A man was coming down from the north, lickety-split on a roan with a rangy stride. He wore sombrero, shirt, shaps with streaming fringes, a brace of guns to his belt. He rode with a cowboy swing to his broad shoulders, and his face was black with rage as he pulled up facing our crowd—guns drawn for war.
"Boys," he shouted, "whar's yo' sheriff?"
I followed Hawkins as he rode up to confront the stranger.
"I'm United States Marshal Hawkins. What's your dog-goned business that needs drawn guns?"
"I'm Buck Hennesy, segundo to the Robbers' Roost gang of outlaws, and my guns are to shoot if I see you flirt that smoothbore."
"Your business?"
"State's evidence—take it or leave it!"
"And who's your dog-goned evidence against?"
"Against Captain McCalmont, Curly his—his son, and six others, robbers, and that polecat Jim du Chesnay, of Holy Crawss."
"Wall, throw down your dog-goned guns, throw up your dog-goned hands, and say 'Sir' when you dare to address an honest man. Now you get off'n that horse!"
"Dog-goned Hawkins," says the robber, "I ain't no prisoner, I ain't yo' meat, I don't propose to hole up in yo' flea-trap calaboose, and I quit this hawss when I'm daid. Take my talk for State's evidence, or go without!"
"Chalkeye," says the Marshal aside, "is he covered?"
"Say the word, and I drop him."
"All right. Now, Hennesy, at the first break you die. You may talk."
"McCalmont's outfit," says Buck, "is breaking for Holy Crawss. To-morrow mawning they round up cattle, and then they drive right home to Robbers' Roost."
"You're going to guide us, Mr. dog-goned Robber, or get plugged as full of holes as a dog-goned sieve."
"Guide you?" says Buck, and spat at him. "Guide you? I wouldn't be seen daid with yo' tin-horn crowd of measly, bedridden toorists. I cayn't insult you worse than saying that yo' mother was a sport, yo' father hung, and their offspring a skunk. Now all you deck of cowards——"
He let drive with both his guns, but I shot first, and only just in time. One bullet grazed my ear, the other killed a horse; but my shot had done its work and spoiled his aim. His eyes rolled up white, his face went dead, he sat there a corpse in the saddle for maybe a minute, until I yelled, and the horse shied, and the body lurched forward, crashing to the ground, splashing a cloud of dust which was red with the sunset.
Captain McCalmont, away north on the trail, pulled up at a bend of the hill.
"Doc," he called out to the man with the led horse astern, "jest you hitch that sorrel of mine to the tail of this rig. That's right, my son; now find out if Buck stays at the skyline or goes buttin' straight back to the ranche."
"All right, Cap."
When he was gone, Curly rucked up the canvas ground-sheet, climbed out of bed, and nestled against her father's side on the seat.
"Havin' a bad time?" he asked, as he drove on.
"Sure."
"You heard what I told to Buck?"
"Buck's gawn back to betray the outfit."
"So I reckon."
Curly got her father's near arm around her, shivering while she looked all round at the dusky hills, up to the red of the sunset. Then she listened to the thud of Doc's horse as he galloped back to report.
"Cap," says the man, "Buck's gawn straight away to the ranche."
"That's good," McCalmont chuckled; "you see, Doc, I've sent Buck to lead that sheriff's posse to Holy Crawss. We've got to work to-night, and ain't hungering none for their company. D'you know the Jim Crow Mine?"
"I guess that's the old shaft a mile this side of Grave City?"
"Correct. Now you lope off to the boys we left in camp at Las Aguas. Tell Stanley he's second in command now. He's to round up his boys, herd 'em close, and drive 'em swift to the Jim Crow Mine. Now repeat my awdehs."
Doc repeated the orders.
"Now," said the Captain, "ride!"
Doc started off on the dead run, and for a while Curly watched his figure flopping away into the blue mists of dusk. The night was falling fast.
"Po' Buck," she whispered.
"I'm sorry, too," says McCalmont; "sooner or later he had to be a skunk, and behave as such."
"He's daid," says Curly. "I heard him die just now, and he did love me so hard."
"The trail is clearing ahead for you, my girl."
"I'm sort of tired," she answered.
"You'll rest to-night."
"Father when you was talking with Jim outside the shack I was awake; I heard all what was said, but couldn't understand. Jim wanted suthin' fearful bad. What was it he wanted, dad?"
"Wall, now, if that don't beat all! You jest got ears like a lil' fox! And didn't I act plumb good and tame with that Jim boy?"
"Which you shorely did. Fancy, you taking all that war-talk, and never even shooting his laigs. Yo're getting better'n better every day."
"I was good, that's a fact. You see, I nacherally couldn't lose my temper without disturbing you with my gun-talk. Besides, I jest cayn't help loving that Jim. You want him, Curly?"
"Sure, I don't know what's coming over me the way I feels at that man. It seems as though my heart was pitchin' and buckin' like a mean hawss to get at Jim. D'you think it's this wound that tears my heart—is it 'cause I'm so sick?"
"It's worse nor that, my girl. You've fallen in love."
"Does that mean I got to marry him?"
