 The Conqueror and Hero of the Humboldts by Robert Howard I was in Sundance and joined myself a little after a long trail-drive up from the Semeron, when I got a letter from a bed-n-go rachston, which said as follows, Dear Breckenridge, that time I paid your fine down in Tucson for breaking the county clerk's leg, you said you'd give me a hand any time I ever needed help. Well, Breckenridge, I need your assistance right now. The rustlers is stealing me ragged. It has got so I nail my bed-kivers to the bunk every night, or they'd steal the blankets right off of me, Breckenridge. Moreover, a stumbling block on the path of progress by the name of Ted Bissett is running sheep on the range next to me. This is more than a man can endure, Breckenridge. So I want you to come up here right away and help me find out who is stealing my stock, and bust Ted Bissett's head for him, the low-minded skunk. Hoping you are the same, I begs to remain as usual. Your abused friend. Rachston Esquire. P.S. That sap-headed misfit Johnny Willoughby, which used to work for me down on Green River, is sheriff here, and he couldn't catch flies if they was bogged down in burlases. Well, I didn't feel it was none of my business to mix into any row a bed-negow might be having with a sheepman, so long as both sides fit fair. But rustlers was a different matter. Elkins detests a thief. So I mounted Captain Kidd, after the usual battle, and headed for a lonesome lizard, which was the nicest town to his ranch. I found myself approaching this town a while before noon, one blazing hot day, and as I crossed a right-thick timbered creek, shrieks for aid and assistance suddenly bust the stillness. A hawse also knade wildly, and Captain Kidd began to snort and champ like he always does when they is a bar or a cougar in the vicinity. I got off and tied him, because if I was going to have to fight some critter like that, I didn't want him mixing into the scrap. He was just as likely to kick me as the varmint. I then went on foot in the direction of the screams, which was growing more desperate every minute, and I presently come to a thicket with a big tree in the middle of it, and there they was. One of the prettiest gals I ever seen was roosting in the tree and screeching blue murder, and they was a cougar climbing up after her. Help! says she wildly. Shoot him! I just wish some of them tender foots which calls their selves naturalists could see this, I says, taking off my stetson. Elkins never forgets his manners. Some of them has tried to tell me cougars never attacks human beings, nor climbs trees, nor prowls in the daytime. I betcha this would make them realize they don't know it all, just like I said to that in which I seen in war paint Nevada last summer. Will you stop talking and do something? she says fiercely. Ow! Because he had wretched up and made a pass at her foot with his left paw. I seen this had went far enough, so I told him sternly to come down. But all he done was looked down at me and spit in a very insulting manner. So I wretched up and got him by the tail and yanked him down and whapped him again the ground three or four times. And when I let go of him he run off a few yards and looked back at me in a most peculiar manner. Then he shaken his head like he couldn't believe it himself and let his shuck as hard as he could feel it in the general direction of the North Pole. Why didn't you shoot him? demanded the gal, leaning as far out as she could to watch him. Aw, he won't come back, I assured her. Hey, look out! That limb's gonna break! Which it did, just as I spoke, and she come tumbling down with a shriek of despair. She still held on to the limb with a desperate grip, however, which is why it wrapped me so severe on the head when I catched her. Oh, says she, letting go of the limb and grabbing me. Am I hurt? I don't know, I says. You better let me carry you to wherever you want to go. No, says she, getting her breath back. I'm all right. Well, let me down. So I done so, and she says. I got a hostile over there behind that fir. I was riding home from Lonesome Lizard, and stopped to poke a squirrel out of a holler-tree. It weren't a squirrel, though. It was that dang lion. If you'll get my husk for me, I'll be riding home. Perhaps ranch is just over that ridge to the west. I'm Margaret Brewster. I'm Breckenridge Elkins of Bear Creek, Nevada. I says. I'm heading for Lonesome Lizard, but I'll be riding back this way before long. Can I call on you? Well, she says. I'm engaged to marry a feller, but it's conditional. I got a suspicion he's a spineless failure, and I told him flat if he didn't succeed at the job he's working on now, not to come back. I detests a failure. That's why I like your looks, says she, giving me an admiring glance. A man which can wrestle a mountain line with his bar hands is worth any gal's time. I'll send you word at Lonesome Lizard. If my fiance flops like it looks he's going to do, I'd admire to have you call. I'll be awaiting your message with eager heart and honest devotion, I says. And she blushed dantily and clumped on her husk and pulled her freight. I watched her till she was clean out of sight, then hold a sigh that shook the acorns out of the surrounding oaks and winded my way back to Captain Kidd in a sort of rose-colored haze. I was so entranced I started to get on to Captain Kidd on the wrong end and never noticed till he kicked me violently in the belly. Love, Captain Kidd, I says to him dreamily, battening between the eyes with my pistol-butt, is youth's sweet dream. But he made no response outside a stompin' on my corns. Captain Kidd has got very little sentiment. So I mounted and pulled for Lonesome Lizard, which I o' rive at maybe an hour later. I put Captain Kidd in the strongest livery stable I could find, and seen he was fed and watered, then worn the stable hands not to antagonize him. Then I headed for the Red Warrior Saloon. I needed a little refreshments before I started for a bed-and-goze ranch. I'd taken me a few drams and talked to the men which was foregathered there, being mainly cowmen. The sheep men patronized the buck and ram across the street. That was the first time I'd ever been in Montana, and them fellers weren't familiar with my reputation, as was showed by their manner. How the some ever they was perlite enough, and after we'd down the few fingers of corn scrapens, one of them asked me where I was from, proven they considered me an honest man with nothing to conceal. When I told them, one of them said, by golly they must grow big men in Nevada if you're a sample. You're the biggest critter I ever seen in the shape of a human. I bet he's as stout as Big John, says one, at another, and says, that can't be. This gent is human after all. Big John ain't. I was just fixing to ask them who this John varmint was, when one of them cranes his neck toward the winder, and says, Speak of the devil, and ye gets a whiff of brimstone. Here comes John across the street now. He must have seen this gent coming in, and is on his way to make his usual challenge. The sight of a man as big as him is like waving a red flag at a bull. I looked out the winder and seen a critter about the size of a grainery coming across the street from the buckin' ram, followed by a gang of men which look like him, but not nigh as big. What kind of folks are they I asked with interest? They ain't neither Mexicans nor Indians, but they sure ain't white men, neither. Ah, they're hunkies, says a little sawed-off cowman. Ted dissed Brungham in here to herd sheep for him, and that bigens John. He ain't got no sense, but you never seen such a hunk of muscle in your life. Where are they from, I asked? Canada? Nah, says he. They come originally from a place called Europe. I don't know where it is, but I jedged somewhere east of Chicago. But I know them fellers never originated nowhere's on this continent. They was rough dressed and wild-looking, with knives in their belts, and they didn't look like no folks I'd ever saw before. They come into the bar room, and the one called John bristled up to me very hostile with his little beady black eyes. He stuck out his chest about a foot and hit it with his fist, which was about the size of a sledgehammer. It sounded like a man beating a bass drum. You strong man, says he. I strong too. We wrestle, eh? Nah, I says, I don't care nothing about wrestling. He give a snort which blowed the foam off every beard glass on the bar and looked around till he seen an iron rod lying on the floor. It looked like the handle of a branded iron, and was pretty thick. He grabbed this and bent it into a V and throwed it down on the bar in front of me, and all the other