The Happy Family | Page 3

as well they don't happen too frequent, and getting

lost and afoot in the Bad-lands is one.
"That afternoon I dragged myself up to the edge of a deep coulee and
looked over to see if there was any way of getting down. There was a
bright green streak down there that couldn't mean nothing but water, at
that time of year; this was last fall. And over beyond, I could see the
river that I'd went and lost. I looked and looked, but the walls looked
straight as a Boston's man's pedigree. And then the sun come out from
behind a cloud and lit up a spot that made me forget for a minute that I
was thirsty as a dog and near starved besides.
"I was looking down on the ruins--and yet it was near perfect--of an old
castle. Every stone stood out that clear and distinct I could have
counted 'em. There was a tower at one end, partly fell to pieces but yet
enough left to easy tell what it was. I could see it had kinda loop-holes
in it. There was an open place where I took it the main entrance had
used to be; what I'd call the official entrance. But there was other
entrances besides, and some of 'em was made by time and hard weather.
There was what looked like awhat-you-may-call-'em-- a ditch thing,
yuh mind, running around my side of it, and a bridge business. Uh
course, it was all needing repairs bad, and part of it yuh needed to use
your imagination on. I laid there for quite a spell looking it over and
wondering how the dickens it come to be way down there. It didn't look
to me like it ought to be there at all, but in a school geography or a
history where the chapter is on historic and prehistoric hangouts uh the
heathen."
"The deuce! A castle in the Bad-lands!" ejaculated Branciforte.
"That's what it was, all right. I found a trail it would make a mountain
sheep seasick to follow, and I got down into the coulee. It was
lonesome as sin, and spooky; but there was a spring close by, and a
creek running from it; and what is a treat in that part uh the country, it
was good drinking and didn't have neither alkali nor sulphur nor
mineral in it. It was just straight water, and you can gamble I filled up
on it a-plenty. Then I shot a rabbit or two that was hanging out around
the ruins, and camped there till next day, when I found a pass out, and
got my bearings by the river and come on into camp. So when you

throw slurs on our plumb newness and shininess, I've got the cards to
call yuh. That castle wasn't built last summer, Mister. And whoever did
build it was some civilized. So there yuh are."
Andy took a last, lingering pull at the cigarette stub, flung it into the
backened forge, and picked up the spur. He settled his hat on his head
at its accustomed don't-give-a-darn tilt, and started for the door and the
sunlight.
"Oh, but say! didn't you find out anything about it afterwards? There
must have been something--"
"If it's relics uh the dim and musty past yuh mean, there was; relics to
burn. I kicked up specimens of ancient dishes, and truck like that, while
I was prowling around for fire-wood. And inside the castle, in what I
reckon was used for the main hall, I run acrost a skeleton. That is, part
of one. I don't believe it was all there, though."
"But, man alive, why haven't you made use of a discovery like that?"
Branciforte followed him out, lighting his pipe with fingers that
trembled. "Don't you realize what a thing like that means?"
Andy turned and smiled lazily down at him. "At the time I was there, I
was all took up with the idea uh getting home. I couldn't eat skeletons,
Mister, nor yet the remains uh prehistoric dishes. And I didn't run
acrost no money, nor no plan marked up with crosses where you're
supposed to do your excavating for treasure. It wasn't nothing, that I
could see, for a man to starve to death while he examined it thorough.
And so far as I know there ain't any record of it. I never heard no one
mention building it, anyhow." He stooped and adjusted the spur to his
heel to see if it were quite right, and went off to the stable humming
under his breath.
Branciforte stood at the door of the blacksmith shop and gazed after
him, puffing meditatively at his pipe. "Lord! the ignorance of these
Western folk! To run upon a find like