'And I bet you'll plumb risk yore life defendin' him,' she sneered.
He laughed and taken off his sombrero and run his fingers through his thick black locks.
'I don't aim to git none of my valuable gore spilt over a stagecoach robber,' says he. 'But I like yore looks, gal. Why you want to waste yore time with a feller like that when they is a man like me around, I dunno! His head looks like a peeled onion! The hair won't never git no chance to grow out, neither, 'cause he's goin' to git strung up before it has time. Whyn't you pick out a handsome hombre like me, which has got a growth of hair as is hair?'
'He got his hair burnt off tryin' to save a human life,' says she. 'Somethin' that ain't been said of you, you big monkey!'
'Haw haw haw!' says he. 'Ain't you got the spunk, though! That's the way I like gals.'
'You might not like me so much,' says she suddenly, 'if I told you I'd found that big bay mare you rode last night!'
He started like he was shot and blurted out: 'Yo're lyin'! Nobody could find her where I hid her--'
He checked hisself sudden, but Glory give a yelp.
'I thought so! It was you!' And before he could stop her she grabbed his black locks and yanked. And his sculp come off in her hands and left his head as bare as what mine was!
'A wig jest like I thought!' she shrieked. 'You robbed that stage! You shaved yore head to look like Breckinridge--' He grabbed her and clapped his hand over her mouth, and yelped: 'Joe! Tom! Buck!' And at the sight of Glory struggling in his grasp I snapped them handcuffs like they was rotten cords and laid hold of them winder bars and tore 'em out. The logs they was sot in split like kindling wood and I come smashing through that winder like a b'ar through a chicken coop. Donovan let go of Glory and grabbed up his shotgun to blow my head off, but she grabbed the barrel and throwed all her weight onto it, so he couldn't bring it to bear on me, and my feet hit the ground jest as three of his pals come surging around the corner of the jail.
They was so surprised to see me out, and going so fast they couldn't stop and they run right into me and I gathered 'em to my bosom and you ought to of heard the bones crack and snap. I jest hugged the three of 'em together onst and then throwed 'em in all direction like a b'ar ridding hisself of a pack of hounds. Two of 'em fractured their skulls agen the jail-house and t'other broke his laig on a stump.
Meanwhile Donovan had let loose of his shotgun and run for the woods and Glory scrambled up onto her feet with the shotgun and let bam at him, but he was so far away by that time all she done was sting his hide with the shot. But he hollered tremendous jest the same. I started to run after him, but Glory grabbed me.
'He's headed for that hoss I told you about!' she panted. 'Git Cap'n Kidd! We'll have to be a-hoss-back if we catch him!'
Bang! went a shotgun in the thickets, and Donovan's maddened voice yelled: 'Stop that, you cussed fool! This ain't Elkins! It's me! The game's up! We got to shift!'
'Lemme ride with you!' hollered another voice, which I reckoned was the feller Donovan had planted to shoot me if I agreed to try to escape. 'My hoss is on the other side of the jail!'
'Git off, blast you!' snarled Donovan. 'This boss won't carry double!' Wham! I jedged he'd hit his pal over the head with his six-shooter. 'I owe you that for fillin' my hide with buckshot, you blame fool!' Donovan roared as he went crashing off into the bresh.
By this time we'd reched the oaks Cap'n Kidd was tied behind, and I swung up into the saddle and Glory jumped up behind me.
'I'm goin' with you!' says she. 'Don't argy! Git, goin'!'
I headed for the thickets Donovan had disappeared into, and jest inside of 'em we seen a feller sprawled on the ground with a shotgun in his hand and his sculp split open. Even in the midst of my righteous wrath I had a instant of ca'm and serene joy as I reflected that Donovan had got sprinkled with buckshot by the feller who evidently mistook him for me. The deeds of the wicked sure do return onto 'em.
Donovan had took straight out through the bresh, and left gaps in the bushes a blind man could foller. We could hear his hoss crashing through the timber ahead of us, and then purty soon the smashing stopped but we could hear the hoofs lickety-split on hard ground, so I knowed he'd come out into a path, and purty soon so did we. Moonlight hit down into it, but it was winding so we couldn't see very far ahead, but the hoof-drumming warn't pulling away from us, and we knowed we was closing in onto him. He was riding a fast critter but I knowed Cap'n Kidd would run it off its fool laigs within the next mile.
