Mr. Scraggs

Mr. Scraggs

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mr. Scraggs, by Henry Wallace
Phillips This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
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Title: Mr. Scraggs
Author: Henry Wallace Phillips
Release Date: April 29, 2004 [EBook #12197]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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SCRAGGS ***

Produced by Al Haines

MR. SCRAGGS
INTRODUCED BY RED SAUNDERS

By
HENRY WALLACE PHILLIPS
Author of "Red Saunders," "Plain Mary Smith," etc.

THE GRAFTON PRESS
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Copyright, 1903, 1904, 1905, by The Curtis Publishing Co. Copyright,
1903, by S. S. McClure Co. Copyright, 1905, by The Grafton Press
Published January, 1906 Second edition February, 1906

CONTENTS
I. BY PROXY II. IN THE TOILS III. ST. NICHOLAS SCRAGGS IV.
THE SIEGE OF THE DRUG STORE V. THE MOURNFUL
NUMBER VI. MR. SCRAGGS INTERVENES VII. THE FOUNTAIN
OF YOUTH

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"Made any other human countenance I ever see look like a
nigger-minstrel show"
"He was disappointed in love--he had to be"
"Scraggsy looked like a forlorn hope lost in a fog"
"'Dearly beloved Brethren,' says I"
"Put up a high-grade article of cat-fight"
"You will talk to my ol' man like that, will you?"
"So we rode in, right cheerful"
"I was all over that Injun"

MR. SCRAGGS
INTRODUCED BY RED SAUNDERS

BY PROXY
I had met Mr. Scraggs, shaken him by the hand, and, in the shallow
sense of the word, knew him. But a man is more than clothes and a bald
head. It is also something of a trick to find out more about
him--particularly in the cow country. One needs an interpreter. Red
furnished the translation. After that, I nurtured Mr. Scraggs's friendship,
for the benefit of humanity and philosophy. Saunders and I lay under a
bit of Bad Lands, soaking in the spring sun, and enjoying the first
cigarette since breakfast. In regard to things in general, he said:
"Now, there was the time I worked for the Ellis ranch. A ranch is like a
man: it has something that belongs to it, that don't belong to no other

ranch, same as I have just the same number of eyes and noses and so
forth that you drew on your ticket, yet you ain't me no more'n I'm you.
This was a kind of sober-minded concern; it was a thoughtful sort of a
ranch, where everybody went about his work quiet. I guess it was
because the boys was mostly old-timers, given to arguing about why
was this and how come that. Argue! Caesar! It was a regular debating
society. Wind-river Smith picked up a book in the old man's room that
told about the Injuns bein' Jews 'way back before the big high-water,
and how one gang of 'em took to the prairie and the other gang to the
bad clothes business. Well, he and Chawley Tawmson--'member
Chawley and his tooth? And you'd have time to tail-down and burn a
steer before Chawley got the next word out--well, they got arguin'
about whether this was so, or whether it weren't so. Smithy was for the
book, havin' read it, and Chawley scorned it. The argument lasted a
month, and as neither one of 'em knew anything about an Injun, except
what you can gather from looking at him over a rifle sight, and as the
only Jew either one of 'em ever said two words to was the one that sold
Windriver a hat that melted in the first rain-storm, and then him and
Chawley went to town and made the Hebrew eat what was left of the
hat, after refunding the price, you can imagine what a contribution to
history I listened to. That's the kind of place the Ellis ranch was, and a
nice old farm she was, too.
"I'd been working there about three months, when along come a man
that looked like old man Trouble's only son. Of all the sorrowful faces
you ever see, his was the longest and thinnest. It made any other human
countenance I ever see look like a nigger-minstrel show.
[Illustration: Made any other human countenance I ever see look like a
nigger-minstrel show.]
"We was short-handed, as the old man had begun to put up hay and
work some of the stock in corrals for the winter, so we took our new
brother on. His name was Ezekiel George Washington Scraggs--tuneful
number for a cow-outfit!--and his name didn't come anywhere near
doin' him justice at that. Ezekiel knew his biz and turned in a day's
work right straight