Buckner!'
'What?' says I with a vi'lent start, because they hadn't never been no insanity in the family before, only Bearfield's great-grand-uncle Esau who onst voted agen Hickory Jackson. But he recovered before the next election.
'It's the truth,' says the young feller. 'He's sufferin' from a hallucination that he's goin' to marry a gal over to High Horse by the name of Ann Wilkins. They ain't even no gal by that name there. He was havin' a fit in the saloon when I left, me not bearin' to look on the rooins of a onst noble character. I'm feared he'll do hisself a injury if he ain't restrained.'
'Hell's fire!' I said in great agitation. 'Is this the truth?'
'True as my name's Lem Campbell,' he declared. 'I thought bein' as how yo're a relation of his'n, if you could kinda git him out to my cabin a few miles south of Gallego, and keep him there a few days maybe he might git his mind back--'
'I'll do better'n that,' I says, jumping out of the wagon and tying the mules. 'Foller me,' I says, forking Cap'n Kidd. The Perfessor's buggy was jest going out of sight around a bend, and I lit out after it. I was well ahead of Lem Campbell when I overtaken it. I pulled up beside it in a cloud of dust and demanded, 'You say that stuff kyores man or beast?'
'Absolutely!' declared Lattimer.
'Well, turn around and head for Gallego,' I said. 'I got you a patient.'
'But Gallego is but a small inland village' he demurs. 'There is a railroad and many saloons at High Horse and--'
'With a human reason at stake you sets and maunders about railroads!' I roared, drawing a .45 and impulsively shooting a few buttons off of his coat. 'I buys yore whole load of loco licker. Turn around and head for Gallego.'
'I wouldn't think of argying,' says he, turning pale. 'Meshak, don't you hear the gentleman? Get out from under that seat and turn these hosses around.'
'Yes suh!' says Meshak, and they swung around jest as Lem Campbell galloped up.
I hauled out the wad Old Man Mulholland gimme and says to him, 'Take this dough on to High Horse and buy some grub and have it sent out to Old Man Mulholland's cow camp on the Little Yankton. I'm goin' to Gallego and I'll need the wagon to lug Cousin Bearfield in.'
'I'll take the grub out myself,' he declared, grabbing the wad. 'I knowed I could depend on you as soon as I seen you.'
So he told me how to get to his cabin, and then lit out for High Horse and I headed back up the trail. When I passed the buggy I hollered, 'Foller me into Gallego. One of you drive the chuck wagon which is standin' at the forks. And don't try to shake me as soon as I git out of sight, neither!'
'I wouldn't think of such a thing,' says Lattimer with a slight shudder. 'Go ahead and fear not. We'll follow you as fast as we can.'
So I dusted the trail for Gallego.
It warn't much of a town, with only jest one saloon, and as I rode in I heard a beller in the saloon and the door flew open and three or four fellows come sailing out on their heads and picked theirselves up and tore out up the street.
'Yes,' I says to myself, 'Cousin Bearfield is in town, all right.'
GALLEGO LOOKED ABOUT like any town does when Bearfield is celebrating. The stores had their doors locked and the shutters up, nobody was on the streets, and off down acrost the flat I seen a man which I taken to be the sheriff spurring his hoss for the hills. I tied Cap'n Kidd to the hitch-rail and as I approached the saloon I nearly fell over a feller which was crawling around on his all-fours with a bartender's apron on and both eyes swelled shet.
'Don't shoot!' says he. 'I give up!'
'What happened?' I ast.
'The last thing I remember is tellin' a feller named Buckner that the Democratic platform was silly,' says he. 'Then I think the roof must of fell in or somethin'. Surely one man couldn't of did all this to me.'
'You don't know my cousin Bearfield,' I assured him as I stepped over him and went through the door which was tore off its hinges. I'd begun to think that maybe Lem Campbell had exaggerated about Bearfield; he seemed to be acting in jest his ordinary normal manner. But a instant later I changed my mind.