hunkies jabbered admiringly. This childish display irritated me, but I controlled myself and drunk another finger of whiskey, and the bartender whispered to me. Look out for him. He aims to project into a fight. He's nearly killed nine or ten men with his bare hands. He's a mean one. Well, says I, tossing a dollar onto the bar and turning away. I got more important things to do than wrestle an outlandish foreigner in a bar room. I gotta eat my dinner and get out to the Rackston Ranch quick. But at that moment Big John chose to open his bazoo. There are some folks which can't never let well enough alone. Frade, jeered he. Yah, yah. The hunkies all whooped and guffawed, and the cattlemen scowled. What you mean? Afraid, I gasped. More dumbfounded than mad. It'd been so long since anybody's made a remark like that to me. I was plum-flabbergasted. Then I remembered I was amongst strangers which didn't know my reputation, and I realized it was my duty to correct that there oversight before somebody got hurt on account of ignorance. So I said, All right, you dumb foreign mutton-head, I'll wrestle you. But as I went up to him, he doubled up his fist and hit me, severely on the nose. And them hunkies all bust in the loud, rude laughter. That warn't wise. A man had better twist a striped thunderbolt's tail than hit a Elkins unexpected on the nose. I give a roar of irritation and grabbed Big John and started committing mayhem on him, free and enthusiastic. I swept all the glasses and bottles off of the bar with him, and knocked down a hanging lamp with him, and fanned the floor with him till he was limp. Then I threw him the full length of the bar-room. His head went through the panels of the back door, and the other hunkies, which had stood petrified, stampeded into the street with howls of horror. So I'd taken the brandon iron handle and straightened it out, and bent it around his neck, and twisted the ends together at a knot. So he had to get a blacksmith to file it off after he come to, which was several hours later. All them cowmen was staring at me with their eyes popped out of their heads, and seemed plumb and capable of speech. So I give a snort of disgust at the whole incident, and strode off to get my dinner. As I left I heard one feller, which was holding on to the bar like he was too weak to stand alone. Say feebly to the dumb-founded bartender, give me a drink quick. I never thought I'd live to cease up my couldn't believe when I was looking right smack at it. I couldn't make no sense out of this, so I headed for the dining-room of a Montana hotel and bar. But my hopes of peace and quiet was an illusion. I'd just started on my fourth beef steak, when a big maverick in star-top boots and store-bought clothes comes surging into the dining-room and bellard. Is your name Elkins? Yeah, it is, I says, but I ain't deep. You don't have to yell. Well, what the hell you mean by interfering with my business, he squalled, ignoring my reproof. I don't know what you're talking about, I growled, emptyin' the sugar-bowl into my coffee cup with some irritation. It looked like lonesome lizard was full of maniacs, which craved destruction. Who are you anyhow? I'm Ted Bissett, that's who. Howl'd he, convulsively gesturing toward his six-shooter. And I'm on to you. You're a damn Nevada gunman, old Abedraxton's brought up here to run me off the range. He's been bragging about it all over town, and you start your work by runnin' off my sheepherders. What do you mean I run your sheepherders off, I demanded, amazed. They run off after you maltreated Big John, he gnashed, with his face convulsed. They're so scared of you they won't come back without double pay. You can't do this to me, you expletive deleted! A man don't live, which can call me that name with impunity. I impulsively hit him in the face of my fried steak, and he give a impassioned shriek and pulled his gun. But some grease had gotten his eyes, so all he'd done with his first shot was bust the syrup-pitcher at my elbow, and before he could cock his gun again I shot him through the arm. He'd dropped his gun and grabbed the place with his other hand and made some remarks which ain't fit in for to repeat. I yelled for another steak, and Bissett yelled for a doctor, and the manager yelled for the sheriff. The last named individual didn't get there, till after the doctor and the steak had a robe, and was set in Bissett's arm—the doctor, I mean, and not the steak, which a trembling waiter brung me. Quite a crowded gathered by this time, and was watching the doctor work with great interest and offer an advice which seemed to infuriate Bissett, judging from his language. He also discussed his busted arm with considerable passion, but the doctor warn't a bit worried. You never seen such a cheerful gent. He was jovial and gay, no matter how loud Bissett yelled. You could tell right off he was a man which could take it. But Bissett's friends was very mad, and Jack Campbell, his foreman, was muttering something about him taking the law into their own hands. When the sheriff came prancing in, waving a six-shooter and holler and, where is he? Find out the scoundrel to me. There he is. Everybody yelled and ducked, like they expected gunplay. But I had already recognized the sheriff, and when he seen me he recoiled and shoved his gun out of sight like it was red hot or something. Brick and Ridge Elkins says he. Then he stopped and studied awhile. Then he told them to take Bissett out to the bar and pour some liquor down him. When they went, he sat down at the table and says, Brick, I want you to understand that they ain't nothing personal about this, but I got to arrest you. It's again the law to shoot a man inside of the city limits. I ain't got time to get arrested, I told him. I got to get over to old Abed Rackston's ranch. But listen, Brick, argued the sheriff. It was John Willoughby, just like old Abed said. What'll folks think if I don't jail you for shooting a leading citizen? Elections coming up and my hat's in the ring, says he, gulping my coffee. Bissett shot at me first, I said. Why don't you arrest him? Well, he didn't hit you, says Johnny, absently cramming half a pie into his mouth and making a stab at my potatoes. Anyway, he's got a busted arm and ain't able to go to jail just now. Besides, I need the sheepman's votes. Oh, I don't like jails, I said irritably, and he begun to weep. If you was a friend of me, sobs he, you'd be glad to spend the night in jail to help me get re-elected. I'd do as much for you. The whole county's given me hell anyway, cause I ain't been able to catch none of them cattle rustlers, and if I don't arrest you, I don't have a Chinaman's chance at the polls. How can you do me like this, after the times we had together in the old days? I'll stop blubbering, I says. You can arrest me if you want to. What's the fine? I don't want to collect no fine, Breck, says he, wiping his eyes on the oil cloth table cover and filling his pockets with doughnuts. I figures a jail sentence will give me more prestige. I'll let you out first thing in the morning. You won't tear up the jail, will you, Breck? I promised I wouldn't, and then he wants me to give up my guns, and I refuses. But good gosh, Breck! he pleaded. It'd look awful funny for a prisoner to keep on his shooting irons. So I give him to him just to shut him up, and then he wanted to put his handcuffs onto me, but they weren't big enough to fit my wrists. So he said if I'd lend him some money, he could have the blacksmith make me some leg irons. But I refused profanely. So he said, all right, it was just a suggestion, and no offence intended. So we went down to the jail. The jailer was off sleeping off a drunk, somewheres, but he'd left the key hanging on the door, so we went in. Pretty soon along come Johnny's deputy, Byge Gantry, a long, loose, chinaed cuss with a dangerous eye. So Johnny's sending to the Red Warrior for a can of beer, and whilst he was gone, Johnny bragged on him a heap. Why, says he, Byge is the only man in the county which has ever got within shooting distance to them dirt outlaws. He was by his self, first luck. If I'd been along, we'd have scuppered the whole gang. I asked him if he had any idea who they was, and he said Byge believed they was a gang up from Wyoming. Then I said, well, then in that case they gotta hang out in the hills somewheres, and ought to be easier to run down than men which scattered to their homes after each raid. Byge got back with the beer about then. Johnny told him that when I got out of jail he was gonna deportize me, and we'd all go after them outlaws together. So Byge said, that was great, and looked me over pretty sharp, and