"That's the only cure."
"But I don't want to be cured. I like it, dad, and when it hurts I like it all the more."
"A sure bad symptom that. You'll go with Jim?"
"To the end of the world, and over the edge—I cayn't help that."
"You don't love me any more?"
"Oh, you're allus the same, like the climate—but he's come buttin' along like the weather, so that I feel as if I was just whirled up in the air."
"I was an idiot to think I could fool old Nature, and make you into a man. Wall, it cayn't be helped."
"Daddy, I never was fit to ride with the gang, and I doubt I'll never be fit for a woman, either, now. I'm shorely tired, and my haid goes round and round."
McCalmont stopped the team and laid Curly down in her nest. He told me after that he felt lonesome and scared, with all his nerves a-jumping for fear there was something worse than usual wrong. He felt Curly's bandages, and his hand got wet; then listened, and heard a drip, drip, drip, on the dust, then struck a match and saw the running blood, for her wound had opened. He had to light a lantern, no matter what the risk, while he stopped that bleeding.
Meanwhile the Marshal had started his circus east toward Holy Cross, and he was having troubles most plentiful with all his warriors. He held us in the name of the Republic for special service in pursuit of robbers, but his tenderfoot outfit was badly in want of supper, and the cowboy people got plumb disgusted at having to ride, point, swing, and drive on a herd of shorthorns. I'd shown my hand in this game by shooting Buck, the same being needful to save the old Marshal's life, and I sure helped him all I knew in getting the posse on towards Holy Crawss. At the same time my private feelings called me off to quite a different lay-out, and I knew, all to myself, that Buck might have been mistaken a whole lot in his way of reckoning up McCalmont's plans. So I fell back to give a push to some stragglers, then fell back again to see if there was any more belated pilgrims behind. The light had faded, the stars were beginning to ride herd on the Milky Way, and I felt a sort of dumb yearning to find McCalmont. An hour later, scouting swift and cautious up the Grave City road, I saw a lantern bobbing high up among the hills. That must be a bait, I thought, to lure the Marshal's posse into some robbers' deadfall, so I rode slow, and sang my simple range songs to show it was only me, one harmless person.
"Ip-e-la-go, go 'long little doggie,You'll make a beef steer, by-and-by."
"Ip-e-la-go, go 'long little doggie,You'll make a beef steer, by-and-by."
That's the rear song for driving a herd. This is nonsense:—
"Two little niggers upstairs in bed—One turned ober to de oder and said:'How 'bout dat short'nin' bread?How 'bout dat short'nin' bread?'"
"Two little niggers upstairs in bed—One turned ober to de oder and said:'How 'bout dat short'nin' bread?How 'bout dat short'nin' bread?'"
A voice called out of the dark, "Throw up yo' hands!"
Up went my paws. "Hello, boys," I shouted, "is this the inquiry office? I wants my visitin' cyard sent up to Cap McCalmont."
Somebody laughed, and then I heard Jim's voice. "Why, it's Chalkeye!"
"Well, if he don't want to be shot he'd better turn right back."
"Jest you tell yo' hold-ups, Jim," says I, "that them leaden go-through pills don't suit my delicate health." I dropped my hands, and the first robber asked Jim if he would answer for me.
Jim said he would.
"Take this man through," said the robber, and Jim led me, mighty pleased, to where the lantern shone.
"Captain," says he, "here's old Chalkeye!"
McCalmont jumped down from the buckboard, holding out his lantern. "Wall," says he, "I'm glad to see ye, Misteh Davies, I certainly am—shake hearty. Whar you from?"
"Is Curly with you?"
"Here's me," came a faint chirp out of the bedding.
"Her wound broke out agin," says McCalmont.
"Herwound?" I howled.
"Wall, that cat is shorely spilled," says McCalmont, and so I knew for the first time that my Curly wasn't a boy, but come of a different breed of people altogether. I slid from my horse and sat down on a rock to unravel my mixed emotions.
"If that's the truth," I says, "I spose I may turn out to be a widow, the same being some confusing to the mind."
"Wall, Mrs. Davies," says McCalmont, "I was goin' to propose that you act as a sort of chaperon to Curly."
"I rise to inquire," says I, "if that's some new kind of mountain sheep." The name was new to me, and I felt suspicious.
"A mountain sheep," says McCalmont, "is a cimarron, but a chaperon's defined as a party which rides herd on girls to proteck them in society."
"Meaning that this carousing around in a waggon ain't good for wounds?"
"Not when the hawspital has to gallop over rocks."
"Seems to me," says I, "that right apart from bullet holes in a lady, he'll need home comforts more'n an or'nary robber."
"Kin you take Curly home, then?"
"I'm getting unpopular," says I. "My home ain't fortified much." I rolled a cigarette to think with. "Whereas I got some cousins which is ladies, the Misses Jameson. Their home is just the other side of the Jim Crow Mine, between that and Grave City, and they has a fancy for stray cats, dawgs, and outcasts generally. Seems to me, though, they'd be mighty near surprised if I played a wounded robber on them, calling the same a female. They ain't broke in to lady outlaws damaged in gun-fights yet. They're plumb respectable, and frequents the Episcopal Church. The bishop boards thar when he happens around, and they'll take up with any litter of passing curates."
