 High Horse Rampage by Robert Howard. I got a letter from Aunt Saragosa Grimes the other day which said, Dear Breckenridge, I believe time is softening your cousin Bearfield Buckner's feelings toward you. He was over here to supper the other night, just after he shot the three Evans boys, and he was in the best humor I seen him in since he got back from Colorado. So I just kind of casually mentioned you, and he didn't turn near as purple as he used to every time he heard your name mentioned. He just kind of got a little green around the years, and that might have been on account of him choking on the bar meat he was eating. And all he said was he was going to beat your brains out with a post oak maul if he ever catched up with you, which is the mildest remark he's made about you since he got back to Texas. I believe he's practically give up the idea of sculping you alive and leaving you on the prairie for the buzzards, with both legs broke like he used to swear was his sole ambition. I believe in a year so it would be safe for you to meet dear cousin Bearfield. And if you do have to shoot him, I hope you'll be broad-minded and shoot him in some place which ain't vital, because after all, you know it was your fault to begin with. We are all well and nothing's happened to speak of, except Joe Allison got a arm-broke arguing politics with cousin Bearfield. Hoping you are the same, I begs to remain, your lovin' Aunt Saragossa. It's hardnin' to know a man's kin is thinkin' kindly of him and forgettin' petty grudges. But I can see that Bearfield has been misrepresentin' things and pisonin' Aunt Saragossa's mind again me, otherwise she wouldn't have made that there remark about it bein' my fault. All fair-minded men knows that what happened warn't my fault, that is, all except Bearfield and he's naturally prejudiced, because most of it happened to him. I know Bearfield was some wheres in Colorado when I joined up with old man Brant Mulholland to make a cattle-drive from the pecus to the plat, but that didn't have nothin' to do with it. I expect's to run into Bearfield almost any place where the liquor is red and the shotguns is sawed-offs. He's a liar when he says I come into the high-horse country of purpose to wreck his life and ruin his career. Everything I'd done to him was in kindness and kindredly affection, but he ain't got no gratitude. When I think of the javelina meat I ate and the barefoot bandits I had to associate with whilst livin' in old Mexico to avoid havin' to kill that worthless critter, his present attitude embitteres me. I never had no notion of visitin' high-horse in the first place, but we run out of grub a few miles north of there, so what does old man Mulholland do, but route me out of my blankets before daylight, and says, I want you to take that chuck-wagon to a high-horse and buy some grub. Here's fifty bucks. If you spend a penny of that for anything but bacon, beans, flour, salt, and coffee, I'll have your life, big as you be. One just send the cook, I demanded. He's layin' helpless in a chaparral thicket, reakin' from the fumes of vanilla extract, says old man Mulholland. Anyway, you're responsible for this famine, but for your inhuman appetite we'da had enough grub to last the whole drive. Get goin'. You're the only man in the string I'd trust with money, and I don't trust you no further than I can heave a bull by that tail. Us Elkins is sensitive about such remarks, but old man Mulholland was born with a conviction that everybody is out to swindlin', so I maintained a dignified silence outside a tellin'in' to go to hell, and harnessed the mules to the chuck-wagon and headed for Antioch. I led Captain Kidd behind the wagon, because I knowed if I left him unguarded, he'd kill every he-hoss in the camp before I got back. Well, just as I was comin' to the forks where the trail to Gallego splits off from the high horse road, I heard somebody behind me thumpin' a banger, and singin' Old Nora, he did build the ark, so I pulled up, and pretty soon round the bend come the dirtiest lookin' rig I'd seen since the circus come to poor paint. It was a buggy, all painted red, white and blue, and draw'd by a couple of wall-eyed pentose, and there was a feller in it with a long-tailed coat and a plug-hat, and fancy-checked vest, and a cross-eyed nigger playin' a banger, with a monkey settin' his shoulder. The white man takin' off his plug-hat and made me a bow, and says, Greetings, my mastodonic friend! Can you inform me which of these roads leads to the fair city of high horse? That's leadin' south, I says. Tothern goes east to Gallego. Are you all part of a circus? I resents the implication, says he. In me, you behold the greatest friend to humanity, since the inventor of corn liquor. I am Professor Horace J. Latimer, inventor and soul distributor of that boon to suffering humanity, Latimer's lennative local elixir, good for man or beast. He then heisted a jug out from under the seat, and showed it to me, and a young feller which had just rode up along the road from Gallego. A sure cure, says he. Have you a horse which is nibbled the seductive loco-weed? That huge brute you've got tied to the ingate there looks remarkable wild in his eye now. He ain't loco, I says. He's just bloodthirsty. Then I bid you both a very good day, sirs, says he. I must be on my way to allay the sufferings of mankind. I trust we shall meet in High Horse. So he drove on, and I started to cluck to the mules, when a young feller from Gallego, which had been eyeing me very close, he says, ain't you brick-and-ridge Elkins? When I says I was, he says with some bitterness, that their professor don't have to go to a High Horse to find loco-ed critters. There's a man in Gallego right now, crazy as a bed-bug. It's your own cousin, Bearfield Buckner. What? says I with a violent start, because they hadn't never been no insanity in the family before. Only Bearfield's great-granduncle Esau, who once voted again Hickory Jackson, but he recovered before the next election. It's the truth, says the young feller. He's suffered from a hallucination that he's going to marry a gal over to a High Horse by the name of Ann Wilkins. They ain't even no gal there by that name. He was havin' a fit in the saloon when I left. Me not baron to look on the ruins of a once noble character. I'm feared he'll do his self a injury if he ain't restrained. Hell's fire, I said, in a great agitation, is that the truth? True is my name's Lem Campbell, he declared. I thought, then, is how you're a relation of his'n. If you could kinda get him out to my cabin a few miles south of Gallego, and keep him there a few days, maybe he might get his mind back. I'll do better than that, I says, jumpin' out of the wagon and tiein' the mules. Follow me, I says, forkin' Captain Kidd, and the professor's buggy was just goin' out a side around a bend, and I lit out after it. I was well ahead of Lem Campbell when I overtakin' it. I pulled up beside it in a cloud of dust and demanded, you say that stuff cures man or beast? Absolutely, declared Latimer. Well, turn around and head for Gallego, I said. I got you a patient. But Gallego is but a small island village, he demures. There's a railroad and many saloons at High Horse, and with a human reason at stake, you sats and monders about railroads, I roared, drawin' a forty-five and impulsively shootin' a few buttons off his coat. I buys your whole load a local liquor. Turn around and head for Gallego. I wouldn't think of Argyon, says he, turning pale. Mishak, don't you hear the gentleman? Get out from under that seat and turn these haases around. Yes, sir, says Mishak, and they swung round, just as Lem Campbell galloped up. I hauled out the wad old man Mulholland gimme, and says to him, take this doe on to High Horse and buy some grub, and have it sent out to old man Mulholland's cow camp on the little yankton. I'm going to Gallego, and I'll need the wagon to lug Cousin Bearfield in. I'll take the grub out myself, he declared, grabbing the wad. I knowed I could depend on you as soon as I seen you, so he told me how to get to his cabin, then lit out for High Horse, and I headed back up the trail. When I passed the buggy, I hollered, follow me into Gallego. One of you drive the chuck wagon which is standing at the forks, and don't try to shake me as soon as I get out of sight, neither. I wouldn't think of such a thing, says Latimer with a slight shudder. Go ahead, and fear not, we'll follow you as fast as we can, so I dusted the trail for Gallego. It warn't much of a town, only just one saloon, and as I rode in, I heard a baller in the saloon, and the door flew open, and three or four fellas come sailing out on their heads, and pick their selves up and tore out up the street. Yeah, I says to myself, Cousin Bearfield's in town all right. Gallego looked about like any town does when Bearfield is celebrating. The stores had their doors locked, and the shutters up. Nobody was on the streets, and off down across the flat. I seen a man which I'd taken to be the sheriff, spurring his haws for the hills. I tied Captain Kid to the hitchrail, and as I approached the saloon I nearly fell over a feller which was crawling around on his all fours, with a bartender's apron on, and both eyes swelled shut. Don't shoot, says he. I give up. What happened, I asked. The last thing I remember was telling a feller named Buckner that the democratic platform was silly, says he. Then I think the roof must have fell in or something. Surely one man couldn't have did all of this to me. You don't know my cousin Bearfield. I assured him as I stepped