we sought down and started playing poker. Long about supper time the jailer come in, looking tolerable seedy, and Johnny made him cook us some supper. Whilst we was eating the jailer stuck his head into my cell and said, A gent is out there craving an audience with Mr. Elkins. Telling the prisoners busy, says Johnny. A done so, says the jailer, and he says if you don't let him in pretty darn quick, he's gonna bust in and cut your throat. That must be old A. Braxton, says Johnny. Better let him in. Breck, says he, I looks to you to protect me if the old cuss gets mean. So old A. Bed come waltzing into the jail with fire in his eye and corn liquor on his breath. At the sight of me he let out a squall which was painful to hear. Ah, hell of I help you, be you big lummox! he hollered. I sense for you to help me bust up a gang of rustlers and sheepherders. And the first thing you do is to get in jail. To aren't my fault, I says. Them sheepherders started picking on me. Well, he snarls. Why didn't you drill this at center when you was at it? I come up here to shoot rustlers, not sheepherders, I said. What's the difference, he snarled? Them sheepmen has probably got as much right to the range as you come in, I says. See such outrageous blasphemy, says he, shocked. You've bungled things so far, but there's one good thing. This it had to hire back as dirned hunky herders at double wages. Do you don't know more mindspending money than he does spilling his own blood, that cussed tightwad? Well, what's your fine? Ain't no fine, I says. Johnny wants me to stay in jail a while. At this old abed convulsively went for his gun, and Johnny got behind me and hollered. Don't you dash you to Ossifer of the law? It's a spite trick, gibbered old abed. He's been mad at me ever since I fired him off of my payroll. After I kicked him off of my ranch, he run for sheriff. And the night of the election everybody was so drunk they voted for him by mistake, or for a joke, or something. And since he's been in office, he's been letting the sheep men steal me right out of a house and home. That's a lie, says Johnny, heatedly. I give you as much protection as anybody else, you old buzzard. I just ain't been able to run any of them critters down, that's all. But you wait, buy just on their trail, and we'll have them behind the bars before the snow falls. Before the snow falls in Guatemala, maybe. Snorted old abed. All right, blast ya. I'm going. But I'll have Breckenridge out of here if I have to burn the cuss of jail. A rax to never forgets. So he stalked out selflessly, only turning back to snort. Sheriff. Bah. Seven murders in a county unsolved since you come into office. You'll let them sheep men murder us all in our beds. We ain't had a hangin' since you was elected. After he left, Johnny brooded awhile and finally says, The old Lobos ride about them murders. Only he neglected to mention that four of them was sheep men. I know it's cattlemen and sheep men killin' each other, each side accusing the other of rustlin' stalk, but I can't prove nothin'. A hangin' would set me solid with the voters. Here he eyed me hungrily, and ventured. If somebody'd just up and confess to some of them murders, you needn't look at me like that, I said. I never killed nobody in Montana. Well, he argued, nobody could prove you never done them. And after you was hanged, listen, hear you, I says with some passion. I'm willing to help a friend get elected all I can, but there's a limit. Oh well, all right. He sighed. I didn't much figure you'd be willing, anyway. Folks is so darn selfish these days, all they thinks about is their selves. But listen here, if I was to bust up a lynching mob, it'd be nigh as good a boost for my campaign as a legal hangin'. I'll tell you what, tonight I'll have some of my friends put on masks and come take you out and pretend like they was gonna hang ya. Then when they got the rope around your neck, I'll run out and shoot in the air and they'll run off, and I'll get credit for upholding law and order. Folks always disapproves of mobs unless they happens to be in them. So I said, all right. He urged me to be careful and not hurt none of them, because they was all his friends, and would be mine. I asked him, would they bust the door down? And he said, there weren't no use in damaging the property like that. They could hold up the jailer and take the key off of him. So he went off to fix things, and after a while Bige Gantry left and said he was on the trace of a clue to them cattle rustlers, and the jailer started drinkin' hair tonic mixed with tequila, and in about an hour he was stiffer no wet lariat. Well, I laid down on the floor, on a blanket to sleep, without taking my boots off. And about midnight a gang of men with masks come, and they didn't have to hold up the jailer because he was out cold. So they taken the key off him, and all the loose change, and plugged the backer out of his pockets, too, and opened the door. And I asked, are you the gents which is gonna hang me? And they said, we be. So I got up and asked him if they had any liquor, and went up and give me a good snort out of his hip flask. And I said, all right, let's get it over with so I can go back to sleep. He was the only one which done any talking, and the rest didn't say a word. I figured they was bashful. He said, let's tie your hands behind just so's to make it look real. And I said, all right, they tied me with some rawhide thongs which I reckon would have held the average man all right. So I went outside with him, and there was an oak tree right close to the jail, nice and bushes. I figured Johnny was hiding over behind them bushes. They had a barrel for me to stand on, and I got onto it. They throwed a rope over a big limb, and put the noose around my neck. And the feller says, any last words? Oh, hell, I says. This is plumb silly. Ain't it about time for Johnny? At this moment, they kicked the barrel out from under me. Well, I was kind of surprised, but I tensed my neck muscles and waited for Johnny to rush out and rescue me. But he didn't come, and the noose began to pinch the back of my neck. So I got disgusted and says, hey, let me down. Then one of them which hadn't spoke up before says, by calling I never heard a man talk after he'd been strung up before. I recognized that voice. It was Jack Campbell, Bissett's foreman. Well, I have got a quick mind in spite of what my cousin Bearfield Buckner says, so I knowed right off something was fishy about this business. So I snapped the thongs on my wrists, and wretched up and caught hold of the rope I was hung with by both hands and broke it. Them scoundrels was so surprised they didn't think to shoot at me till the rope was already broke, and then the bullets all went over me as I fell. When they started shooting, I knowed they meant me no good, and acted a cordon. I dropped right in the midst of them, and brung three to the ground with me, and during the few seconds to take me to choke and batter them unconscious. The others was scared to fire for fear of hitting their friends. We was so tangled up, so they clustered round me and started beating me over the head with their gun butts, and I risen up like a bar amongst a pack of hounds, and grabbed four more of them and hugged them till their ribs cracked. Their masks come off during the process, revealing the faces of Bissett's friends. I'd saw them in the hotel. Somebody prodded me in the hind leg with a buoy at that moment, which infuriated me, so I throwed them four amongst the crowd and hid out, right and left, knocking over a man or so at each lick, until I seen a wagon spoke on the ground and stooped over to pick it up. When I'd done that, somebody threw a coat over my head and blinded me, and six or seven men then jumped onto my back. About this time I stumbled over some feller which had been knocked down and fell on my belly, and they all started jumping up and down on me enthusiastically. I wretched around and grabbed one and dragged him round to where I could reach his left ear with my teeth. I would have taken it clean off at the first snap, only I had to bite through the coat which was over my head. But, as it was, I'd done a good job, judging from his awful shrieks. He put forth a supreme effort and tore away, taken the coat with him, and I shaken off the others and risen up in spite of their puny efforts, with a wagon spoke in my hand. A wagon spoke is a good comfort and implement to have in a melee, and very demoralizing to the enemy. This embusted all the pieces about the fourth or fifth lick, but that was enough. Them which was able to run, had all took to their heels, leaving the battlefield strewed with moaning