A Bull by the Tail

A Bull by the Tail The Black Queen Chases a Road Runner as Rare Bird and Winds Up at a Bovine's Extremity

JUST a couple of days ago Elmermer Higgins had the temerity to insinuate that I stretched the long bow at times. I'm sorta surprised at his judgment of just what constitutes the unalloyed truth, but then, I got to allow for his inexperience in outdoor matters, especially when it has to do with the raw material I have to deal with, and in, to get these here yarns together. Sometimes I opine that the yarns are only half-cooked at that, the reason bein' that the scribe is only half-baked and the material and local color bein' what it is, it takes a lot of roastin' to get it in presentable shape for the palates of my select coterie of literary connoisseurs. Be that as it may, as Elmer orates more than often, I'm handing this one out for just what it's worth to you, howsomever and notwithstandin,. Didja ever hear of the Black Queen, and have you any idea who she was? I doubt it, so I'll take you on the long trail again. This time into the famed Superstition Mountains. If Old Jake Walz hadn't died in Mrs. Black's house and left a map to the Lost Dutchman in her possession, that good colored woman, later known as the Black Queen, this episode would never have been chronicled. The odor of schnapps was still wafting out around the lid of Jake's coffin when the Queen and a friend from, we'll say Idaho, started on the trail of the Eldorado, she hugging an old black valise to her ample bosom, guarding it jealously from the avid eyes of her companion. The old grip held the secret of the Paralta mines. It's a long trek from Phoenix to old Superstition and it bein' Spring the sun was bearin' down on the desert when they arrived at Weeks' Station on the Apache Trail. I should have said the water where later Weeks started a cow ranch on the Trail that later became known as Apache Trail. If you notice as you glide past there in your automobile, the greasewood is rather high and if you get out and ramble around a bit you will find that the catclaw branches are mighty tenacious.

Idaho had just raised up from a copious draft at the Spring when a young, red-headed helion from Bark's ranch barged out of the brush in full cry after a chaparral hen, more commonly known as a road runner. Ever see one of the fool birds duck and run, flopping his rudder this way and that as he glides over the terrain? The old nag hitched to the Queen's buckboard cramped the wheel and upset the grubstake, then rattled off down the trail towards the OK Corral in Phoenix.

"What in hell yuh tryin' tuh do?" yelled Idaho, as Red come to a full stop close to the wreck of the buggy. If Idaho hadn't been so cussed mad he could have seen the twinkle in the blue eyes turned innocently in his direction.

"Nothin'" chirped Red, "only tryin' to ketch that danged phillyloo bird." Idaho grunted, pulled a rod of Horseshoe out of his pant leg, gnawed off a corner and demanded to know what he'd do with the danged thing if he had ketched it. "Why, ain't yuh heard that the Smithsonian Institute is offerin' fifteen thousand bucks fer one of them fowl?" Red offered, disbelief in his astonished gaze.

Idaho swallowed his quid. His Adams apple done a shimmy up and down his scrawny neck. "hu-n-k?" he articulated, the water starting from his pale blue eyes.

Of them in captivity and this particular one is a rare specimen." This off his chest and near choking himself, he turn-

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