over him and went through the door which tore off its hinges. I'd begun to think that maybe Len Campbell had exaggerated about Bearfield. He seemed to be acting in just his ordinary normal manner. But an instant later I changed my mind. Bearfield was standing at the bar in solitary grandeur, pouring his self a drink, and he was wearing the damnedest look on red, yellow, green, and purple shirt ever I seen in my life. What, I demanded in horror, is that thing you got on? If you're referring to my shirt, he retorted with irritation, it's the classiest piece of goods I could find in Denver. I bought it special for my wedding. It's true, I moaned. He's crazy as hell. I know no sane man would wear a shirt like that. What's crazy about getting married, he snarled, biting the neck off of a bottle and taking a big snort. Folks does it every day. I walked round him cautious, sizing him up and down, which seemed to exasperate him considerable. What the hell's a matter with you, he roared, hitching his harness forward. I got a good mind to be calm, cousin Bearfield, I assumed him. Who's this gal you imagine you're going to marry? I don't imagine nothing about it, you ignorant ape! he retorts contankerously. Her name's Ann Wilkins, and she lives in High Horse. I'm riding over there right away, and we get hitched to day. I shaken my head mournfully and says, You musta inherited this from your great-granduncle Esau. Paps always said Esau's insanity might crop out in the Buckners again sometime. But don't worry, Esau was cured and voted a straight democratic ticket the rest of his life. You can be cured too, Bearfield, and I'm here to do it. Come with me, Bearfield, I says, getting a good wrastlin' grip on his neck. Consarnit, says cousin Bearfield, and went into action. We went to the floor together and started rollin' in the general direction of the back door, and every time he comes up on top he'd bring my head again in the floor, which soon became very irksome. However, about the tenth revolution, I come up on top and pride my thumb out of his teeth, and said, Bearfield, I don't want to have to use force with you, but oh! that was on account of him kickin' me in the back of the neck. My motives was of the loftiest, and they weren't no use in the saloon owner belly-yakin' the way he'd done afterwards. Was it my fault, if Bearfield missed me with a five-gallon dimijon, and busted the mirror behind the bar? Could I help it if Bearfield wrecked the billiard table when I knocked him through it? As for the stove which got busted, all I got to say is itself preservation is the first law of nature. If I hadn't hit Bearfield with a stove, he would have undoubtedly scrambled my features with that busted beer mug he was trying to use like brass-nucks. I've heard maniacs fight awful, but I don't know if Bearfield fit any different than usual. He hadn't forgot his old trick of hookin' his spur in my neck whilst we was rollin' around on the floor, and when he knocked me down with a roulette wheel, and started jumpin' on me with both feet, I thought for a minute I was gonna weaken. But the shame of havin' a maniac in the family revive me. And I've throat him off, and riz, and tore up a section of the brass footrail, and wrapped it round his head. Cousin Bearfield dropped the buoy he'd just drawd, and collapsed. I wiped the blood off of my face, and discovered I could still see out a one eye. I pried the brass rail off of Cousin Bearfield's head, and dragged him out onto the porch by a hind leg. Just as Professor Latimer drove up in his buggy. Mishak was behind him in the chuck-wagon with a monkey, and his eyes was as big and wide as saucers. Where's the patient? asked Latimer. And I said, this here's him. Throw me a rope out of that wagon. We take seem to limb Campbell's cabin where we can dose him till he recovers his reason. Quite a crowd gathered whilst I was tiein' him up, and I don't believe Cousin Bearfield had many friends in Gallego by the remarks they made. When I lifted his limp carcass up into the wagon, one of them asked me if I was a law. And when I replied I warn't, pretty short, he says to the crowd, Why, hell then, boys, what's to keep us from payin' Buckner back for all the liggins he'd give us? I tell ya, it's our chance. He's unconscious and tied up, and this here feller ain't no sheriff. Get a rope, held somebody. We'll hang him! They begun to surge forwards, and Latimer and Mishak was so scared they couldn't hardly hold the lines. But I mounted my horse and pulled my pistols, and says, Mishak, swing that chuck wagon and head south. Professor, you follow him. Hey, you get away from them mules. One of the crowd had tried to grab their bridles and stop him, so I shot a heel off on his boot, and he fell down hollerin' bloody murder. Get out of the way, I bellard, swingin' my pistols on the crowd, and they give back in a hurry. Get goin', I says, firein' some shots under the mules' feet to encourage him, and the chuck wagon went out of Guyagel, jumpin' and bouncin' with Mishak holdin' onto the seat and hollerin' blue ruin, and the professor come right behind it in his buggy. I followed the professor, lookin' back to see nobody didn't shoot me in the back because several men had drawed their pistols. But nobody fired till I was out of good pistol range. Then somebody let loose with a buffalo rifle, but he missed me by at least a foot, so I paid no attention to it, and we was soon out aside of the town. I was a feared bearfield might come to and scare the mules with his bellarin', but that brass rail must have been harder than I thought. He was still unconscious when we pulled up to the cabin which stood in a little wooded cove amongst the hills, a few miles south of Guyagel. I told Mishak to unhitch the mules and turn him into the corral whilst I carried bearfield into the cabin and laid him on a bunk. I told Latimer to bring in all the elixir he had, and he brung ten gallons in one gallon jugs. I give him all the money I had to pay for it. Pretty soon Bearfield come to and he raised his head and looked at professor Latimer sitting on a bunk opposite him in his long tailed coat and plug hat, the cross-eyed nigger and the monkey sitting beside him. Bearfield batted his eyes and said, My God, I must be crazy. This can't be real. Sure, you're crazy, cousin Bearfield, I sued him. But don't worry, we're going to cure you. Bearfield, here, interrupted me with a yell that turned Mishak the color of a fish's belly. Untie me, you son of perdition, he roared, even and flopping on the bunk like a python with a bellyache, straining against his ropes till the veins knotted blue on his temples. I ought to be in high horse right now, getting married. See there, I sighed to Latimer. It's a sad case. We'd better start dosing him right away. Get a drenching horn. What size dose do you give? A quarter at a shot for a hus, he says doubtfully. But we'll start out with that, I says. We can increase the size of the dose if we need to. Ignoring Bearfield's terrible remarks, I was just twisting the cork out of a jug when I heard someone say, What the hell are you doing in my shack? I turned around and seen a bull-legged critter with drooping whiskers glaring at me, kind of pop-eyed from the door. What do you mean your shack, I demanded, irritated at the interruption? This shack belongs to a friend of mine which is linted to us. You're drunk or crazy, says he, clutching at his whiskers convulsively. Will you get out peaceably? Or does I have to get violent? Oh, a cussed claim jumper, eh? I snorted, taken his gun away from him when he drawed it. But he pulled a buoy, so I throwed him out of a shack and shot into the dust around him a few times, just for warning. I'll get even with you, you big lummox! He howled as he ran for a scrawny-looking sorrel he had tied to the fence. I'll fix you yet! he promised blood thirstily as he galloped off, shaking his fist at me. Who do you suppose he was? Wondered Latimer, kind of shaky. And I says, what the hell does it matter? Forget the incident, and help me give Cousin Bearfield his medicine. That was easier said than did. Died up as he was, it was all we could do to get that there elixir down him. I thought I never would get his jaws bright open, using the poker for a lever. But when he opened his mouth to cuss me, we jammed the horn in before he could close it. He left the marks of his teeth so deep on that horn, it looked like it had been in a bar trap. He kept on heaving and kicking till we poured a full dose down him, then he kind of stiffened out, and his eyes went glassy. When we'd taken the horn out, his jaws worked, but he didn't make no sound. But the professor said Haas has always acted like that when they'd had a good healthy shot of the remedy. So we left Mishak to watch him, and me and Latimer went out and sat down on the stoop to rest and cool off. Why ain't Mishak unhitched your buggy, I asked. You mean you expect us to stay here overnight, says he aghast? Overnight, hell, says I. You stay till he's cured if it takes a year. You may have to make up some more medicine if this ain't enough. You mean to say we got to wrestle with that maniac three times a day like we just did? Squawk Latimer. Maybe he won't be so violent when the remedy takes hold, I encouraged him. Latimer looked like he was going to choke, but just then inside the cabin sounds a yell that even made my hair stand up. Cousin Bearfield had found his voice again. We jumped up and Mishak came out of the cabin so fast he knocked Latimer out into the yard and fell over him. The monkey was right behind