and cussing figures. Their remarks was shocking to hear, but I'd give them no heed. I headed for the sheriff's office, mad, clean through. It was a few hundred yards east of the jail, and just as I rounded the jail-house, I run smack into a dim figure which comes sneaking through the brush, making a curious clanking noise. It hit me with what appeared to be an iron bar, so I went to the ground with it and choked it and beat its head again the ground till the moon come out from behind a cloud, and revealed the bewiskered features of old Abednego Rackston. What the hell, I demanded of the universe at large, is everybody in Montana crazy? What are you doing, trying to murder me in my sleep? I warned you, jack-eared, lunkhead, snarled he when he could talk, then once you hit me with that there pinch-bar for I demanded. I didn't know it was you, says he, getting up and dusting his britches. I thought it was a grizzly bar when you rizz up out of the dark. Did you bust out? Nah, I never, I said. I told you I was staying in jail to do Johnny a favor, and you know what that old son of Belial done? He framed it up with Bissett's friends to get me hung. Come on, I'm going over and interview the darn skunk right now. So we went over to Johnny's office, and the door was unlocked and a candle burning, but he weren't in sight. There was a small iron safe there which I figured he had my guns locked up in, so I got a rock and busted it open, and sure enough, there my shooting irons was. There was also a gallon of corn liquor there, and me and Abed was discussing whether or not we had the moral right to drink it, when I heard somebody remark in a muffled voice, so we looked around and I seen a pair of spurs sticking out from under a camp cot over in the corner. I grabbed hold of the boots they was on and pulled them out, and a human figure come with them. It was Johnny. He was tied, hand and foot, and gagged, and he had a lump onto his head the size of a turkey egg. I pulled off the gag, and the first thing he says was, If you sons of perdition drinks my private liquor, I'll have your heart's blood. You better do some explaining, I says, resentfully. What you mean, sick and bisits friends onto me? I never done such, says he heededly. Right after I left the jail, I come to the office here, and was just fixing to get hold of my friends to frame the fake neck-type party when somebody come in at the door and hit me over the head. I thought it was Byge coming in and didn't look round, then whoever it was clouded me. I just a while ago come to myself, and I was tied up like you see. If he's telling the truth, says old Abed, which he seems to be, much as I hates to admit it. It looks like some friend of bisits overheard you all talking about this thing, followed Johnny over and put him out of the way for the time being, then raised a mob of his own. No one break wouldn't put up no resistance, thinking they was friends. I told you whose hat. We all drawed our irons, then put them up as Byge Gantry rushed in, holding on to the side of his head which was all bloody. I just had a brush with the outlaws, he hollered. I've been trailing them all night. They waylaid me while ago three miles out of town they nearly shot my ear off, but if I didn't wing one of them I'm a Dutchman. Round up a posse, how old Johnny, grabbing a Winchester and cartridge belt. Take us back to where you had this great Byge. Wait a minute, I said, grabbing Byge. Let me see that ear. I jerked his hand away, disregarding the spur he stuck into my leg, and bellard. Shot, hell, that ear was chaud, and I'm the man which done it. You was one of them illegitimates that tried to hang me. He then whipped out his gun, but I knocked it out of his hand and hit him on the jaw and knocked him through the door. I then followed him outside and taken away the buoy he'd drawed as he rose groggily, and threw him back into the office. Then I went in and I threw him out again, then went out and threw him back in again. How long is this going on? he asked. Probably all night, I assured him. The way I feel right now I can keep heaving you in and out of this office from now till noon to-morrow. Hold up! gurgled he. I'm a hard nut, but I know when I'm licked. I confess I've done it. Done what? I demanded. I hit Johnny on the head and tied him up, he howled, grabbing wildly for the door jam as he went past it. I rigged the lynching-party. I'm in with the rustlers. Set him down! hollered a bed, grabbed and holed in my shirt. Quick, Johnny! Help me hold Breckenridge before he kills a valourable witness! But I shaken him off impatiently and socked Gantry onto his feet. He couldn't stand, so I held him up by the collar, and he gasped. I lied about trading shots with the outlaws. I've been fooling Johnny all along. Them rustlers ain't no Wyoming gang, they all live around here. Ted Bissett is the head chief of them. Ted Bissett, hey? whooped a bed, doing a war dance, and kicking my shins in his glee. See, there you big lummox, what'd I tell you? What you fake now after showing so darn much affection for them cussed sheepmen? Just shooting Bissett in the arm like he was your brother or something? Swander, you didn't invite him out to dinner. You ain't got the— Ah, shut up, I said, fretfully. Go on, Gantry. He ain't a legitimate sheepman, says he. That's just a blind, him runnin' sheep. Ain't no real sheepman mixed up with him. His gang is just the scrapens of the country, and they hide out on his ranch when things get hot. Other times they scatters and goes home. They're the ones which has been killin' honest sheepmen and cattlemen, tryin' to set the different factions again each other, so as to make stealin' easier. The hunkies ain't in on the deal. He'd just brung him out to herd his sheep, because his own men wouldn't do it, and he was afeard if he hired local sheepherders they'd catch on to him. Naturally we wanted you out of the way when we know'd you'd come up here to run down the rustlers, so tonight I seen my chance when Johnny started talking about staging that fake hangin'. I followed Johnny and tapped him on the head and tied him up, and went and told Bissett about the business. And we got the boys together, and you know the rest. It was a peach of a frame up, and it would've worked, too, if we'd been dealin' with a human being. Lock me up. All I want right now is a good quiet penitentiary, where I'll be safe. Well, I said to Johnny after he'd locked Gantry up. All you got to do is ride over to Bissett's ranch and arrest him. He's laid up with his arm, and most of his men is crippled. You'll find a number of him over by the jail. This ought to elect ya. Well, it will, says he, doin' a war dance in his glee. I'm as good as elected right now, and I'll tell you, Breck, taint the job alone I'm thinkin' about. I'd have lost my gal if I'd lost the race. But she's promised to marry me if I catch them rustlers and got re-elected, and she won't go back on her word, neither. Yeah, I says with idle interest, thinkin' of my own true love. What's her name? Margaret Brewster, says he. What! I yelled in a voice which knocked old Abed over on his back like he'd been hit by a cyclone. Them which accuses me of violent and unusual conduct, don't consider how my emotions was stirred up by the knowledge that I had went through all them humiliatin' experiences just to help a rival take my gal away from me. Throwin' Johnny through the office window and kickin' the walls out of the building was just a mild expression of the way I felt about the whole Dern affair, and instead of feelin' resentful, he ought to have been thankful. I was able to restrain my natural feelings as well as I had done. End of The Conquerant Hero of the Humboldts. Sharps Gun Serenade by Robert Howard. