Yavapai, and rekernized him as the man which robbed the stage. Ashley and Harrigan warn't ready to say for sure, but thought the robber looked like him. But you Chawed Ear gents know about that--as soon as you heard about the robbery you started buildin' yore special jail, and sent a posse to Bear Creek, along with Ashley and them three fakes that claimed to of rekernized Elkins. On the way you met Donovan, jest like he planned, and he jined you.
'But meanwhile, all the time, me and Elkins was engaged in alcoholic combat, till he passed out, long after midnight. Then I taken the jugs and hid 'em, and pulled out for the cabin to hide till I could sneak outa the country. Jalatin got there jest as I was leavin', and he waited till Elkins sobered up the next momin', and told him a sob story about havin' a wife in poverty, and give him the gold to give to her, and made him promise not to tell nobody where he got it. Donovan knowed the big grizzly wouldn't bust his word, if it was to save his neck even.
'Well, as you all know, the posse didn't find Elkins on Bear Creek. So they started out lookin' for him, with his pap and some of his uncles, and met him jest comin' out into the trail from the place where me and him had our famous boozin' bout. Imejitly Slade, Hurley and Jackson begun yellin' he was the man, and they was backed by Ashley which is a honest man but really thought Elkins was the robber, when he seen that nude skull. Donovan planned to git Elkins shot while attemptin' to escape. And the rest is now history--war-history, I might say.'
'Well spoke, Jugbelly,' I says, dumping Donovan off my hoss at the sheriff's feet. 'That's the story, and you- all air stuck with it. My part of the game's done did, and I washes my hands of it.'
'We done you a big injestice, Elkins,' says the sheriff. 'But how was we to know--'
'Forget it,' I says, and then pap rode up. Us Bear Creek folks don't talk much, but we says plenty in a few words.
'I was wrong, Breckinridge,' he says gruffly, and that said more'n most folks could mean in a long-winded speech. 'For the first time in my life,' he says, 'I admits I made a mistake. But,' says he, 'the only fly in the 'intment is the fack that a Elkins was drunk off'n his feet by a specimen like that!' And he p'inted a accusing finger at Jugbelly Judkins.
'I alone have come through the adventure with credit,' admitted Jugbelly modestly. 'A triumph of mind over muscle, my law-shootin' friends!'
'Mind, hell!' says Jalatin viciously. 'That coyote didn't drink none of that licker! He was a sleight-of-hand performer in a vaudeville show when Donovan picked him up. He had a rubber stummick inside his shirt and he poured the licker into that. He couldn't outdrink Breckinridge Elkins if he was a whole corporation, the derned thief!'
'I admits the charge,' sighed Jugbelly. 'I bows my head in shame.'
'Well,' I says, 'I've saw worse men than you, at that, and if they's anything I can do, you'll git off light, you derned wind-bag, you!'
'Thank you, my generous friend,' says he, and pap reined his hoss around and said: 'You comin' home, Breckinridge?'
'Go ahead,' I said. 'I'll come on with Glory.'
So pap and the men of Bear Creek turnt and headed up the trail, riding single file, with their rifles gleaming in the flare of the torches, and nobody saying nothing, jest saddles creaking and hoofs clinking softly, like Bear Creek men generally ride.
And as they went the citizens of Chawed Ear hove a loud sigh of relief, and grabbed Donovan and his gang with enthusiasm and lugged 'em off to the jail--the one I hadn't busted, I mean.
'And that,' said Glory, throwing her club away, 'is that. You ain't goin' off to foreign parts now, be you, Breckinridge?'
'Naw,' I said. 'My misguided relatives has redeemed theirselves.'
We stood there a minute looking at each other, and she said: 'You--you ain't got nothin' to say to me, Breckinridge?'
'Why, sure I has,' I responded. 'I'm mighty much obliged for what you done.'
'Is that all?' she ast, gritting her teeth slightly.
'What else you want me to say?' I ast, puzzled. 'Ain't I jest thanked you? They was a time when I would of said more, and likely made you mad, Glory, but knowin' how you feel towards me, I--'
'--!' says Glory, and before I knowed what she was up to, she grabbed up a rock the size of a watermelon and busted it over my head. I was so tooken by surprise I stumbled backwards and fell sprawling and as I looked up at her, a great light bust onto me.
'She loves me!' I exclaimed.
'I been wonderin' how long it was goin' to take you to find out!' says she.
'But what made you treat me like you done?' I demanded presently. 'I thought you plumb hated me!'
'You ought to of knowed better,' says she, snuggling in my arms. 'You made me mad that time you licked pap and them fool brothers of mine. I didn't mean most of them things I said. But you got mad and said some things which made me madder, and after that I was too proud to act any way but like I done. I never loved nobody but you, but I wouldn't admit it as long as you was at the top of the ladder, struttin' around with money in yore pocket, and goin' with purty gals, and everybody eager to be friends with you. I was lovin' you then so's it nearly busted me, but I wouldn't let on. I wouldn't humble myself to no blamed man! But you seen how quick I come to you when you needed a friend, you big lunkhead!'
'Then I'm glad all this happened,' I says. 'It made me see things straight. I never loved no other gal but you. I was jest tryin' to forgit you and make you jealous when I was goin' with them other gals. I thought I'd lost you, and was jest tryin' to git the next best. I know that now, and I admits it. I never seen a gal which could come within a hundred miles of you in looks and nerve and everything.'
'I'm glad you've come to yore senses, Breckinridge,' says she.
I swung up on Cap'n Kidd and lifted her up before me, and the sky was jest getting pink and the birds was beginning to cut loose as we started up the road towards Bear Creek.
THE END
CONTENTS
CUPID FROM BEAR CREEK
By Robert E. Howard
Some day, maybe, when I'm a old man, I'll have sense enough to stay away from these new mining camps which springs up overnight like mushroomers. There was that time in Teton Gulch, for instance. It was a ill-advised moment when I stopped there on my way back to the Humbolts from the Yavapai country. I was a sheep for the shearing and I was shore plenty. And if some of the shearers got fatally hurt in the process, they needn't to blame me. I was acting in self-defense all the way through.
At first I aimed to pass right through Teton Gulch without stopping. I was in a hurry to git back to my home- country and find out was any misguided idjits trying to court Dolly Rixby, the belle of War Paint, in my absence. I hadn't heard from her since I left Bear Creek, five weeks before, which warn't surprizing, seeing as how she couldn't write, nor none of her family, and I couldn't of read it if they had. But they was a lot of young bucks around War Paint which could be counted on to start shining around her the minute my back was turnt.
But my thirst got the best of me, and I stopped in the camp. I was drinking me a dram at the bar of the Yaller Dawg Saloon and Hotel, when the bar-keep says, after studying me a spell, he says: 'You must be Breckinridge Elkins, of Bear Creek.'
I give the matter due consideration, and 'lowed as how I was.
'How come you knowed me?' I inquired suspiciously, because I hadn't never been in Teton Gulch before, and he says: 'Well, I've heard tell of Breckinridge Elkins, and when I seen you, I figgered you must be him, because I don't see how they can be two men in the world that big. By the way, there's a friend of yore'n upstairs--Blink Wiltshaw, from War Paint. I've heered him brag about knowin' you personal. He's upstairs now, fourth door from the stair-head, on the left.'
Now that there news interested me, because Blink was the most persistent of all them young mavericks which was trying to spark Dolly Rixby. Just the night before I left for Yavapai, I catched him coming out of her house, and was fixing to sweep the street with him when Dolly come out and stopped me and made us shake hands.
