'Shet yore fool heads!' I roared, brandishing my fists. 'I come here to pay Glaze Bannack's fine, and git him outa jail, peaceable and orderly, and I'm tryin' to raise the dough like a #$%&*! gentleman! But by golly, if you hyenas pushes me beyond endurance, I'll tear down the cussed jail and snake him out without payin' no blasted fine.'
The J.P. turnt white. He says to the sheriff: 'Let him alone! I've already bought these here new boots on credit on the strength of them ten bucks we gits from Bannack.'
'But--' says the sheriff dubiously, and the J.P. hissed fiercely, 'Shet up, you blame fool. I jest now reckernized him. That's Breckinridge Elkins!'
The sheriff turnt pale and swallered his adam's apple and says feebly, 'Excuse me--I--uh--I ain't feelin' so good. I guess it's somethin' I et. I think I better ride over to the next county and git me some pills.'
But I don't think he was very sick from the way he run after he got outside the saloon. If they had been a jackrabbit ahead of him he would of trompled the gizzard out of it.
Well, they taken the black whiskered gent out from under the table and started pouring water on him, and I seen it was now about supper time so I went over to the cabin where Judith lived.
I WAS MET AT THE DOOR by a iron-jawed female about the size of a ordinary barn, which give me a suspicious look and says 'Well, what's you want?'
'I'm lookin' for yore sister, Miss Judith,' I says, taking off my Stetson perlitely.
'What you mean, my sister?' says she with a scowl, but a much milder tone. 'I'm her aunt.'
'You don't mean to tell me!' I says looking plumb astonished. 'Why, when I first seen you, I thought you was her herself, and couldn't figger out how nobody but a twin sister could have sech a resemblance. Well, I can see right off that youth and beauty is a family characteristic.'
'Go 'long with you, you young scoundrel,' says she, smirking, and giving me a nudge with her elbow which would have busted anybody's ribs but mine. 'You cain't soft-soap me--come in! I'll call Judith. What's yore name?'
'Breckinridge Elkins, ma'am,' I says.
'So!' says she, looking at me with new interest. 'I've heard tell of you. But you got a lot more sense than they give you credit for. Oh, Judith!' she called, and the winders rattled when she let her voice go. 'You got company.'
Judith come in, looking purtier than ever, and when she seen me she batted her eyes and recoiled vi'lently.
'Who--who's that?' she demanded wildly.
'Mister Breckinridge Elkins, of Bear Creek, Nevader,' says her aunt. 'The only young man I've met in this whole dern town which has got any sense. Well, come on in and set. Supper's on the table. We was jest waitin' for Curly Jacobs,' she says to me, 'but if the varmint cain't git here on time, he can go hongry.'
'He cain't come,' I says. 'He sent word by me he's sorry.'
'Well, I ain't,' snorted Judith's aunt. 'I give him permission to jest because I figgered even a bodacious flirt like Judith wouldn't cotton to sech a sapsucker, but--'
'Aunt Henrietta!' protested Judith, blushing.
'I cain't abide the sight of sech weaklin's,' says Aunt Henrietta, settling herself carefully into a rawhide- bottomed chair which groaned under her weight. 'Drag up that bench, Breckinridge. It's the only thing in the house which has a chance of holdin' yore weight outside of the sofie in the front room. Don't argy with me, Judith! I says Curly Jacobs ain't no fit man for a gal like you. Didn't I see him strain his fool back tryin' to lift that there barrel of salt I wanted fotched to the smoke house? I finally had to tote it myself. What makes young men so blame spindlin' these days?'
'Pap blames the Republican party,' I says.
'Haw! Haw! Haw!' says she in a guffaw which shook the doors on their hinges and scairt the cat into convulsions. 'Young man, you got a great sense of humor. Ain't he, Judith?' says she, cracking a beef bone betwixt her teeth like it was a pecan.