him, streaking it like his tail was on fire. O Lordy! yelled Mishak, heading for the tall timber. That crazy man had busted him ropes like they was twine. He's going to kill us all, Shull! I run into the shack and seen Cousin Bearfield rolling around on the floor and Cousin amazing, even for him. And to my horror I seen he'd busted some of the ropes so his left arm was free. I pounced on it, but for a few minutes all I was able to do was just a hold on whilst he throwed me hither and thither around the room with freedom and abandon. At last I kind of wore him down and got his arm tied again, just as Latimer run in and done a snake dance all over the floor. Mishak is gone, he howled. He was so scared he run off with a monkey and my buggy and team. It's all your fault. Being too winded to argue, I just heaved Bearfield up on the bonk and staggered over and sat down on the other, whilst the professor pranced and whooped and swore that I owed him for his buggy and team. Listen, I said when I got my win back. I spent all my money for that elixir, but when Bearfield recovers his reason he'll be so grateful he'll be glad to pay you his self. Now forget such sordid trash as money and devote your scientific knowledge to getting Bearfield sane. Sane, hell's Bearfield. Is that what you're doing? Tying me up and poisoning me? I've tasted some awful muck in my life, but I never dreamt nothing could taste as bad as that stuff you poured down me. It plum paralyzes a man. Let me loose, dammit. Will you be calm if I untie you? I asked. I will, he promised heartily, just as soon as I festoon the surrounding forest with your entrails. Still violent, I said sadly. We'd better keep him tied, professor. But I'm due to get married in High Horse right now. Bearfield yelled, given such a convulsive heave that he'd throwed his self clean off of the bunk. It was his own fault, and there weren't no use in him later blaming me because he hit his head on the floor and knocked his self stiff. Well, I said at least we'll have a few minutes of peace and quiet around here. Help me lifting back onto his bunk. What's that? Yelp, the professor, jumping convulsively, as a rifle cracked out in the brush and a bullet whined through the cabin. That's probably drooping whiskers, I says, lifting Cousin Bearfield. I thought I'd seen a Winchester on a saddle. Say, it's getting late. See if you can't find some grub in the kitchen. I'm hungry. Well, the professor had an awful case of the willies, but we found some bacon and beans in the shack and cooked them in Adam, and fed Bearfield, which he'd come to when he smelt the grub cooking. I don't think Latimer enjoyed his meal much because every time a bullet hit the shack he jumped and choked on his grub. Drooping whiskers was pretty persistent, but he was so far back in the brush he wasn't doing no damage. He was a rotten shot anyhow. All his bullets was way too high, as I pointed out to Latimer. But the professor warn't happy. I didn't dare untie Bearfield's let him eat. So I made Latimer set by him and feed him with a knife, and he was scared and shook so he kept spilling hot beans down Bearfield's collar, and Bearfield's language was awful to hear. Time we got through it was long past dark, and drooping whiskers had quit shooting at us. As it later appeared, he'd run out of ammunition and had gone to borrow some cartridges from a ranch house some miles away. Bearfield had quit cussing us. He just laid there and glared at us with the most horrible expression I ever seen on a human being. It made Latimer's hair stand up, but Bearfield kept working as his ropes, and I had to examine him every little while, and now and then put some new ones on him. So I told Latimer we'd better give him another dose, and when we finally got it down him, Latimer staggered into the kitchen and collapsed under the table, and I was as near war out myself as an Elkins can get. But I didn't dare sleep for fear cousin Bearfield to get loose and kill me before I could wake up. I sat down on the other bunk and watched him, and after a while he went to sleep, and I could hear the Professor snoring out in the kitchen. About midnight I lit a candle, and Bearfield woke up and said, Blast your soul! You done woke me up out of the sweetest dream I ever had. I dreamt I was fishing for sharks off Mustang Island. What sweet about that, I asked. I was using you for bait, he said. Hey, what you doing? It's time for your dose, I said. And then the battle started. This time he got my thumb in his mouth and would undoubtedly have chotted off if I hadn't a kind of stunned him with the iron skillet. Before he could recover his self I had the elixir down him with the aid of Latimer which had been woke up by the racket. How long is this going on? Latimer asked despairingly. Ow! It was drooping whiskers again. This time he crawled up pretty close to the house, and his first slug combed the Professor's hair. I'm a patient man, but I've reached my limit, I snarled, blowing out the candle and grabbing a shotgun off the wall. Stay here and watch Bearfield whilst I go out and hang drooping whiskers hide to the nearest tree. I snuck out of the cabin, on the opposite side from where the shot come from, and begun to sneak around in a circle through the brush. The moon was come up and I knowed I could out engine drooping whiskers any Bear Creek man could. Sure enough, pretty soon I slid around a clump of bushes and seen him bending over behind a thicket whilst he took aim at the cabin with a Winchester. So I emptied both barrels into the seat of his britches and he gave a most amazing howl, and jumped higher than I ever seen a bull-legged feller jump, and dropped his Winchester and taken out up the trail toward the north. I was determined to run him clean off the range this time, so I pursued him and shot at him every now and then, but the dirt gun was loaded with bird-shot, and all the shells I'd grabbed along with it was the same. I'd never seen a white man run like he did, I never got close enough to do no real damage to him, and after I'd chased him a mile or so he turned off into the brush and I soon lost him. Well, I made my way back to the road again and was just fixing to step out of the brush and start down the road toward the cabin when I heard hausses coming from the north. So I stayed behind a bush, and pretty soon a gang of men come round the bend, walking their hausses with the moonlight glinting on Winchester's in their hands. Easy now, says one. The cabin ain't far down the road. We'll ease up and surround it before they know what's happening. I wonder what the shooting was we hear to wall back, says another, and kinda nervous. Maybe they was fighting amongst their cells, says yet another, and no matter, we'll rush in and settle the big fellers hash before he knows what's happening. Then we'll string Buckner up. Why, you reckon they kidnapped Buckner for? Some fellers begin. But I waited for no more. I risen up from behind the bushes and the hausses snorted and reared. Hang on, helpless fellow, because he's licked you in a fair fight, eh? I've bellered and let go both barrels amongst them. They was riding so close, grouped, don't think I missed any of them, the way they hollered was disgustin' to hear. The hausses was scared at the flash and roar right in their faces, and they wheeled and bolted, and the whole gang went thunderin' up the road a durn sight faster than they'd come. I sent a few shots after them with my pistols, but they didn't shoot back. And pretty soon the weeping and wailin' died away in the distance. A fine mob they turned out to be, but I thought they might come back, so I sat down behind a bush where I could watch the road from Gallego. And the first thing I knowed, I went to sleep, in spite of myself. When I woke up it was just coming daylight. I jumped up and grabbed my guns, but nobody was in sight. I guessed them Gallego gents had got a belly full. So I headed back to the cabin and when I got there the corral was empty and the chuck wagon was gone. I started on a run for the shack. Then I seen a note stuck on the corral fence. I grabbed it. It said, Dear Elkins, this strain is too much for me. I'm gettin' white haired sittin' and watchin' this devil laying there, glaring at me and wondering all the time how soon he'll bust loose. I'm pulling out. I'm taking the chuck wagon and team in payment for my rig that Meshack ran off with. I'm leavin' the elixir, but I doubt if it'll do Buckner any good. It's for locode critters, not homicidal maniacs. Respectfully yours, Horace J. Latimer Esquire. Hell's fire, I said, wrathfully starting for the shack. I don't know how long it took Barefield to wiggle out of his ropes. Anyway, he was layin' for me behind the door with the iron skillet, and if the handle hadn't broke off when he landed me over the head with it, he mighta did me an injury. I don't know how I ever managed to throw him because he fit like a froth and maniac, and every time he managed to break loose from me, he grabbed a jug of Latimer's local elixir and busted it over my head. By the time I managed to stun him with a table-leg, he'd busted every jug on the place and the floor was swimmin' in elixir, and my clothes was soaked in it, where they wasn't soaked with blood. I fell on him and tied him up again and sought on a bunk, and tried to get my breath back and wondered what in hell to do. Because here the elixir was all gone and I didn't have no way of treatin' Barefield, and the professor had run off with a chuck wagon, so I had no way to get him back to civilization. And then all at once I heard a