"I'm scart," says Curly. "Cayn't you bed me down in yo' barn?"
"You'll go whar yo' told," says McCalmont, "and stay put until yo're well enough to fight."
"If you're scared, Curly," says I, "these same ladies is due to have fits at the sight of yo' present costume. Now, if I could show them a case like you in the Bible they'd think it right natural, and all correct."
"Absalom," says Curly, "had long ha'r."
"So does Buffalo Bill, Texas Bob, and other old longhorns, but the same ain't lady robbers. Besides, yo' ha'r is short, and you're plumb unusual."
"I got a trunk full of female plunder," says McCalmont, "and it's right here in the buckboard, in case he needs to dress respectable."
"It's all tawn to rags," said Curly, "from that last b'ar hunt when I was treed by a grizzly. And the wig got stuck full of pine gum."
"These details of female dress and depawtment"—McCalmont was getting restive—"seems to me to be some frivolous. The question is, Do these yere ladies run much to tongue?"
"Wall, no; the fashionable society of Grave City has struck them reticent. Miss Blossom says she'd rather mix up with bears, and Miss Pansy she allows our crowd lacks tone. No, these ladies don't go henning around to cackle."
"That settles it," said McCalmont. "Now you, Jim, you go back and tell these boys to join the herders in front, and I'll be with you presently. It ain't decent, my boy, for you to behold what's going to happen in the way of costume. So you jest tell Curly good-bye, and we'll proceed with disguisin' her as a womern."
"When shall I see Curly again?" asks Jim in a fright.
"At such time when he's fit to ride. Now tell yo' good-bye."
So Jim and Curly had a minute together while I helped McCalmont to get out the trunk of clothes. Then Jim rode off for the sake of decency, and I turned my back. There was arguments between McCalmont and Curly about how the female costume should be fixed, the parent wanting one side to the front, and the dutiful child insisting otherwise. When I was told to look, there was Curly grinning in surroundings of yellow wig, the same being bunched up behind like a clump of prickly pear. McCalmont rigged himself out in his preacher clothes, cinched up his sorrel horse at the tail of the buckboard, and tied his cowboy gear to the strings of the saddle. He turned to watch Jim and the robbers file past on their way to the front, then gave me his lantern.
"My friend," says he, "when you go to the home of them ladies, drive straight acrost the open range to the back door, be thar befo' midnight, and if you love yo' life, don't stray out on the waggon road between the Jim Crow Mine and Grave City. If you do you'll get killed for sure."
"What shall I do with the buckboard?"
"Lose it somewheres whar it ain't apt to be found. Turn them team hawsses loose and let them break for their home, as they shorely will."
"And when Curly is well of this wound?"
"Then Jim will join you, and you'll take them children to some safe country, so that they get mar'ied and forget this life. We planned all that befo'."
"You trust me still?"
"It looks that way, my friend, and I don't trust by halves."
He gripped my hand, and went loping away into the night.
In those days of our little unpleasantness in Arizona there was another discussion proceeding along in South Africa. The Boers had their tail up, and the British Army was indulging itself in "regrettable incidents" about once a week. Which I allude to here because the word "regrettable incident" is good; it's soothing, and it illustrates exactly what happened on the night when I delivered Curly, damaged but cheerful, among my cousins, the Misses Jameson.
Just to the east of the home inhabited by these ladies occurs the Jim Crow Mine, the same being the very place where the robbers once had breakfast with old man Ryan, making him pay the bill, as aforesaid, which was seventy-five thousand dollars, and annoying.
On this further occasion which I now unfold, there were only four men working the Jim Crow claim. It seems they were in the bunk house playing poker until eleven p. m., when their foreman uprose with regrets to surrender his hat, boots, and pants to an avaricious person holding three aces and a pair of jacks. The foreman's warm communications on the subject of cheating were then cut off short by a masked robber standing in the doorway with guns. This robber proposed that all gentlemen present should throw up their hands, and allowed they had a fervent invitation to die unless they stepped out pretty soon to the head of the Jim Crow shaft. Accordingly the sad procession trailed away to the shaft, and one by one the mourners went down in a bucket to a total depth of one hundred and four feet. Then the robber hauled up the bucket to keep them from straying out, and promised faithful that if he heard any noise he would just drop in a few sticks of dynamite. There was not much noise.
Meanwhile other earnest young robbers were collecting every citizen who passed the mine, and inviting him to join their surprise-party down at the foot of the shaft. The citizens all accepted, and when some candles, a deck of cards, and a few bottles of nose paint were sent to assist, the levée underground began to get quite a success.
Mixed in with these proceedings, and other hold-ups various and swift, was the Chinese cook with a robber holding his tail while he fixed supper for twenty-five men. Afterwards he likewise was handed down the shaft. I should also mention a preacher in a black suit, and a white tie up under his ear, projecting around among the store shed for cases of dynamite.
