'It's a human obligation,' says Snake River. 'I'll do it!'
So we left him at Jake's cabin, propped up on a bunk, with Salomey feeding him spoon-vittles and whiskey, and me and Gooseneck headed for Yeller Dog, which warn't hardly a mile from there.
Gooseneck says to me: 'We won't say nothin' about Snake River bein' at Jake's shack. Bull Hawkins is sweet on Salomey and he's so dern jealous-minded it makes him mad for another man to even stop there to say hello to the folks. We don't want nothin' to interfere with our show.'
'You ack like you got a lot of confidence in it,' I says.
'I banks on it heavy,' says he. 'It's a symbol of civilization.'
WELL, JEST AS WE COME into town we met Mule McGrath with fire in his eye and corn-juice on his breath. 'Gooseneck, lissen!' says he. 'I jest got wind of a plot of Hawkins and Jack Clanton to git a lot of our voters so drunk election day that they won't be able to git to the polls. Le's call off the spellin' match and go over to the Red Tomahawk and clean out that rat-nest!'
'Naw,' says Gooseneck, 'we promised the mob a show, and we keeps our word. Don't worry; I'll think of a way to circumvent the heathen.'
Mule headed back for the Silver Saddle, shaking his head, and Gooseneck sot down on the aidge of a hoss- trough and thunk deeply. I'd begun to think he'd drapped off to sleep, when he riz up and said: 'Breck, git hold of Soapy Jackson and tell him to sneak out of camp and stay hid till the mornin' of the eleventh. Then he's to ride in jest before the polls open and spread the news that they has been a big gold strike over in Wild Ross Gulch. A lot of fellers will stampede for there without waitin' to vote. Meanwhile you will have circulated amongst the men you know air goin' to vote for me, and let 'em know we air goin' to work this campaign strategy. With all my men in camp, and most of Bull's headin' for Wild Ross Gulch, right and justice triumphs and I wins.'
So I went and found Soapy and told him what Gooseneck said, and on the strength of it he imejitly headed for the Silver Saddle, and begun guzzling on campaign credit. I felt it was my duty to go along with him and see that he didn't get so full he forgot what he was supposed to do, and we was putting down the sixth dram apiece when in come Jack McDonald, Jim Leary, and Tarantula Allison, all Hawkins men. Soapy focused his wandering eyes on 'em, and says: 'W-who's this here clutterin' up the scenery? Whyn't you mavericks stay over to the Red Tomahawk whar you belong?'
'It's a free country,' asserted Jack McDonald. 'What about this here derned spellin' match Gooseneck's braggin' about all over town?'
'Well, what about it?' I demanded, hitching my harness for'ard. The political foe don't live which can beard a Elkins in his lair.
'We demands to know who conducks it,' stated Leary. 'At least half the men in camp eligible to compete is in our crowd. We demands fair play!'
'We're bringin' in a cultured gent from another town,' I says coldly.
'Who?' demanded Allison.
'None of yore dang business!' trumpeted Soapy, which gets delusions of valor when he's full of licker. 'As a champion of progress and civic pride I challenges the skunk-odored forces of corrupt politics, and--'
Bam! McDonald swung with a billiard ball and Soapy kissed the sawdust.
'Now look what you done,' I says peevishly. 'If you coyotes cain't ack like gents, you'll oblige me by gittin' to hell outa here.'
'If you don't like our company suppose you tries to put us out!' they challenged.
So when I'd finished my drink I taken their weppins away from 'em and throwed 'em headfirst out the side door. How was I to know somebody had jest put up a new cast-iron hitching-rack out there? Their friends carried 'em over to the Red Tomahawk to sew up their sculps, and I went back into the Silver Saddle to see if Soapy had come to yet. Jest as I reched the door he come weaving out, muttering in his whiskers and waving his six- shooter.
'Do you remember what all I told you?' I demanded.
'S-some of it!' he goggled, with his glassy eyes wobbling in all directions.