train whistle away off to the west and remembered that the track passed through just a few miles to the south. I did all I could for Barefield. The only thing I could do now was get him back to his folks, where they could take care of him. I run out and whistled for Captain Kidd, and he busted out from around the corner of the house where he'd been layin' for me and tried to kick me in the belly before I could get ready for him. But I weren't fooled. He's tried that trick too many times. I dodged and gave him a good bust in the nose. Then I threw the bridal and saddle on him and brung cousin Barefield out and threw him across the saddle and headed south. That must have been the road both Meshack and Latimer taken when they run off. It crossed the railroad track about three miles from the shack. The train had been whistlin' for high horse when I first heard it. I got to the track before it come into sight. I flagged it and it pulled up, and the train crew jumped down and wanted to know what the hell I was stoppin' him for. I got a man here which needs medical attention, I says. It's a case of temporary insanity. I'm sendin' him back to Texas. Hell, says they. This train don't go nowhere near Texas. Well, I says, you unload him at Dodge City. He's got plenty of friends there which you'll see that he gets took care of. I'll send word from high horse to his folks in Texas. Tell them to go after him. So they loaded cousin Barefield on, him bein' still unconscious, and I give the conductor his watch and chain and pistol to pay for his fare. Then I headed along the track for high horse. When I got to high horse I tied Captain Kid nigh the track and started for the depot when who should I run smack into but old man Mulholland who immediately gave a howl like a hungry timber-woof. Where's the grub you're all safe? he yelled before I could say nothin'. Why, didn't Lem Campbell bring it out to ya, I asked? I never seen a man by that name, he bellard. Where's my fifty bucks? Heck, I says, he looked honest. Who, yelled old man Mulholland? Who, you pole cat? Lem Campbell, the man I give the dough to for him to buy the grub, I says. Oh, well, never mind. I'll work out the fifty. The old man looked like he was fixin' to choke, he gurgled. Where's my chuck-wagon? I fell or stole it, I said, but I'll work that out too. You won't work for me, phoned the old man, pullin' a gun. You're fired. As for the dough and the wagon, I take some out of your hide here and now. Well, I'd taken the gun away from him, of course, and tried to reason with him. But he just hollered that much louder, and got his knife out and made a pass at me. Now, it always did irritate me for someone to stick a knife in me, so I'd taken it away from him and throwed him into a nearby host trough. It was one of these here V-shaped troughs which narrors together at the bottom, and somehow his fool head got wedged and he was about to drown. Quite a crowded gathered, and they tried pullin' him out by the hind legs, but his feet was wavin' around in the air so wild that every time anyone tried to grab him they got spurred in the face. So I went over to the trough and taken hold of the sides and tore it apart. He fell out and spit up maybe a gallon of water, and the first words he was able to say, he accused me of trying to drown him on purpose, which shows how much gratitude people has got. But a man spoke up and says, Hell, Bigfella didn't do it on purpose. I was right here and I seen it all. And another one said, I seen it as good as you did, and the Bigfella did try to drown him too. Are you callin' me a liar? said the first fellow reachin' for his gun. But just then another man chipped in and said, I don't know what the argument's about, but I bet a dollar you're both wrong. And then some more fellers butted in and everybody started cussin' and holler until it nigh-deafened me. Somebody else reaches for a gun and I seen that as soon as one feller shoots another there is bound to be trouble. So I started to gentle the first one by hittin' him over the head. Next thing I know, some one hollers at me, you big hyenaer, and tries to ruin me with a knife. Pretty soon there's hittin' and shootin' all over the town. High horse is sure on a rampage. I just had finished bluntin' my colts on a varmint's head when I thinks disgustedly. Heck, Alkins, you come to this town on a mission of goodwill. You got business to do. You got your poor family to think about. I started to go on to the depot, but I heard a familiar voice screech above the racket. There he is, sheriff! Arrest the dirt-claim jumper! I whirled around quick, and there was droopin' whiskers. A saddle-blanket rocked around him like a engine, and walkin' pretty sproutle-legged. He was pitin' at me, and hollerin' like I did somethin' to him. Everybody else quieted down for a minute, and he hollered, Arrest him, dirtin'! He throwed me out of my own cabin and ruined my best pants with my own shotgun. I bent a knife river and come back several days quicker than I aimed to, and this here big hyenaer was in charge of my shack. He was too darn big for me to handle, so I come to high horse after the sheriff. Soon as I got three or four hundred bird-shot picked out of my hide, what you got to say about this, asked the sheriff, kinda uncertain, like he weren't enjoying his job for some reason or other. Why, hell, I says disgustedly. I throwed this varmin' out of a cabin, sure, and later peppered his anatomy with bird-shot, but I was in my rights. I was in a cabin which had been lonely by a man named Lem Campbell. Lem Campbell, shriek droopin' whiskers, jumpin' up and down so hard he nigh lost the blanket he was wearin' instead of britches. That worthless critter ain't got no cabin. He was workin' for me till I fired him, just before I started for knife river, for bein' so triflin'. Hell's fire, I says, shocked. Ain't there no honesty any more? Shock stranger, it looks like the joke's on me. And this droopin' whiskers collapsed into the arms of his friends with a low moan. And the sheriff says to me uncomfortably, Don't take this personal, but I'm afraid I'll have to arrest you, if you don't mind. Just then a train whistled away off to the east, and someone says, What the hell? They ain't no train from the east due this time of day. Then the depot agent run out of the depot, waving his arms, yellin', Get them cows off in the track. I just got a flash from knife river, the train's comin' back. A maniac named Buckner busted loose and made the crew turn her around at the switch. Orders gone down the line to open the track all the way. She's comin' under full head of steam. Nobody knows where Buckner's takin' her. He's lookin' for some relative of hisin'. There was a lot of noise comin' down that track. And all of it weren't the noise that a steam engine makes by itself. No. That noise was a different noise all right. That noise was right familiar to me. It struck a chord in my mind, and made me wonder kind of what happened to them train men. Can that be Bearfield Buckner? Wondered a woman. It sounds like him. Well, if it is, he's too late to get Anne Wilkins. What? I yelled. Is they a gal in this town named Anne Wilkins? They was, she snickered. She was to marry this Buckner man yesterday, but he never showed up. And when her old bow, Lynn Campbell, come along with fifty dollars he'd got someplace, she up and married him. They lit out for San Francisco on their honeymoon. What? What's the matter, young man? You look right green in the face. Maybe it's something you ate. It weren't nothin' I ate. It was the thoughts I was thinkin'. Here I had gone and ruined Cousin Bearfield's whole future, and out of kindness. That's what busted me wide open. I had ruined Cousin Bearfield's future out of kindness. My motives had been of the loftiest. I'd tried to cure an ombre what was local from going locower yet. And what was my reward? What was my reward? Just that moment I looks up and seen a cloud of smoke puffin' down the track and they is a roaring, like the roaring of our herd of catamounts. Here she comes round the bend, someone yelled. She's burnin' up the track. Listen to that whistle. Just bustin' it wide open. But I was already a straddled cat and kid and travelin'. The man which says I'm scared of Bearfield is a liar. Elkins fears neither man, beast, nor buckner. But I seen that Lem Campbell had worked me into gettin' Bearfield out of his way. And if I waited till Bearfield got there I'd have to kill him or get killed. And I didn't crave to do neither. I headed south just to save Cousin Bearfield's life, and I didn't stop till I was in Durango. Let me tell you, the revolution I got mixed up in there was a plum restful relief after my association with Cousin Bearfield. End of High Horse Rampage No Cow Herders Wanted 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. No Cow Herders Wanted by Robert Howard I hear a gang of buffalo hunters got together recently in a saloon in Dodd City to discuss ways and means of keepin' their sculps onto their heads whilst collectin' pelts. And pretty soon one of them risen said, You mavericks make me sick. For the last hour you've been chawn-wind about the soldiers trying to keep us north of the Semeron and billy-akin' about the Comanches, Kiewas, and Apaches which yearns for our hair. You took up all that time jawn about such triflin' hazards and planin' steps to take again'em. But you ain't makin' no efforts whatsoever to protect yourselves again the biggest menace they is to the entire buffalo huntin' clan, which is Breckin' Ridge Elkins. That just shows how easy-prejudiced