Page:The Overland Monthly, Jan-June 1894.djvu/192

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"YE don't go much on hered'ty, eh? Be ye married? No? I thought likely. Now, young man, let me tell ye there 's whar ye 'll git left bad some day. Jest take my 'dvice, an' ef ye ever do make up yer min' to pull in double harness, jest you prospect roun' an' fin' out's much 's ye kin about the gal 's parients. Size 'em up an' down 'n fore an' aft, anef ye kin git back a gen'ration or two antake in a few gran'parients, ye 're jest thet much ahead."

Old Teeters drew the cob pipe from his mouth and, knocking out the ashes on the clay hearth, laid the pipe beside the little cotton tobacco pouch on the mantel. From one pocket of his overalls he then drew a jack-knife, and from another a plug of tobacco, from which he whittled a generous mouthful, saying, as he did so:

"You, Jake, you go tell the old 'oman as I 'low the harth 'd 'pear a heap more hospitable ef 't was dec'rated up 'ith a pitcher of cider and a basket of glorymundys, flanked by a pan of them there fried cakes I seen 'er cookin' arter dinner. We don't nowways wanter leave 'n impression on the gintlemen 't we're famine-struck on this 'ere ranch."

Jake grinned, and raised himself from his wooden stool, one side at a time, gave an automatic hitch to his suspenders, and shambled away to deliver his father's message. The "cruiser "of our party nudged me, whispering:—

"The old man 's getting ready for business. I see it in his eye. 'T won't be bears this time, neither, nor the size of California grape vines. "It '11 be his heredity story, sure pop, the primest one in his whole stock. I say, you fellers are in luck."

We were a jolly party of four young men, on our way to take up a timber claim in the Cascade Mountains. The "cruiser," for whose knowledge of stakes and corners, as well as his services as guide, we were obliged to pay a snug little sum of money, had brought us to this log house at the foot of the mountain, where we were to spend the night, and from whence, in the morning, leaving our horses behind, we were to struggle on foot up the steep mountain-side, cutting our way, as best we might, through dense bracken, bramble, and fallen logs, to our prospective "claims."

Old Teeters, the owner of this mountain ranch, was quite a character in his way, and noted for his yarns. Born and reared in the Maine forests, he had lived at different periods in his life in Kentucky, Arkansas, Texas, Missouri, and California, bringing up at last in Oregon, where he had sojourned fifteen years. Here, he informed us, he intended to stay until he "pre-empted" a "two-by-six claim down in under the ground."

The varied character of his shifting abodes was evidenced by his dialect, in which the "cracker "and Missouri vernacular mingled with his native Yankee, and these were still further enriched by Pacific Coast mining camp slang.

His wife, although also a native of Maine, had, through her long residence among the "Webfeet," acquired in such perfection the clear complexion, generous avoirdupois, and leisurely movements, of this take-it-easy land, that she might easily have been mistaken for a native Oregonian. She appeared presently, with a smile of hospitality upon her face, bearing in one hand a big earth-en pitcher, filled to the brim with sparkling cider, and in the other a tin platter, heaped with the golden-brown circlets which her husband, in the language of