'That'n,' says the older feller, p'inting back the way they'd come. 'But if yo're aimin' to go there I advises yuh to reflect deeply on the matter. Ponder, young man, ponder and meditate! Life is sweet, after all!'
'What you mean?' I ast. 'Who're you all chasin'?'
'Chasin' hell!' says he, polishing his sheriff's badge with his sleeve. 'We're bein' chased! Buck Ridgeway's in town!'
'Never heard of him,' I says.
'Well,' says the sheriff, 'Buck don't like strangers no more'n he does law-officers. And yuh see how well he likes them!'
'This here's a free country!' I snorted. 'When I stays outa town on account of this here Ridgeway or anybody else they'll be ice in hell thick enough for the devil to skate on. I'm goin' to visit a young lady--Miss Sue Pritchard. Can you tell me where she lives?'
They looked at me very pecooliar, and the sheriff says: 'Oh, in that case--well, she lives in the last cabin north of the general store, on the left-hand side of the street.'
'Le's git goin',' urged his deputy nervously. 'They may foller us!'
They started spurring again, and as they rode off, I heard the deputy say: 'Reckon he's one of 'em?' And the sheriff said: 'If he ain't he's the biggest damn fool that ever lived, to come sparkin' Sue Pritchard--' Then they rode outa hearing. I wondered who they was talking about, but soon forgot it as I rode on into Red Cougar.
I COME IN ON the south end of the town, and it was about like all them little mountain villages. One straggling street, hound dogs sleeping in the dust of the wagon ruts, and a general store and a couple of saloons.
I seen some hosses tied at the hitching rack outside the biggest saloon which said 'Mac's Bar' on it, but I didn't see nobody on the streets, although noises of hilarity was coming outa the saloon. I was thirsty and dusty, and I decided I better have me a drink and spruce up some before I called on Miss Pritchard. So I watered Cap'n Kidd at the trough, and tied him to a tree (if I'd tied him to the hitch rack he'd of kicked the tar outa the other hosses) and went into the saloon. They warn't nobody in there but a old coot with gray whiskers tending bar, and the noise was all coming from another room. From the racket I jedged they was a bowling alley in there and the gents was bowling.
I beat the dust outa my pants with my hat and called for whiskey. Whilst I was drinking it the feller said: 'Stranger in town, hey?'
I said I was and he said: 'Friend of Buck Ridgeway's?'
'Never seen him in my life,' says I, and he says: 'Then you better git outa town fast as you can dust it. Him and his bunch ain't here--he pulled out jest a little while ago--but Jeff Middleton's in there, and Jeff's plenty bad.'
I started to tell him I warn't studying Jeff Middleton, but jest then a lot of whooping bust out in the bowling alley like somebody had made a ten-strike or something, and here come six men busting into the bar whooping and yelling and slapping one of 'em on the back.
'Decorate the mahogany, McVey!' they whooped. 'Jeff's buyin'! He jest beat Tom Grissom here six straight games!'
They surged up to the bar and one of 'em tried to jostle me aside, but as nobody ain't been able to do that successful since I got my full growth, all he done was sprain his elbow. This seemed to irritate him, because he turnt around and said heatedly: 'What the hell you think yo're doin'?'
'I'm drinkin' me a glass of corn squeezin's,' I replied coldly, and they all turnt around and looked at me, and they moved back from the bar and hitched at their pistol-belts. They was a hard looking gang, and the feller they called Middleton was the hardest looking one of 'em.
'Who're you and where'd you come from?' he demanded.
'None of yore damn business,' I replied with a touch of old Southern curtesy.
He showed his teeth at this and fumbled at his gun-belt.
'Air you tryin' to start somethin'?' he demanded, and I seen McVey hide behind a stack of beer kaigs.
'I ain't in the habit of startin' trouble,' I told him. 'All I does is end it. I'm in here drinkin' me a quiet dram when you coyotes come surgin' in hollerin' like you was the first critter which ever hit a pin.'