At 12:30 a bunch of cowboys numbering eighteen head, with a cavvyard of ponies, trailed in off the range. After each man had roped and saddled a fresh horse, and fed corn to the same, their reverend pastor put out a relief of sentries, and told the crowd to line up in the rampasture for supper.
Naturally these people had to get the provisions off their minds before there was any talk, but then the preacher reared up to address the meeting.
"Brethren——" says he.
"Look a-here," the new segundo, Black Stanley, started in obstreperous, backed by a dozen men, all seething. "I represents this outfit in starting to buck right now!"
"Turn yo'self loose."
"We-all has come to an understanding that we ain't agoin' to fool around here any more. These is mean pastures, and we breaks for home."
"That's what's the matter!" A lot of robbers began to come to a crisis.
"Misteh Stanley, seh," says McCalmont, "you air a judge of rye whisky, and a natural bawn leader of men."
The boys began to laugh.
"Now," says McCalmont, "all you boys who yearns to get quit of me, and have this judge of rye and natural bawn leader of men to be they'r chief, will arise and join his herd. Yo' hawsses are at the door, so trail yo' spurs along the floor and go!"
Not a man moved.
"You, Black Stanley, take yo'self and yo' followers, and get absent quick from this camp, 'cause the rest of us has business."
Stanley, getting to feel a whole lot lonesome, just dropped his tail, and submitted. "Chief," says he, "I take it all back."
"I made you my segundo, Stanley, and you've proved yo'self mighty sudden. I reduce you to the ranks. You, Bowlaigs, act as second in command. And now to business.
"First, I want to instil into yo' dim and clouded intellecks that when a member of the gang is captured he has to be rescued. The captured man was my son, and seventeen skunks of you hung fire when I asked for his rescue. These seventeen said skunks is fined half theyr shares of plunder in the next raiding, the same to be paid to those who do most work. Second, the man who rescued my son is Jim du Chesnay here." The Captain laid his hand upon Jim's shoulder. "He is my guest, and as he's not a member of this or'nary low-flung herd, you don't want to tell him awdehs, or oppress him, or stuff his haid with any of yo' dreams. I've a mind to muzzle a few pet liars right now. The speshul liars I see grinning is the ones I allude to particular.
"Now you-all is a mighty sight wide of bein' perfect thieves; you has weaknesses, some for bad liquor, some for small mean thefts, most for showin' yo'selves off 'sif you was buck-devils, which you shorely ain't. To-night I propose you fast from such-like vanities, and attend strictly to business. Moreover, as some of you ain't got no more sense than a poached cat, I now explains this warpath, lest you get wandering around after the wrong scalp. The objec' of this virtuous night is to steal a millionaire which goes by the name of Michael Ryan, and holes up in a palace cyar on the railroad sidings. If you get him in reasonable preservation, we realise lots of wealth for his ransom; but any blamed fool who spoils him with loose ammunition is robbing his partners of theyr lawful dues."
And so, having tamed his wolves, McCalmont gave the orders for the night.
Right here I bubble over with remarks on the art of being a villain.
Now this Captain McCalmont wasn't a good man exactly, it being his humble vocation to steal everything in sight, and shoot any party who happened to get in the way. He was a sure enough scoundrel, and yet Curly just loved him frantic. Jim trusted him body and soul. I was mighty proud of having his friendship. All his wolves were tame as little children when he led them; every cowboy on the range would have shared his last drop of water with old McCalmont, and even the victims he robbed would speak of him mostly as a perfect gentleman. When he laid a trap that same deadfall looked a whole lot attractive and comforting. "'Scuse me," says McCalmont, springing the steel jaws on his victim. I hope yo're not feeling hurt?"
Now if McCalmont had looked like one of them villains I see at the theatre, scowling, threatening, lurid, mean-eyed scareheads, he wouldn't have seen the victim's tail for dust. No, he wasn't like a villain, he was like a man—a white man at that—and when he gave a show it was worth any man's money to see. Just watch his play.
Grave City was a plenty big city to attack; it could turn out three hundred riders, anyway, and that mighty sudden, too, in case of robbers. McCalmont had to attack with twenty-four outlaws, and get them away without any holes through their hides.
Along towards one in the morning the stable-man at Ryan's livery met with an accident, being clubbed. Then a couple of men walked round the stalls, loosed all the horses, and drove the whole outfit away through the back gate. The same proceedings occurred at the Spur livery, and in all the large stables, until two hundred head of good stock were gathered and run off to the northward.
In Main Street, hitched to the snubbing posts, stood a score of saddled horses, a waiting patient to take their drunkards home. These poor creatures were cared for tender by a young man who went along casual, feeding them each a bunch of dry herbs, the same beinglocoweed, and a heaps powerful medicine. Now we turn to the railroad station, where the main game was being played.
At one a. m. the night operator in the depôt remembered all of a sudden that the lady clerk, Miss Brumble, at Contention, had wired him to send on a parcel of stockings by Number 4. The night freight train was pulling out at the time, so he ran across the platform and pitched the parcel into the caboose as the cars went rolling past him. "Miss Brumble's socks!" says he.
"All correct!" says the conductor; and the train went rumbling off into the desert. Then the night operator—which his name was Bowles—turned round to point back for his office, and suddenly trod on a preacher.
