“I think you three has had all the fun you’re going to out of me. I don’t know what it means, but you can all go to —— as far as I’m concerned.”

We watches him ride off down the road.

“Is he—er—entirely sane?” asks Ajax, watching Dirty disappear.

“Not now,” says Magpie. “A human being can only stand so much. He got bit by a hipwiggler the other night.”

“Ah! Quite interesting.”

And he writes something in his little book.

Ajax wanted to rest that day, so we didn’t bother him none. It gave us a chance to control our natural impulses to kill him, and also gave us a chance to do a little placer work.

I asks Magpie that night if we’re supposed to give up our bunk to Ajax, but Magpie gives me one look which is plenty of answers. Anyway Ajax didn’t desire it.

“Professor Middleton told me of the wonders of sleeping under the glorious firmament,” says Ajax, “and I desire to experience it as he described.”

“Fairly well ventilated,” says Magpie. “Nice enough unless she rains or a hipwiggler comes along.”

“Who is ‘she,’ and what is a hipwiggler, if I may ask?”

“She?”

Magpie smooths his mustache and scowls at the ground.

“Oh, yes; the hipwiggler. The hipwiggler is a animal. If one comes along and finds you sleeping on the ground it just plumb ruins you for future use. You’re dead—that’s about all.”

“Your—er—friend you spoke about,” says Ajax. “Was he sleeping on——”

“Uh-huh. A log saved his life. It’s thisaway, Ajax: A hipwiggler is a queer animal. It always prospects a man from his head down to his toes. It gets to the end of you and then starts eating its way back. Sabe?

“Dirty Shirt went to sleep with his feet on a log. The hipwiggler comes along, walks to where it strikes the ground and then starts eating. It ain’t got no sabe—not a bit. This one didn’t sabe that Dirty had his feet on a log; so it went to the end of the log and starts eating. Logs ain’t noways digestible, so it got 

 Prev. P 7/27 next