sir!'
I never cared especially for feuds, believing them to be even more overrated products of our country than grapefruit, scrapple, or honeymoons. Nevertheless, if I may be allowed, I will tell you of an Indian Territory feud of which I was press-agent, camp-follower, and inaccessory during the fact.
I was on a visit to Sam Durkee's ranch, where I had a great time falling off unmanicured ponies and waving my bare hand at the lower jaws of wolves about two miles away. Sam was a hardened person of about twenty- five, with a reputation for going home in the dark with perfect equanimity, though often with reluctance.
Over in the Creek Nation was a family bearing the name of Tatum. I was told that the Durkees and Tatums had been feuding for years. Several of each family had bitten the grass, and it was expected that more Nebuchad- nezzars would follow. A younger generation of each family was growing up, and the grass was keeping pace with them. But I gathered that they had fought fairly; that they had not lain in cornfields and aimed at the division of their enemies' suspenders in the back -- partly, perhaps, because there were no cornfields, and nobody wore more than one suspender. Nor had any woman or child of either house ever been harmed. In those days -- and you will find it so yet -- their women were safe.
Sam Durkee had a girl. (If it were an all-fiction magazine that I expect to sell this story to, I should say, 'Mr. Durkee rejoiced in a fiancee.') Her name was Ella Baynes. They appeared to be devoted to each other, and to have perfect confidence in each other, as all couples do who are and have or aren't and haven't. She was tolerably pretty, with a heavy mass of brown hair that helped her along. He introduced me to her, which seemed not to lessen her preference for him; so I reasoned that they were surely soul-mates.
Miss Baynes lived in Kingfisher, twenty miles from the ranch. Sam lived on a gallop between the two places.
One day there came to Kingfisher a courageous young man, rather small, with smooth face and regular features. He made many inquiries about the business of the town, and especially of the inhabitants cognominally. He said he was from Muscogee, and he looked it, with his yellow shoes and crocheted four-in-hand. I met him once when I rode in for the mail. He said his name was Beverly Travers, which seemed rather improbable.
There were active times on the ranch, just then, and Sam was too busy to go to town often. As an incom- petent and generally worthless guest, it devolved upon me to ride in for little things such as post cards, barrels of flour, baking-powder, smoking-tobacco, and -- letters from Ella.
One day, when I was messenger for half a gross of cigarette papers and a couple of wagon tires, I saw the alleged Beverly Travers in a yellow-wheeled buggy with Ella Baynes, driving about town as ostentatiously as the black, waxy mud would permit. I knew that this infor- mation would bring no balm of Gilead to Sam's soul, so I refrained from including it in the news of the city that I retailed on my return. But on the next afternoon an elongated ex-cowboy of the name of Simmons, an old- time pal of Sam's, who kept a feed store in Kingfisher, rode out to the ranch and rolled and burned many cigar- ettes before he would talk. When he did make oration, his words were these:
'Say, Sam, there's been a description of a galoot miscallin' himself Bevel-edged Travels impairing the atmospheric air of Kingfisher for the past two weeks. You know who he was? He was not otherwise than Ben Tatum, from the Creek Nation, son of old Gopher Tatum that your Uncle Newt shot last February. You know what he done this morning? He killed your brother Lester -- shot him in the co't-house yard.'
I wondered if Sam had heard. He pulled a twig from a mesquite bush, chewed it gravely, and said:
'He did, did he? He killed Lester?'
'The same,' said Simmons. 'And he did more. He run away with your girl, the same as to say Miss Ella Baynes. I thought you might like to know, so I rode out to impart the information.'
'I am much obliged, Jim,' said Sam, taking the chewed twig from his mouth. 'Yes, I'm glad you rode Out. Yes, I'm right glad.'
'Well, I'll be ridin' back, I reckon. That boy I left in the feed store don't know hay from oats. He shot Lester in the back.'
'Shot him in the back?'
'Yes, while he was hitchin' his hoss.'
'I'm much obliged, Jim.'
'I kind of thought you'd like to know as soon as you could.'
'Come in and have some coffee before you ride back, Jim?'
'Why, no, I reckon not; I must get back to the store.'
'And you say -- '
'Yes, Sam. Everybody seen 'em drive away together in a buckboard, with a big bundle, like clothes, tied up in the back of it. He was drivin' the team he brought over with him from Muscogee. They'll be hard to over- take right away.'
'And which -- '
'I was goin' on to tell you. They left on the Guthrie road; but there's no tellin' which forks they'll take -- you know that.'
'All right, Jim; much obliged.'
'You're welcome, Sam.'
Simmons rolled a cigarette and stabbed his pony with both heels. Twenty yards away he reined up and called back:
'You don't want no -- assistance, as you might say?'
'Not any, thanks.'
'I didn't think you would. Well, so long!'
Sam took out and opened a bone-handled pocket-knife and scraped a dried piece of mud from his left boot.
