hollered: 'Oh, Breckinridge! Come up to the shack! Pap wants you!'
'--!' says. 'What the hell now?'
I went up to the cabin and tied Cap'n Kidd and went in. At first glance I seen pap had past the peevish stage and was having a remorseful spell. Rheumatism effects him that way. But the remorse is always for something that happened a long time ago. He didn't seem a bit regretful for having busted a ox-yoke over brother Garfield's head that morning.
He was laying on his b'ar-skin with a jug of corn licker at his elbow, and 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 gents which disagreed with my principles. Maybe I should of controlled my passion and jest chawed their ears off.
'Take Uncle Esau Grimes, for instance.' And then pap hove a sigh like a bull, and said: 'I ain't seen Uncle Esau for many years. Me and him parted with harsh words and gun-smoke. I've often wondered if he still holds a grudge agen 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 Jim 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 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 peace with him.'
'Well?' I demanded, because from the way pap combed his beard with his fingers and eyed me, I knowed he was aiming to call on me to do something for him.
'Well,' said pap, taking a long swig out of the jug, 'I want you to meet the stage tomorrer mornin' at War Paint, and invite Uncle Esau to come up here and visit us. Don't take no for a answer. Uncle Esau is as cranky as hell, and a pecooliar old duck, but I think he'll like you. Specially if you keep yore mouth shet and don't expose yore ignorance.'
'Well,' I said, 'for onst the job you've sot for me falls in with my own plans. I was just fixin' to light out for War Paint. But how'm I goin' to know Uncle Esau? I ain't never seen him.'
'He ain't a big man,' said pap. 'Last time I seen him he had a right smart growth of red whiskers. You bring him home regardless. Don't pay no attention to his belly-achin'. He's awful suspicious because he's got lots of enemies. He burnt plenty of powder in his younger days, all the way from Texas to Californy. He war mixed up in more feuds and range-wars than any man I ever knowed. He's supposed to have considerable money hid away somewheres, but that ain't got nothin' to do with us. I wouldn't take his blasted money as a gift. All I want to do is talk to him, and git his forgiveness for fillin' his hide with buckshot in a moment of youthful passion.
'If he don't forgive me,' says pap, taking another pull at his jug, 'I'll bend my .45 over his stubborn old skull. Git goin'.'
So I hit out acrost the mountains, and the next morning found me eating breakfast at the aidge of War Paint, with a old hunter and trapper by the name of old Bill Polk which was camped there temporary.
War Paint was a new town which had sprung up out of nothing on account of a gold rush right recent, and old Bill was very bitter.
'A hell of a come-off this is!' he snorted. 'Clutterin' up the scenery and scarin' the animals off with their fool houses and claims. Last year I shot deer right whar that saloon yonder stands now,' he said, glaring at me like it was my fault.
I said nothing but chawed my venison which we was cooking over his fire, and he said: 'No good'll come of it, you mark my word. These mountains won't be fit to live in. These camps draws scum like a dead hoss draws buzzards. The outlaws is already ridin' in from Arizona and Utah and Californy, besides the native ones. Grizzly Hawkins and his thieves is hidin' up in the hills, and no tellin' how many more'll come in. I'm glad they cotched Badger Chisom and his gang after they robbed that bank at Gunstock. That's one gang which won't bedevil us, becaze they're in jail. If somebody'd jest kill Grizzly Hawkins, now--'
'Who's that gal?' I ejaculated suddenly, forgetting to eat in my excitement.
'Who? Whar?' says old Bill, looking around. 'Oh, that gal jest goin' by the Golden Queen restaurant? Aw, that's Dolly Rixby, the belle of the town.'
'She's awful purty,' I says.
'You never seen a purtier,' says he.
'I have, too,' I says absent-mindedly. 'Glory McGraw--' Then I kind of woke up to what I was saying and flang my breakfast into the fire in disgust. 'Sure, she's the purtiest gal I ever seen!' I snorted. 'Ain't a gal in the Humbolts can hold a candle to her. What you say her name was? Dolly Rixby? A right purty name, too.'
'You needn't start castin' sheep's eyes at her,' he opined. 'They's a dozen young bucks sparkin' her already. I think Blink Wiltshaw's the favorite to put his brand onto her, though. She wouldn't look at a hillbilly like you.'
'I might remove the competition,' I suggested.
'You better not try no Bear Creek rough-stuff in War Paint,' says he. 'The town's jest reekin' with law and order. Why, I actually hear they ups and puts you in jail if you shoots a man within the city limits.'
I was scandalized. Later I found out that was jest a slander started by the citizens of Chawed Ear which was jealous of War Paint, but at the time I was so upsot by this information I was almost afeared to go into town for fear I'd get arrested.
'Where's Miss Rixby goin' with that bucket?' I ast him.
'She's takin' a bucket of beer to her old man which is workin' a claim up the creek,' says old Bill.
'Well, lissen,' I says. 'You git over there behind that thicket, and when she comes by, make a noise like a Injun.'
'What kind of damfoolishness is this?' he demanded. 'You want me to stampede the whole camp?'
'Don't make a loud noise,' I said. 'Jest make it loud enough for her to hear.'
'Air you crazy?' he ast.
'No, dern it!' I said fiercely, because she was coming along stepping purty fast. 'Git in there and do like I say. I'll rush up from the other side and pertend to rescue her from the Injuns and that'll make her like me. Gwan!'
'I mistrusts yo're a blasted fool,' he grumbled. 'But I'll do it.' He snuck into the thicket which she'd have to pass on the other side, and I circled around so she wouldn't see me till I was ready to rush out and I save her from being sculped. Well, I warn't hardly in position when I heard a kind of mild war-whoop, and it sounded jest like a Blackfoot, only not so loud. But imejitly there come the crack of a pistol and another yell which warn't subdued like the first. It was lusty and energetic. I run towards the thicket, but before I could get into the open trail, old Bill come piling out of the back side of the clump with his hands to the seat of his britches.
'You planned this a-purpose, you snake in the grass!' he yelped. 'Git outa my way!'
'Why, Bill,' I says. 'What happened?'
'I bet you knowed she had a derringer in her stockin',' he snarled as he run past me. 'It's all yore fault! When I whooped, she pulled it and shot into the bresh! Don't speak to me! I'm lucky to be alive. I'll git even with you for this if it takes a hundred years!'
He headed on into the deep bresh, and I run around the thicket and seen Dolly Rixby peering into it with her gun smoking in her hand. She looked up as I come onto the trail, and I taken off my hat and said, perlite: 'Howdy, miss; can I be of no assistance to you?'
'I jest shot a Injun,' she said. 'I heard him holler. You might go in there and git the sculp, if you don't mind. I'd like to have it for a soovenir.'
'I'll be glad to, miss,' I says heartily. 'I'll likewise cure and tan it for you myself.'
'Oh, thank you!' she says, dimpling when she smiled. 'It's a pleasure to meet a real gent like you.'
'The pleasure is all mine,' I assured her, and went into the bresh and stomped around a little, and then come out and says: 'I'm awful sorry, miss, but the critter ain't nowheres to be found. You must of jest winged him. If you want me to I'll take his trail and foller it till I catch up with him, though.'
'Oh, I wouldn't think of puttin' you to no sech trouble,' she says much to my relief, because I was jest thinking that if she did demand a sculp, the only thing I could do would be to catch old Bill and sculp him, and I'd hate awful bad to have to do that.
