has got so I nail my bed-kivers to the bunk every night or they'd steal the blankets right offa me Breckinridge. Moreover a stumbling block on the path of progress by the name of Ted Bissett is running sheep on the range next to me this is more'n a man can endure Breckinridge. So I want you to come up here right away and help me find out who is stealing my stock and bust Ted Bissett's hed for him the low-minded scunk. Hoping you air the same I begs to remane as usual.
Yore abused frend.
Raxton, Esq.
P. S. That sap-headed misfit Johnny Willoughby which used to work for me down on Green River is sheriff here and he couldn't ketch flies if they was bogged down in merlasses.
Well, I didn't feel it was none of my business to mix into any row Abednego might be having with the sheepmen, so long as both sides fit fair, but rustlers was a different matter. A Elkins detests a thief. So I mounted Cap'n Kidd, after the usual battle, and headed for Lonesome Lizard, which was the nighest town to his ranch.
I found myself approaching this town a while before noon one blazing hot day, and as I crossed a right thick timbered creek, shrieks for aid and assistance suddenly bust the stillness. A hoss also neighed wildly, and Cap'n Kidd begun to snort and champ like he always does when they is a b'ar or a cougar in the vicinity. I got off and tied him, because if I was going to have to fight some critter like that, I didn't want him mixing into the scrap; he was jest as likely to kick me as the varmint. I then went on foot in the direction of the screams, which was growing more desperate every minute, and I presently come to a thicket with a big tree in the middle of it, and there they was. One of the purtiest gals I ever seen was roosting in the tree and screeching blue murder, and they was a cougar climbing up after her.
'Help!' says she wildly. 'Shoot him!'
'I jest wish some of them tender-foots which calls theirselves naturalists could see this,' I says, taking off my Stetson. A Elkins never forgits his manners. 'Some of 'em has tried to tell me cougars never attacks human beings nor climbs trees, nor prowls in the daytime. I betcha this would make 'em realize they don't know it all. Jest like I said to that'n which I seen in War Paint, Nevada, last summer--'
'Will you stop talkin' and do somethin'?' she says fiercely. 'Ow!'
Because he had reched up and made a pass at her foot with his left paw. I seen this had went far enough, so I told him sternly to come down, but all he done was look down at me and spit in a very insulting manner. So I reched up and got him by the tail and yanked him down, and whapped him agen the ground three or four times, and when I let go of him he run off a few yards, and looked back at me in a most pecooliar manner. Then he shaken his head like he couldn't believe it hisself, and lit a shuck as hard as he could peel it in the general direction of the North Pole.
'Whyn't you shoot him?' demanded the gal, leaning as far out as she could to watch him.
'Aw, he won't come back,' I assured her. 'Hey, look out! That limb's goin' to break--'
Which it did jest as I spoke and she come tumbling down with a shriek of despair. She still held onto the limb with a desperate grip, however, which is why it rapped me so severe on the head when I catched her.
'Oh!' says she, letting go of the limb and grabbing me. 'Am I hurt?'
'I dunno,' I says, 'You better let me carry you to wherever you want to go.'
'No,' says she, gitting her breath back. 'I'm all right. Lemme down.'
So I done so, and she says: 'I got a hoss tied over there behind that fir. I was ridin' home from Lonesome Lizard and stopped to poke a squirrel out of a holler tree. It warn't a squirrel, though. It was that dang lion. If you'll git my hoss for me, I'll be ridin' home. Pap's ranch is jest over that ridge to the west. I'm Margaret Brewster.'
'I'm Breckinridge Elkins, of Bear Creek, Nevada,' I says. 'I'm headin' for Lonesome Lizard, but I'll be ridin' back this way before long. Can I call on you?'
'Well,' she says, 'I'm engaged to marry a feller, but it's conditional. I got a suspicion he's a spineless failure, and I told him flat if he didn't succeed at the job's he's workin' on now, not to come back. I detests a failure. That's why I likes yore looks,' says she, giving me a admiring glance. 'A man which can rassle a mountain lion with his b'ar hands is worth any gal's time. I'll send you word at Lonesome Lizard; if my fiansay flops like it looks he's goin' to do, I'd admire to have you call.'