Judith says yes kind of pallid, and all during the meal she eyed me kind of nervous like she was expecting me to go into a war-dance or something. Well, when we was through, and Aunt Henrietta had et enough to keep a tribe of Sioux through a hard winter, she riz up and says, 'Now clear out of here whilst I washes the dishes.'
'But I must help with 'em,' says Judith.
Aunt Henrietta snorted. 'What makes you so eager to work all of a sudden? You want yore guest to think you ain't eager for his company? Git out of here.'
So she went, but I paused to say kind of doubtful to Aunt Henrietta, 'I ain't shore Judith likes me much.'
'Don't pay no attention to her whims,' says Aunt Henrietta, picking up the water barrel to fill her dish pan. 'She's a flirtatious minx. I've took a likin' to you, and if I decide yo're the right man for her, yo're as good as hitched. Nobody couldn't never do nothin' with her but me, but she's learnt who her boss is--after havin' to eat her meals off of the mantel-board a few times. Gwan in and court her and don't be backward!'
So I went on in the front room, and Judith seemed to kind of warm up to me, and ast me a lot of questions about Nevada, and finally she says she's heard me spoke of as a fighting man and hoped I ain't had no trouble in Panther Springs.
I told her no, only I had to hit one black whiskered thug from Cordova over the head with a cuspidor.
AT THAT SHE JUMPED UP like she'd sot on a pin.
'That was my uncle Jabez Granger!' she hollered. 'How dast you, you big bully! You ought to be ashamed, a, great big man like you pickin' on a little feller like him which don't weigh a ounce over two hundred and fifteen pounds!'
'Aw, shucks,' I said contritely. 'I'm sorry Judith.'
'Jest as I was beginnin' to like you,' she mourned. 'Now he'll write to pap and prejudice him agen you. You jest got to go and find him and apologize to him and make friends with him.'
'Aw, heck,' I said.
But she wouldn't listen to nothing else, so I went out and clumb onto Cap'n Kidd and went back to the Golden Steer, and when I come in everybody crawled under the tables.
'What's the matter with you all?' I says fretfully. 'I'm lookin' for Jabez Granger.'
'He's left for Cordova,' says the barkeep, sticking his head up from behind the bar.
Well, they warn't nothing to do but foller him, so I rode by the jail and Glaze was at the winder, and he says eagerly, 'Air you ready to pay me out?'
'Be patient, Glaze,' I says. 'I ain't got the dough yet, but I'll git it somehow as soon as I git back from Cordova.'
'What?' he shrieked.
'Be ca'm like me,' I advised. 'You don't see me gittin' all het up, do you? I got to go catch Judith Granger's Uncle Jabez and apolergize to the old illegitimate for bustin' his conk with a spittoon. I be back tomorrer or the next day at the most.'
Well, his langwidge was scandalous, considering all the trouble I was going to jest to git him out of jail, but I refused to take offense. I headed back for the Granger cabin and Judith was on the front porch.
I didn't see Aunt Henrietta, she was back in the kitchen washing dishes and singing: 'They've laid Jesse James in his grave!' in a voice which loosened the shingles on the roof. So I told Judith where I was going and ast her to take some pies and cakes and things to the jail for Glaze, account of the beans was rooining his stummick, and she said she would. So I pulled stakes for Cordova.
It laid quite a ways to the east, and I figgered to catch up with Uncle Jabez before he got there, but he had a long start and was on a mighty good hoss, I reckon. Anyway, Cap'n Kidd got one of his hellfire streaks and insisted on stopping every few miles to buck all over the landscape, till I finally got sick of his muleishness and busted him over the head with my pistol. By this time we'd lost so much time I never overtaken Uncle Jabez at all and it was gitting daylight before I come in sight of Cordova.
Well, about sun-up I come onto a old feller and his wife in a ramshackle wagon drawed by a couple of skinny mules with a hound dawg. One wheel had run off into a sink hole and the mules so pore and good-for-nothing they couldn't pull it out, so I got off and laid hold on the wagon, and the old man said, 'Wait a minute, young feller, whilst me and the old lady gits out to lighten the load.'
