United States or El Salvador ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Dey won't belieb it at all, not eben w'en I proves it to 'em." "And how do you prove it to your friends, Wash?" queried Jack Darrow. "By Buttsy," declared the darkey, gravely. "By the Shanghai?" "Yes, sah. By Christopher Columbus Amerigo Vespucci George Washington Abraham Lincoln Ulysses Grant Garibaldi Thomas Edison Guglielmo Marconi Butts."
Washington had run in and saved Buttsy in his cage, and they had all retired now to the little plateau from the verge of which Washington had made his famous leap to the backs of the two Indians. Phineas Roebach had released the dogs from the shed where they had been confined.
"Whatebber has Buttsy done ter yo', Massa Jack, dat yo' should be obfendicated at his 'pearance in de present state ob de obsequies?" "Then the rooster accompanies the expedition," chuckled Jack. "Only remember, if we have to throw out anything to lighten ship, Buttsy goes first even before we are obliged to dispense with your services, Wash!"
His grain supply for the Shanghai had completely run out, too, and the colored man divided his own poor rations with his pet. "And the rooster's that lean he wouldn't be anything but skin and bone if we killed and cooked him," Jack wickedly proposed. Wash looked upon his young friend in extreme horror. "Eat Buttsy?" he finally gasped. "Why Massa Jack! I'd jest as lief eat a baby dat I would!"
"I believe they are quite ignorant of who you are," returned Jack, with gravity. "But some ob 'em done seed me ober dar at Massa Roebach's camp. Yas, sah! I reckernize one o' dem Injuns de short feller behin' dat tree close up yere. Gollyation! he jest fired dat shot dat come purt nigh hittin' Buttsy." "He's trying to kill that Shanghai, Wash," said Jack, wickedly. "That's what he's trying to do."
"But you wouldn't expect to take Christopher Columbus And-so-forth to Alaska with us; would you?" asked Andy Suggs. "Why not?" demanded the darkey. "He flowed to de moon in de perjectilator; didn't he? Huh! In co'se if de perfessor goes after disher chrysomela-bypunktater, I gotter go, too; and in co'se if I go, Buttsy done gotter go. Dat's as plain as de nose on yo' face, Andy."
The scattering fire, as the beast plowed through the embers, drove the rest of the party out of range in a hurry. Jack dragged Wash to one side; but the darkey yelled: "Gollyation! I wanter save Buttsy! Oh, lawsy-massy! Dat Shanghai suahly is a reckless bird!"
"Dat Buttsy knows his business, all right!" "We must descend," commanded the professor. "Deflect the planes, Jack. Watch the indicator. Reduce the speed. Let us float down as easily as possible." But, wrestling as the flying machine was with the wind, she could not descend easily. She scaled earthward with fearful velocity. The irrepressible Jack yelled: "Go-ing down!
It was beyond Phineas Roebach's powers of imagination. As for Washington White, he could not understand the affair anyway. But he always accepted the professor's words as Bible truth and he had no doubt of the surprising fact. "We was bound ter git inter trouble, Buttsy an' me, w'en we agreed ter start on any sech foolish journey.
He had been picking up some corn that Wash flung him, grain by grain. Now he suddenly stopped, raised his head, and uttered a loud and apparently frightened squawk. "What dat?" demanded the darkey, his eyes rolling. "Buttsy hear sumpin' he suah do." "What do you reckon he hears?" queried Jack, idly. "I dunno dat. But he's some disturbed yo' kin see it's so," returned Washington, nervously.
Word Of The Day