'Git a rope!' howled somebody. 'We'll hang 'em.'
They begun to surge for'ards, and Lattimer and Meshak was so scairt they couldn't hardly hold the lines. But I mounted my hoss and pulled my pistols and says. 'Meshak, swing that chuck wagon and head south. Perfessor, you foller him. Hey, you, git away from them mules!'
One of the crowd had tried to grab their bridles and stop 'em, so I shot a heel off'n his boot and he fell down hollering bloody murder.
'Git outa the way!' I bellered, swinging my pistols on the crowd, and they give back in a hurry. 'Git goin',' I says, firing some shots under the mules' feet to encourage 'em, and the chuck wagon went out of Gallego jumping and bouncing with Meshak holding onto the seat and hollering blue ruin, and the Perfessor come right behind it in his buggy. I follered the Perfessor looking back to see nobody didn't shoot me in the back, because several men had drawed their pistols. But nobody fired till I was out of good pistol range. Then somebody let loose with a buffalo rifle, but he missed me by at least a foot, so I paid no attention to it, and we was soon out of sight of the town.
I was a feared Bearfield might come to and scare the mules with his bellering, but that brass rail must of been harder'n I thought. He was still unconscious when we pulled up to the cabin which stood in a little wooded cove amongst the hills a few miles south of Gallego. I told Meshak to onhitch the mules and turn 'em into the corral whilst I carried Bearfield into the cabin and laid him on a bunk. I told Lattimer to bring in all the elixir he had, and he brung ten gallons in one-gallon jugs. I give him all the money I had to pay for it.
Purty soon Bearfield come to and he raised his head and looked at Perfessor Lattimer setting on the bunk opposite him in his long tailed coat and plug hat, the cross-eyed nigger and the monkey setting beside him. Bearfield batted his eyes and says, 'My God, I must be crazy. That can't be real!'
'Sure, yo're crazy, Cousin Bearfield,' I soothed him. 'But don't worry. We're goin' to kyore you--'
Bearfield here interrupted me with a yell that turned Meshak the color of a fish's belly.
'Untie me, you son of Perdition!' he roared, heaving and flopping on the bunk like a python with the belly- ache, straining agen his ropes till the veins knotted blue on his temples. 'I oughta be in High Horse right now gittin' married--'
'See there?' I sighed to Lattimer. 'It's a sad case. We better start dosin' him right away. Git a drenchin' horn. What size dose do you give?'
'A quart at a shot for a hoss,' he says doubtfully. 'But--'
'We'll start out with that,' I says. 'We can increase the size of the dose if we need to.'
IGNORING BEARFIELD'S terrible remarks I was jest twisting the cork out of a jug when I heard somebody say, 'What the hell air you doin' in my shack?'
I turned around and seen a bow-legged critter with drooping whiskers glaring at me kinda pop-eyed from the door.
'What you mean, yore shack?' I demanded, irritated at the interruption. 'This shack belongs to a friend of mine which has lent it to us.'
'Yo're drunk or crazy,' says he, clutching at his whiskers convulsively. 'Will you git out peaceable or does I have to git vi'lent?'
'Oh, a cussed claim-jumper, hey?' I snorted, taken his gun away from him when he drawed it. But he pulled a bowie so I throwed him out of the shack and shot into the dust around him a few times jest for warning.
'I'll git even with you, you big lummox!' he howled, as he ran for a scrawny looking sorrel he had tied to the fence. 'I'll fix you yet,' he promised blood-thirstily as he galloped off, shaking his fist at me.
'Who do you suppose he was?' wondered Lattimer, kinda shaky, and I says, 'What the hell does it matter? Forgit the incident and help me give Cousin Bearfield his medicine.'
That was easier said than did. Tied up as he was, it was all we could do to get that there elixir down him. I thought I never would get his jaws pried open, using the poker for a lever, but when he opened his mouth to cuss me, we jammed the horn in before he could close it. He left the marks of his teeth so deep on that horn it looked like it'd been in a b'ar-trap.