Bearfield was standing at the bar in solitary grandeur, pouring hisself a drink, and he was wearing the damnedest-looking red, yaller, green and purple shirt ever I seen in my life.
'What,' I demanded in horror, 'is that thing you got on?'
'If yo're referrin' to my shirt,' he retorted with irritation, 'it's the classiest piece of goods I could find in Denver. I bought it special for my weddin'.'
'It's true!' I moaned. 'He's crazy as hell.'
I knowed no sane man would wear a shirt like that.
'What's crazy about gittin' married?' he snarled, biting the neck off of a bottle and taking a big snort. 'Folks does it every day.'
I walked around him cautious, sizing him up and down, which seemed to exasperate him considerable.
'What the hell's the matter with you?' he roared, hitching his harness for'ard. 'I got a good mind to--'
'Be ca'm, Cousin Bearfield,' I soothed him. 'Who's this gal you imagine yo're goin' to marry?'
'I don't imagine nothin' about it, you ignerant ape,' he retorts cantankerously. 'Her name's Ann Wilkins and she lives in High Horse. I'm ridin' over there right away and we gits hitched today.'
I shaken my head mournful and said, 'You must of inherited this from yore great-grand-uncle Esau. Pap's always said Esau's insanity might crop out in the Buckners again some time. But don't worry. Esau was kyored and voted a straight Democratic ticket the rest of his life. You can be kyored too, Bearfield, and I'm here to do it. Come with me, Bearfield,' I says, getting a good rassling grip on his neck.
'Consarn it!' says Cousin Bearfield, and went into action.
We went to the floor together and started rolling in the general direction of the back door and every time he come up on top he'd bang my head agen the floor which soon became very irksome. However, about the tenth revolution I come up on top and pried my thumb out of his teeth and said, 'Bearfield, I don't want to have to use force with you, but--ulp!' That was account of him kicking me in the back of the neck.
My motives was of the loftiest, and they warn't no use in the saloon owner belly-aching the way he done afterwards. Was it my fault if Bearfield missed me with a five-gallon demijohn and busted the mirror behind the bar? Could I help it if Bearfield wrecked the billiard table when I knocked him through it? As for the stove which got busted, all I got to say is that self-preservation is the first law of nature. If I hadn't hit Bearfield with the stove he would of ondoubtedly scrambled my features with that busted beer mug he was trying to use like brass knucks.
I'VE HEARD MANIACS fight awful, but I dunno as Bearfield fit any different than usual. He hadn't forgot his old trick of hooking his spur in my neck whilst we was rolling around on the floor, and when he knocked me down with the roulette wheel and started jumping on me with both feet I thought for a minute I was going to weaken. But the shame of having a maniac in the family revived me and I throwed him off and riz and tore up a section of the brass foot-rail and wrapped it around his head. Cousin Bearfield dropped the bowie he'd jest drawed, and collapsed.
I wiped the blood off of my face and discovered I could still see outa one eye. I pried the brass rail off of Cousin Bearfield's head and dragged him out onto the porch by a hind laig, jest as Perfessor Lattimer drove up in his buggy. Meshak was behind him in the chuck wagon with the monkey, and his eyes was as big and white as saucers.
'Where's the patient?' ast Lattimer, and I said, 'This here's him! Throw me a rope outa that wagon. We takes him to Lem Campbell's cabin where we can dose him till he recovers his reason.'
Quite a crowd gathered whilst I was tying him up, and I don't believe Cousin Bearfield had many friends in Gallego by the remarks they made. When I lifted his limp carcass up into the wagon one of 'em ast me if I was a law. And when I said I warn't, purty short, he says to the crowd, 'Why, hell, then, boys, what's to keep us from payin' Buckner back for all the lickin's he's give us? I tell you, it's our chance! He's unconscious and tied up, and this here feller ain't no sheriff.'
