'If I ever git out of this alive,' promised Cousin Bearfield, 'I'll kill you if it's the last thing I do--'
But at that moment the mules stampeded up the bank on the other side and Cousin Bearfield was catapulted to the rear end of the wagon so hard he knocked out the end-gate with his head and nearly went out after it, only he just managed to grab hisself.
We went plunging along the road and the wagon hopped from stump to stump and sometimes it crashed through a thicket of bresh. Cap'n Kidd and the other hoss was thundering after us, and the mules was braying and I was whooping and Cousin Bearfield was cussing, and purty soon I looked back at him and hollered: 'Hold on, Cousin Bearfield! I'm goin' to stop these critters. We're close to the place where my gal will be waitin' for me--'
'Look out, you blame fool!' screamed Cousin Bearfield, and then the mules left the road and went one on each side of a white oak tree, and the tongue splintered, and they run right out of the harness and kept high-tailing it, but the wagon piled up on that tree with a jolt that throwed me and Cousin Bearfield headfirst into a blackjack thicket.
Cousin Bearfield vowed and swore, when he got back home, that I picked this thicket special on account of the hornets' nest that was there, and drove into it plumb deliberate. Which same is a lie which I'll stuff down his gizzard next time I cut his sign. He claimed they was trained hornets which I educated not to sting me, but the fact was I had sense enough to lay there plumb quiet. Cousin Bearfield was fool enough to run.
Well, he knows by this time, I reckon, that the fastest man afoot can't noways match speed with a hornet. He taken out through the bresh and thickets, yelpin' and hollerin' and hoppin' most bodacious. He run in a circle, too, for in three minutes he come bellerin' back, gave one last hop and dove back into the thicket. By this time I figgered he'd wore the hornets out, so I came alive again.
I extricated myself first and locating Cousin Bearfield by his profanity, I laid hold onto his hind laig and pulled him out. He lost most of his clothes in the process, and his temper wasn't no better. He seemed to blame me for his misfortunes.
'Don't tech me,' he said fiercely. 'Leave me be. I'm as close to Bear Creek right now as I want to be. Whar's my hoss?'
The hosses had broke loose when the wagon piled up, but they hadn't gone far, because they was fighting with each other in the middle of the road. Bearfield's hoss was about as big and mean as Cap'n Kidd. We separated 'em and Bearfield clumb aboard without a word.
'Where you goin', Cousin Bearfield?' I ast.
'As far away from you as I can,' he said bitterly. 'I've saw all the Elkinses I can stand for awhile. Doubtless yore intentions is good, but a man better git chawed by lions than rescued by a Elkins!'
And with a few more observations which highly shocked me, and which I won't repeat, he rode off at full speed, looking very pecooliar, because his pants was about all that hadn't been tore off of him, and he had scratches and bruises all over him.
I WAS SORRY COUSIN Bearfield was so sensitive, but I didn't waste no time brooding over his ingratitude. The sun was up and I knowed Joan would be waiting for me where the path come down into the road from the mountain.
Sure enough, when I come to the mouth of the trail, there she was, but she didn't have on her store-bought shoes, and she looked flustered and scairt.
'Breckinridge!' she hollered, running up to me before I could say a word. 'Somethin' terrible's happened! My brother was in Cougar Paw last night, and a big bully beat him up somethin' awful! Some men are bringin' him home on a stretcher! One of 'em rode ahead to tell me!'
'How come I didn't pass 'em on the road?' I said, and she said: 'They walked and taken a short cut through the hills. There they come now.'
I seen some men come into the road a few hundred yards away and come toward us, lugging somebody on a stretcher like she said.
'Come on!' she says, tugging at my sleeve. 'Git down off yore hoss and come with me. I want him to tell you who done it, so you can whup the scoundrel!'
'I got a idee, I know who done it,' I said, climbing down. 'But I'll make sure.' I figgered it was one of Cousin Bearfield's victims.
'Why, look!' said Joan. 'How funny the men are actin' since you started toward 'em! They've sot down the litter and they're runnin' off into the woods! Bill!' she shrilled as we drawed nigh. 'Bill, air you hurt bad?'
'A busted laig and some broke ribs,' moaned the victim on the litter, which also had his head so bandaged I didn't recognize him. Then he sot up with a howl. 'What's that ruffian doin' with you?' he roared, and to my amazement I recognized Bill Santry.
'Why, he's a friend of our'n, Bill--' Joan begun, but he interrupted her loudly and profanely: 'Friend, hell! He's John Elkins' brother, and furthermore he's the one which is responsible for the crippled and mutilated condition in which you now sees me!'
Joan said nothing. She turned and looked at me in a very pecooliar manner, and then dropped her eyes shyly to the ground.
'Now, Joan,' I begun, when all at once I saw what she was looking for. One of the men had dropped a Winchester before he run off. Her first bullet knocked off my hat as I forked Cap'n Kidd, and her second, third and fourth missed me so close I felt their hot wind. Then Cap'n Kidd rounded a curve with his belly to the ground, and my busted romance was left far behind me....
A couple of days later a mass of heartaches and bruises which might of been recognized as Breckinridge Elkins, the pride of Bear Creek, rode slowly down the trail that led to the settlements on the afore-said creek. And as I rode, it was my fortune to meet my brother John coming up the trail on foot.
'Where you been?' he greeted me hypocritically. 'You look like you been rasslin' a pack of mountain lions.'
I eased myself down from the saddle and said without heat: 'John, just what was it that Bill Santry promised you?'
'Oh,' says John with a laugh, 'I skinned him in a hoss-trade before I left Cougar Paw, and he promised if he ever met me, he'd give me the lickin' of my life. I'm glad you don't hold no hard feelin's, Breck. It war just a joke, me sendin' you up there. You can take a joke, cain't you?'
'Sure,' I said. 'By the way, John, how's yore toe?'
'It's all right,' says he.
'Lemme see,' I insisted. 'Set yore foot on that stump.'
He done so and I give it a awful belt with the butt of my Winchester.
'That there is a receipt for yore joke,' I grunted, as he danced around on one foot and wept and swore. And so saying, I mounted and rode on in gloomy grandeur. A Elkins always pays his debts.
THE END
CONTENTS
THE ROAD TO BEAR CREEK
By Robert E. Howard
When Pap gets rheumatism, he gets remorseful. I remember one time particular. He says to me--him laying on his ba'r-skin with a jug of corn licker at his elbow--he says: 'Breckinridge, the sins of my youth is ridin' my conscience heavy. When I was a young man I was free and keerless in my habits, as numerous tombstones on the boundless prairies testifies. I sometimes wonders if I warn't a trifle hasty in shootin' some of the men which disagreed with my principles. Maybe I should of controlled my temper and just chawed their ears off.
'Take Uncle Esau Grimes, for instance.' And then pap hove a sigh like a bull, and took a drink, and said: 'I ain't seen Uncle Esau for years. Me and him parted with harsh words and gun-smoke. I've often wondered if he still holds a grudge against me for plantin' that charge of buckshot in his hind laig.'
'What about Uncle Esau?' I said.
Pap perjuiced a letter and said: 'He was brung to my mind by this here letter which Jib Braxton fotched me from War Paint. It's from my sister Elizabeth, back in Devilville, Arizona, whar Uncle Esau lives. She says Uncle Esau is on his way to Californy, and is due to pass through War Paint about August the tenth--that's tomorrer. She don't know whether he intends turnin' off to see me or not, but suggests that I meet him at War Paint, and make
