high. To the north-west and west the hills riz up a few hundred yards from the backs of the houses, and on the other sides there was plains, with bresh and timber on them.
'You boys ride into town and tell the folks that the shebang starts soon,' said McVey. 'Me and Kirby and Richards will take him to the ring.'
I could see people milling around in the streets, and I never had no idee they was that many folks in the world. The sheriff and the other two fellers rode around the north end of the town and stopped at a old barn and told me to get off. So I did, and we went in and they had a kind of room fixed up in there with benches and a lot of towels and water buckets, and the sheriff said: 'This ain't much of a dressin' room, but it'll have to do. Us boys don't know much about this game, but we'll second you as good as we can. One thing--the other feller ain't got no manager nor seconds neither. How do you feel?'
'Fine,' I said, 'but I'm kind of hungry.'
'Go git him somethin', Richards,' said the sheriff.
'I didn't think they et just before a bout,' said Richards.
'Aw, I reckon he knows what he's doin',' said McVey. 'Gwan.'
So Richards pulled out, and the sheriff and Kirby walked around me like I was a prize bull, and felt my muscles, and the sheriff said: 'By golly, if size means anything, our dough is as good as in our britches right now!'
I pulled my dollar out of my scabbard and said I would pay for my keep, and they haw-hawed and slapped me on the back and said I was a great joker. Then Richards come back with a platter of grub, with a lot of men wearing boots and guns and whiskers, and they stomped in and gawped at me, and McVey said: 'Look him over, boys! Tomahawk stands or falls with him today!'
They started walking around me like him and Kirby done, and I was embarrassed and et three or four pounds of beef and a quart of mashed pertaters, and a big hunk of white bread, and drunk about a gallon of water, because I was purty thirsty. Then they all gaped like they was surprised about something, and one of 'em said: 'How come he didn't arrive on the stagecoach yesterday?'
'Well,' said the sheriff, 'the driver told me he was so drunk they left him at Bisney, and come on with his luggage, which is over there in the corner. They got a hoss and left it there with instructions for him to ride on to Tomahawk as soon as he sobered up. Me and the boys got nervous today when he didn't show up, so we went out lookin' for him, and met him hoofin' it down the trail.'
'I bet them Perdition hombres starts somethin',' said Kirby. 'Ain't a one of 'em showed up yet. They're settin' over at Perdition soakin' up bad licker and broodin' on their wrongs. They shore wanted this show staged over there. They claimed that since Tomahawk was furnishin' one-half of the attraction, and Gunstock the other half, the razee ought to be throwed at Perdition.'
'Nothin' to it,' said McVey. 'It laid between Tomahawk and Gunstock, and we throwed a coin and won it. If Perdition wants trouble she can git it. Is the boys r'arin' to go?'
'Is they!' says Richards. 'Every bar in Tomahawk is crowded with hombres full of licker and civic pride. They're bettin' their shirts, and they has been nine fights already. Everybody in Gunstock's here.'
'Well, le's git goin',' says McVey, getting nervous. 'The quicker it's over, the less blood there's likely to be spilt.'
The first thing I knowed, they had laid hold of me and was pulling my clothes off, so it dawned on me that I must be under arrest for stealing that stranger's clothes. Kirby dug into the baggage which was in one corner of the stall, and dragged out a funny looking pair of pants; I know now they was white silk. I put 'em on because I didn't have nothing else to put on, and they fitted me like my skin. Richards tied a American flag around my waist, and they put some spiked shoes onto my feet.
I let 'em do like they wanted to, remembering what pap said about not resisting no officer. Whilst so employed I begun to hear a noise outside, like a lot of people whooping and cheering. Purty soon in come a skinny old gink with whiskers and two guns on, and he hollered: 'Lissen here, Mac, dern it, a big shipment of gold is down there waitin' to be took off by the evenin' stage, and the whole blame town is deserted on account of this dern foolishness. Suppose Comanche Santry and his gang gits wind of it?'
'Well,' said McVey, 'I'll send Kirby here to help you guard it.'
'You will like hell,' says Kirby. 'I'll resign as deputy first. I got every cent of my dough on this scrap, and I aim to see it.'
'Well, send somebody!' says the old codger. 'I got enough to do runnin' my store, and the stage stand, and the post office, without--'
He left, mumbling in his whiskers, and I said: 'Who's that?'
'Aw,' said Kirby, 'that's old man Brenton that runs the store down at the other end of town, on the east side of the street. The post office is in there, too.'
'I got to see him,' I says. 'There's a letter--'
Just then another man come surging in and hollered: 'Hey, is yore man ready? Folks is gittin' impatient!'
'All right,' says McVey, throwing over me a thing he called a bathrobe. Him and Kirby and Richards picked up towels and buckets and things, and we went out the oppersite door from what we come in, and they was a big crowd of people there, and they whooped and shot off their pistols. I would have bolted back into the barn, only they grabbed me and said it was all right. We pushed through the crowd, and I never seen so many boots and pistols in my life, and we come to a square corral made out of four posts sot in the ground, and ropes stretched between. They called this a ring and told me to get in. I done so, and they had turf packed down so the ground was level as a floor and hard and solid. They told me to set down on a stool in one corner, and I did, and wrapped my robe around me like a Injun.
Then everybody yelled, and some men, from Gunstock, McVey said, clumb through the ropes on the other side. One of 'em was dressed like I was, and I never seen such a funny-looking human. His ears looked like cabbages, and his nose was plumb flat, and his head was shaved and looked right smart like a bullet. He sot down in a oppersite corner.
Then a feller got up and waved his arms, and hollered: 'Gents, you all know the occasion of this here suspicious event. Mister Bat O'Tool, happenin' to be passin' through Gunstock, consented to fight anybody which would meet him. Tomahawk riz to the occasion by sendin' all the way to Denver to procure the services of Mister Bruiser McGoorty, formerly of San Francisco!'
He p'inted at me, and everybody cheered and shot off their pistols, and I was embarrassed and bust out in a cold sweat.
'This fight,' said the feller, 'will be fit accordin' to London Prize Ring Rules, same as in a champeenship go. Bare fists, round ends when one of 'em's knocked down or throwed down. Fight lasts till one or t'other ain't able to come up to the scratch when time's called. I, Yucca Blaine, have been selected as referee because, bein' from Chawed Ear, I got no prejudices either way. Air you all ready? Time!'
McVey hauled me off my stool and pulled off my bathrobe and pushed me out into the ring. I nearly died with embarrassment, but I seen the feller they called O'Tool didn't have on no more clothes than me. He approached and held out his hand like he wanted to shake hands, so I held out mine. We shook hands, and then without no warning he hit me a awful lick on the jaw with his left. It was like being kicked by a mule. The first part of me which hit the turf was the back of my head. O'Tool stalked back to his corner, and the Gunstock boys was dancing and hugging each other, and the Tomahawk fellers was growling in their whiskers and fumbling with their guns and bowie knives.
McVey and his deperties rushed into the ring before I could get up and dragged me to my corner and began pouring water on me.
'Air you hurt much?' yelled McVey.
'How can a man's fist hurt anybody?' I ast. 'I wouldn't of fell down, only I was caught off-guard. I didn't know he was goin' to hit me. I never played no game like this here'n before.'
McVey dropped the towel he was beating me in the face with, and turned pale. 'Ain't you Bruiser McGoorty of San Francisco?' he hollered.
'Naw,' I said. 'I'm Breckinridge Elkins, from up in the Humbolt Mountains. I come here to git a letter for pap.'
'But the stagecoach driver described them clothes--' he begun wildly.
