because if they was they wouldn't be able to howl like that. But I expect some of 'em would of been hurt if my head and shoulders hadn't kind of broke the fall of the roof and wall-logs.
I located Jackson by his voice, and pulled pieces of roof board and logs off until I come onto his laig, and I pulled him out by it and laid him on the ground to get his wind back, because a beam had fell acrost his stummick and when he tried to holler he made the funniest noise I ever heard.
I then kind of rooted around amongst the debris and hauled Old Man Hopkins out, and he seemed kind of dazed and kept talking about earthquakes.
'You better git to work extricatin' yore misguided kin from under them logs, you hoary-haired old sarpent,' I told him sternly. 'After that there display of ingratitude I got no sympathy for you. In fact, if I was a short-tempered man I'd feel inclined to violence. But bein' the soul of kindness and generosity, I controls my emotions and merely remarks that if I wasn't mild-mannered as a lamb, I'd hand you a boot in the pants--like this!'
I kicked him gentle.
'Owww!' says he, sailing through the air and sticking his nose to the hilt in the dirt. 'I'll have the law on you, you derned murderer!' He wept, shaking his fists at me, and as I departed with my captive I could hear him chanting a hymn of hate as he pulled chunks of logs off of his bellering relatives.
Jackson was trying to say something, but I told him I warn't in no mood for perlite conversation and the less he said the less likely I was to lose my temper and tie his neck into a knot around a black jack.
CAP'N KIDD MADE THE hundred miles from the Mezquital Mountains to Bear Creek by noon the next day, carrying double, and never stopping to eat, sleep, nor drink. Them that don't believe that kindly keep their mouths shet. I have already licked nineteen men for acting like they didn't believe it.
I stalked into the cabin and throwed Dick Jackson down on the floor before Ellen which looked at him and me like she thought I was crazy.
'What you finds attractive about this coyote,' I said bitterly, 'is beyond the grasp of my dust-coated brain. But here he is, and you can marry him right away.'
She said: 'Air you drunk or sun-struck? Marry that good-for-nothin', whiskey-swiggin', card-shootin' loafer? Why, ain't been a week since I run him out of the house with a buggy whip.'
'Then he didn't jilt you?' I gasped.
'Him jilt me?' she said. 'I jilted him!'
I turned to Dick Jackson more in sorrer than in anger.
'Why,' said I, 'did you boast all over Chawed Ear about jiltin' Ellen Elkins?'
'I didn't want folks to know she turned me down,' he said sulkily. 'Us Jacksons is proud. The only reason I ever thought about marryin' her was I was ready to settle down, on the farm pap gave me, and I wanted to marry me a Elkins gal so I wouldn't have to go to the expense of hirin' a couple of hands and buyin' a span of mules and--'
They ain't no use in Dick Jackson threatening to have the law on me. He got off light to what's he'd have got if pap and my brothers hadn't all been off hunting. They've got terrible tempers. But I was always too soft-hearted for my own good. In spite of Dick Jackson's insults I held my temper. I didn't do nothing to him at all, except escort him in sorrow for five or six miles down the Chawed Ear trail, kicking the seat of his britches.
THE END
CONTENTS
THE HAUNTED MOUNTAIN
By Robert E. Howard
The reason I despises tarantulas, stinging lizards, and hydrophobia skunks is because they reminds me so much of Aunt Lavaca, which my Uncle Jacob Grimes married in a absent-minded moment, when he was old enough to know better.
That-there woman's voice plumb puts my teeth on aidge, and it has the same effect on my horse, Cap'n Kidd, which don't generally shy at nothing less'n a rattlesnake. So when she stuck her head out of her cabin as I was riding by and yelled 'Breckinri-i-idge,' Cap'n Kidd jumped straight up in the air, and then tried to buck me off.
'Stop tormentin' that pore animal and come here,' Aunt Lavaca commanded, whilst I was fighting for my life against Cap'n Kidd's spine-twisting sun-fishing. 'I never see such a cruel, worthless, no-good--'
She kept right on yapping away until I finally wore him down and reined up alongside the cabin stoop and said: 'What you want, Aunt Lavaca?'
