revolved on one wheel for a dizzy instant and then settled down again and we headed back up the road lickety-split and in a instant was right amongst the melee that was going on around Bill and Joshua.
About that time I realized that the driver was trying to stab me with a butcher knife, so I kind of tossed him off the stage, and there ain't no sense in him going around saying he's going to have me arrested account of him landing headfirst in the bass horn so it take seven men to pull his head out of it. He ought to watch where he falls, when he gets throwed off a stage going at a high run.
I feels, moreover, that the mayor is prone to carry petty grudges, or he wouldn't be belly-aching about me accidentally running over him with all four wheels. And it ain't my fault he was stepped on by Cap'n Kidd, neither. Cap'n Kidd was jest follering the stage, because he knowed I was on it. And it naturally irritates any well-trained hoss to stumble over somebody, and that's why Cap'n Kidd chawed the mayor's ear.
As for them fellers which happened to get knocked down and run over by the stage, I didn't have nothing personal agen 'em. I was jest rescuing Joshua and Bill which I seen was outnumbered about twenty to one. I was doing them idjits a favor, if they only knowed it, because in about another minute Bill would of started using the front ends of his six-shooters instead of the butts, and the fight would of turnt into a massacre. Glanton has got a awful temper.
Him and Joshua had laid out a remarkable number of the enemy, but the battle was going agen 'em when I arriv on the field of carnage. As the stage crashed through the mob I reched down and got Joshua by the neck and pulled him out from under about fifteen men which was beating him to death with their gun butts and pulling out his whiskers, and I slung him up on top of the other luggage. About that time we was rushing past the melee which Bill was the center of, and I reched down and snared him as we went by, but three of the men which had hold of him wouldn't let go, so I hauled all four of 'em up into the stage. I then handled the team with one hand whilst with the other'n I pulled them idjits loose from Bill like pulling ticks off a cow's hide, and throwed 'em at the mob which was chasing us.
Men and hosses piled up in a stack on the road which was further complicated by Cap'n Kidd's actions as he come busting along after the stage, and by the time we sighted Chawed Ear again, our enemies was far behind us down the road.
We busted right through Chawed Ear in a fog of dust, and the women and chillern which had ventured out of their cabins, squalled and run back in again, though they warn't in no danger at all. But Chawed Ear folks is pecooliar that way.
When we was out of sight of Chawed Ear on the road to War Paint I give the lines to Bill and swung down on the side of the stage and stuck my head in.
They was one of the purtiest gals I ever seen in there, all huddled up in a corner as pale as she could be, and looking so scairt I thought she was going to faint, which I'd heard Eastern gals had a habit of doing.
'Oh, spare me!' she begged, clasping her hands in front of her. 'Please don't scalp me! I cannot speak your language, but if you can understand English, please have mercy on me--'
'Be at ease, Miss Devon,' I reassured her. 'I ain't no Injun, nor wild man neither. I'm a white man, and so is my friends here. We wouldn't none of us hurt a flea. We're that refined and tender-hearted you wouldn't believe it--' About that time a wheel hit a stump and the stage jumped into the air and I bit my tongue, and roared in some irritation: 'Bill, you--son of a--polecat! Stop them hosses before I comes up there and breaks yore--neck!'
'Try it and see what you git, you beefheaded lummox!' he retorted, but he pulled the hosses to a stop, and I taken off my hat and opened the stage door. Bill and Joshua clumb down and peered over my shoulder.
'Miss Devon,' I says, 'I begs yore pardon for this here informal welcome. But you sees before you a man whose heart bleeds for the benighted state of his native community. I'm Breckinridge Elkins from Bear Creek, where hearts is pure and motives is noble, but education is weak.
'You sees before you,' I says, 'a man which has growed up in ignorance. I cain't neither read nor write my own name. Joshua here, in the painter-skin, he cain't neither, and neither can Bill--'
'That's a lie,' says Bill. 'I can read and--oomp!' Because I'd kind of stuck my elbow in his stummick. I didn't want Bill Glanton to spile the effeck of my speech.
'They is some excuse for men like us,' I says. 'When we was cubs schools was unknown in these mountains, and keepin' a sculpin' knife from betwixt yore skull and yore hair was more important than makin' marks onto a slate.