Then we seen a small clearing ahead and a cabin in it with candle-light coming through the winders, and Donovan busted out of the trees and jumped off his hoss which bolted into the bresh. Donovan run to the door and yelled: 'Lemme in, you damn' fools! The game's up and Elkins is right behind me!'
The door opened and he fell in onto his all-fours and yelled: 'Shet the door and bolt it! I don't believe even he can bust it down!' And somebody else hollered: 'Blow out the candles! There he is at the aidge of the trees.'
Guns began to crack and bullets whizzed past me, so I backed Cap'n Kidd back into cover and jumped off and picked up a big log which warn't rotten yet, and run out of the clearing and made towards the door. This surprised the men in the cabin, and only one man shot at me and he hit the log. The next instant I hit the door--or rather I hit the door with the log going full clip and the door splintered and ripped offa the hinges and crashed inwards, and three or four men got pinned under it and yelled bloody murder.
I lunged into the cabin over the rooins of the door and the candles was all out, but a little moonlight streamed in and showed me three or four vague figgers before me. They was all shooting at me but it was so dark in the cabin they couldn't see to aim good and only nicked me in a few unimportant places. So I went for them and got both arms full of human beings and started sweeping the floor with 'em. I felt several fellers underfoot because they hollered when I tromped on 'em, and every now and then I felt somebody's head with my foot and give it a good rousing kick. I didn't know who I had hold of because the cabin was so full of gunpowder smoke by this time that the moon didn't do much good. But none of the fellers was big enough to be Donovan, and them I stomped on didn't holler like him, so I started clearing house by heaving 'em one by one through the door, and each time I throwed one they was a resounding whack! outside that I couldn't figger out till I realized that Glory was standing outside with a club and knocking each one in the head as he come out.
Then the next thing I knowed the cabin was empty, except for me and a figger which was dodging back and forth in front of me trying to get past me to the door. So I laid hands onto it and heaved it up over my head and started to throw it through the door when it hollered: 'Quarter, my titanic friend, quarter! I surrenders and demands to be treated as a prisoner of war!'
'Jugbelly Judkins!' I says.
'The same,' says he, 'or what's left of him!'
'Come out here where I can talk to you!' I roared, and groped my way out of the door with him. As I emerged I got a awful lick over the head, and then Glory give a shriek like a stricken elk.
'Oh, Breckinridge!' she wailed. 'I didn't know it war you!'
'Never mind!' I says, brandishing my victim before her. 'I got my alerbi right here by the neck! Jugbelly Judkins,' I says sternly, clapping him onto his feet and waving a enormous fist under his snoot, 'if you values yore immortal soul, speak up and tell where I was all last night!'
'Drinkin' licker with me a mile off the Bear Creek trail,' gasps he, staring wildly about at the figgers which littered the ground in front of the cabin. 'I confesses all! Lead me to the bastile! My sins has catched up with me. I'm a broken man. Yet I am but a tool in the hands of a master mind, same as these misguided sons of crime which lays there--'
'One of 'em's tryin' to crawl off,' quoth Glory, fetching the aforesaid critter a clout on the back of the neck with her club. He fell on his belly and howled in a familiar voice.
I started vi'lently and bent over to look close at him.
'Japhet Jalatin!' I hollered. 'You cussed thief, you lied to me about yore wife starvin'!'
'If he told you he had a wife it was a gross understatement,' says Jugbelly. 'He's got three that I know of, includin' a Piute squaw, a Mexican woman, and a Chinee gal in San Francisco. But to the best of my knowledge they're all fat and hearty.'
'I have been took for a cleanin' proper,' I roared, gnashing my teeth. 'I've been played for a sucker! My trustin' nature has been tromped on! My faith in humanity is soured! Nothin' but blood can wipe out I this here infaminy!'
'Don't take it out on us,' begged Japhet. 'It war all Donovan's idee.'