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Sharps Gun Serenade by Robert Howard. I was headin' for war paint, joggin' along easy and comfortable, when I seen a galoot comin' up the trail in a cloud of dust, just a burnin' the breeze. He didn't stop to pass the time of day. He went past me so fast, Captain Kidd missed the snap he made at his house, which shows he was sure high-tailin' it. I recognized him as Jack Sprague, a young waddie, which worked on a spread not far from war paint. His face was pale, and sought in a look a desperate resolution, like a man which has just bet his pants on a pair of deuces, and he had a rope in his hand, though I couldn't see nothin' he might be aimin' the lasso. He went foggin' on up the trail into the mountains, and I looked back to see if I could see the posse. Because about the only time an outlander ever heads for the high humbolts is when he's about three jumps on a low hoop ahead of a neck-tie party. I seen another cloud of dust all right, but it warn't big enough for more than one man, and pretty soon I seen it was Bill Glanton of war paint. But that was good enough reason for Sprague's haste if Bill was on the prod. Glanton is from Texas, original, and whilst he is a sentimental cuss in repose, he's a ring-tailed wizard with star-spangled wheels when his feelings is ruffled, and his feelings is ruffled tolerable easy. As soon as he seen me he yelled, Where'd he go? Who, I says? A humble folks ain't overflowing with casual information. Jack Sprague says he, You must have saw him. Where'd he go? He didn't say, I says. Glanton ground his teeth slightly and says, Don't start your darn hillbilly stalling with me. I ain't got time to waste the week or so it takes to get the information out of a humble mountain varmint. I ain't chasing that misguided idiot to do him injury. I'm pursuing him to save his life. A gal in war-paint has jilted him, and he's so broke up about it, he's threatening to ride right over the mortal ridge. Us boys has been watching him and following him around, taking pistols and rat-piesin and the like away from him, but this morning he gives us the slip and taken to the hills. It was a waitress in the ball-and-heifer restaurant which put me on to his trail. He told her he was going up in the hills where he wouldn't be interfered with and hang his self. So that's why he had the rope, I says. Well, it's his own business, ain't it? No, it ain't, says Bill sternly. When a man is in his state, he ain't responsible, and it's the duty of his friends to look after him. He'll thank us in the days to come. Anyway, he owes me six bucks, and if he hangs his self, I'll never get paid. Come on, dang it! He'll lynch his self while he stands here, John. Well, all right, I says. After all, I've got to think about the reputation of the Humboldts. They ain't never been a suicide committed up here before. Quite right, says Bill. Nobody ever got a chance to kill a self up here, someone else always done it for him. But I ignored this slander, and reigned Captain Kitt around, just as he was fixing to bite off Bill's house's ear. Jack had left the trail, but he left sign a blind man could follow. He had a long start on us, but we both had better hausses than his, and after a while we'd come to where he'd tied his house among the brush at the foot of Cougar Mountain. We tied our house's too, and pushed through the brush on foot, and right away we seen him. He was climbing up the slope toward a ledge, which had a tree growing on it. One limb stuck out over the edge, and was just right to make us well gallows, as I told Bill. But Bill was in a lather. He'll get to that ledge before we can catch him, says he. What'll we do? Shoot him in the leg, I suggested. But Bill says, No, darn it. He'll bust his self falling down the slope, and if we start after him he'll hustle up to the ledge and hang his self before we can get to him. Look there, though. There's a thicket growing up the slope west of the ledge. You circle round and crawl up through it, whilst I get out in the open and attract his attention. I'll try to keep him talking till you can get up there and grab him from behind. So I ducked low in the brush, and ran around the foot of the slope till I come to the thicket. Just before I divved into the tangle, I seen Jack had got to the ledge, and was fastening his rope to the limb, which stuck out over the edge. Then I couldn't see him no more, because that thicket was so dense and full of briars, it was about like crawling through a pile of fighting bobcats. But as I wormed my way through it, I heard Bill yell, Hey, Jack, don't do that, you darn fool. Let me alone, Jack hollered. Don't come no closer. This here's a free country. I've got a right to hang myself if I want to. But it's a damn fool thing to do, well, Bill. My life is ruined, asserted Jack. My true love has been betrayed. I'm a wilted tumblebug—I mean tumbleweed—on the sands of time. Destiny has slapped the zero brand on my flank. I—I don't know what else he said, because at that moment I stepped into something which led out a ear-splitten squall, and attached itself violently to my hind leg. That was just my luck, with all the thickets they was in the humbolts. I'd turned Cougar had to be sleeping in that, and, of course, it had to be me which stepped on him. Well, no Cougar's a match for a Elkins in a stand-up fight, but the way to lick him—the Cougar, I mean, there ain't no way to lick a Elkins—is to get your lick in before he can clench with you. But the brush was so thick I didn't seem till he had hold to me, and I was so stuck up with them darn briars I couldn't hardly move, no how. So before I had time to do anything about it, he had sunk most of his tushes and claws into me, and was retching for new holts as fast as he could rake. It was ol' Brighammer, too—the biggest, meanest, and oldest cat in the humbolts. Cougar Mountain is named for him, and he's so dang tough he ain't even scared a cat and kid, which is plum pison to all cat animals. Before I could get ol' Brighammer by the neck and haul him loose from me, he had clawed my clothes all to pieces, and likewise lacerated my hide free and generous. In fact, he made me so mad that when I did get him loose, I'd taken him by the tail and mowed down the brush in a fifteen-foot circle around me with him, till the hair wore off his tail and it slipped out of my hands. Ol' Brighammer then legged it down off the mountain, squall and fit to bust your eardrums. He was the maddest cougar you ever seen, but not mad enough to renew the fray. He must have recognized me. At that moment I heard Bill yelling for help up above me, so I headed up the slope, swearing loud and bleeding freely, and crashing through them bushes like a wild bull. Evidently the time for stealth and silence was passed. I busted into the open and seen Bill hopping around on the edge of the ledge, trying to get hold of Jack, which was kicking like a grasshopper on the end of the rope, just out of reach. One just sneak up soft and easy like I said, howl, Bill. I was just about to argue him out of the notion. He tied the rope around his neck and was standing on the edge, when that racket bust loose in the brush and scared him so bad, he fell off of the ledge, knew something. Shoot the rope in, too, I suggested. But Bill said, No, you cussed fool, he'd fall down the cliff and break his neck. But I seen it warrant a very big tree, so I went and got my arms around it and give it a heave and loosen the roots, then kind of twisted it around so the limb Jack was hung to was over the ledge now. I reckon I busted most of the roots in the process, judging from the noise. Bill's eyes popped out when he seen that, and he wretched up kind of days-like and got the rope with his buoy. Only he forgot to grab Jack before he cut it, and Jack hit the ledge with a resounding thud. I believe he's dead, says Bill, despairing fool. I'll never get that six bucks. Look how purple he is. Aw, says I, biting me off a Chew-it tobacco. All men which has been hung looks that way. I remember once the vigilantes hung Uncle Jeopard Grimes, taking us three hours to bring him to after we cut him down. Of course he'd been hanging an hour before we found him. Shut up and help me revive him, snarl Bill, getting the noose off his neck. You select the damnedest times to converse about the sins of your infernal relatives. Look, he's coming too, because Jack had begun to gasp and kick around. So Bill brung out a bottle and poured a snort down his gullet. Pretty soon Jack sought up and felt his neck. His jaws wagged, but didn't make no sound. Glanton now seemed to notice my disheveled condition for the first time. What the hell happened to you, he asked in amazement. Aw, I stepped on Old Brighammer, I scowled. Well, why don't you hang on to him, he demanded. Don't you know there's a big bounty on his pelt? We could have split the dough. I've had a belly full of Old Brighammer, I replied irritably. I don't care if I never see him again. Look what he'd done to my best britches. If you want that bounty you go after it yourself. And let me alone, unexpectedly spoke up Jack, eyeing us balefully. I'm free, wide and twenty-one. I hangs myself if I want to. You won't neither, says Bill sternly. Me and your paw is old friends, and I aim to save your worthless life if I have to kill you to do it. I defy you, squawked Jack, making a sudden dive between Bill's legs, and he would have got clean away if I hadn't snagged the seat of his britches with my spur. He then displayed startling in gratitude by hitting me with a rock, and