She didn't seem much surprised when she looked down in the bed and seen Joshua all tied up and painted and snoring his head off. Humbolt folks expects me to do onusual things.
'You needn't look like you thought I was crazy,' I says irritably. 'That critter is for Uncle Shadrach Polk.'
'If Uncle Shadrach sees that thing,' says she, 'he'll think he's seein' worse'n snakes.'
'That's what I aim for him to think,' I says. 'Who's he stayin' with?'
'Us,' says she.
'Hum!' I says. 'That there complicates things a little. Whar-at does he sleep?'
'Upstairs,' she says.
'Well,' I says, 'he won't interfere with our elopement none. You git outa here and go on home, and don't let yore pap suspect nothin'.'
'I'd be likely to, wouldn't I?' says she, and clumb down and pulled out.
I'd stopped in a thicket at the aidge of the settlement, and I could see the roof of Cousin Buckner's house from where I was. I could also hear Cousin Buckner bellering: 'Kit! Kit! Whar air you? I know you ain't in the garden. If I have to come huntin' you, I 'low I'll--'
'Aw, keep yore britches on,' I heard Kit call. 'I'm a-comin'!'
I heard Cousin Buckner subside into grumblings and rumblings like a grizzly talking to hisself. I figgered he was out on the road which run past his house, but I couldn't see him and neither he couldn't see me, nor nobody could which might happen to be passing along the road. I onhitched the mules and tied 'em where they could graze and git water, and I h'isted Joshua outa the wagon, and taken the ropes offa his laigs and tied him to a tree, and fed him and the mules with some corn I'd brung from Cousin Bill Gordon's. Then I went through the bresh till I come to Joel Garfield's stillhouse, which was maybe half a mile from there, up the run. I didn't meet nobody.
Joel was by hisself in the stillhouse, for a wonder, but he was making up for lack of trade by his own personal attention to his stock.
'Ain't Uncle Shadrach Polk nowhere around?' I ast, and Joel lowered a jug of white corn long enough to answer me.
'Naw,' he says, 'he ain't right now. He's likely still sleepin' off the souse he was on last night. He didn't leave here till after midnight,' says Joel, with another pull at the jug, 'and he was takin' all sides of the road to onst. He'll pull in about the middle of the afternoon and start in to fillin' his hide so full he can just barely stagger back to Buckner Kirby's house by midnight or past. I bet he has a fine old time navigatin' them stairs Buckner's got into his house. I'd be afeared to tackle 'em myself, even when I was sober. A pole ladder is all I want to git into a loft with, but Buckner always did have high-falutin' idees. Lately he's been argyin' with Uncle Shadrach to cut down on his drinkin'--specially when he's full hisself.'
'Speakin' of Cousin Buckner,' I says, 'has he been around for his regular dram yet?'
'Not yet,' says Joel. 'He'll be in right after dinner, as usual.'
'He wouldn't if he knowed what I knowed,' I opined, because I'd thought up a way to git Cousin Buckner out of the way that night. 'He'd be headin' for Wolf Canyon fast as he could spraddle. I just met Harry Braxton with a pack-mule headin' for there.'
'You don't mean somebody's made a strike in Wolf Canyon?' says Joel, pricking up his ears.
'You never heard nothin' like it,' I assured him. 'Alder Gulch warn't nothin' to this.'
'Hum!' says Joel, absent-mindedly pouring hisself a quart-size tin cup full of corn juice.
'I'm a Injun if it ain't!' I says, and dranken me a dram and went back to lay in the bresh and watch the Kirby house. I was well pleased with myself, because I knowed what a wolf Cousin Buckner was after gold. If anything could draw him away from home and his daughter, it would be news of a big strike. I was willing to bet my six- shooters against a prickly pear that as soon as Joel told him the news, he'd light out for Wolf Canyon. More especially as he'd think Harry Braxton was going there, too, and no chance of him sneaking off with Kit whilst the old man was gone.
* * * *
AFTER A WHILE I SEEN Cousin Buckner leave the house and go down the road towards the stillhouse, and purty soon Uncle Shadrach emerged and headed the same way. Purty well satisfied with myself, I went back to where I left Cousin Bill's wagon, and fried me five or six pounds of venison I'd brung along for provisions and et it, and drunk at the creek, and then laid down and slept for a few hours.
