let fall whilst cussing each other, I had a purty good idee where the holler oak was at, and sure enough I found it without much trouble. I tied Cap'n Kidd and clumb up onto the trunk till I reched the holler. And then as I was craning my neck to look in, I heard a voice say: 'Another dern thief!'
I looked around and seen Uncle Jeppard Grimes p'inting a gun at me.
'Bear Creek is goin' to hell,' says Uncle Jeppard. 'First it was Erath and Joel, and now it's you. I aim to throw a bullet through yore hind laig jest to teach you a little honesty. Hold still whilst I draws my bead.'
With that he started sighting along the barrel of his Winchester, and I says: 'You better save yore lead for that Injun over there.'
Him being a old Injun fighter he jest naturally jerked his head around quick, and I pulled my .45 and shot the rifle out of his hands. I jumped down and put my foot on it, and he pulled a knife out of his leggin', and I taken it away from him and shaken him till he was so addled when I let him go he run in a circle and fell down cussing something terrible.
'Is everybody on Bear Creek gone crazy?' I demanded. 'Cain't a man look into a holler tree without gittin' assassinated?'
'You was after my gold!' swore Uncle Jeppard.
'So it's yore gold, hey?' I said. 'Well, a holler tree ain't no bank.'
'I know it,' he growled, combing the pine-needles out of his whiskers. 'When I come here early this mornin' to see if it was safe, like I frequent does, I seen right off somebody'd been handlin' it. Whilst I was meditatin' over this, I seen Joel Gordon sneakin' towards the tree. I fired a shot acrost his bows in warnin' and he run off. But a few minutes later here come Erath Elkins slitherin' through the pines. I was mad by this time, so I combed his whiskers with a chunk of lead and he high-tailed it. And now, by golly, here you come--'
'You shet up!' I roared. 'Don't you accuse me of wantin' yore blame gold. I jest wanted to see if it was safe, and so did Joel and Erath. If them men was thieves, they'd have took it when they found it yesterday. Where'd you git it, anyway?'
'I panned it, up in the hills,' he said sullenly. 'I ain't had time to take it to Chawed Ear and git it changed into cash money. I figgered this here tree was as good a place as any. But I done put it elsewhar now.'
'Well,' I said, 'you got to go tell Erath and Joel it war you which shot at 'em, so they won't kill each other. They'll be mad at you, but I'll restrain 'em, with a hickery club, if necessary.'
'All right,' he said. 'I'm sorry I misjedged you, Breckinridge. Jest to show I trusts you, I'll show you whar I hid it after I taken it outa the tree.'
He led me through the trees till he come to a big rock jutting out from the side of a cliff, and p'inted at a smaller rock wedged beneath it.
'I pulled out that there rock,' he said, 'and dug a hole and stuck the poke in. Look!'
He heaved the rock out and bent down. And then he went straight up in the air with a yell that made me jump and pull my gun with cold sweat busting out all over me.
'What's the matter?' I demanded. 'Air you snake-bit!'
'Yeah, by human snakes!' he hollered. 'It's gone! I been robbed!'
I looked and seen the impressions the wrinkles in the buckskin poke had made in the soft earth. But there warn't nothing there now.
Uncle Jeppard was doing a scalp dance with a gun in one hand and a bowie knife in the other'n. 'I'll fringe my leggin's with their mangy sculps! I'll pickle their hearts in a barr'l of brine! I'll feed their gizzards to my houn' dawgs!' he yelled.
'Whose gizzards?' I inquired.
'Whose, you idjit?' he howled. 'Joe Gordon and Erath Elkins, dern it! They didn't run off. They snuck back and seen me move the gold! War-paint and rattlesnakes! I've kilt better men than them for less'n half that much!'
'Aw,' I said, 't'ain't possible they stole yore gold--'
'Then whar is it?' he demanded bitterly. 'Who else knowed about it?'
'Look here!' I said, p'inting to a belt of soft loam nigh the rocks. 'There's a hoss's tracks.'
'Well, what of it?' he demanded. 'Maybe they had hosses tied in the bresh.'
