The narrator, Ike Harper, and his partner Dirty Shirt Jones return to their home of Piperock after an unsuccessful prospecting trip in the Whispering Creek hills. They find their tall, solemn partner Magpie Simpkins dressed in his finest clothes and writing furiously. Magpie announces he has been elected president of the newly formed Piperock Chamber of Commerce, an organization he believes will launch the small frontier town into a glorious era of civilization and progress. The trouble begins when it emerges that Magpie has manipulated their friend Wick Smith, while intoxicated, into purchasing a circus owner's down-at-heel menagerie for a thousand dollars: a decrepit elephant named Gunga Din, a moth-eaten camel named Sahara, and an underfed tiger named Cleopatra. These animals are intended to anchor a zoological garden that will attract visitors and put Piperock on the map. Wick quickly regrets the purchase as the creatures consume alarming quantities of feed and terrorize the liveryman Hassayampa Harris, who is stripped of his trousers by Gunga Din and hurled into an oat bin. The neighboring rival town of Paradise, represented by saloon keeper Mike Pelly, barber Ricky Henderson, and pious Testament Tilton, gets wind of Piperock's ambitions and casts a jealous eye on the animals. Elements of the Paradise crowd, led by the ranch hand Chuck Warner, quietly propose to Ike and Dirty Shirt that they steal the animals and hand them over to Paradise in exchange for a hundred dollars apiece and freedom from a jail stint the two men are currently serving in Paradise for drunkenly championing Piperock's honor. Ike and Dirty string Chuck along without committing fully to the scheme. Back in Piperock, the charming schoolteacher Jasmine Greenbaum, who is staying with the Smith family, recruits Ike and Dirty Shirt for the centerpiece of the Chamber of Commerce's plans: a grand Labor Day pageant of progress. Magpie and Wick have taunted the two men by suggesting they lack civic pride, and Miss Greenbaum's smile and gentle confidence in them overcomes their considerable reservations. They pledge to help without being told exactly what they are agreeing to. On the eve of the pageant, someone from the Paradise faction releases Cleopatra from the livery stable, sending her streaking through the town saloon, scattering dogs and men alike. The animal is recaptured, but five guards are posted overnight. The morning of Labor Day, Ike and Dirty awaken to find themselves painted dark brown and wrapped in white cloth, having been costumed while senseless to represent visiting dignitaries from the East. They are placed atop Gunga Din and Sahara respectively and sent into the main street before a crowd assembled from across the county. The pageant immediately disintegrates. Two Native performers, Chief Cod Liver Oil and Running Dog, fortified with lemon extract and perfume, ride painted ponies toward the elephant and camel. Their horses bolt and throw them. A wagon driven by Pete Gonyer, representing the coming of the white man, stampedes when its team catches sight of Gunga Din, launching Gonyer airborne onto the elephant's head, from which he is then catapulted onto Dirty Shirt. A decorated automobile float carrying Mrs. Wick Smith as Victory and two other women as Progress and a winged figure crashes into the elephant, demolishing itself and partially destroying Buck Masterson's saloon. Gunga Din goes on a rampage through the main street, uprooting hitching posts and smashing through the saloon front. Sahara becomes tangled in the float wreckage inside the saloon. Cleopatra, having been chased through the night by Polecat Perkins's pack of mongrels, reappears and latches onto Gunga Din. Ike is flung about by the hitch rack, Dirty is stripped of his costume entirely, and nearly every participant in the pageant is battered or scattered. When Cleopatra finally launches herself at Ike inside the ruined saloon, he seizes an old rifle and then grapples with the tiger in a prolonged blind struggle through the wreckage. He overcomes her, though he is badly injured. In the aftermath, he discovers that what he believed was a heroic wrestling match with the tiger was in fact a prolonged brawl with Magpie Simpkins, who had stumbled into him when Gunga Din released his trouser leg. The actual tiger had simply been stunned by the rifle shot. Wick Smith, freed from his contractual obligation by the chaos, immediately sells the entire menagerie to Paradise at cost. The Chamber of Commerce, its president senseless on the floor, raises no effective protest. Ike wakes up draped across a saddle as Dirty Shirt leads him away from town on horseback. Piperock, characteristically, blames the two of them for the catastrophe. The two men ride off into the open country, reflecting that civilization and progress have treated them poorly, and that Piperock has not grown noticeably larger since the day East met West.
By W.C. Tuttle · First published 1920 · Genre: Western, Historical Fiction, Adventure