'I'll be awaitin' yore message with eager heart and honest devotion,' I says, and she blushed daintily and clumb on her hoss and pulled her freight. I watched her till she was clean out of sight, and then hove a sigh that shook the acorns out of the surrounding oaks, and wended my way back to Cap'n Kidd in a sort of rose-colored haze. I was so entranced I started to git onto Cap'n Kidd on the wrong end and never noticed till he kicked me vi'lently in the belly.
'Love, Cap'n Kidd,' I says to him dreamily, batting him between the eyes with my pistol butt, 'is youth's sweet dream.'
But he made no response, outside of stomping on my corns; Cap'n Kidd has got very little sentiment.
SO I MOUNTED AND PULLED for Lonesome Lizard, which I arriv at maybe a hour later. I put Cap'n Kidd in the strongest livery stable I could find and seen he was fed and watered, and warned the stable-hands not to antagonize him, and then I headed for the Red Warrior saloon. I needed a little refreshments before I started for Abednego's ranch.
I taken me a few drams and talked to the men which was foregathered there, being mainly cowmen. The sheepmen patronized the Bucking Ram, acrost the street. That was the first time I'd ever been in Montana, and them fellers warn't familiar with my repertation, as was showed by their manner.
Howthesomever, they was perlite enough, and after we'd downed a few fingers of corn scrapings, one of 'em ast me where I was from, proving they considered me a honest man with nothing to conceal. When I told 'em, one of 'em said: 'By golly, they must grow big men in Nevada, if yo're a sample. Yo're the biggest critter I ever seen in the shape of a human.'
'I bet he's as stout as Big Jon,' says one, and another'n says: 'That cain't be. This gent is human, after all. Big Jon ain't.'
I was jest fixing to ast 'em who this Jon varmint was, when one of 'em cranes his neck toward the winder and says: 'Speak of the devil and you gits a whiff of brimstone! Here comes Jon acrost the street now. He must of seen this gent comin' in, and is on his way to make his usual challenge. The sight of a man as big as him is like wavin' a red flag at a bull.'
I looked out the winder and seen a critter about the size of a granary coming acrost the street from the Bucking Ram, follered by a gang of men which looked like him, but not nigh as big.
'What kind of folks air they?' I ast with interest. 'They ain't neither Mexicans nor Injuns, but they sure ain't white men, neither.'
'Aw, they're Hunkies,' says a little sawed-off cowman. 'Ted Bissett brung 'em in here to herd sheep for him. That big 'un's Jon. He ain't got no sense, but you never seen sech a hunk of muscle in yore life.'
'Where they from?' I ast. 'Canader?'
'Naw,' says he. 'They come originally from a place called Yurrop. I dunno where I it is, but I jedge it's somewhere's east of Chicago.'
But I knowed them fellers never originated nowheres on this continent. They was rough-dressed and wild- looking, with knives in their belts, and they didn't look like no folks I'd ever saw before. They come into the barroom and the one called Jon bristled up to me very hostile with his little beady black eyes. He stuck out his chest about a foot and hit it with his fist which was about the size of a sledge hammer. It sounded like a man beating a bass drum.
'You strong man,' says he. 'I strong too. We rassle, eh?'
'Naw,' I says, 'I don't care nothin' about rasslin'.'
He give a snort which blowed the foam off of every beer glass on the bar, and looked around till he seen a iron rod laying on the floor. It looked like the handle of a branding iron, and was purty thick. He grabbed this and bent it into a V, and throwed it down on the bar in front of me, and all the other Hunkies jabbered admiringly.
This childish display irritated me, but I controlled myself and drunk another finger of whiskey, and the bartender whispered to me: 'Look out for him! He aims to prod you into a fight. He's nearly kilt nine or ten men with his b'ar hands. He's a mean 'un.'
'Well,' I says, tossing a dollar onto the bar and turning away, 'I got more important things to do than rassle a outlandish foreigner in a barroom. I got to eat my dinner and git out to the Raxton ranch quick.'
But at that moment Big Jon chose to open his bazoo. There are some folks which cain't never let well enough