"Pardon me," says the reverend stranger.
"Oh, don't mention it," says the clerk, some sarcastic.
"'Scuse me, seh, may I venture to—"
"Well, what's the matter with you?"
"My poor lost brother, I am wishful to be infawmed if Misteh Michael Ryan——"
"He's in his car. I'm busy."
"Oh, but my deah young friend, these profane cowboys are using such feahful language, because Misteh Ryan refuses to see them, being gawn to bed——"
The operator turned on his heel, and turned off growling.
"You see," the preacher wailed after him, "they've got a robber."
The operator began to nibble the bait.
"Robber!" He swung round sudden. "What robber?"
"The erring young person is called James du Chesnay."
"They've got him? Great snakes!"
"Yes, in bondage. They want to be rewarded with earthly dross, instead of seeking for the blessings and comfort which alone——"
"And Ryan won't come out?"
"I think, seh, that Misteh Ryan is timid, bekase of the shocking profanity of these misguided men, breaking his windows, too. Let me admonish you, my brother, to eschew the company of all——"
"I'll fix him," says the operator, and charged along down the platform with the preacher suffering after him.
That night operator, Mr. Mose Bowles, surging along the platform to Ryan's car, would have bet his last dollar that the facts were true. He saw three sure-enough cowboys sitting their horses easy in front of the private car, and the preacher was plumb correct about the way they talked. Bowles saw the prisoner, bound hand and foot, on a led horse, and that was Jim beyond all doubt, looking plenty discouraged. Bowles knew that Ryan had offered rewards most bounteous for Jim's body; he hungered for a portion of the plunder, and when he swung himself up the platform on the end of the car his batterings on the door was full of enthusiasm.
"I feah," says the preacher, "that yo're spoiling the paint. Take thought, my friend, how expensive is paint like that!"
The cowboys were backing their horses away beyond range of the car lamps, out of sight.
"Mr. Ryan!" Bowles shouted, "urgent telegrams! Come out!"
A nigger porter slid open an inch of the door. "You go way," says he; "Mass' Ryan he plumb distrackful. Go 'way."
"Let me in, you fool!"
Bowles wrenched the door wide open, and jumped into the car; then there were mutterings and voices, the lighting up of the far end of the Pullman; and after a while came a fat young man bustling out on the platform. He wore a fur coat, bare legs, and slippers, cussing around most peevish.
"'Scuse me," says the preacher, "I am an unworthy minister, a 'Ticular Baptist, and I could not heah the feahful profanity of these rude men without shedding tears. May I esco't you, seh, to see this prisoner?"
Bowles and the negro stood on the car platform watching, while the preacher led Ryan off into starlight.
"My heart quakes at the feah that these cowboys have gawn away. Please step this way—and 'ware stumbling on these sidings—this way, Misteh Ryan—this way——"
The voice died away, and Bowles was putting out to follow, when all of a sudden he and the negro were seized from behind, gagged, roped, and generally detained. Off among the sidings Mr. Ryan had a gag in his mouth, a rope round his elbows; then felt himself caught up into the starlight and thrown on a horse while his feet were hobbled under the animal's belly. In the station a robber was playing tunes with an axe on the keys of the telegraph, and the wires were being lopped with a pair of shears. Speaking generally, a whole lot of silence was being procured, and from a robber point of view things worked harmonious until the first bunch of riders went thundering away into the desert.
As it happened, the City Marshal and his deputy, Shorty Broach, straying into these premises to send off a telegram, found the operator and the negro lying gagged and bound on the platform; so when they heard the robbers loping off they sized up the whole situation. They were just too late to get robbers, but plenty swift in turning out the town.
This news of a fresh outrage hit old Grave City sudden, surprising, right in the middle of sleep time, and the whole town swarmed out instant like a hornets' nest for war. Some of the people were full of sleep, others were full of whisky; some had their war-paint, some had a blanket; but all of them felt they were spat on, all of them howled for vengeance. For a whole week the town tribe and the range tribe had been at war, and here was some idiot making a howl about robbers! This was certainly another case of cowboys in town, and the verdict was sudden—to lynch the cowboy leader, Mr. Chalkeye Davies.
It being some expedient first to catch this Chalkeye, these warriors began to make haste and get mounted for pursuit. But from the first things seemed to go wrong, for one after another the horses which had been standing in the street went jumping roaring crazy, pulling back till their reins broke, bucking off their saddles, whirling around the town, and stampeding away to the desert. The people saw thatlocoweed had been prevailing over the plain sense of these animals; then they found the stables an aching solitude, and the telegraph wrecked to prevent them calling for help, and everything done thoughtful and considerate by felonious parties unknown who had stolen the only millionaire in Arizona. Soon they remembered there had been a whole lot of unpleasantness between Mr. Ryan and Chalkeye. Thus the more they considered, the more their noses went sideways of the truth, smelling the poisonous iniquities of this Chalkeye outlaw.