whilst we was tying him up with a hanging-rope, his language was scandalous. Did you ever see such a idgid, demands Bill, setting on him and fanning his self with a stetson? What are we going to do with him? We can't keep him tied up forever. We got to watch him close till he gets out of the notion of killing his self, I says. He can stay at our cabin for a spell. Ain't you got some sisters? says Jack. A whole cabin full, I says, with feeling. You can't hardly walk without stepping on one. Why? I won't go, says he bitterly. I don't never want to see no woman again, not even a mountain woman. I'm an embittered man. The honey of love has turned to trench their pison. Leave me to the buzzards and the cougars. I got it, says Bill. We'll take him on a hunting trip, way up in the high humbolts. They some of that country I'd like to see myself. Frickin' you're the only white man which has ever been up there, Brick. If we was to call you a white man. What you mean by that there remark, I demanded heathily. You know damn well I ain't got nary a drop of engine blood in me. Hey, look out! I glimpsed a furry hide through the brush. I'm thinking it was old Brighammer coming back. I pulled my pistols and started shooting at it. When a familiar voice yelled wrathfully, hey, you cut that out! Nernet! The next instant a peculiar figure hovend of you. A tall, gant old Ranny, with long hair and whiskers, with a club in his hand, and a painter hide tied around his middle. Sprogg's eyes bugged out, and he says, Who in the name of God is that? Another victim of feminine wiles, I says. That's old Joshua Braxton of Chaud ear. The oldest and toughest bachelor in South Nevada. I judge that Miss Stark, the old maid schoolteacher, has renewed her matrimonial designs onto him. When she starts rolling sheep's eyes at him, he always dawns that their garb and takes to the high Sierras. It's the only way to protect myself! Snarl, Joshua. She'd marry me by force if I didn't resort to strategy. Not many folks comes up here, and such as does, don't recognize me in this rig. What you varmints disturbing my solitude for! Your racket woke me up over in my cave. When I seen old Brighammer hightailin' it for distant parts, I figured Elkins was on the mountain. We're here to save this young idiot from his own folly, says Bill. You come up here because a woman wants to marry you. Jack come up here to decorate a oak limb with his own carcass, because one wouldn't marry him. Some men never knows their luck, says old Joshua, enviously. Now me, I yearns to return to Chaud ear, which I've been a-wait from for a month. But whilst that old mud hen of a Miss Stark is there, I haunts the wilderness if it takes the rest of my life. Well, be at ease, Josh, says Bill. Miss Stark ain't there no more. She pulled out for Arizona three weeks ago. Hallelujah, says Joshua, throwing away his club. Now I can return and take my place among men. Hold on, says he, reaching for his club again. Likely they'll be getting some other old Herod in to take her place. That new-fangled schoolhouse they got at Chaud ear is a curse and a blight. We'll never be shed of husband-hunting, arithmetic shooters. I better stay up here after all. Don't worry, says Bill. I seen a picture of a gal that's coming from the east to take Miss Stark's place. I can assure you that a gal as young and pretty as her wouldn't never try to slap her brand on no old buzzard like you. Young and pretty, you says? I asked with sudden interest. As a racing fella, he declared. First time I ever known a school marm could be less than forty and have a face that didn't look like the beginnings of a long drought. She's due in Chaud ear on the evening stage, and the whole town turns out to welcome her. The mayor aims to make a speech if he's sober enough, and they got a band up to play. Damn foolishness, snorted Joshua. I don't take no stock in education. I don't know, says I. That was before I got educated. These times when I wished I could read and write, we ain't never had no school on Bear Creek. What would you read outside of the labels on the whiskey bottles? Snorted old Joshua. Funny how a pretty face changes a man's viewpoint, remarked Bill. I remember once Miss Stark asked you how you folks up on Bear Creek would like for her to come up and teach your children, and you'd taken one look at her face and told her it was again the principles of Bear Creek to have their peaceful innocence invaded by the corrupt and influences of education. You said the folks was all banded together to resist such corruption to the last drop of blood. It's my duty to Bear Creek to provide culture. For the rising generation, says I, ignoring them slanderous remarks. I feel the urge for knowledge, a heave and a surgeon in my bosom. We're going to have a school on Bear Creek by golly. If I have to lick every old moss back in the humbles, I'll build a cabin for the schoolhouse myself. Where will you get a teacher? asked Joshua. Chaud ear ain't going to let you have there. Chaud ear is too, I says. If they won't give her up peaceful, I resorts to force. Bear Creek is going to have culture. If I have to wade Fetlock deep in gore to provide it. Let's go. I'm raring to open the ball for arts and letters. Are you all with me? No, says Jack, plenty emphatic. What are we going to do with him? demands Glanton. Oh, I says we'll time up someplace along the road and pick him up as we come back by. All right, says Bill, ignoring Jack's impassioned protests. I just assumed my nerves is frayed, right and heard on this young widget, and I need a little excitement to quieten them. You can always be counted on for that. Anyway, I'd like to see that their schoolmarm gal myself. How about you, Joshua? You're both crazy, growls Joshua. But I've lived up here on nuts and jackrabbit till I ain't sure of my own sanity. Anyway, I know the only way to disagree successfully with Elkins is to kill him, and I got strong doubts of being able to do that. Lead on. I'll do anything within reason to help keep education out of chaud ear. Taint only my personal feelings regarding school teachers. It's the principle of the thing. Get your clothes on and let's hustle then. I says, this painter hide is all I got, says he. You can't go down into the settlements in that rig, I says. I can't in will, says he. I'll look as civilized as you do with your clothes all tore to rags. Count of Old Brighammer? I got a hauss close by. I'll get him if Old Brighammer ain't already. So Joshua went to get his hauss and me and Bill, towed a jack down the slope to where our hausses was. His conversation was plentiful and heated, but we ignored it, and was just tying him onto his hauss when Joshua arose with his critter. Then the trouble started. Captain Kidd evidently thought Joshua was some kind of varmit because every time Joshua came nigh, he'd take any in after him and run him up a tree. And every time Joshua tried to come down, Captain Kidd busted loose for me and run him back up again. I didn't get no help from Bill. All he'd done was laugh like a spotted hyena till Captain Kidd got irritated at thin guffaws and kicked him in the belly and knocked him clean through a clump of spruces. Time I got him untangled he looked about as disreputable as what I did because most of his clothes was tore off of him. We couldn't find his hat neither, so I tore up what was left in my shirt and he tied the pieces round his head like a patchy. Except in Jack, we was sure a wild-looking bunch. But I was disgusted thinking about how much time we was wasting, whilst all the time Bear Creek was wallowing in ignorance. So the next time Captain Kidd went for Joshua, I took and busted him betwixt the ears with my six-shooter, and that had some effect onto him, a little. So we sought out. When Jack tied onto his horse and cussed in something terrible, and Joshua on a gaunt old nag he rolled bareback with a hackamore. I had Bill to ride betwixt him and me so as to keep that painter hide as far away from Captain Kidd as possible. But every time the wind shifted and blowed the smell to him, Captain Kidd retched over and taken a bite at Joshua. Sometimes he bit Bill's horse by accident, sometimes he bit Bill. And the language Bill directed at that poor animal was shocking to hear. We was aiming for the trail that runs down from Bear Creek into the Chaud Ear Road, and we hid at a mile west of Bowie Knife Pass. We left Jack tied to a nice shady oak tree in the pass, and told him we'd be back for him in a few hours, but some folks is never satisfied. Instead of being grateful for all the trouble we'd went to for him, he acted right nasty, and called us some names I wouldn't have endured if