She give me a scornful snort, and put her hands onto her hips and glared at me like I was something she didn't like the smell of.
'I want you should go git yore Uncle Jacob and bring him home,' she said at last. 'He's off on one of his idiotic prospectin' sprees again. He snuck out before daylight with the bay mare and a pack mule--I wisht I'd woke up and caught him. I'd of fixed him! If you hustle you can catch him this side of Haunted Mountain Gap. You bring him back if you have to lasso him and tie him to his saddle. Old fool! Off huntin' gold when they's work to be did in the alfalfa fields. Says he ain't no farmer. Huh! I 'low I'll make a farmer outa him yet. You git goin'.'
'But I ain't got time to go chasin' Uncle Jacob all over Haunted Mountain,' I protested. 'I'm headin' for the rodeo over to Chawed Ear. I'm goin' to win me a prize bull-doggin' some steers--'
'Bull-doggin'!' she snapped. 'A fine ockerpashun! Gwan, you worthless loafer! I ain't goin' to stand here all day argyin' with a big ninny like you be. Of all the good-for-nothin', triflin', lunkheaded--'
When Aunt Lavaca starts in like that you might as well travel. She can talk steady for three days and nights without repeating herself, her voice getting louder and shriller all the time till it nigh splits a body's eardrums. She was still yelling at me as I rode up the trail toward Haunted Mountain Gap, and I could hear her long after I couldn't see her no more.
Pore Uncle Jacob! He never had much luck prospecting, but trailing around through the mountains with a jackass is a lot better'n listening to Aunt Lavaca. A jackass's voice is mild and soothing alongside of hers.
Some hours later I was climbing the long rise that led up to the Gap, and I realized I had overtook the old coot when something went ping! up on the slope, and my hat flew off. I quick reined Cap'n Kidd behind a clump of bresh, and looked up toward the Gap, and seen a packmule's rear-end sticking out of a cluster of boulders.
'You quit that shootin' at me, Uncle Jacob!' I roared.
'You stay whar you be,' his voice come back, sharp as a razor. 'I know Lavacky sent you after me, but I ain't goin' home. I'm onto somethin' big at last, and I don't aim to be interfered with.'
'What you mean?' I demanded.
'Keep back or I'll ventilate you,' he promised. 'I'm goin' for the Lost Haunted Mine.'
'You been huntin' that thing for thirty years,' I snorted.
'This time I finds it,' he says. 'I bought a map off'n a drunk Mex down to Perdition. One of his ancestors was a Injun which helped pile up the rocks to hide the mouth of the cave where it is.'
'Why didn't he go find it and git the gold?' I asked.
'He's skeered of ghosts,' said Uncle Jacob. 'All Mexes is awful superstitious. This-un 'ud ruther set and drink, nohow. They's millions in gold in that-there mine. I'll shoot you before I'll go home. Now will you go on back peaceable, or will you throw-in with me? I might need you, in case the pack mule plays out.'
'I'll come with you,' I said, impressed. 'Maybe you have got somethin', at that. Put up yore Winchester. I'm comin'.'
He emerged from his rocks, a skinny leathery old cuss, and he said: 'What about Lavacky? If you don't come back with me, she'll foller us herself. She's that strong-minded.'
'I'll leave a note for her,' I said. 'Joe Hopkins always comes down through the Gap onct a week on his way to Chawed Ear. He's due through here today. I'll stick the note on a tree, where he'll see it and take it to her.'
I had a pencil-stub in my saddle-bag, and I tore a piece of wrapping paper off'n a can of tomaters Uncle Jacob had in his pack, and I writ:
Dere Ant Lavaca:
I am takin uncle Jacob way up in the mountins dont try to foler us it wont do no good gold is what Im after. Breckinridge.
I folded it and writ on the outside:
Dere Joe: pleeze take this here note to Miz Lavaca Grimes on the Chawed Ear rode.