'Aw, no,' I said. 'Look how the calks is sot. They ain't no hosses on Bear Creek shod like that. These is the tracks of a stranger--I bet the feller I seen ride past my cabin jest about daybreak. A black-whiskered man with one ear missin'. That hard ground by the big rock don't show where he got off and stomped around, but the man which rode this hoss stole yore gold, I'll bet my guns.'
'I ain't convinced,' says Uncle Jeppard. 'I'm goin' home and ile my rifle-gun, and then I'm goin' to go over and kill Joel and Erath.'
'Now you lissen,' I said forcibly, taking hold of the front of his buckskin shirt and h'isting him off the ground by way of emphasis, 'I know what a stubborn old jassack you are, Uncle Jeppard, but this time you got to lissen to reason, or I'll forgit myself to the extent of kickin' the seat out of yore britches. I'm goin' to foller this feller and take yore gold away from him, because I know it war him that stole it. And don't you dare to kill nobody till I git back.'
'I'll give you till tomorrer mornin',' he compromised. 'I won't pull a trigger till then. But,' said Uncle Jeppard waxing poetical, 'if my gold ain't in my hands by the time the mornin' sun h'ists itself over the shinin' peaks of the Jackass Mountains, the buzzards will rassle their hash on the carcasses of Joel Gordon and Erath Elkins.'
I went away from there, and mounted Cap'n Kidd and headed west on the stranger's trail. A hell of a chance I had to go sparking a town-gal, with my lunatickal relatives thirsting for each other's gore.
It was still tolerably early in the morning, and one of them long summer days ahead of me. They warn't a hoss in the Humbolts which could equal Cap'n Kidd for endurance. I've rode him a hundred miles between sundown and sunup. But the hoss the stranger was riding must have been some chunk of hoss-meat hisself, and of course he had a long start of me. The day wore on, and still I hadn't come up with my man. I'd covered a lot of distance and was getting into country I warn't familiar with, but I didn't have no trouble follering his trail, and finally, late in the evening, I come out on a narrer dusty path where the calk-marks of his hoss's shoes was very plain.
The sun sunk lower and my hopes dwindled. Even if I got the thief and got the gold, it'd be a awful push to get back to Bear Creek in time to prevent mayhem. But I urged on Cap'n Kidd, and presently we come out into a road, and the tracks I was follering merged with a lot of others. I went on, expecting to come to some settlement, and wondering jest where I was.
Jest at sundown I rounded a bend in the road and I seen something hanging to a tree, and it was a man. They was another man in the act of pinning something to the corpse's shirt, and when he heard me he wheeled and jerked his gun--the man, I mean, not the corpse. He was a mean looking cuss, but he warn't Black Whiskers. Seeing I made no hostile motion, he put up his gun and grinned.
'That feller's still kickin'?' I said.
'We just strung him up,' he said. 'The other boys has rode back to town, but I stayed to put this warnin' on his buzzum. Can you read?'
'No,' I said.
'Well,' says he, 'this here paper says: 'Warnin' to all outlaws and specially them on Grizzly Mountain--Keep away from Wampum.''
'How far's Wampum from here?' I ast.
'Half a mile down the road,' he said. 'I'm Al Jackson, one of Bill Ormond's deputies. We aim to clean up Wampum. This is one of them outlaws which has denned up on Grizzly Mountain.'
Before I could say anything more, I heard somebody breathing quick and gaspy, and they was a patter of bare feet in the bresh, and a kid gal about fourteen years old bust into the road.
'You've killed Uncle Joab!' she shrieked. 'You murderers! A boy told me they was fixin' to hang him! I run as fast as I could--'
'Git away from that corpse!' roared Jackson, hitting at her with his quirt.
'You stop that!' I ordered. 'Don't you hit that young 'un.'
'Oh, please, Mister!' she wept, wringing her hands. 'You ain't one of Ormond's men. Please help me! He ain't dead--I seen him move!'
Waiting for no more I spurred alongside the body and drawed my knife.
'Don't you cut that rope!' squawked the deputy, jerking his gun. So I hit him under the jaw and knocked him