he'd been in his right mind. But we tied his horse to the same tree, and hustled down the trail, and presently come out onto the poor paint Chaud Ear Road, some miles west of Chaud Ear. And there we sighted our first human, a feller on a pinto mare, and when he'd seen us he'd give us shriek and took out down the road toward Chaud Ear like the devil had him by the britches. Let's ask him if the teachers got there yet, I suggested. So we'd taken out after him, yelling for him to wait a minute. But he'd just spurred his horse that much harder, and before we'd gone any peace, Joshua's fool husts jostled again Captain Kidd, which smelt that painter's skin, and got the bit between his teeth, and run Joshua and his horse three miles through the brush before I could stop him. Bill followed us, and of course, time we got back to the road, the feller on the pinto mare was out of sight long ago. So we headed for Chaud Ear, but everybody that lived along the road had run into their cabins and bolted the door. And they shot at us through the windows as we rode by. Bill said irritably, after having his off ear nicked by a buffalo rival, he says, turn it, they must know we aim to steal their school teacher. Oh, they couldn't know that, I says. I bet there's a war between Chaud Ear and War Paint. Oh, why are they shooting at me for, then? demanded Joshua. How could they recognize you in that rig, I asked. What's that? Ahead of us, a way down the road, we seen a cloud of dust, and here come a gang of men on hausses, waving guns and yelling. Well, whatever the reason is, says Bill, we better not stop to find out. Them gents is out for blood, and says he as the bullets begin to knock up the dust around us. I judge it's our blood. Pull into the brush, says I. I goes to Chaud Ear, in spite of hell, high water, and all the gunmen they can raise. So we take into the brush, and they lit in after us, about forty or fifty of them. But we dodged and circled, and taken shortcuts, old Joshua knowed about, and when we emerged into the town of Chaud Ear, our pursuers weren't nowhere's in sight. In fact, they weren't nobody in sight. All the doors was closed, and the shutters up on the cabins, and saloons, and stores, and everything. It was peculiar. As we rode into the clearing, somebody let bam at us with a shotgun from the nearest cabin, and the load combed Joshua's whiskers. This made me mad, so I rode at the cabin, and pulled my foot out in the stirrup, and kicked the door in, and whilst I was doing this, the feller inside hollered, and jumped out the window, and Bill grabbed him by the neck. It was Esau Barlow, one of Chaud Ear's confirmed citizens. What the hell's a matter with you buzzards, Rord Bill? Is that you, Glamon? Daffed Esau blanking his eyes. Of course it's me, Rord Bill. Do I look like an engine? Yes. Ow! I mean, I didn't know you in that there, Durban, says Esau. Am I dreaming, or is that Josh Braxton and Brick Ilkins? Sure it's us, snorted Joshua. Who you think? Well, says Esau, rubbing his neck and looking sideways at Joshua's painter's skin, I didn't know. Where is everybody? Joshua demanded. Well, says Esau. A little while ago Dick Lynch rode into town with his hawsol of a ladder, and swore he'd just outrun the wildest war party that ever come down from the hills. Boys, says Dick. They ain't neither engines nor white men. They're wild men, that's what. One of them's big as a grizzly bar with no shirt on, and he's riding a haws, bigger than a bull moose. One of the others as as ragged and ugly as him, but not so big in wearing a patchy headdress. The others got nothing on but a painter's hide in a club, and his hair and whiskers falls to his shoulders when they see me, says Dick. They sighed up awful yells and come for me like a gang of man-eaten cannibals. I've fogged it for town, says Dick, warning everybody along the road to fort themselves in their cabins. Well, says Esau, when he says that, such men as was left in town got their haws and guns, and they'd taken out up the road to meet the war party before it got into town. Well, of all the fools, I says. Say, where's the new teacher? The stage ain't a riv yet, says he. The mayor and the man rode out to meet it at the Yaller Creek crossing and escorted her into town in honor. They'd left before Dick Brung knew of the war party. Come on, I says to my warriors, we likewise meets that stage. So we fogged it on through the town and down the road, and pretty soon we heard music blaring ahead of us, and then yipping and shooting off their pistols like they does when they're celebrating. So we'd judged they'd met the stage and was escorting it in. What you gonna do now? asked Bill, and about that time a noise bussed out behind us, and we looked back and seen that gang of Chaud ear maniacs which had been chasing us, dusting down the road after us, waving their winchesters. I know there weren't no use trying to explain to them, we weren't no war party cannibals. They'd salivate us before we could get close enough to make them hear what we was saying. So I yelled, come on, if they get her into town they'll fort their selves against us. We takes her now, follow me. So we swept down the road, and around the bend. And there was that stage-coach coming up the road with the mayor riding alongside with his hat in his hand, and a whiskey bottle sticking out of each saddlebag, and his hip pocket. He was all-rating at the top of his voice to make his self-heard above the racket the band was making. They was blowing horns and banging drums and twanging on juice harps, and the hosses was skittish and shy and in jumping. But we heard the mayor say, And so we welcomes you, Miss Devon, to our peaceful little community, where life runs smooth and tranquil, and men's souls is overflowing with milk and honey. And just then we stormed around the bend and come tearing down on them, with the mob right behind us, yelling and cussing and shooting, free and fervent. The next minute, they was the damnedest mix-up you ever seen, what with the hosses bucking their riders off, men yelling and cussing, the hosses hitched to the stage, running away and knocking the mayor off in his hoss. We hit them like a cyclone, and they shot at us and hit us over the head with their music horns, and right in the middle of the fray the mob behind us rounded the bend, and piled up amongst us before they could check their hosses, and everybody was so confused they started fighting everybody else. Nobody knowed what it was all about except me and my warriors, but Chaudier's motto is, when in doubt, shoot. So they laid into us and into each other, free and hearty, and we was far from idle. Old Joshua was laying out his fellow townsmen right and left with his Elm Club, saving Chaudier from education in spite of itself, and Glanton was beating the band over their heads with his six-shooter, and I was thrompling folks in my rush for the stage. The fool hosses had whirled around and started in the general direction of the Atlantic Ocean, and the driver and the shotgun guard couldn't stop them. But Captain Kidd overtook it, and maybe a dozen strides, and I left the saddle in a flying leap and landed on it. The guard tried to shoot me with his shotgun, so I throwed it into an alder clump, and he didn't let go of it quick enough, so he went along with it. I then grabbed the ribbons out of the driver's hands, and swung them fool hosses around on their hind legs, and the stage kind of revolved on one wheel for a dizzy instant, and then settled down again, and we headed back up the road lickety-split, and in an instant was right amongst the Frankus that was going on around Bill and Joshua. About that time I noticed that the driver was trying to stab me with a butcher knife, so I kind of tossed him off the stage, and there ain't no sense in him going around threatening to have me arrested, a count of him landing headfirst in the base horn, so it taken seven men to pull him out. He ought to watch where he falls, when he gets throwed off of a stage going at a high run. I also feels that the mayor is prone to carry petty grudges, or he wouldn't be so bitter about me accidentally running over him with all four wheels. And it ain't my fault he was stepped on by Captain Kidd, neither. Captain Kidd was just following the stage because he knowed I was on it, and it naturally irritates him to stumble over somebody, and that's why he chaud the mayor's ear. As for them other fellers, which happened to get knocked down and run over by the stage, I didn't have nothing personal against them. I was just rescuing Joshua and Bill, which was outnumbered about twenty to one. I was doing them chaud ear digits of favor, if