folks is. You'd think I had a grudge again, Buffalo Hunters, the way they take to the brush whenever they seize me comin', and the way they misrepresents what happened at Cordova is plum-disgustful. To hear them talk, you'd think I was the only man there which committed any violence. If that's so, I'd like to know how all them bullet-holes got in the diamond-bar saloon which I was usin' for a fort. Who thro'ed the mayor through that board fence? Who sought fire to Joe Emerson's store just to smoke me out? Who started the row in the first place by stickin' up insultin' signs in public places? They ain't no use in them fellers trying to act innocent. Any unbiased man which was there, and survived to tell the tale, knows I acted all the way through with as much dignity as a man can act, which is being shot at by forty or fifty wild-eyed buffalo skinners. I had never even saw a Buffalo Hunter before, because it was the first time I'd ever been that far east. I was takin' a Pasear into New Mexico with a cow-poke by the name of Glaze Bannock, which I'd met in Arizona. I stopped in Albuquerque, and he went on, hittin' for Dodge City. Well, I warrant an Albuquerque as long as I'd aim to be, a count of goin' broke quicker than I expected. I had just one dollar left after payin' for havin' three fellers sewed up, which had somehow got a foul of my buoy-knife after criticisin' the Democratic Party. I ain't the man to leave my opponents on the public charge. Well, I pulled out of town and headed for the cow-camps on the Pacus, aimin' to get me a job. But I hadn't went far till I met a waddy ridin' in, and he takin' a good look at me and Captain Kiddin' says, You must be him. Wouldn't no other man fit the description he'd give me? Who, I says? Glaze Bannock says he. He'd give me a letter to give the Breckinridge Elkins. So I says, Well, all right, give me it. So he did, and it read his fallers. Dear Breckinridge, I am in jail in Panther Springs for nothin'. All I done was kinda push the depraity sheriff with a little piece of scrap iron. Could I help it if he fell down and fractured his skull, Breckinridge? But they say I got to pay ten dollars fine, and I have not got no such money, Breckinridge. But old man Garnett over on Buck Creek owes me ten bucks, so you collect from him and come and pay me out of this hen coop. The food is terrible, Breckinridge. Hustle. Your misjudged friend. Glaze Bannock, Esquire. Glaze never could stay out of trouble, not bein' tactful like me. But he was a pretty good sort of ombre. So I headed for Buck Creek and collected the money off a old man Garnett, which was somewhat reluctant to give up the dough. In fact, he bit me severely in the hind leg whilst I was settin' on him, prying his fingers loose from that there ten spot. And when I rode off down the road with a denero, he run into his shack and got his buffalo gun and shot at me till I was clean out of sight. But I ignored his lack of hospitality. I knowed he was too dizzy to shoot straight. A count of him havin' accidentally banged his head on a fence post, which I happened to have in my hand whilst we was rastlin'. I left him wavin' his gun and howlin' damnation and destruction. And I was well on the road for Panther Springs before I discovered, to my disgust, that my shirt was a complete ruin. I considered goin' back and demandin' that old man Garnett buy me a new one, a count of his bein' the one which tore it. But he was such a unreasonable old cuss, I decided to gin it and rode on to Panther Springs, arrivin' there shortly after noon. The first critter I seen was the perdiest gal I'd saw in a coon's age. She come out of a store and stopped to talk to a young cow-puncher she called Curly. A rain-cappin' kid around behind a corn crib so she wouldn't see me in my scarecrow condition. After a while she went on down the street and went into a cabin with a fence around it and a front porch, which showed her folks was wealthy. And I come out from behind the crib and says to the young buck which was smirkin' after her and combin' his hair with the other hand. I says, Who is that there gal? The one you was just talkin' to. Judith Granger says he. Her folks lives over to Sheba but her old manbrunger over here on account of all the fellers over there was about to cut each other's throats over her. He's makin' her stay a spell with her Aunt Henrietta, which is a war-horse if I ever seen one. The boys is so scared of her they don't dasst try to spark Judith, except me. I persuaded the old mud hen to let me call on Judith and I'm goin' over there for supper. That's what you think, I says gently. Fact is though Miss Granger has got a date with me. She didn't tell me he begun scowling. She don't know it herself yet, I says, but I'll tell her you was sorry you couldn't show up. Why you, he says, blood thirsty and started for his gun when a feller who'd been watchin' us from the store door hollered by golly if it ain't Breckenridge Elkins. Breckenridge Elkins gasped curly and he dropped his gun and keeled over with a low gurgle. As he got a weak heart I asked the feller which he'd recognize me and he said, aw, he just fainted when he realized how close he come to throwin' a gun on the terror of the Humboldts. Drag him over to the Hostroff boys and throw some water on him. Breckenridge, I owns that grocery store there and your paw knows me right well. As a special favor to me, will you refrain from killin' anybody in my store? So I said, all right. Then I remembered my shirt was tore too bad to call on a young lady in. I generally hasn't made the order but they weren't time for that if I was gonna eat supper with Ms. Judith. So I went into the general store and bought me one. I don't know why they don't make shirts big enough to fit reasonable sized men like me. You'd think nobody but midgets wore shirts. The biggest one in the store weren't only 18 in the collar but I didn't figure on buttonin' the collar anyway. If I'd tried to button it it woulda strangled me. So I give the feller five dollars and put it on. It fit pretty close but I believed I could wear it if I didn't have to expand my chest or something. Of course I had to use some of Glaze's dough to pay for it with but I didn't reckon he'd mine considering all the trouble I was going to to get him out of jail. I wrote down the alley behind the jail and come to a barred window and said, hey, Glaze looked out, kind of peeked, like his grub weren't settin' well with him. But he brightened up and says, Hooray! I've been on edge expecting you. Go on round to the front door-brack and pay them coyotes a tin spot and let's go. The grub I've been gettin' here would turn a Lobo's stomach. Well, I says, I ain't exactly got the tin buck's Glaze. I had to have a shirt because mine got tore, so he gave a yelp like a stricken elk and grabbed the bars convulsively. Are you crazy? he hollered. You squanders my money on linens and fine raiment whilst I languishes in a prison dungeon? Be calm, I advised. I still got five bucks a yarn and want a mine. All I got to do is step down to a gambling-hall and build it up. Build it up, says he fiercely. Listen, blast your hide. Does you know what I've had for breakfast, dinner, and supper ever since I was thrown in here? Beans! Beans! Beans! Here he was so overcome by emotion that he choked on the word. And they ain't even first-class beans neither, he said bitterly, when he could talk again. They're full of grit and wormholes, and I think the mech's cook washes his feet in the pot he cooks them in. Well, I says, such cleanliness is to be encouraged, because I never heard of one before which washed his feet in anything. Don't worry. I'll get in a poker game and win enough to pay your fine and plenty over. Well, get at it, he begged. Get me out before supper time. I want a steak with earnings so bad I can smell it. So I headed for the Golden Steer Saloon. They weren't many men in there just then, but there was a poker game going on, and when I told them I craved a set in, they looked me over and made room for me. It was a black-whiskered cuss which said he was from Cordova, which was dealing. And the first thing I noticed was he was dealing his own hand off the bottom of the deck. The others didn't seem to see it, but us Bear Creek folks has got eyes like hawks, otherwise we'd never live to get grown. So I says, I don't know what the rules is in these parts, but where I come from we almost always deal off the top of the deck. Are you accusing me of cheating? He demands passionately, fumbling for his weapons, and in his agitation dropping three or four extra aces out of his sleeves. I wouldn't think of such a thing, I says. Probably them marked yards I see sticking out of your boot tops is merely souvenirs. For some reason this seemed to infuriate him to the point of drawing a booey knife. So I hit him over the head with a brass cuspidor, and he fell under the table with a holler groan. Some of the fellers run in and looked at his boots sticking out from under the table, and one of them said, hey, I'm the justice of the peace. You can't do that. This is an orderly town. And another one said, I'm the sheriff. If you can't keep the peace, I'll have to arrest you. This was too much, even for a mild-mannered man like me. Shut your fool heads, I roared, brandishing my fists. I come here to pay glazed banicks fine and get him out of jail, peaceable and orderly, and I'm trying to raise the dough like a deleted gentleman. But by golly, if you hyena's pushes me beyond endurance, I'll tear down the cuspid jail and snake him out without paying no blasted