He kept on heaving and kicking till we'd poured a full dose down him and then he kinda stiffened out and his eyes went glassy. When we taken the horn out his jaws worked but didn't make no sound. But the Perfessor said hosses always acted like that when they'd had a good healthy shot of the remedy, so we left Meshak to watch him, and me and Lattimer went out and sot down on the stoop to rest and cool off.
'Why ain't Meshak onhitched yore buggy?' I ast.
'You mean you expect us to stay here overnight?' says he, aghast.
'Over night, hell!' says I. 'You stays till he's kyored, if it takes a year. You may have to make up some more medicine if this ain't enough.'
'You mean to say we got to rassle with that maniac three times a day like we just did?' squawked Lattimer.
'Maybe he won't be so vi'lent when the remedy takes holt,' I encouraged him. Lattimer looked like he was going to choke, but jest then inside the cabin sounds a yell that even made my hair stand up. Cousin Bearfield had found his voice again.
We jumped up and Meshak come out of the cabin so fast he knocked Lattimer out into the yard and fell over him. The monkey was right behind him streaking it like his tail was on fire.
'Oh, lawdy!' yelled Meshak, heading for the tall timber. 'Dat crazy man am bustin' dem ropes like dey was twine. He gwine kill us all, sho'!'
I run into the shack and seen Cousin Bearfield rolling around on the floor and cussing amazing, even for him. And to my horror I seen he'd busted some of the ropes so his left arm was free. I pounced on it, but for a few minutes all I was able to do was jest to hold onto it whilst he throwed me hither and thither around the room with freedom and abandon. At last I kind of wore him down and got his arm tied again jest as Lattimer run in and done a snake dance all over the floor.
'Meshak's gone,' he howled. 'He was so scared he run off with the monkey and my buggy and team. It's all your fault.'
Being too winded to argy I jest heaved Bearfield up on the bunk and staggered over and sot down on the other'n, whilst the Perfessor pranced and whooped and swore I owed him for his buggy and team.
'Listen,' I said when I'd got my wind back. 'I spent all my money for that elixir, but when Bearfield recovers his reason he'll be so grateful he'll be glad to pay you hisself. Now forgit sech sordid trash as money and devote yore scientific knowledge to gittin' Bearfield sane.'
'Sane!' howls Bearfield. 'Is that what yo're doin'--tyin' me up and pizenin' me? I've tasted some awful muck in my life, but I never drempt nothin' could taste as bad as that stuff you poured down me. It plumb paralyzes a man. Lemme loose, dammit.'
'Will you be ca'm if I onties you?' I ast.
'I will,' he promised heartily, 'jest as soon as I've festooned the surroundin' forest with yore entrails!'
'Still vi'lent,' I said sadly. 'We better keep him tied, Perfessor.'
'But I'm due to git married in High Horse right now!' Bearfield yelled, giving sech a convulsive heave that he throwed hisself clean offa the bunk. It was his own fault, and they warn't no use in him later blaming me because he hit his head on the floor and knocked hisself stiff.
'Well,' I said, 'at least we'll have a few minutes of peace and quiet around here. Help me lift him back on his bunk.'
'What's that?' yelped the Perfessor, jumping convulsively as a rifle cracked out in the bresh and a bullet whined through the cabin.
'That's probably Droopin' Whiskers,' I says, lifting Cousin Bearfield. 'I thought I seen a Winchester on his saddle. Say, it's gittin' late. See if you cain't find some grub in the kitchen. I'm hungry.'
Well, the Perfessor had an awful case of the willies, but we found some bacon and beans in the shack and cooked 'em and et 'em, and fed Bearfield, which had come to when he smelt the grub cooking. I don't think Lattimer enjoyed his meal much because every time a bullet hit the shack he jumped and choked on his grub. Drooping Whiskers was purty persistent, but he was so far back in the bresh he wasn't doing no damage. He was a rotten shot anyhow. All of his bullets was away too high, as I p'inted out to Lattimer, but the Perfessor warn't happy.
I didn't dare untie Bearfield to let him eat, so I made Lattimer set by him and feed him with a knife, and he was scairt and shook so he kept spilling hot beans down Bearfield's collar, and Bearfield's langwidge was awful to
