Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

508 Radio Broadcast of the Little White. The logs were needed for our bunk house which was slowly rising alongside the original ranch-house. At noon and again at six we went through the same washing rites and ate the same grub. After supper "while we were resting" as Bob used to say, we squared and wrestled into place a few more logs on the bunk-house walls. During the fall, the tent which "The Kid" and 1 slept in had been the gathering place. Now that winter was seeping down from Medicine Hat it had grown too frigid to be pleasant for gossiping. Our new bunk-house was complete, so we gathered the clan there. Pipkin and Ambrose had one room, The Kid and I the other. Our room had more bunks and a stove. The Kid's mother had sent over some curtains and do-dads that added to the coziness. THERE was Pipkin — an ex-cavalry man, a genial, hard riding good scout. He had come to us in the summer. "Pip" was down on his luck with a badly infected finger and arm, but with a zest for work. After he arrived we had taken turns as surgeons. A liberal use of gauze, bailing wire and tobacco quids had nursed him back to a normal use of his hand and arm, and an intense desire to work. His army stories and ditties had given us quite a few thrills and furnished entertainment. But he was running dry. We knew his Sergeant McGillicuddy tales almost perfectly. Ambrose, nick-named "Old Nick," was a dirty, unshaven, unbathed rascal. He had a flow of language which was an undammed stream of obscene profanity. He couldn't even ask for a smoke without G -D -mg it. And yet his folks were sturdy pious New Englanders. The daguerrotypes of his parents and grandparents showed fine stock, dependable citizens. He had slipped from his earlier snubbing post and was a disgusting specimen. A bath with him consisted of squirting water on himself and scrubbing white spots with a sock. If ever his spots seemed in danger of overlapping he would quit disgustedly, muttering he was getting "too — — particular". Then another month would add its grime and grit unmolested. "The Kid" was young, handsome, well knit, the son of a teacher in the Indian day schools; raised on the prairies, a good cow hand and rider. But his mind dwelt constantly on new conquests to be made and the remembrance of former ones. A year as a fireman on the Missouri and Elkhorn; another with the Express Company, these were the only times he thought he had really lived. They were his only vivid experiences. He constantly pined for what he longingly called God's City — Chicago. For my part they knew all I could tell them of my native state, Missouri. My camping experiences down in the Ozarks among the mountain people were the only bits of conversation that got by. So I would plunk my old guitar and sing Negro camp meeting songs and the latest popular hits I had learned before leaving St. Louis. "Goo Goo Eyes" "Under the Bamboo Tree" and such like. The two Indians were just so much smoky blanketed background. They silently rolled and swiftly smoked cigarettes. Like most Indians who smoke they resembled an engine starting up. A series of short sharp puffs, then a pause. Another series and then that cigarette was about done. Often I tried to draw them into the conversation. But "The Kid" and Ambrose thought only of them as "damned Injuns," and barely tolerated them in our circle. Eagle Horn Dog was a noted singer of the Sioux. That is, he made new songs and knew all the old ones. He had a fine voice and loved to sing. Sometimes I could get him to favor us. It was stirring to listen as he thumped the bunk edge with a quirt and sang "Sitting Bull's Defiance" or "Go You to War?" or "Horses I am Seeking." Last year when I broadcast my western experiences from WEAF, 1 sang some of the songs which I had learned from Eagle Horn. Eagle Horn is gone to the Happy Hunting Grounds. Enlisting immediately when we entered the World War, he