they only noted, because in about another minute Bill would have started using the front ends of his six shooters instead of the butts, and the fight would have turned into a massacre. Bill has got an awful temper. Him and Joshua had did the enemy considerable damage, but the battle was going again when I arrived on the field of carnage. As the stage crashed through the mob, I wretched down and got Joshua by the neck and pulled him out from under about fifteen men which was beaten into death with their gun butts, and pulling out his whiskers by the handfuls. And I slung him up on top of the other luggage. About that time we was rushing past the dog pile which Bill was the center of, and I reached down and snared him as we went by, but three of the men which had hold of him wouldn't let go. So I hauled all four of them up onto the stage. I then handled the team with one hand, and used the other to pull them digits loose from Bill like pulling ticks off in a cow's hide, then throwed them at the mob which was chasing us. Men and hausses piled up in a stack on the road which was further messed up by Captain Kidd plowing through it as he come busting along after the stage. And by the time we sighted Chaud ear again, our enemies was far behind us, though still rambunctious. We tore through Chaud ear in a fog of dust, and the women and children which had ventured out of their shacks squalled and run back again, though they weren't in no danger. But Chaud ear folks is peculiar that way. When we was out of sight of Chaud ear, I give the lines to Bill and swung down the side of the stage and stuck my head in. They was one of the prettiest gals I ever seen in there, all huddled up in a corner and looking so pale and scared I was afraid she was going to faint, which I had heard eastern gals has a habit of doing. Oh, spare me! she begged. Please don't scalp me. Be at ease, Miss Devon, I reassured her. I ain't no engine, nor no wild man, neither. Neither is my friends here. We wouldn't none of us hurt a flea. We're that refined and soft-hearted. You wouldn't believe it. At that instant a wheel hit a stomp and the stage jumped into the air and I bit my tongue and roared in some irritation. Bill, you condemned son of a striped polecat, stop this stage before I comes up there and breaks your cusset neck. Try, you beef-headed lummox, he invites. But he pulled up the hausses, and I'd taken off my hat and opened the door. Bill and Joshua clumped down and peered over my shoulder. Miss Devon looked tolerable sick. Maybe it was something she had. Miss Devon, I says, I begs your pardon for this here informal welcome, but you seize before you a man whose heart bleeds for the benighted state of his native community. I'm Breckenridge Alkins of Bear Creek, where hearts is pure and motives is lofty, but culture is weak. You seize before you, says I, growing more enthusiastic about education, the longer I looked at them big brown eyes I heard. A man which has grown up in ignorance, I can't neither read nor write. Joshua here, in the painter's skin, he can't neither, and neither can Bill. That's a lie, says Bill. I can read and I'd kind of stuck my elbow in his stomach. I didn't want him to spoil the effect of my speech. Miss Devon was getting some of her color back. Miss Devon, I says, will you please, ma'am, come up to Bear Creek and be our school teacher? Why? says she bewilderedly. I came west, expecting to teach a chod ear, but I haven't signed any contract, and how much was them snake hunters going to pay you? I asked. Ninety dollars a month, says she. We pays you a hundred, I says, bored and lodging free. Hell's fire, says Bill. They never was that much hard cash money on Bear Creek. We all donates coon hides and corn liquor, I snapped. I sells the stuff in war paint and hands the dough to Miss Devon. Will you keep your snout out of my business? But what will the people of Chod ear say, she wonders? Nothing, I told her heartily. I'll tend to them. It seems so strange and irregular, says she weakly. I don't know. Then it's settled, I says. Great, let's go. Where, she gassed, grabbing hold of the stage as I clumbed into the seat. Bear Creek, I says, varmints and haws thieves hunt the brush. Culture is on her way to Bear Creek. And we went fogging it down the road as fast as the horses could hump it. Onst I looked back at Miss Devon and seen her getting pale again, so I yelled above the clatter of the wheels. Don't be scared, Miss Devon. Ain't nothing going to hurt you. B. Elkins is on the job to protect you, and I aim to be at your side from now on. At this, she said something I didn't understand. In fact, it sounded like a low moan. Then I heard Joshua say to Bill, hollering to make a self-heard, education my eye, the big chumps looking for a wife. That's what. Ten to one, she gives him the mitten. I takes that ball, Bill, and I bellard. Shed up that noise. Quick discuss in my private business, so darn public. I—what's that? It sounded like firecrackers popping back down the road. Bill yelled, holy smoke it's them chaudier maniacs. They're still on our trail, and they're gaining on us. Cussing heartily, I poured leather onto them fool-horses, and just then we hit the mouth of the Bear Creek Trail, and I swung onto it. They'd never been a wheel on that trail before, and the going was tolerable rough. It was all Bill and Joshua could do to keep from getting thrown off, and they would sell them more than one wheel on the ground at a time. Naturally the mob gained on us, and when we roared up in the buoy-knife pass, they weren't more than a quarter mile behind us, whooping bodacious. I pulled up the horses beside the tree where Jack Sprague was still tied up. He gawked at Miss Devon, and she gawked back at him. Listen, I says, here's a lady in distress which we're rescuing from teaching school and chaudier. A mob's right behind us. This ain't no time to think about yourself. Will you postpone your suicide if I turned you loose, and get on to this stage and take the young lady up the trail while the rest of us turn back the mob? I will, says he, with more enthusiasm than he'd showed, since we stopped him from hanging himself. So I cut him loose, and he clumped on to the stage. Drive on to Kiowa Canyon, I told him, as he picked up the lines. Wait for us there. Don't be scared, Miss Devon. I'll soon be with you. Be Elkins. Never fails a lady fair. Yup, says Jack. And the stage went clattering and banging up the trail, and me and Joshua and Bill taken cover among the big rocks that was on either side of the trail. The pass was just in their gorge, and a lovely place for an ambush, as I remarked. Well, here they come, howling up the steep slope, yelling and spurring and shooting wild. And me and Bill give them a salute with our pistols. The charge halted plum sudden. They know they was licked. They couldn't get at us, because they couldn't climb the cliffs. So after firenavali, which damaged nothing but the atmosphere, they turned around, and hightailed it back towards Chaudhier. I hope that's a lesson to them, says I, as I Riz. Come, I can't wait to get culture started on Bear Creek. You can't wait to get sparking that gal, snorted Joshua. But I ignored him, and forked Captain Kidd, and headed up the trail. And him and Bill followed, riding double on Jack Sprague's horse. Why should I deny my honorable intentions, I says, presently? Anyone can see Miss Devon is already learning to love me. If Jack had my attraction for the fair sex, he wouldn't be lugging around to ruin life. Hey, where's the stage? Because we'd reached Kiowa Canyon, and they weren't no stage. Here's a note stuck on a tree, says Bill. I'll read it. Well, for Lord's sake, he yelled. Listen to this. Dear boys, I've decided I ain't gonna hang myself. And Miss Devon has decided she don't want to teach school at Bear Creek. Breck gives her the willies. She ain't altogether sure he's human. With me it's love at first sight, and she's scared if she don't marry somebody, Breck will marry her. And she says I'm the best looking prospect she saw so far. So we're heading for war paint to get married. Yours truly, Jack Sprague. Oh, don't take it like that, says Bill, as I give a maddened howl, and impulsively commits to rip up all the saplings in wrench. You've saved his life and brung him happiness. And what have I brung me, I yelled, tearing the limbs off a oak in an effort to relieve my feelings. Culture on Bear Creek is shot to hell, and my honest love has been betrayed. Bill Glanton, the next ranny you chase up into the humbles to commit suicide, he don't have to worry about getting bumped off. I attend to it myself, personal. End of Sharp's Gun Serenade.