fine. The justice of the peace turned white. He says to the sheriff, let him alone. I've already bought these here new boots on credit on the strength of them ten bucks we get from Bannock. But says the sheriff dubiously and the J.P. hiss fiercely. Shut up, you blame fool. I just now recognized him. That's Breckenridge Elkins. The sheriff turned pale and swallowed his Adam's apple and says feebly, excuse me, I, uh, I ain't feeling so good. I guess it's something I ate. I think I'd better ride over to the next county and get me some pills. But I don't think he was very sick from the way he run after he got outside the saloon. If they'd been a jackrabbit ahead of him, he would have trampled the gizzard out of it. Well, they'd taken the black whiskered jant out from under the table and started pouring water on him, and I seen it was now about supper time, so I went over to the cabin where Judith lived. I was met at the door by an iron-jawed female about the size of an ordinary barn, which gave me a suspicious look and says, Well, what you want? I'm looking for your sister, Miss Judith, I says, taking off my stetson, politely. What you mean my sister, says she with a scowl but a much milder tone. I'm her aunt. You don't mean to tell me, I said, looking plum astonished. Why, when I first seen you, I thought you was her herself, and couldn't figure out how nobody but a twin sister could have such a resemblance. Well, I can see right off that youth and beauty is a family characteristic. Go along with you, you young scoundrel, says she, smirking and giving me a nudge with her elbow, which would have busted anybody's ribs but mine. You can't soft-soap me. Come in, I'll call Judith. What's your name? Breckenridge Elkins, ma'am, I says. So, says she, looking at me with new interest. I've heard tell of you, but you got a lot more sense than they give you credit for. Oh, Judith! she called and the winders rattled when she let her voice go. You got company! Judith come in, looking purtiered never, and when she seen me, she batted her eyes and recoiled violently. Who—who's that? she demanded wildly. Mr. Breckenridge Elkins of Bear Creek, Nevada, says her aunt, the only young man I've met in this whole darn town which has got any sense. Well, come on in and set. Supper's on the table. We was just waiting for curly Jacobs, she says to me, but if the varmint can't get here on time, he can go hungry. He can't come, I says. He sent word by me he's sorry. Well, I ain't, snorted Judith's aunt. I give him permission to, just because I figured even a bodacious flirt like Judith wouldn't cotton to such a sap-sucker, but Aunt Henrietta, protested Judith, blushing. I can't abide the sight of such weaklings, says Aunt Henrietta, settling herself carefully, into a raw-hide bottom chair which groaned under her weight. Drag up that bench, Breckenridge. It's the only thing in the house which has a chance of holding your weight outside the Sophie in the front room. Don't argue with me, Judith. I says curly Jacobs ain't no fit man for a gal like you. Didn't I see him strain his fool back, trying to lift that there barrel of salt I wanted botched to the smoke-house? I finally had to tote it myself. What makes young men so blame-spindlin' these days? Pat blames a Republican party, I says. Ha, ha, ha! says she, in a guffaw which shook the doors on their hinges and scared the cat into convulsions. Young man, you got a great sense of humor. Ain't he, Judith, says she, cracking a beef-bone betwixt your teeth like it was a pecan. Judith says, yes, kind of pallid, and all during the meal, she eyed me kind of nervous like she was expecting me to go into a war-dance or something. Well, when we was through and Aunt Henrietta had had enough to keep a tribe as sue through a hard winter, she rizz up and says, now clear out of here whilst I wash as the dishes, but I must help with them, says Judith. Aunt Henrietta snorted. What makes you so eager to work all of a sudden? You want your guest to think you ain't eager for his company? Get out of here. So she went. But I paused to say kind of doubtful to Aunt Henrietta. I ain't sure Judith likes me much. Don't pay no attention to her whims, says Aunt Henrietta, picking up the water barrel to fill her dishpan. She's a flirtatious minx. I've took a liking to you, and if I decide you're the right man for her, you're as good as hitched. Nobody could never do nothing with her but me. But she's learned who her boss is, after having to eat her meals off the metal board a few times. Go on in, quarter. Don't be backward. So I went on in the front room, and Judith seemed to kind of warm up to me, and asked me a lot of questions about Nevada. And finally she says she's heard me spoke of as a fighting man, and hoped I ain't had no trouble in Panther Springs. I told her no, only I had to hit one black whiskered thug from Cordova over the head with a cuspidor. At that she jumped up like she'd sought on a pin. That was my uncle Jay Bez Granger, she hollered. How dast you, you big bully! You ought to be ashamed of great big men like you, picking on a little feller like him, which don't weigh an ounce over two hundred and fifteen pounds. Aw, shucks, I said contritely. I'm sorry, Judith. Just as I was beginning to like you, she mourned. Now you write the pap and prejudice him again you. You just gotta go and find him and apologize to him, and make friends with him. Aw, heck, I said. But she wouldn't listen to nothing else. So I went out and clump on the Captain Kidd, went back to the Golden Steer, and when I come in everybody crawled under the tables. What's the matter with you all, I said fretfully? I'm looking for Jay Bez Granger. He's left for Cordova, says the barkeeper, sticking his head up from behind the bar. Well, there weren't nothing to do but follow him. So I rode by the jail, and Glaze was at the window, and he says eagerly, Are you ready to pay me out? Be patient, Glaze, I says. I ain't got the dough yet, but I'll get it somehow as soon as I get back from Cordova. What? he shrieked. Be calm like me, I advised. You don't see me getting all head up, do you? I gotta go catch Judith Granger's Uncle Jay Bez, and apologize to the old illegitimate for busting his conk with a spittoon. I'd be back to Mara, or the next day at the most. Well, his language was scandalous, considering all the trouble I was going to, just a giddy amount of jail. But I refused to take offense. I headed back to the Granger cabin, and Judith was on the front porch. I didn't see Aunt Henrietta. She was back in the kitchen washing dishes and singing, They've laid Jesse James in his grave, in a voice which loosened the shingles on the roof. So I told Judith where I was going, and asked her to take some pies and cakes and things to the jail for Glaze. A count of the beans was ruined in his stomach, and she said she would. So I pulled steaks for Cordova. It laid quite a ways to the east, and I figured to catch up with Uncle Jay Bez before he got there. But he had a long start, and was on a mighty good house, I reckon. Anyway, Captain Kidd got one of his hellfire streaks, and insisted on stopping every few miles to buck all over the landscape, till I finally got sick of his muleishness and busted him over the head with my pistol. By this time we'd lost so much time, I never overtaken Uncle Jay Bez at all, and it was getting daylight before I come inside of Cordova. Well, about sun up, I come on to an old feller and his wife in a ramshackle wagon, drawn by a couple of skinny mules with a hound dog. One wheel had run off into a sinkhole, and the mules were so poor and good for nothing, they couldn't pull it out. So I got off and laid hold onto the wagon, and the old man said, Wait a minute, young feller, whilst me and the old lady gets out to lighten the load. What for, I asked, set still. So I high-sid the wheel out, but if it had been stuck any tighter, I might have had to use both hands. My golly, says the old man, I had a sore nobody but Breckenridge Elkins could do that. Well, I'm him, I says, and they both looked at me with reverence, and I asked them, was they going to Panther Springs? We aim to, says the old woman, kind of hopeless. One place is as good as another to old people, which has been robbed out of their life's savans. You all been robbed, I asked, shocked. Well, says the old man, I ain't in the habit of burdening strangers with my woes, but as a matter of fact we has. My name's Hopkins. I had a ranch down on the pecus, till the drowth wiped me out, and we moved to Panther Springs with what little we saved from the wreck. In an ill-advised moment, I started speculating on muffler hides. I put in all my cash buying a load over on the Yano Esticado, which I aimed to freight to Santa Fe, and sell at a fat profit. I happened to know they're fetching a higher price there now than the air in Dodge City. And last night the whole blame cargo disappeared into thin air, as it were. We was stopping at Cordova for the night, and the old lady was sleeping in the hotel, and I was camped at the edge of town with the wagon. During the night somebody snuck up and hit me over the head. When I come to this morning, hides, wagon, and team was all gone, and no trace. When I told the city marshal, he just laughed at my face and asked me how I'd expect him to track down a load of buffalo hides in a town that was full of them. Dang him, they was packed and corded neat with my old brand, the Circle A, marked on them in red paint. Joe Emerson, which owns the saloon and most all the town, taken a mortgage on our little shack in Panther Springs, and