'But times has changed. I sees the young 'uns of my home range growin' up in the same ignorance as me,' I said, 'and my heart bleeds for 'em. They is no sech excuse for them as they was for me. The Injuns has went, mostly, and a age of culture is due to be ushered in.
'Miss Devon,' I says, 'will you please come up to Bear Creek and be our schoolteacher?'
'Why,' says she, bewilderedly, 'I came West expecting to teach school at a place called Chawed Ear, but I haven't signed any contract--'
'How much was them snake-hunters goin' to pay you?' I ast.
'Ninety dollars a month,' says she.
'We pays you a hundred on Bear Creek,' I says. 'Board and lodgin' free.'
'But what will the people of Chawed Ear say?' she said.
'Nothin'!' I says heartily. 'I done arranged that. They got the interests of Bear Creek so much at heart, that they wouldn't think of interferin' with any arrangements I make. You couldn't drag 'em up to Bear Creek with a team of oxen!'
'It seems all very strange and irregular,' says she, 'but I suppose--'
So I says: 'Good! Fine! Great! Then it's all settled. Le's go!'
'Where?' she ast, grabbing hold of the stage as I clumb into the seat.
'To War Paint, first,' I says, 'where I gits me some new clothes and a good gentle hoss for you to ride-- because nothin' on wheels can git over the Bear Creek road--and then we heads for home! Git up, hosses! Culture is on her way to the Humbolts!'
Well, a few days later me and the schoolteacher was riding sedately up the trail to Bear Creek, with a pack- mule carrying her plunder, and you never seen nothing so elegant--store-bought clothes and a hat with a feather into it, and slippers and everything. She rode in a side-saddle I bought for her--the first that ever come into the Humbolts. She was sure purty. My heart beat in wild enthusiasm for education ever time I looked at her.
I swung off the main trail so's to pass by the spring in the creek where Glory McGraw filled her pail every morning and evening. It was jest about time for her to be there, and sure enough she was. She straightened when she heard the hosses, and started to say something, and then her eyes got wide as she seen my elegant companion, and her purty red mouth stayed open. I pulled up my hoss and taken off my hat with a perlite sweep I learnt from a gambler in War Paint, and I says: 'Miss Devon, lemme interjuice you to Miss Glory McGraw, the datter of one of Bear Creek's leadin' citizens. Miss McGraw, this here is Miss Margaret Devon, from Boston, Massachusetts, which is goin' to teach school here.'
'How do you do?' says Miss Margaret, but Glory didn't say nothing. She jest stood there, staring, and the pail fell outa her hand and splashed into the creek.
'Allow me to pick up yore pail,' I said, and started to lean down from my saddle to get it, but she started like she was stung, and said, in a voice which sounded kind of strained and onnatural: 'Don't tech it! Don't tech nothin' I own! Git away from me!'
'What a beautiful girl!' says Miss Margaret as we rode on. 'But how peculiarly she acted!'
But I said nothing, because I was telling myself, well, I reckon I showed Glory McGraw something this time. I reckon she sees now that I warn't lying when I said I'd bring a peach back to Bear Creek with me. But somehow I warn't enjoying my triumph nigh as much as I'd thought I would.
Chapter XII - WAR ON BEAR CREEK
PAP DUG the nineteenth buckshot out of my shoulder and said: 'Pigs is more disturbin' to the peace of a community than scandal, divorce, and corn-licker put together. And,' says pap, pausing to strop his bowie on my sculp where the hair was all burnt off, 'when the pig is a razorback hawg, and is mixed up with a lady schoolteacher, a English tenderfoot, and a passle of blood-thirsty relatives, the result is appallin' for a peaceable man to behold. Hold still till Buckner gits yore ear sewed back on.'
Pap was right. I warn't to blame for nothing that happened. Breaking Joe Gordon's laig was a mistake, and Erath Elkins is a liar when he says I caved in them five ribs of his'n on purpose. If Uncle Jeppard Grimes had been tending to his own business, he wouldn't have got the seat of his britches filled with bird-shot, and I don't figger it
