecile.

"Yes, son; you can lean up ag'inst the intelligence of a mule an' go to sleep.Not but what mules hasn't their illoosions, sech as white mares an' sim'lar reedie'lous inflooences; but them's weaknesses of the sperit rather than of mind.

"While mules don't nacherally go scoutin' for loco, an' commonly avoids said weed when found, if they ever does taste it once, they never quits it as long as they lives.It's like whiskey to Huggins an' Old Monte; the appetite sort o' goes into camp with 'em an'

takes possession.No; a locoed mule ain't vicious nor voylent; it's more like the tree-mors--he sees spectacles that ain't thar none.

I've beheld a locoed mule that a-way, standin' alone on the level plains in the sun, kickin' an' pitchin' to beat a straight flush.he thinks he's surrounded by Injuns or other hostiles; he's that crazy he don't know grass from t'ran'lers.An' their mem'ry's wiped out;they forgets to eat an' starves to death.That's the way they dies, onless some party who gets worked up seein' 'em about, takes a Winchester an' pumps a bullet into 'em.