loaned me enough money to buy this measly team and wagon. If we can get back to Panther Springs, maybe I can get enough Freighton to do so we can kind of live anyway. Well, I said, much moved by the story. I'm going to Cordova, and I'll see if I can't find your hides. Thank ye kindly, Breckenridge, says he, but I gotta ID them hides is already far on their way to Dodge City. Well, I hopes you has better luck in Cordova than we did. So they drive on west, and I rode east, and got to Cordova about an hour after sunup. As I come into the age of town, I've seen a signboard about the size of a door stuck up which says on it in big letters. No cowherders allowed in Cordova. What the hell does that mean? I demanded wrathfully of a feller which had stopped by it to light him a cigarette. And he says, just what it says. Cordova's full of buffalo hunters in for a spree, and they don't like cowboys. Big as you be, I'd advise you to light a shuck for somewheres else. Bull Krogan put that sign up, and you ought to see what happened to the last puncher which ignored it. Expletive deleted, I says, in a voice which shook the beans out of the mesquite trees for miles around. And so saying I pulled up the sign, and headed for Main Street with it in my hand. I am as peaceful and mild mannered a critter as you could hope to meet, but even with me a man can go too damn far. This here's a free country, and no dirned hairy necked buffalo skinner can draw boundary lines for us cow punchers and get away with it. Not whilst I can pull a trigger. They was very few people on the street, and such as was looked at me surprised like. Where the hell is them full buffalo hunters, I roared. And a feller says, They're all gone to the racetrack east of town to race horses, except Bull Krogan, which has taken his self a dram in the diamond bar. So I lit and stalked into the diamond bar with my spurs of jingling and my disposition getting thornier every second. They was a big hairy critter in buckskins and moccasins standing at the bar drinking whiskey, and talking to the bar-keep, and a flashy dressed gent with slick hair and a diamond haushu stick-pin. They all turned and gaited at me, and the hunter retched for his belt where he was wearing the longest knife I ever seen. Who are you, he gasped. A calm and I roared, brandishing the sign. Are you Bull Krogan? Yeah, says he. What about it? So I busted the signboard over his head, and he fell onto the floor yelling bloody murder and trying to draw his knife. The board was splintered, but the stake it had been fastened to was a pretty good-sized post, so I took and beat him over the head with it till the bartender tried to shoot me with a sawed-off shotgun. I grabbed the barrel, and the charge just busted a shelfload of whiskey bottles, and I throwed the shotgun through a nearby window. As I neglected to get the bartender loose from it first, it appears he went along with it. Anyway, he picked himself up off the ground, bleeding freely, and head in east down the street shrieking, Help! Murder! A cowboy is killing Krogan and Emerson! Which was a lie, because Krogan had crawled out the front door on his all fours whilst I was tending to the bar-keep. And if Emerson had showed any judgment he wouldn't have got his skull played open to the bone. How did I know he was just trying to hide behind the bar? I thought he was going for a gun he had hid back there. As soon as I realized the truth, I dropped what was left of the Bung Starter and commenced pouring water on Emerson, and pretty soon he sought up and looked round wild-eyed, with blood and water dripping off his head. What happened? he gurgled. Nothing to get excited about, I assured him, knocking the neck off a bottle of whiskey. I'm looking for a gent named J. Bez Granger. It was at this moment that the city marshal opened fire on me through the back door. He grazed my neck with his first slug, and would probably have hit me with the next if I hadn't shot the gun out of his hand. He then run off down the alley. I pursued him and catched him when he looked back over his shoulder and hit a garbage can. I'm an officer of the law, he howled, trying to get his neck out from under my foot so as he could draw his buoy. Don't you dust assault no officer of the law? I ain't, I snarled, kicking the knife out of his hand and kind of casually wiping my spur across his whiskers. But an officer which lets an old man get robbed of his buffalo hides, then laughs in his face, ain't deserving to be no officer. Give me that badge. I demote you to a private citizen. I then hung him onto a nearby hen roost by the seat of his britches and went back up the alley, ignoring his impassioned profanity. I didn't go in at the back door of the saloon because I figured Joe Emerson might be laying to shoot me as I came in. So I went around the saloon to the front and run smack onto a mob of buffalo hunters which had evidently been summoned from the racetrack by the barkeep. They had bull Krogan at the Hostroff and was trying to wash the blood off of him, and they was all yelling and cussing so loud they didn't see me at first. There we'd be defied in our own lair by a deleted cow shepherd, held Krogan. Scatter and comb the town for him. He's hiding down some back alley like is not. We'll hang him in front of the diamond bar and stick his scalp onto a pole as a warning to all his breed. Just let me lay eyes on to him again. Well, all you gotta do is turn around, I says, and they all whirled so quick they dropped Krogan into the Hostroff. They gape at me with their mouths open for a second. Krogan rears out of the water snorting and spluttering and yelling, Well, what are you waiting on? Grab him! It was in trying to obey his instructions that three of them got their skulls fractured, and whilst the others were stumbling and falling over them, I backed into the saloon and pulled my six shooters, and issued a defiance to the world at large, and buffalo hunters in particular. They run for cover behind hitch racks and troughs and porches and fences, and a feller and a plug hat came out and says, Gentlemen, let's don't have no bloodshed within the city limits. As mayor of this fair city, I—it was at this instant that Krogan picked him up and throwed him through a board fence into a cabbage patch, where he lay till somebody revived him a few hours later. The hunters then all started shooting at me with fifty-caliber, sharps buffalo rifles. Emerson, which was hiding behind a Schlitz signboard, hollered something amazing—a count of the holes which was being knocked into the roof and walls. The big sign in front was shot to splinters, and the mirror behind the bar was riddled, and all the bottles on the shelves and the hanging lamps was busted. It's plum astonishing the damage a bushel or so of them big slugs can do to a saloon. They went right through the walls. If I hadn't kept moving all the time, I'd have been shot to rags. And I did get several bullets through my clothes, and three or four grazed some hide off. But even so I had the edge, because they couldn't see me only for glimpses now and then through the windows, and was shooting more or less blind, because I had them all spotted and slung led so fast and closed they didn't dust show their selves long enough to take good aim. But my cartridges began to run short, so I made a sally out into the alley just as one of them was trying to sneak in the back door. I hear Tell he's very bitter toward me about his teeth, but I like to know how he expects to get kicked in the mouth without losing some fangs. So I jumped over his writhe and carcass and run down the alley, winging three or four as I went and collecting a pistol ball in my hind leg. They was hiding behind board fences on each side of the alley, but them boards wouldn't stop a 45 slug. They all shot at me, but they misjudged my speed. I move a lot faster than most folks expect. Anyway, I was out of the alley before they could get their wits back, and as I went past the hitch-rack where Captain Kidd was champing and snorting to get into the fight, I grabbed my Winchester 45-90 off of the saddle and run across the street. The hunters, which was still shooting at the front of the diamond bar, seen me, and that's when I got my spurs shot off, but I ducked into Emerson's general store whilst the clerks all run shrieking out the back way. As for that misguided hunter, which tried to confiscate Captain Kidd, I ain't to blame for what happened to him. They're going around now, saying I train Captain Kidd special to jump onto a buffalo hunter with all four feet after kicking him through a corral fence. That's a lie. I didn't have to train him. He thought of it himself. The idiot which tried to take him ought to be thankful he was able to walk with crutches inside a ten months. Well, I was now on the same side of the street as the hunters was, so as soon as I started shooting at him from the store windows, they run across the street and taken refuge in a dance hall right across from the store and started shooting back at me. And Joe Emerson hollered louder than ever because he owned the dance hall too. All the citizens of the town had bolted into the hills long ago and left us to fight it out. Well, I piled sides of pork and barrels of pickles and bolts of calico in the windows and shot over them, and I built my barricades so solid even them buffalo guns couldn't shoot through them. They was plenty of colt and winchester ammunition in the store and whiskey, so I knowed I could hold the fort indefinite. Them hunters could tell they weren't doing no damage, so pretty