The town was left afoot, and yet from private stables horses were raked up, enough to mount a posse of thirty men. By this time it was too late to chase, but the Marshal reckoned that, with a shine of bicycle lamps, he could track until daylight, and keep on the robbers' trail until he got more help. He never ruminated on the thoughtful, prophetic way in which these motions were foreseen. Just abreast of the Jim Crow Mine the leading horse of that posse blew up with a loud bang, and Shorty Broach was projected into a prickly-pear bush. That is how he got his new pseudonym, which is Pincushion Shorty to the present day. On the whole that posse concluded to go home rather than face a pavement of live dynamite.
Looking back upon the whole discussion between the du Chesnay and Ryan families, I see myself sitting around meek and patient, shy, timid, cautious, and fearfully good, and yet I got all the blame. Of course, I ought to have shot old man Ryan, just as an early precaution, so it's best to own up that I was all in the wrong for dallying. But after that, there was the massacre of the leading Grave City felons; I got the blame. Next came the hunting and escape of Curly and Jim; I got the blame. Furthermore, there was the flight of Curly and Jim from La Morita prison, followed by business transactions with the Frontier Guards; I got the blame. And, moreover, there was the sliding out of Curly, Jim, and the robbers from Cocky Brown's ranche at La Soledad, with certain vain pursuits by a posse of citizens; I got the blame. Lastly, there was the stealing of all the horses and a millionaire out of Grave City; I got the blame. Whatever happened, I always got the blame. It's plumb ridiculous.
Now, taking this last case, what ground is there for supposing that I helped McCalmont's robbers? My movements all that night were innocent and unobtrusive travels. When Dog-gone Hawkins went off with his tenderfoot posse to hunt ghosts, I naturally slid out for home. So I met up with McCalmont, took charge of Cocky Brown's old buckboard, and delivered Curly at the back door of my cousins, the Misses Jameson. These ladies had to hear a whole lot which was pretty near true about poor Curly, and that consumed some time. Afterwards they got scared all to fits by rushes of horsemen, dynamite explosions, and such diverting incidents, ending with the arrival of Shorty Broach to have his prickles pulled. Through this disturbance I hid up with Curly in a cellar, and when there was peace drove off alone, with my saddled horse tied behind the buckboard. After an hour's search, I found the old Cœur d'Alene Mine shaft, and tipped the buckboard in, turning the team horses loose to graze their way back to La Soledad. My duties being all performed, I rode back just before dawn to my own home pasture at Las Salinas. There is the whole annals of a virtuous night, and yet these Grave City idiots defamed my character, which it makes me sick.
There's a habit which I caught from the old patrone at Holy Cross, the same being to have a cold bath. Our Arizona water is mostly too rich for bathing, being made of mud, cow-dung, alkali, and snakes; but at Las Salinas I owned a little spring, quite good for washing and such emergencies. After my bath I felt skittish, a whole lot younger than usual, full of aching memories about getting no supper last night, and pleased all to pieces to hear the breakfast-howl. These symptoms being observed, Custer proposed at once that I pay up the overdue wages, and Ute backed his play, grinning ugly. As for Monte, he was chipped in the face with a recent bullet, and squatted heaps thoughtful over his pork and beans.
"So you-all wants yo' pay?"
They agreed that they did, and Custer passed me the biggest cup for my coffee.
"All right, you tigers," says I, "after this grub-pile we'll cyclone into town and catch what I've got in the bank."
"I ain't no tiger this time," says Ute. "Why, yesterday I just rode up street to collect my washing, and the weather was a lot too prevalent."
"Rain?" says I. "You shorely didn't have rain!"
"Wall, it splashed up the dust all around me, it did that," says Ute, "but I sorter mistook it for bullets."
Then those boys allowed that we was getting some unpopular in town, but they had a gnawing awful pain in their pants pockets, and nothing would cure that but wages. They were sure good boys, and it made me ache inside to see them want.
"You boys," says I, "spose you collect these here wages yo'selves and make yo're own settlement?"
"As how?" this Ute inquires, his homely face twisting around into strange new species of grins.
"Why, you-all knows every hawss I got, and has yo' notions of value. Jest you whirl right in, boys, and take what's coming to you in hawsses instead of cash. Pay yo'selves liberal, and I'll sign the bills."
"Shame!" says Monte. "D'ye think we'd take yo' pets?"
In the end we agreed to go into partnership, the which we did, for those boys were as good as brothers from the moment I got into trouble. Monte is my partner still.
Now, in course of these details, while we sat smoking cigarettes around the door of the cabin, we saw a sort of dust-cloud come rolling along out of the city.
"Which reminds me," says Ute, "that the Grave City stranglers was proposing yesterday to come and hold a social gathering here. Mr. Davies, they's aiming to hang you some."
We rolled the rain-barrels into the house, we toted bales of hay for barricades, and led our saddle-horses into cover; then put in the rest of our time filling the water-butts. In all we had forty minutes to prepare for our guests, but wanted a whole lot more.
"You, Chalkeye," says young Monte in his thoughtful way, "you can talk the hind leg off a mule. Spose you make big war medicine to these here strangers until we're ready."
Custer had got joyful, as he always did when there was trouble coming, making little yelps of bliss.
