“Fine griddle cakes,” said the stranger, as he filled up his plate with another stack. "Ever’time I eat griddle cakes, though. I get kind of lonesome for the West, where I knocked around when I was a young fellow. I get to thinkin’ of my cow-punchin’ friend and his Griddlegreaser Pete.”
“Griddlegreaser Pete?” asked the old guide, who had been filling the stranger full of queer yarns the entire evening before. “Well, now that’s a queer name. Who might he be?”
“He was a cross between a pig and goodness-knows-what. My friend found him when wanderin’ around the ranch one day, and he trained, him and put him to work.”
“You see, my friend was a big fellow, even for out West where men are men. And as big as my friend was, his appetite for griddle cakes was bigger. He ate them down so fast it would make you dizzy.”
“He had a special-made griddle so’s he could fry a whole stack of his fav’rite cakes at once. And that’s where the animal came in. My friend fastened a slab of bacon to each of his hind feet and taught him to go skating over the griddle, so’s to grease it up right. When he’d gone all over the griddle—and he could do it in less time than it takes me to tell you—he would rest in a cool corner until the batch of cakes had been fried. Then he’d hop onto the griddle and set to work again.”