soon I heard Krogan Ballerin go get that cannon the soldiers loaned the folks to fight the apaches with. It's over behind the city hall. Bring it in at the back door. We'll blast him out of his fort by golly. You'll ruin my store, screamed Emerson. I'll ruin your face if you don't shut up, a pine Krogan. Go on. Well, they kept shooting, and so did I, and I must have hit some of them judging from the blood-curdling yells that went up from time to time. Then a most remarkable racket of cussin busted out, and from the remarks passed I gathered they'd brung the cannon and somehow got it stuck in the back door of the dance hall. The shooting kind of died down while they rastled with it, and in the lull I heard me a noise out behind the store. They weren't no windows in the back, which is why they hadn't shot at me from that direction. I snuck back and looked through a crack in the door, and I seen a feller in the dry gully which run along behind the store, and he had a kerosene, can, and some matches, and was set in the store on fire. I just started to shoot when I recognized Judith Granger's Uncle Jaybez. I laid down my Winchester and opened the door soft and easy, and pounced out on him, but he let out a squawk and dodged and run down the gully. The shooting across the street broke out again, but I give no heed because I weren't going to let him get away from me again. I runned down the gully about a hundred yards and catched him, and taken his pistol away from him, but he got hold of a rock which he hammered me on the head with till I nigh lost patience with him. But I didn't want an injury on account of Judith, so I merely kicked him in the belly than throating before he could get his breath back and sod on him. And says, last your hide, I apologize for lambing you with that there cuspidore. Does you accept my apology, you pot-bellied haustheaf? Never, says he rampacious. A Granger never forgets. So I taken him by the ears and beat his head again a rock till he gasps, let up. I accept your apology, you deleted expletive. All right, I says, a risin' and dustin' my hands. And if you ever goes back on your word, I'll hang your mangy hide to the—it was at that moment that Emerson's general store blew up, with a ear-splittin' bang. What the hell, shrieked Uncle J. Bez, staggering, as the air was filled with fragments of groceries and pieces of flyin' timber. Aw, I said disgustedly. I reckon a stray bullet hit a barrel of gunpowder. I aimed to move them barrels out of the line of fire, but kind of forgot about it. But Uncle J. Bez had bit the dust. I hear tell he claims I hit him, unexpected with a wagon-pole. I didn't do no such thing. It was a section of the porch-roof which fell on him, and if he'd been watchin' and ducked like I did, it wouldn't have hit him. I clumped out of the gully and found myself opposite from the diamond-bar. Bull Krogan and the hunters was pourin' out of the dance-hall, whoopin' and yellin', and Joe Emerson was tearin' his hair and howlin' like a timber-wolf with a belly-ache, because his store was blowed up and his saloon was shot all to pieces. But nobody paid no attention to him. They went surgin' across the street, nobody seen me when I crossed it from the other side and went into the alley that run behind the saloon. I run on down until I got to the dance-hall, and sure enough the cannon was stuck in the back door. It weren't wide enough for the wheels to get through. I heard Krogan roarin' across the street. Poke into the debris, boys. Elkin's remains must be in here somewhere's unless he was plum dissolved. That crash! They was a splinter in a planks, and somebody yelled, hey, Krogan's fell into a well or somethin'. I heard Joe Emerson shriek. Damn it, stay away from there! Don't— I tore away a section of the wall, and got the cannon loose and run it up to the front door of the dance-hall and looked out. Them hunters was all ganged up with their backs to the dance-hall, all bent over whilst they was apparently trying to pull Krogan out of some hole he'd fell into head first. His cussin' sounded kinda muffled. Joe Emerson was havin' a fit at the edge of the crowd. Well, they'd loaded that their cannon with nails and spikes and lead slugs and carp attacks and such lack. But I put in a double handful of beer-bottle caps just for good measure, and touched her off. It made a noise like a thunder-clap, and the recoil knocked me about 17 foot. But you should've heard the yell them hunters let out when that hurricane of scrap iron hit him in the seat of the britches. It was amazing. To my disgust, though, it didn't kill none of them. Seems like the charge was too heavy for the powder, so all it done was knock them off their feet and tear the britches off of them. However, it swept the ground clean of them like a broom, and left them all standin' on their necks in the gully behind where the store had been, except Krogan, whose feet I still perceived stickin' up out of the ruins. Before they could recover their wits, if they ever had any, I run across the street and started beatin' them over the head with a pillar I tore off the saloon porch. Some, such as was Abel, a riz and fled howlin' into the desert. I here tell some of them didn't stop till they got to Dodge City, haven't run right through a Keowa War Party and scared them poor engines till they turned white. Well, I laid hold to Krogan's legs and pulled him out of the place he had fell into, which seemed to be a kind of cellar which had been under the floor of the store. Krogan's conversation didn't know ways make sense, and every time I let go of him he fell on his neck. So I abandoned him in disgust, and looked down into the cellar to see what was in it that Emerson should have took so much to keep it hid. Well, it was plumb full of buffalo hides, all corded into neat bundles. At that Emerson started to run, but I grabbed him and reached down with the other hand and hauled a bundle out. It was marked with a red circle A brand. So, I says to Emerson, impulsively busting him in the snout, you stole old man Hopkins hide yourself. Produce that mortgage. Where's that old man's wagon and teen? I got him hid in my livery stable, he moaned. Go hitch him up and bring him here, I says, and if you try to run off, I'll track you down and sculp you alive. I went and got Captain Kidd and Watering. When I got back, Emerson come up with the wagon and teen, so I told him to load on them hides. I'm a ruined man, sniveled he. I ain't able to load no hides. The exercise'll do you good, I assured him, kicking the seat loose from his pants, so he gave to harass Howell and went to work. About this time Krogan sat up and gape at me weirdly. It all comes back to me, he gurgled. We was going to run Breckenridge Elkins out of town. He then fell back and went into shrieks of hysterical laughter, which was most hair-raising to hear. The wagons loaded. Panted Joe Emerson, take it and get out and be quick. Well, let this be a lesson to you, I says, ignoring his hostile attitude. Honesties always the best policy. I then hid him over the head with a wagon spoke, and clucked to the hausses, and we headed for Panthers Springs. Old man Hopkins Mules had give out half way to Panthers Springs. Him and the old lady was camped there when I drove up. I've never seen folks so happy in my life as they was when I handed the teen, wagon, hides, and mortgage over to them. They both cried, and the old lady kissed me, and the old man hugged me, and I thought I'd plumb die of embarrassment before I could get away. But I did finally, and headed for Panthers Springs again, because I still had to raise the dough to get Glaze out of jail. I got there about sun-up, and headed straight for Judas' cabin to tell her I'd made friends with Uncle J. Bez. Aunt Henrietta was cleaning a carpet on the front porch and looking mad. When I come up, she stared at me and said, Good land, Breckenridge, what happened to you? Oh, nothing, I says, just an argument with them fool Buffalo hunters over at Cordova. They'd cleaned that old gent and his old lady of their Buffalo hides to say nothing of their hausses and wagon, so I rid on to see what I could do about it. Them hairy-necked hunters didn't believe me when I said I wanted them hides, so I had to persuade them a little. Only thing is, they is saying now, I was to blame for the whole affair. I apologized to Judas' uncle, too. Had to chase him from here to Cordova. Where's Judith? Gone, she says, stabbing her broom at the floor so vicious she broke the handle off. When she'd taken them pies and cakes to your fool friend down in the jail-house, she'd taken a shine to him at first sight. So she borrowed the money from me to pay his fine. Said she wanted a nude dress to look nice in for you, the deceitful hussy. If I'd known what she wanted it for, she wouldn't have got it. She'd got something across my knee. But she paid him out of the jug and—and what happened then? I says wildly. She left me a note, snarled Aunt Henrietta, given the carpet a whack that tore it into six pieces. She said, anyway, she was a-feared if she didn't marry him, I'd make her marry you. She must have sent you off on that wild goose chase of purpose. Then she met him, and, well, they snuck out and got married, and are now on their way to Denver for their honeymoon. Hey, what's the matter? Are you sick? I be, I gurgled. The ingratitude of mankind cuts me to the gizzard. After all I did for Glaze Bannock. Well, by golly, this is a lesson to me. I bet I don't never work my fingers to the quick getting another Ranny out of jail. End of No Cow Herders Wanted