'Heck,' I says, 'he looked honest.'
'Who?' yowled Old Man Mulholland. 'Who, you polecat?'
'Lem Campbell, the man I give the dough to for him to buy the grub,' I says. 'Oh, well, never mind. I'll work out the fifty.'
The Old Man looked like he was fixing to choke. He gurgled, 'Where's my chuck wagon?'
'A feller stole it,' I said. 'But I'll work that out too.'
'You won't work for me,' foamed the Old Man, pulling a gun. 'Yo're fired. And as for the dough and the wagon, I takes them out of yore hide here and now.'
Well, I taken the gun away from him, of course, and tried to reason with him, but he jest hollered that much louder, and got his knife out and made a pass at me. Now it always did irritate me for somebody to stick a knife in me, so I taken it away from him and throwed him into a nearby hoss trough. It was one of these here V-shaped troughs which narrers together at the bottom, and somehow his fool head got wedged and he was about to drown.
Quite a crowd had gathered and they tried pulling him out by the hind laigs but his feet was waving around in the air so wild that every time anybody tried to grab him they got spurred in the face. So I went over to the trough and taken hold of the sides and tore it apart. He fell out and spit up maybe a gallon of water. And the first words he was able to say he accused me of trying to drownd him on purpose, which shows how much gratitude people has got.
But a man spoke up and said, 'Hell, the big feller didn't do it on purpose. I was right here and I seen it all.'
And another'n said, 'I seen it as good as you did, and the big feller did try to drownd him, too!'
'Air you callin' me a liar?' said the first feller, reaching for his gun.
But jest then another man chipped in and said, 'I dunno what the argyment's about, but I bet a dollar you're both wrong!'
And then some more fellers butted in and everybody started cussing and hollering till it nigh deefened me. Someone else reaches for a gun and I seen that as soon as one feller shoots another there is bound to be trouble so I started to gentle the first feller by hitting him over the head. The next thing I know someone hollers at me, 'You big hyener!', and tries to ruint me with a knife. Purty soon there is hitting and shooting all over the town. High Horse is sure on a rampage.
I jest had finished blunting my Colts on a varmit's haid when I thinks disgustedly, 'Heck, Elkins, you came to this town on a mission of good will! You got business to do. You got yore poor family to think about.'
I started to go on to the depot but I heard a familiar voice screech above the racket. 'There he is, Sheriff! Arrest the dern' claim-jumper!'
I whirled around quick and there was Drooping Whiskers, a saddle blanket wropped around him like a Injun and walking purty spraddle-legged. He was p'inting at me and hollering like I'd did something to him.
Everybody else quieted down for a minute, and he hollered, 'Arrest him, dern him. He throwed me out of my own cabin and ruint my best pants with my own shotgun. I been to Knife River and come back several days quicker'n I aimed to, and there this big hyener was in charge of my shack. He was too dern big for me to handle, so I come to High Horse after the sheriff--soon as I got three or four hundred bird-shot picked out my hide.'
'What you got to say about this?' ast the sheriff, kinda uncertain, like he warn't enjoying his job for some reason or other.
'Why, hell,' I says disgustedly. 'I throwed this varmint out of a cabin, sure, and later peppered his anatomy with bird-shot. But I was in my rights. I was in a cabin which had been loaned me by a man named Lem Campbell--'
'Lem Campbell!' shrieked Drooping Whiskers, jumping up and down so hard he nigh lost the blanket he was wearing instead of britches. 'That wuthless critter ain't got no cabin. He was workin' for me till I fired him jest before I started for Knife River, for bein' so triflin'.'
'Hell's fire!' I says, shocked. 'Ain't there no honesty any more? Shucks, stranger, it looks like the joke's on me.'
At this Drooping Whiskers collapsed into the arms of his friends with a low moan, and the sheriff says to me uncomfortably, 'Don't take this personal, but I'm afeared I'll have to arrest you, if you don't mind--'
Jest then a train whistled away off to the east, and somebody said, 'What the hell, they ain't no train from the east this time of day!'
Then the depot agent run out of the depot waving his arms and yelling, 'Git them cows off'n the track! I jest got a flash from Knife River, the train's comin' back. A maniac named Buckner busted loose and made the crew turn her around at the switch. Order's gone down the line to open the track all the way. She's comin' under full head of steam. Nobody knows where Buckner's takin' her. He's lookin' for some relative of his'n!'
There was a lot of noise comin' down that track and all of it waren't the noise that a steam-ingine makes by itself. No, that noise was a different noise all right. That noise was right familiar to me. It struck a chord in my mind and made me wonder kinda what happened to them trainmen.
'Can that be Bearfield Buckner?' wondered a woman. 'It sounds like him. Well, if it is, he's too late to git Ann Wilkins.'
'What?' I yelled. 'Is they a gal in this town named Ann Wilkins?'
'They was,' she snickered. 'She was to marry this Buckner man yesterday, but he never showed up, and when her old beau, Lem Campbell, come along with fifty dollars he'd got some place, she up and married him and they lit out for San Francisco on their honeymoon--Why, what's the matter, young man? You look right green in the face. Maybe it's somethin' you et--'
It weren't nothin' I et. It was the thoughts I was thinkin'. Here I had gone an' ruint Cousin Bearfield's whole future. And outa kindness. Thet's what busted me wide open. I had ruint Cousin Bearfield's future out of kindness. My motives had been of the loftiest, I had tried to kyore an hombre what was loco from goin' locoer yet, and what was my reward? What was my reward? Jest thet moment I looks up and I seen a cloud of smoke a puffin' down the track and they is a roarin' like the roarin' of a herd of catamounts.
'Here she comes around the bend,' yelled somebody. 'She's burnin' up the track. Listen at that whistle. Jest bustin' it wide open.'
But I was already astraddle of Cap'n Kidd and traveling. The man which says I'm scairt of Bearfield is a liar. A Elkins fears neither man, beast nor Buckner. But I seen that Lem Campbell had worked me into getting Bearfield out of his way, and if I waited till Bearfield got there, I'd have to kill him or get killed, and I didn't crave to do neither.
I headed south jest to save Cousin Bearfield's life, and I didn't stop till I was in Durango. Let me tell you the revolution I got mixed up in there was a plumb restful relief after my association with Cousin Bearfield.
THE END
CONTENTS
NO COWHERDERS WANTED
By Robert E. Howard
I hear a gang of buffalo hunters got together recently in a saloon in Dodge City to discuss ways and means of keeping their sculps onto their heads whilst collecting pelts, and purty soon one of 'em riz and said, 'You mavericks make me sick. For the last hour you been chawin' wind about the soldiers tryin' to keep us north of the Cimarron, and belly-achin' about the Comanches, Kiowas and Apaches which yearns for our hair. You've took up all that time jawin' about sech triflin' hazards, and plannin' steps to take agen 'em, but you ain't makin' no efforts whatsoever to pertect yoreselves agen the biggest menace they is to the entire buffalo-huntin' clan--which is Breckinridge Elkins!'
That jest show's how easy prejudiced folks is. You'd think I had a grudge agen buffalo hunters, the way they takes to the bresh whenever they sees me coming. And the way they misrepresents what happened at Cordova is plumb disgustful. To hear 'em talk you'd think I was the only man there which committed any vi'lence.
If that's so I'd like to know how all them bullet holes got in the Diamond Bar saloon which I was using for a fort. Who throwed the mayor through that board fence? Who sot fire to Joe Emerson's store, jest to smoke me out? Who started the row in the first place by sticking up insulting signs in public places? They ain't no use in them
