his hands.
'Everything's all right, Uncle Jacob,' I said. 'They don't want yore mine. They're after the wild man, like they said, and we got him cornered in that there cave.'
'All right, huh?' he snorted. 'I reckon you thinks it's all right for you to waste yore time with sech dern foolishness when you oughta be helpin' me look for my mine. A big help you be!'
'Where was you whilst I was argyin' with Bill here?' I demanded.
'I knowed you could handle the situation, so I started explorin' the canyon,' he said. 'Come on, we got work to do.'
'But the wild man!' cried Van Brock. 'Your nephew would be invaluable in securing the specimen. Think of science! Think of progress! Think of--'
'Think of a striped skunk!' snorted Uncle Jacob. 'Breckinridge, air you comin'?'
'Aw, shet up,' I said disgustedly. 'You both make me tired. I'm goin' in there and run that wild man out, and Bill, you shoot him in the hind-laig as he comes out, so's we can catch him and tie him up.'
'But you left yore guns hangin' onto that limb up on the plateau,' objected Glanton.
'I don't need 'em,' I said. 'Didn't you hear Van Brock say we was to catch him alive? If I started shootin' in the dark I might rooin him.'
'All right,' says Bill, cocking his six-shooters. 'Go ahead. I figger yo're a match for any wild man that ever come down the pike.'
So I went into the cleft and entered the cave and it was dark as all get-out. I groped my way along and discovered the main tunnel split in two, so I taken the biggest one. It seemed to get darker the further I went, and purty soon I bumped into something big and hairy and it went 'Wump!' and grabbed me.
Thinks I, it's the wild man, and he's on the war-path. So I waded into him and he waded into me, and we tumbled around on the rocky floor in the dark, biting and mauling and tearing. Bear Creek is famed far and wide for its ring-tailed scrappers, and I don't have to repeat I'm the fightin'est of 'em all, but that cussed wild man sure give me my hands full. He was the biggest, hairiest critter I ever laid hands on, and he had more teeth and talons than I thought a human could possibly have. He chawed me with vigor and enthusiasm, and he walzed up and down my frame free and hearty, and swept the floor with me till I was groggy.
For a while I thought I was going to give up the ghost, and I thought with despair of how humiliated my relatives on Bear Creek would be to hear their champeen battler had been clawed to death by a wild man in a cave.
This thought maddened me so I redoubled my onslaughts, and the socks I give him ought to of laid out any man, wild or tame, to say nothing of the pile-driver kicks in his belly, and butting him with my head so he gasped. I got what felt like a ear in my mouth and commenced chawing on it, and presently, what with this and other mayhem I committed on him, he give a most inhuman squall and bust away and went lickety-split for the outside world.
I riz up and staggered after him, hearing a wild chorus of yells break forth, but no shots. I bust out into the open, bloody all over, and my clothes hanging in tatters.
'Where is he?' I hollered. 'Did you let him git away?'
'Who?' said Glanton, coming out from behind a boulder, whilst Van Brock and Uncle Jacob dropped down out of a tree nearby.
'The wild man, damn it!' I roared.
'We ain't seen no wild man,' said Glanton.
'Well, what was that thing I jest run outa the cave?' I hollered.
'That was a grizzly b'ar,' said Glanton.
'Yeah,' sneered Uncle Jacob, 'and that was Van Brock's 'wild man'! And now, Breckinridge, if yo're through playin', we'll--'
'No, no!' hollered Van Brock, jumping up and down. 'It was indubitably a human being which smote me and fled into the cavern. Not a bear! It is still in there somewhere, unless there is another exit to the cavern.'
'Well, he ain't in there now,' said Uncle Jacob, peering into the mouth of the cave. 'Not even a wild man would run into a grizzly's cave, or if he did, he wouldn't stay long--ooomp!'
A rock come whizzing out of the cave and hit Uncle Jacob in the belly, and he doubled up on the ground.
'Aha!' I roared, knocking up Glanton's ready six-shooter. 'I know! They's two tunnels in there. He's in that smaller cave. I went into the wrong one! Stay here, you-all, and gimme room! This time I gits him!'