"Don't talk them off the range," says he, "or we'll get no fight."
Ute, he lay low, saying nothing, but he sure grinned volumes while he whirled in with his axe, cutting twelve loopholes through the 'dobe walls. I told Custer to break a hole in the roof and get up there quick, because the parapet had rain-spouts most convenient for shooting. Monte was laying out the ammunition, I was spreading wet blankets over the hay barricade in the front doorway, and then the Vigilance Committee came slanting down for battle.
Seeing that Grave City was shy of horseflesh that morning, these people had done their best with thirty head, using them to haul waggons and buckboards full of men. Only the chairman was in the saddle, he being old Mutiny Robertson, who wanted to buy my ranche and not to burn it. I ought to mention that this gentleman was a Cherokee Indian by birth, a white man by nature, and some time a robber himself. He knew what sort of lightning had struck Grave City during the night, but his feelings did him credit and kept his mouth shut. As chief of the Vigilantes he had to go against all his natural instincts, but still he acted hostile and looked dangerous, leading his men until he came up against my door.
"You, Chalkeye!" he shouted.
I put up my head behind the barricade in the doorway.
"Wall," says I, "this compliment, gentlemen, throws my tail high with pride. Put yo' hawsses in the barn while I fix the breakfast."
"These barricades," says Mutiny, "is intended hawspitable—eh, Chalkeye?"
"Which," says I, "they're raised in celebration of my thirty-third birthday as a token of innocent joy."
"Seems to me," he responds, "that this yere day is apt to be remembered hereaways as the anniversary of yo' quitting out of from this mortal life."
"These predictions of yours," says I "is rude."
"You're due to die some, right now"—he poked his gun. "Come out!"
"I remarks," says I, "on general principles that you all has come to mourn at the wrong funeral. My obsequies is postponed indefinite."
"Now, Chalkeye," says he, "it's no use arguing, so you want to come out like a man. We're full prepared to give you a decent turn-off, and a handsome funeral."
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, gentlemen, but I has other engagements, and this is my busy day."
I listened to my boys getting ready. "Keep them amused," says Monte; "we need three more loopholes."
"If you don't come out," says Mutiny, "there's going to be trouble, 'cause we're gettin' tired."
"Wall, Mutiny, I'd shorely admire to know some trifling details first, 'cause you've aroused my interest in this yere celebration. Why for is my neck so much in need of stretching?"
"This yere is frivolous argument," says he; "we-all is here to hang you, not to waste time in debates."
"You has my sympathy," says I, "and I shares yo' poignant feelings about not wasting time. What's the use of a necktie social without an appropriate victim? Now thar's young Mose Bowles beside you—which I don't like the look of his neck, the same being much too short for a stand-off collar. What's the matter with hanging Moses Bowles?"
"Come out," says Mose, "or we'll burn your den, you horse-thief!"
"Bein' possessed of genius, Moses, you'll now proceed to set my 'dobe home in flames. The glare of yo' fierce eye is enough to burn brick walls."
A bullet whizzed past my ear, and I got mad.
"Ready!" yelled Monte. "Give the word, and we fire."
"And now," says I, "you innocent pilgrims, you've given me heaps of time to get my twelve men ready. You've got three men in yo' posse who could hit a house from inside, the rest being as gun-shy as a school of girls. I've got a bullet-proof fort with the twelve best shots in Arizona, and if you don't get absent quick I'll splash yo' blood as high as the clouds. I give you two minutes to get out of range."
The weaker men began to rabbit, the best of them saw a whole row of loopholes with projecting guns, the leaders were holding a council of war.
"One minute!" says I, then turned to shout to my garrison. "Men on the roof, pick out the leaders to kill when I give the word! Men on the right, shoot all hawsses you can, or them reptiles is due to escape! Men on the left, attend to Mutiny! Ninety seconds! Ninety-five seconds!"
Half the Grave City crowd was stampeding for the waggons, the rest were scared of getting left afoot.
"One hundred seconds!" Mutiny's counsellors were breaking for cover. "One hundred'n five! ten—ten more seconds——" Mutiny turned and bolted. "One—two—three—when I give the word—ready—Fire!"
We sprinkled the tails of the Stranglers until there was nothing to see but smoke and dust. Nobody stayed to get hurt.
My cousins the two Misses Jameson admit right free and candid that my past life is plumb deplorable, that my present example would corrupt the morals of a penitentiary, and that my future state is due to be disagreeable in a place too hot to be mentioned. They remark that my face is homely enough to scare cats, that my manners and customs are horrid, that my remarks are a whole lot inaccurate, and that most of my property is stolen goods. At the same time, they say that I'm nice, and there I agree with them. My face may not amount to being pretty, my virtues haven't reached the level of bigotry, but I feel in my bones that I'm a sure nice man. Being nice, I aim to be liked, I hunger for popularity, and that is just where I blame the Grave City Stranglers. I've been misunderstood, I've not been appreciated, but why should I be taken out and lynched? It's plumb ridiculous!