It was right at sundown when I woke up. I went on foot through the bresh till I come out behind Buckner's cow-pen and seen Kit milking. I ast her if anybody was in the house.
'Nobody but me,' she said. 'And I'm out here. I ain't seen neither pap nor Uncle Shadrach since they left right after dinner. Can it be yore scheme is actually workin' out?'
'Certainly,' I says. 'Uncle Shadrach'll be swillin' at Joel's stillhouse till past midnight, and yore pap is ondoubtedly on his way towards Wolf Canyon. You git through with yore chores, and git ready to skip. Don't have no light in yore room, though. It's just likely yore pap told off one of his relatives to lay in the bresh and watch the house--him bein' of a suspicious nater. We don't want to have no bloodshed. When I hear Harry's buckboard I'll come for you. And if you hear any pecooliar noises before he gits here, don't think nothin' of it. It'll just be me luggin' Joshua upstairs.'
'That critter'll bray fit to wake the dead,' says she.
'He won't, neither,' I said. 'He'll go to sleep and keep his mouth shet. Uncle Shadrach won't suspect nothin' till he lights him a candle to go to bed by. Or if he's too drunk to light a candle, and just falls down on the bed in the dark, he'll wake up durin' the night some time to git him a drink of water. He's bound to see Joshua some time between midnight and mornin'. All I hope is the shock won't prove fatal. You go git ready to skip now.'
I went back to the wagon and cooked me some more venison, also about a dozen aigs Kit had give me along with some corn pone and a gallon of buttermilk. I managed to make a light snack out of them morsels, and then, as soon as it was good and dark, I hitched up the mules and loaded Joshua into the wagon and went slow and easy down the road. I stopped behind the corral and tied the mules.
The house was dark and still. I toted Joshua into the house and carried him upstairs. I heard Kit moving around in her room, but they warn't nobody else in the house.
COUSIN BUCKNER HAD regular stairs in his house like what they have in big towns like War Paint and the like. Most folks in the Bear Creek country just has a ladder going up through a trap-door, and some said they would be a jedgment onto Buckner account of him indulging in such vain and sinful luxury, but I got to admit that packing a jackass up a flight of stairs was a lot easier than what it would have been to lug him up a ladder.
Joshua didn't bray nor kick none. He didn't care what was happening to him so long as he didn't have to do no work personal. I onfastened his laigs and tied a rope around his neck and t'other end to the foot of Uncle Shadrach's bunk, and give him a hat I found on a pag to chaw on till he went to sleep, which I knowed he'd do pronto.
I then went downstairs and heard Kit fussing around in her room, but it warn't time for Harry, so I went back out behind the corral and sot down and leaned my back agen the fence, and I reckon I must of gone to sleep. Just associating with Joshua give a man the habit. First thing I knowed I heard a buckboard rumbling over a bridge up the draw, and knowed it was Harry coming in fear and trembling to claim his bride. The moon warn't up yet but they was a glow above the trees on the eastern ridges.
I jumped up and ran quick and easy to Kit's winder--I can move light as a cougar in spite of my size--and I said: 'Kit, air you ready?'
'I'm ready!' she whispered, all of a tremble. 'Don't talk so loud!'
'They ain't nothin' to be scairt of,' I soothed her, but lowered my voice just to humor her. 'Yore pap is in Wolf Canyon by this time. Ain't nobody in the house but us. I been watchin' out by the corral.'
Kit sniffed.
'Warn't that you I heard come into the house while ago?' she ast.
'You been dreamin',' I said. 'Come on! That's Harry's buckboard comin' up the road.'
'Lemme get just a few more things together!' she whispered, fumbling around in the dark. That's just like a woman. No matter how much time they has aforehand, they always has something to do at the last minute.
I waited by the winder and Harry druv on past the house a few rods and tied the hoss and come back, walking light and soft, and plenty pale in the starlight.
'Go on out the front door and meet him,' I told her. 'No, wait!'
Because all to onst Harry had ducked back out of the road, and he jumped over the fence and come to the