With that I rushed into the cave mouth again, disregarding some more rocks which emerged, and plunged into the smaller opening. It was dark as pitch, but I seemed to be running along a narrer tunnel, and ahead of me I heard bare feet pattering on the rock. I follered 'em at full lope, and presently seen a faint hint of light. The next minute I rounded a turn and come out into a wide place, which was lit by a shaft of light coming in through a cleft in the wall, some yards up. In the light I seen a fantastic figger climbing up on a ledge, trying to rech that cleft.
'Come down offa that!' I thundered, and give a leap and grabbed the ledge by one hand and hung on, and reched for his laigs with t'other hand. He give a squall as I grabbed his ankle and splintered his club over my head. The force of the lick broke off the lip of the rock ledge I was holding on to, and we crashed to the floor together, because I didn't let loose of him. Fortunately, I hit the rock floor headfirst which broke my fall and kept me from fracturing any of my important limbs, and his head hit my jaw, which rendered him unconscious.
I riz up and picked up my limp captive and carried him out into the daylight where the others was waiting. I dumped him on the ground and they stared at him like they couldn't believe it. He was a ga'nt old cuss with whiskers about a foot long and matted hair, and he had a mountain lion's hide tied around his waist.
'A white man!' enthused Van Brock, dancing up and down. 'An unmistakable Caucasian! This is stupendous! A pre-historic survivor of a pre-Indian epoch! What an aid to anthropology! A wild man! A veritable wild man!'
'Wild man, hell!' snorted Uncle Jacob. 'That there's old Joshua Braxton, which was trying to marry that old maid schoolteacher down at Chawed Ear all last winter.'
'I was tryin' to marry her!' said Joshua bitterly, setting up suddenly and glaring at all of us. 'That there is good, that there is! And me all the time fightin' for my life agen it. Her and all her relations was tryin' to marry her to me. They made my life a curse. They was finally all set to kidnap me and marry me by force. That's why I come away off up here, and put on this rig to scare folks away. All I crave is peace and quiet and no dern women.'
Van Brock begun to cry because they warn't no wild man, and Uncle Jacob said: 'Well, now that this dern foolishness is settled, maybe I can git to somethin' important. Joshua, you know these mountains even better'n I do. I want ya to help me find the Lost Haunted Mine.'
'There ain't no sech mine,' said Joshua. 'That old prospector imagined all that stuff whilst he was wanderin' around over the desert crazy.'
'But I got a map I bought from a Mexican in Perdition!' hollered Uncle Jacob.
'Lemme see that map,' said Glanton. 'Why, hell,' he said, 'that there is a fake. I seen that Mexican drawin' it, and he said he was goin' to try to sell it to some old jassack for the price of a drunk.'
Uncle Jacob sot down on a rock and pulled his whiskers. 'My dreams is bust. I'm goin' to go home to my wife,' he said weakly.
'You must be desperate if it's come to that,' said old Joshua acidly. 'You better stay up here. If they ain't no gold, they ain't no women to torment a body, neither.'
'Women is a snare and a delusion,' agreed Glanton. 'Van Brock can go back with these fellers. I'm stayin' with Joshua.'
'You all oughta be ashamed talkin' about women that way,' I reproached 'em. 'I've suffered from the fickleness of certain women more'n either of you snake-hunters, but I ain't let it sour me on the sex. What,' I says, waxing oratorical, 'in this lousy and troubled world of six-shooters and centipedes, what, I asts you-all, can compare to women's gentle sweetness--'
'There the scoundrel is!' screeched a familiar voice like a rusty buzzsaw. 'Don't let him git away! Shoot him if he tries to run!'
We turned sudden. We'd been argying so loud amongst ourselves we hadn't noticed a gang of folks coming down the ravine. There was Aunt Lavaca and the sheriff of Chawed Ear with ten men, and they all p'inted sawed-off shotguns at me.
'Don't git rough, Elkins,' warned the sheriff nervously. 'They're loaded with buckshot and ten-penny nails. I knows yore repertation and I takes no chances. I arrests you for the kidnappin' of Jacob Grimes.'