Now I don't claim that I had any mission to reform the morals of the Vigilance Committee—which they have none—or to correct their views, the same being a whole lot steeped in error; neither would it be right for me to encourage them in the evil work of stretching my neck on a rope, or to lead them into the temptation of shooting me any more. When one gets disliked and discouraged by the hostile acts of mean people, one needs to have presence of mind and plenty absence of body. Wherefore I did right in rounding up all my livestock, and quitting a locality where my peace of mind was disturbed with ropes, gunfire, and other evil communications. I took my riders and my herd away north, to where we could graze peaceful and virtuous amid the untroubled solitudes of the Superstitious Mountains.
There was work to do, a drive of a hundred and seventy miles with slow-moving stock, then scouting for water and feed on the new pasture, a permanent camp to make, and much besides which filled up four good weeks. Afterwards I tracked a mountain sheep up to the bare heights, where all the rock was glazed with lightning, and the desert lay below me. I sat on my tail to think, feeling lonesome then, looking east toward Texas and wondering if my poor old mother was still alive. Westward the sun was setting, and that way lay the great Pacific Ocean, bigger than all the plains, where the ships rode herd upon their drove of whales—I wanted to see that too. But then I looked south-east, the way I had come, through valleys of scrub and cactus; there, somewheres beyond the hills, was my little ranch, and all the good pasture away to Holy Cross. My heart was crying inside me, but I didn't know what I wanted until I thought of Curly. Sure enough I wanted her most of all.
Next morning I told all my boys good-bye, and streaked off to go see Curly. I rode till dusk and camped with Texas Bob, a friend of mine who told me I was sure enough idiot for getting outlawed. Next evening I came to the house where my cousins lived, and crept in the dusk to scratch at their back door.
I found Miss Blossom Jameson all in a bustle as usual, which looked mighty natural. She was in the backyard feeding supper to her horse, and that poor victim leaned up against the fence to groan. There were cornstalks in it, cabbage-leaves, lettuce-leaves, tea-leaves, and some relics of ham and eggs.
"Now jest you sail right in, Mr. Hawss, and don't act wasteful, or you'll go without!"
Mr. Horse took a snuff at the mess, then backed away disgusted.
"Well, if that don't beat all! Now, you Hawss, you don't want to eat the flower-beds, or you'll get murdered!"
Mr. Horse turned his back and sulked.
"There! That's what I call a mean spirit, and I'm goin' to lock you up, you and your supper, till one of the two gets eaten—I don't care which!" So the lady chased Mr. Horse into the barn, and threw the pig-feed in after him. "I'll larn you to know what's good," says she, and slammed the door on his tail.
"Well!"—she stood with her back to the door, and threw up her nose at the sight of me—"I du wonder," says she, "that you dare to show yo' wicked face!"
I allowed that my good face was getting a bit mended since our last encounter. "How's my kid?" says I.
"Yo' savage, you mean. Now don't you say you've brought pet tigers this time, or tame dragons, 'cause I'll have no more strays at all."
"I've got a roan hawss here who's run a hundred miles since daybreak."
"Bring him in, then."
"He says he's a vegetarian, and cayn't eat ham and eggs."
"I don't care," says Miss Blossom; "we killed our pig to-day, and the slops has just got to be eaten. Waste is ruin."
"My hawss says he'll eat the slops, ma'am, if he can have a drink of whisky along with supper."
"Huh! so you want your vile debaucheries in spite of all I've told you against drink. Well, I 'spose you'll have it."
She ran off to fetch the liquor, which gave me time to bury her salad in the manure heap, and get a decent feed of cornstalks down from the loft. Then I used the whisky to rub down my weary horse, the same being medicine both for man and beast. I had some myself, while Miss Blossom stood by, talking of wicked waste, and how Curly had been neglected.
"Why, she's mo' like a man than a girl!"
"'Spose, ma'am," says I, "that you'd been working in a stable and got shot, then run into gaol, and pulled out through a hole in the wall, and doctored by a robber, and chased around the hills——"
"My habits are set," says Miss Blossom, "so I cayn't suppose any such thing. But that wig of Curly's, that skirt, those—now did yo' robber baron steal those things off a scarecrow, or did they grow by themselves?"
Then she grabbed my hands. "Thar," says she, "that's off my mind, so don't look worried. The dear little soul, she's the bravest, sweetest thing—and the way she bore all that pain! Why, you or any other man would have set around cursing all day and groaning all night, but Curly—why, she never even whimpered. Now I ask you, is it possible she shot those two men? I cayn't believe a word, so it's no use your talking."
"Was Miss Pansy very much scart with Curly's talk?"
"Miss Pansy, my good man, is a fool, although I say it. Of all the romantic nonsense and sentimental—but thar, she writes poetry, my dear, and that accounts for her. Why, if I hadn't locked her up in her room, that woman would have sent off a poem, all about lady outlaws, to the New YorkSunday Companion. I burned the stuff, and she had to go off in hysterics. Shucks! She puts Curly off to sleep every night with her fool poems—and such trash! Now there she is, with her glue-glue harp singing to Curly. If she don't beat cats! You listen."
Away off in the house I could hear Miss Pansy's thin little voice and glue-glue harp; I thought it sounded fine.