They'd jest et breakfast and was hitched up when we arrove, so we pulled out without no more delay. I rode along of Old Man Richardson's wagon, which went ahead with the others strung out behind, and he says to me: 'If this here Bowie Knife Canyon is sech a remarkable place, why ain't it already been settled?'
'Aw, they was a settlement there,' I said, 'but the Apaches kilt some, and Mexicans bandits kilt some, and about three years ago the survivors got to fightin' amongst theirselves and jest kind of kilt each other off.'
He yanked his beard nervously and said: 'I dunno! I dunno! Maybe we had ought to hunt a more peaceful spot than that there sounds like.'
'You won't find no peaceful spots west of the Pecos,' I assured him. 'Say no more about it. I've made up our minds that Bowie Knife Canyon is the place for you all, and we're goin' there!'
'I wouldn't think of argyin' the p'int,' he assured me hastily. 'What towns does we pass on our way.'
'Jest one,' I said. 'War Smoke, right on the Arizona line. Tell yore folks to keep out of it. It's a hangout for every kind of a outlaw. I jedge yore boys ain't handy enough with weppins to mix in sech company.'
'We don't want no trouble,' says he. 'I'll tell 'em.'
SO WE ROLLED ALONG, and the journey was purty uneventful except for the usual mishaps which generally happens to tenderfeet. But we progressed, until we was within striking distance of the Arizona border. And there we hit a snag. The rear wagon bogged in a creek we had to cross a few miles north of the line. They'd been a head rise, and the wagons churned the mud so the last one stuck fast. It was getting on toward sun-down, and I told the others to go on and make camp a mile west of War Smoke, and me and the folks in the wagon would foller when we got it out.
But that warn't easy. It was mired clean to the hubs, and the mules was up to their bellies. We pried and heaved and hauled, and night was coming on, and finally I said: 'If I could git them cussed mules out of my way, I might accomplish somethin'.'
So we unhitched 'em from the wagon, but they was stuck too, and I had to wade out beside 'em and lift 'em out of the mud one by one and tote 'em to the bank. A mule is a helpless critter. But then, with them out of the way, I laid hold of the tongue and hauled the wagon out of the creek in short order. Them Kansas people sure did look surprized, I dunno why.
Time we'd scraped the mud offa the wagon and us, and hitched up the mules again, it was night, and so it was long after dark when we come up to the camp the rest of the train had made in the place I told 'em. Old Man Richardson come up to me looking worried, and he says: 'Mister Elkins, some of the boys went into that there town in spite of what I told 'em.'
'Don't worry,' I says. 'I'll go git 'em.'
I clumb on Cap'n Kidd without stopping to eat supper, and rode over to War Smoke, and tied my hoss outside the only saloon they was there. It was a small town, and awful hard looking. As I went into the saloon I seen the four Richardson boys, and they was surrounded by a gang of cut-throats and outlaws. They was a Mexican there, too, a tall, slim cuss, with a thin black mustash, and gilt braid onto his jacket.
'So you theenk you settle in Bowie Knife Canyon, eh?' he says, and one of the boys said: 'Well, that's what we was aimin' to do.'
'I theenk not,' he said, grinning like a cougar, and I seen his hands steal to the ivory-handled guns at his hips. 'You never heard of Senor Gonzeles Zamora? No? Well, he is a beeg hombre in thees country, and he has use for thees canyon in hees business.'
'Start the fireworks whenever yo're ready, Gomez,' muttered a white desperado. 'We're backin' yore play.'
The Richardson boys didn't know what the deal was about, but they seen they was up agen real trouble, and they turnt pale and looked around like trapped critters, seeing nothing but hostile faces and hands gripping guns.
'Who tell you you could settle thees canyon?' ast Gomez. 'Who breeng you here? Somebody from Kansas? Yes? No?'
'No,' I said, shouldering my way through the crowd. 'My folks come from Texas. My granddaddy was at San Jacinto. You remember that?'
