'My word!' says he. 'You mean to say you can bring down a grizzly with a shot from a pistol?'
'Not always,' I said. 'Sometimes I have to bust him over the head with the barrel to finish him.'
He didn't say nothing for a long time after that.
Well, we rode over on the lower slopes of Apache Mountain, and tied the hosses in a holler and went through the bresh on foot. That was a good place for b'ars, because they come there very frequently looking for Uncle Jeppard Grimes' pigs which runs loose all over the lower slopes of the mountain.
But jest like it always is when yo're looking for something special, we didn't see a cussed b'ar.
The middle of the evening found us around on the side of the mountain where they is a settlement of Kirbys and Grimeses and Gordons. Half a dozen families has their cabins within a mile or so of each other, and I dunno what in hell they want to crowd up together that way for, it would plumb smother me, but pap says they was always pecooliar that way.
We warn't in sight of the settlement, but the schoolhouse warn't far off, and I said to J. Pembroke: 'You wait here a spell, and maybe a b'ar will come by. Miss Margaret Devon is teachin' me how to read and write, and it's time for my lesson.'
I left J. Pembroke setting on a log hugging his elerfant-gun, and I strode through the bresh and come out at the upper end of the run which the settlement was at the other'n, and school had jest turned out and the chillern was going home, and Miss Margaret was waiting for me in the log schoolhouse.
She was setting at her hand-made desk as I come in, ducking my head so as not to bump it agen the top of the door and perlitely taking off my Stetson. She looked kinda tired and discouraged, and I said: 'Has the young'uns been raisin' any hell today, Miss Margaret?'
'Oh, no,' she said. 'They're very polite--in fact I've noticed that Bear Creek people are always polite when they're not killing each other. I've finally gotten used to the boys wearing their pistols and bowie knives to school. But somehow it seems so futile. This is all so terribly different from everything to which I've always been accustomed. I get discouraged and feel like giving it up.'
'You'll git used to it,' I consoled her. 'It'll be a lot different onst yo're married to some honest reliable young man.'
She give me a startled look and said: 'Married to someone here on Bear Creek?'
'Shore,' I said, involuntarily expanding my chest. 'Everybody is jest wonderin' when you'll set the day. But le's git at my readin' lesson. I done learnt the words you writ out for me yesterday.'
But she warn't listenin', and she said: 'Do you have any idea of why Mr. Joel Grimes and Mr. Esau Gordon quit calling on me? Until a few days ago one or the other was at Mr. Kirby's cabin where I board almost every night.'
'Now don't you worry none about them,' I soothed her. 'Joel'll be about on crutches before the week's out, and Esau can already walk without bein' helped. I always handles my relatives as easy as possible.'
'You fought with them?' she exclaimed.
'I jest convinced 'em you didn't want to be bothered with 'em,' I reassured her. 'I'm easy-goin', but I don't like competition.'
'Competition!' Her eyes flared wide open and she looked at me like she hadn't never seen me before. 'Do you mean that you--that I--that--'
'Well,' I said modestly, 'everybody on Bear Creek is jest wonderin' when yo're goin' to set the day for us to git hitched. You see gals don't generally stay single very long in these parts--hey, what's the matter?'
Because she was getting paler and paler like she'd et something which didn't agree with her.
'Nothing,' she said faintly. 'You--you mean people are expecting me to marry you?'
'Sure,' I said.
She muttered something that sounded like 'My God!' and licked her lips with her tongue and looked at me like she was about ready to faint. Well, it ain't every gal which has a chance to get hitched to Breckinridge Elkins, so I didn't blame her for being excited.
'You've been very kind to me, Breckinridge,' she said feebly. 'But I--this is so sudden--so unexpected--I never thought--I never dreamed--'
'I don't want to rush you,' I said. 'Take yore time. Next week will be soon enough. Anyway, I got to build us a cabin, and--'
Bang! went a gun, too loud for a Winchester.
'Elkins!' It was J. Pembroke yelling for me up the slope. 'Elkins! Hurry!'
'Who's that?' she exclaimed, jumping to her feet like she was working on a spring.
'Aw,' I said in disgust, 'it's a fool tenderfoot Bill Glanton wished on me. I reckon a b'ar is got him by the neck. I'll go see.'
'I'll go with you!' she said, but from the way J. Pembroke was yelling I figgered I better not waste no time getting to him, so I couldn't wait for her, and she was some piece behind me when I mounted the lap of the slope and met him running out from amongst the trees. He was gibbering with excitement.
'I winged it!' he squawked. 'I'm sure I winged the blighter! But it ran in among the underbrush and I dared not follow it, for the beast is most vicious when wounded. A friend of mine once wounded one in South Africa, and--'
'A b'ar?' I ast.
'No, no!' he said. 'A wild boar! The most vicious brute I have ever seen! It ran into that brush there!'
'Aw, they ain't no wild boars in the Humbolts,' I snorted. 'You wait here, I'll go see jest what you did shoot.'
I seen some splashes of blood on the grass, so I knowed he'd shot something. Well, I hadn't gone more'n a few hundred feet and was jest out of sight of J. Pembroke when I run into Uncle Jeppard Grimes.
Uncle Jeppard was one of the first white men to come into the Humbolts, in case I ain't mentioned that before, and he wears fringed buckskins and moccasins jest like he done fifty years ago. He had a bowie knife in one hand and he waved something in the other'n like a flag of revolt, and he was frothing at the mouth.
'The derned murderer!' he shrieked. 'You see this? That's the proper tail of Dan'l Webster, the finest derned razorback boar which ever trod the Humbolts! That danged tenderfoot of yore'n tried to 'sassernate him! Shot his tail off, right spang up to the hilt! I'll show him he cain't muterlate my animals like this! I'll have his heart's blood!'
And he done a war-dance waving that pig-tail and his bowie and cussing in American and Spanish and Apache Injun all at onst.
'You ca'm down, Uncle Jeppard,' I said sternly. 'He ain't got no sense, and he thought Daniel Webster was a wild boar like they have in Aferker and England and them foreign places. He didn't mean no harm.'
'No harm,' said Uncle jeppard fiercely. 'And Dan'l Webster with no more tail onto him than a jackrabbit!'
'Well,' I said, 'here's a five dollar gold piece to pay for the dern hawg's tail, and you let J. Pembroke alone!'
'Gold cain't satisfy honor,' he said bitterly, but nevertheless grabbing the coin like a starving Kiowa grabbing a beefsteak. 'I'll let this here outrage pass for the time. But I'll be watchin' that maneyack to see that he don't muterlate no more of my prize livestock.'
And so saying he went off muttering in his beard.
I went back to where I left J. Pembroke, and there he was talking to Miss Margaret which had jest come up. She had more color in her face than I'd saw recent.
'Fancy meeting a girl like you here!' J. Pembroke was saying.
'No more surprising than meeting a man like you!' says she with a kind of fluttery laugh.
'Oh, a sportsman wanders into all sorts of out-of-the-way places,' says he, and seeing they hadn't noticed me coming up, I says: 'Well, J. Pembroke, I didn't find yore wild boar, but I met the owner.'
He looked at me kinda blank, and said vaguely: 'Wild boar? What wild boar?'
'That 'un you shot the tail off of with that there fool elerfant gun,' I said. 'Lissen: next time you see a hawg-critter you remember there ain't no wild boars in the Humbolts. They is critters called haverleeners in South Texas, but they ain't even none of them in Nevada. So next time you see a hawg, jest reflect that it's merely one of Uncle Jeppard Grimes' razorbacks and refrain from shootin' at it.'
'Oh, quite!' he agreed absently, and started talking to Miss Margaret again.