'So you depreciates my talents, hey?' he squalled like he was stung to the quick. 'Maybe you think you could beat me, hey?'
'I ain't yet seen the man which could hold a candle to my game,' I replied with my usual modesty.
'All right!' he yelled, grinding his teeth. 'Come into the alley, and I'll show you some action, you big mountain grizzly!'
'Hold on!' says McVey, sticking his head up from behind the kaigs. 'Be keerful, Jeff! I believe that's--'
'I don't keer who he is!' raved Middleton. 'He has give me a mortal insult! Come on, you, if you got the nerve!'
'You be careful with them insults!' I roared menacingly, striding into the alley. 'I ain't the man to be bulldozed.' I was looking back over my shoulder when I shoved the door open with my palm and I probably pushed harder'n I intended to, and that's why I tore the door offa the hinges. They all looked kinda startled, and McVey give a despairing squeak, but I went on into the alley and picked up a bowl ball which I brandished in defiance.
'Here's fifty bucks!' I says, waving the greenbacks. 'We puts up fifty each and rolls for five dollars a game. That suit you?'
I couldn't understand what he said, because he jest made a noise like a wolf grabbing a beefsteak, but he snatched up a bulldog, and perjuiced ten five-dollar bills, so I jedged it was agreeable with him.
But he had a awful temper, and the longer we played, the madder he got, and when I had beat him five straight games and taken twenty-five outa his fifty, the veins stood out purple onto his temples.
'It's yore roll,' I says, and he throwed his bowl ball down and yelled: 'Blast yore soul, I don't like yore style! I'm through and I'm takin' down my stake! You gits no more of my money, damn you!'
'Why, you cheap-heeled piker!' I roared. 'I thought you was a sport, even if you was a hoss-thief, but--'
'Don't you call me a hoss-thief!' he screamed.
'Well, cow-thief then,' I says. 'If yo're so dern particular--'
IT WAS AT THIS INSTANT that he lost his head to the p'int of pulling a pistol and firing at me p'int-blank. He would of ondoubtedly shot me, too, if I hadn't hit him in the head with my bowl ball jest as he fired. His bullet went into the ceiling and his friends begun to display their disapproval by throwing pins and bulldogs at me. This irritated me almost beyond control, but I kept my temper and taken a couple of 'em by the neck and beat their heads together till they was limp. The matter would of ended there, without any vi'lence, but the other three insisted on taking the thing serious, and I defy any man to remain tranquil when three hoss-thieves are kyarving at him with bowies and beating him over the head with ten-pins.
But I didn't intend to bust the big ceiling lamp; I jest hit it by accident with the chair which I knocked one of my enermies stiff with. And it warn't my fault if one of 'em got blood all over the alley. All I done was break his nose and knock out seven teeth with my fist. How'd I know he was going to fall in the alley and bleed on it. As for that section of wall which got knocked out, all I can say is it's a derned flimsy wall which can be wrecked by throwing a man through it. I thought I'd throwed him through a winder until I looked closer and seen it was a hole he busted through the wall. And can I help it if them scalawags blowed holes in the roof till it looked like a sieve trying to shoot me?
It wasn't my fault, nohow.
But when the dust settled and I looked around to see if I'd made a clean sweep, I was jest in time to grab the shotgun which old man McVey was trying to shoot me through the barroom door with.
'You oughta be ashamed,' I reproved. 'A man of yore age and venerable whiskers, tryin' to shoot a defenseless stranger in the back.'
'But my bowlin' alley's wrecked!' he wept, tearing the aforesaid whiskers. 'I'm a rooint man! I sunk my wad in it--and now look at it!'
'Aw, well,' I says, 'it warn't my fault, but I cain't see a honest man suffer. Here's seventy-five dollars, all I got.'
''Tain't enough,' says he, nevertheless making a grab for the dough like a kingfisher diving after a pollywog. ''Tain't near enough.'