'Well, git goin' then,' I urged, and helped him up onto his hoss. He left town at full speed, with both feet outa the stirrups and both arms around the hoss' neck.
'Drink is a curse and a delusion,' I told the barkeep in disgust. 'Look at that sickenin' example and take warnin'! Gimme me a bottle of rye.'
WELL, GOOSENECK DONE a good job of advertising the show. By the middle of the next afternoon men was pouring into town from claims all up and down the creek. Half an hour before the match was sot to begin the hall was full. The benches was moved back from the front part, leaving a space clear all the way acrost the hall. They had been a lot of argyment about who was to compete, and who was to choose sides, but when it was finally settled, as satisfactory as anything ever was settled in Yeller Dog, they was twenty men to compete, and Lobo Harrison and Jack Clanton was to choose up.
By a peculiar coincidence, half of that twenty men was Gooseneck's, and half was Bull's. So naturally Lobo choosed his pals, and Clanton chosed his'n.
'I don't like this,' Gooseneck whispered to me. 'I'd ruther they'd been mixed up. This is beginnin' to look like a contest between my gang and Bull's. If they win, it'll make me look cheap. Where the hell is Snake River?'
'I ain't seen him,' I said, 'You ought to of made 'em take off their guns.'
'Shucks,' says he. 'What could possibly stir up trouble at sech a lady-like affair as a spellin' bee. Dang it, where is Snake River? Old Jake said he'd git him here on time.'
'Hey, Gooseneck!' yelled Bull Hawkins from where he sot amongst his coharts. 'Why'n't you start the show?'
Bull was a big broad-shouldered hombre with black mustashes like a walrus. The crowd begun to holler and cuss and stomp their feet and this pleased Bull very much.
'Keep 'em amused,' hissed Gooseneck. 'I'll go look for Snake River.'
He snuck out a side door and I riz up and addressed the throng. 'Gents,' I said, 'be patient! They is a slight delay, but it won't be long. Meantime I'll be glad to entertain you all to the best of my ability. Would you like to hear me sing Barbary Allen?'
'No, by grab!' they answered in one beller.
'Well, yo're a-goin' to!' I roared, infuriated by this callous lack of the finer feelings. 'I will now sing,' I says, drawing my .45s 'and I blows the brains out of the first coyote which tries to interrupt me.'
I then sung my song without interference, and when I was through I bowed and waited for the applause, but all I heard was Lobo Harrison saying: 'Imagine what the pore wolves on Bear Creek has to put up with!'
This cut me to the quick, but before I could make a suitable reply, Gooseneck slid in, breathing heavy. 'I can't find Snake River,' he hissed. 'But the bar-keep gimme a book he found somewheres. Most of the leaves is tore out, but there's plenty left. I've marked some of the longest words, Breck. You can read good enough to give 'em out. You got to! If we don't start the show right away, this mob'll wreck the place. Yo're the only man not in the match which can even read a little, outside of me and Bull. It wouldn't look right for me to do it, and I shore ain't goin' to let Bull run my show.'
I knew I was licked.
'Aw, well, all right,' I said. 'I might of knew I'd be the goat. Gimme the book.'
'Here it is,' he said. ''The Adventures of a French Countess.' Be dern shore you don't give out no words except them I marked.'
'Hey!' bawled Jack Clanton. 'We're gittin' tired standin' up here. Open the ball.'
'All right,' I says. 'We commences.'
'Hey!' said Bull. 'Nobody told us Elkins was goin' to conduck the ceremony. We was told a cultured gent from outa town was to do it.'
'Well,' I says irritably, 'Bear Creek is my home range, and I reckon I'm as cultured as any snake-hunter here. If anybody thinks he's better qualified than me, step up whilst I stomp his ears off.'
Nobody volunteered, so I says 'All right. I tosses a dollar to see who gits the first word.' It fell for Harrison's gang, so I looked in the book at the first word marked, and it was a gal's name.
'Catharine,' I says.
Nobody said nothing.
'Catharine!' I roared, glaring at Lobo Harrison.