His hands fell away from his guns and his brown hide turnt ashy. The rest of them renegades give back, muttering: 'Look out, boys! It's Breckinridge Elkins!'
They all suddenly found they had business at the bar, or playing cards, or something, and Gomez found hisself standing alone. He licked his lips and looked sick, but he tried to keep up his bluff.
'You maybe no like what I say about Senor Zamora?' says he. 'But ees truth. If I tell him gringoes come to Bowie Knife Canyon, he get very mad!'
'Well, suppose you go tell him now,' I said, and so as to give him a good start, I picked him up and throwed him through the nearest winder.
He picked hisself up and staggered away, streaming blood and Mex profanity, and them in the saloon maintained a kind of pallid silence. I hitched my guns forard, and said to the escaped convict which was tending bar, I says: 'You don't want me to pay for that winder, do you?'
'Oh, no!' says he, polishing away with his rag at a spittoon he must of thought was a beer mug. 'Oh, no, no, no, no! We needed that winder busted fer the ventilation!'
'Then everybody's satisfied,' I suggested, and all the hoss-thieves and stagecoach bandits in the saloon give me a hearty agreement.
'That's fine,' I says. 'Peace is what I aim to have, if I have to lick every--in the joint to git it. You boys git back to the camp.'
They was glad to do so, but I lingered at the bar, and bought a drink for a train-robber I'd knowed at Chawed Ear onst, and I said: 'Jest who is this cussed Zamora that Mex was spielin' about?'
'I dunno,' says he. 'I never heard of him before.'
'I wouldn't say you was lyin',' I said tolerantly. 'Yo're jest sufferin' from loss of memory. Frequently cases like that is cured and their memory restored by a severe shock or jolt like a lick onto the head. Now then, if I was to take my six-shooter butt and drive yore head through that whiskey barrel with it, I bet it'd restore yore memory right sudden.'
'Hold on!' says he in a hurry. 'I jest remembered that Zamora is the boss of a gang of Mexicans which claims Bowie Knife Canyon. He deals in hosses.'
'You mean he steals hosses,' I says, and he says: 'I ain't argyin'. Anyway, the canyon is very convenient for his business, and if you dump them immigrants in his front yard, he'll be very much put out.'
'He sure will,' I agreed. 'As quick as I can git my hands onto him.'
I finished my drink and strode to the door and turnt suddenly with a gun in each hand. The nine or ten fellers which had drawed their guns aiming to shoot me in the back as I went through the door, they dropped their weppins and throwed up their hands and yelled: 'Don't shoot!' So I jest shot the lights out, and then went out and got onto Cap'n Kidd whilst them idjits was hollering and falling over each other in the dark, and rode out of War Smoke, casually shattering a few winder lights along the street as I went.
When I got back to camp the boys had already got there, and the whole wagon train was holding their weppins and scairt most to death.
'I'm mighty relieved to see you back safe, Mister Elkins,' says Old Man Richardson. 'We heard the shootin' and was afeared them bullies had kilt you. Le's hitch up and pull out right now!'
Them tenderfoots is beyond my comprehension. They'd of all pulled out in the dark if I'd let 'em, and I believe most of 'em stayed awake all night, expecting to be butchered in their sleep. I didn't say nothing to them about Zamora. The boys hadn't understood what Gomez was talking about, and they warn't no use getting 'em worse scairt than what they generally was.
WELL, WE PULLED OUT before daylight, because I aimed to rech the canyon without another stop. We kept rolling and got there purty late that night. It warn't really no canyon at all, but a whopping big valley, well timbered, and mighty good water and grass. It was a perfect place for a settlement, as I p'inted out, but tenderfoots is powerful pecooliar. I happened to pick our camp site that night on the spot where the Apaches wiped out a mule- train of Mexicans six years before, and it was too dark to see the bones scattered around till next morning. Old Man Richardson was using what he thought was a round rock for a piller, and when he woke up the next morning and found he'd been sleeping with his head onto a human skull he like to throwed a fit.
And when I wanted to stop for the noonday meal in that there grove where the settlers hanged them seven
