out of his saddle and into the bresh beside the road where he lay groaning. I then cut the rope and eased the hanged man down onto my saddle and got the noose offa his neck. He was purple in the face and his eyes was closed and his tongue lolled out, but he still had some life in him. Evidently they didn't drop him, but jest hauled him up to strangle to death.
I laid him on the ground and worked over him till some of his life begun to come back to him, but I knowed he ought to have medical attention, so I said: 'Where's the nearest doctor?'
'Doc Richards in Wampum,' whimpered the kid. 'But if we take him there Ormond'll git him again. Won't you please take him home?'
'Where you-all live?' I inquired.
'We been livin' in a cabin on Grizzly Mountain every since Ormond run us out of Wampum,' she whimpered.
'Well,' I said, 'I'm goin' to put yore uncle onto Cap'n Kidd and you can set behind the saddle and help hold him on, and tell me which way to go.'
I done this and Cap'n Kidd didn't like it none, but after I busted him between the ears with the butt of my six-shooter he subsided and come along sulkily as I led him. As we went I seen that deputy Jackson drag hisself out of the bresh and go limping down the road holding onto his jaw.
I was losing a awful lot of time, but I couldn't leave this feller to die, even if he was a outlaw, because probably the little gal didn't have nobody else to take care of her but him.
It was well after dark when we come up a narrer trail that wound up a thickly timbered mountain side, and purty soon somebody in a thicket ahead of us hollered: 'Halt whar you be or I'll shoot!'
'Don't shoot, Jim!' called the gal. 'This is Betty, and we're bringin' Uncle Joab home.'
A tall hard-looking young feller stepped out into the open, p'inting his Winchester at me. He cussed when he seen our load.
'He ain't dead,' I said. 'But we oughta git him to his cabin.'
So Jim led the way through the thickets till we come into a clearing where they was a cabin and a woman come running out and screamed like a catamount when she seen Joab. Me and Jim lifted him off and toted him in and laid him on a bunk, and the women begun to work over him, and I went out to my hoss, because I was in a hurry to get gone. Jim follered me.
'This is the kind of stuff we've been havin' ever since Ormond come to Wampum,' he says bitterly. 'We been livin' up here like rats, afeared to stir in the open. I warned Joab agen slippin' down into the village to-day, but he was sot on it, and wouldn't let none of the boys go with him. Said he'd sneak in and git what he wanted and sneak out again.'
'Well,' I says, 'what's yore business ain't none of mine. But this here life is hard lines on the women and chillern.'
'You must be a friend of Joab's,' he said. 'He sent a man east some days ago, but we was afraid one of Ormond's men trailed him and killed him. But maybe he got through. Air you the man Joab sent for?'
'Meanin' am I some gunman come in to clean up the town?' I snorted. 'Naw, I ain't. I never seen this feller Joab before.'
'Well,' says Jim, 'cutting him down like you done has already got you in bad with Ormond. Whyn't you help us run them fellers out of the country? They's still a good many of us in these hills, even if we have been run out of Wampum. This hangin' is the last straw. I'll round up the boys tonight, and we'll have a show-down with Ormond's men. We're outnumbered, and we been licked bad onst before, but we'll try it again. Why don't you throw in with us?'
'Lissen,' I says, climbing into the saddle, 'jest because I cut down a outlaw ain't no sign I'm ready to be one myself. I done it jest because I couldn't stand to see the little gal take on so. Anyway, I'm lookin' for a feller with black whiskers and one ear missin' which rides a roan with a big Lazy-A brand.'
Jim fell back from me and lifted his rifle. 'You better ride on, then,' he said sombrely. 'I'm obleeged to you for what you've did--but a friend of Wolf Ashley cain't be no friend of our'n.'
I give him a snort of defiance and rode off down the mountains and headed for Wampum, because it was reasonable to suppose that maybe I'd find Black Whiskers there.
Wampum warn't much of a town, but they was one big saloon and gambling hall where sounds of hilarity was coming from, and not many people on the streets and them which was mostly went in a hurry. I stopped one of them and ast him where a doctor lived, and he p'inted out a house where he said Doc Richards lived, so I rode up to the door and hollered, and somebody inside said: 'What do you want? I got you covered.'
'Air you Doc Richards?' I said, and he said: 'Yes, keep your hands away from your belt or I'll salivate you.'
'This is a nice, friendly town!' I snorted. 'I ain't figgerin' on doin' you no harm. They's a man up in the hills which needs yore attention.'
At that the door opened and a man with red whiskers and a shotgun stuck his head out and said: 'Who do you mean?'
'They call him Joab,' I said. 'He's on Grizzly Mountain.'
'Hmmmmm!' said Doc Richards, looking at me very sharp where I sot Cap'n Kidd in the starlight. 'I set a man's jaw tonight, and he had a good deal to say about a certain party who cut down a man that was hanged. If you happen to be that party, my advice to you is to hit the trail before Ormond catches you.'
'I'm hungry and thirsty and I'm lookin' for a man,' I said. 'I aim to leave Wampum when I'm good and ready.'
'I never argue with a man as big as you,' said Doc Richards. 'I'll ride to Grizzly Mountain as quick as I can get my horse saddled. If I never see you alive again, which is very probable, I'll always remember you as the biggest man I ever saw, and the biggest fool. Good night!'
I thought the folks in Wampum is the queerest acting I ever seen. I taken Cap'n Kidd to the barn which served as a livery stable and seen that he was properly fixed in a stall to hisself, as far away from the other hosses as I could get him, because I knowed if he got to 'em he'd chaw the ears off 'em. The barn didn't look strong enough to hold him, but I told the livery stable man to keep him occupied with fodder, and to run for me if he got rambunctious. Then I went into the big saloon which was called the Golden Eagle. I was low in my spirits because I seemed to have lost Black Whiskers' trail entirely, and even if I found him in Wampum, which I hoped, I never could make it back to Bear Creek by sunup. But I hoped to recover that derned gold yet, and get back in time to save a few lives, anyway.
They was a lot of tough looking fellers in the Golden Eagle drinking and gambling and talking loud and cussing, and they all stopped their noise as I come in, and looked at me very fishy. But I give 'em no heed and went up to the bar, and purty soon they kinda forgot about me, and the racket started up again.
Whilst I was drinking me a few fingers of whisky, somebody shouldered up to me and said: 'Hey!' I turnt around and seen a big, broad-built man with a black beard and blood-shot eyes and a pot-belly and two guns on.
I says: 'Well?'
'Who air you?' he demanded.
'Who air you?' I come back at him.
'I'm Bill Ormond, sheriff of Wampum,' he says. 'That's who!' And he showed me a star onto his shirt.
'Oh,' I says. 'Well, I'm Breckinridge Elkins, from Bear Creek.'
I noticed a kind of quiet come over the place, and fellers was laying down their glasses and their billiard sticks, and hitching up their belts and kinda gathering around me. Ormond scowled and combed his beard with his fingers, and rocked on his heels and said: 'I got to 'rest you!'
I sot down my glass quick and he jumped back and hollered: 'Don't you dast pull no gun on the law!' And they was a kind of movement amongst the men around me.
'What you arrestin' me for?' I demanded. 'I ain't busted no law.'
'You assaulted one of my deperties,' he said, and then I seen that feller Jackson standing behind the sheriff with his jaw all bandaged up. He couldn't work his chin to talk. All he could do was p'int his finger at me and shake his fists.
'You likewise cut down a outlaw we had just hunged,' says Ormond. 'Yo're under arrest!'
'But I'm lookin' for a man!' I protested. 'I ain't got time to be arrested!'
