“Well, whyn’t you tell us all this in the first place?” yelled old Ash. “What air we waitin’ on? Pike, you hold this critter whilst me and Joab scrapes the bristles off. This may be the very hawg.”
Well, I felt plumb silly helping shave a pig, but them old coots was serious. They like to have fit right in the middle of the job when they got to argying how they’d divide the plunder. I told ’em they better wait till they found it before they divided it.
Well, they shaved that critter from stem to stern, but not one mark did they find that looked like a map. But they warn’t discouraged.
“I’ve shaved six already,” says Uncle Joab. “I aim to find that map if I have to shave every white hawg in the county. They ain’t none been butchered since old Jeppard tattooed that’n, so it’s bound to be somewheres in these woods. Listen: I been livin’ in the old Sorley cabin over on the Choctaw. You all go over there with me, and we’ll take up our camp there and work out from it. They ain’t no settlements within a long ways of it, and all the pigs in the county comes over there to that oak grove about a mile from it to eat acorns. Won’t be nobody to interfere with us, and we’ll stay there and comb the woods till we finds the right hawg.”
So we pulled out, taking turns riding and walking.
We went through mighty wild, tangled, uninhabited country to git to that there cabin, which stood a few hundred yards from the bank of the Choctaw. Mostly we follered pig trails through the thickets. On the way Uncle Joab told us the McCoys used to hang out in them parts, and he bet they’d show up again sometime when Louisiana got too hot for ’em, and start burning cabins and stealing and shooting folks from the bresh again. And Ash Buckley said he bet the sheriff of Sabineville wouldn’t never catch ’em, and they got to talking about all the crimes them McCoys had committed, and I was plumb surprised to hear white men could ack like that. They was wuss’n Apaches. They shore wouldn’t of lasted long on Wolf Mountain.
Well, we slept at the cabin that night and early next morning we scattered through the pine flats and cypress swamps looking for white hawgs. Uncle Joab told me not to git lost nor et up by a alligator. Shucks, you could lose a timber wolf as easy as a Bearfield, even in the piney woods, and the muskeeters worrit me more’n the alligators.
I didn’t have no luck looking for white pigs. All I found was plain razorbacks. I finally got disgusted pulling through them swamps and thickets on foot, so about noontime I headed back for the cabin. And when I come out in the clearing I seen a man in the rail pen behind the cabin trying to rope Sinclair’s Defeat. I hollered at him and he ducked and pulled a pistol out of his boot and taken a shot at me, and then ran off into the bresh.
Well, I instantly knowed it was one of them dern Watsons trying to run off our stock and set us afoot so they could snipe us off at their leisure, so I taken in after him. They must of tracked us from Sabineville.
He knowed the country better’n I did, and he stayed ahead of me for three miles, heading south, but he couldn’t shake me off, because us Bearfields learnt tracking from the Yaquis. I gained on him and warn’t but a few yards behind him when he come into a clearing in the middle of the dangedest thicket I ever seen. A path had been cut through it with axes, but if I hadn’t been follering his tracks I probably wouldn’t never have found it, the mouth was so well hid, and not even a razorback could git through anywheres else.
I taken a shot at him as he broke cover and legged it for a cabin in the clearing, and then I started after him; but three or four men opened up on me from the door with Winchesters, so I jumped back into the bresh. He ducked inside and they slammed the door.
It was a hundred yards from the bresh to the cabin, and no cover for a man to crawl up clost. They’d riddle him if he tried it. There warn’t no winders, jest loopholes to shoot through, and the door looked arful thick. Leastways when I tried to shoot through it with my pistol the men inside hollered jeeringly and shot at me through the loopholes. The cabin was built up agen a big rock, the first of its size I’d saw in that country, so they warn’t no chance of storming ’em from the rear. It looked like they jest warn’t no way of coming to grips with them devils.
Then I seen smoke coming out of the top of the rock, and I knowed they had a fireplace built into the rock which formed the back wall of the cabin, and had tunneled out a chimney in the rock. I thought by golly, I bet if I was to climb up onto that rock from behind and drop a polecat down that chimney I could shoot all them Watsons as they run out.
So I fired a few shots at the door, and then ducked low and snuck off. I figgered they’d stay denned up till dark at least, thinking I was still laying for ’em outside, and by that time I could find me a skunk and git back with it. I was depending a lot on it. I notice the average man would rather run the risk of gitting shot than to stay denned up in a winderless cabin with a irritated polecat.
But I looked and looked, and didn’t find none, and it begun to git late, and all at once I thought by golly, I bet a alligator would have the same effect. The nearest way to the bayou was back by our cabin, so I headed that way.
The cabin was empty when I went past it. Uncle Joab and Ash Buckley was still out looking for the tattooed hawg. I went on to the Bayou where I’d heard a big bull beller the night before, and waded out in the water to find him, which I presently did by him grabbing me by the hind laig. So I waded to shore with him, him being too stubborn to let go, and suffering from the illusion that he could pull me out into deep water.
Ain’t it funny what fools some animals is? It’s ideas like that proves their undoing.
When he realized his error we was already in the shallers, so I pried him loose and got him under my arm and started for the bank with him. He then started swinging his tail up and hitting me in the back of the head with it, and it was wuss’n being kicked by a mule. He knocked me down three times before I got out of the water, and nearly wiggled away from me each time, to say nothing of biting me severely in various places. They is nothing more stubborn than a old bull alligator.
Finally I got so disgusted with him I hauled off with my fist and busted him betwixt the eyes, and whilst he was stunned I broke some vines and tied his laigs, and then I could carry him better. I called him Jedge Peabody because he looked so much like a jedge back in my country which would of fined me for shooting Jack Rackston wunst, only I wouldn’t stand for no sech interference with my personal liberty.
Well, I couldn’t figger out no way to tie Jedge Peabody’s tail, and he come to purty soon and started beating me in the neck with it again. It was gitting arful late by now, and I was afeared the Watsons would come out of their cabin and find me gone. So I decided to stop off at our cabin and then ride back instead of going afoot. I figgered to have some trouble with Sinclair’s Defeat when I put Jedge Peabody on his back, but I ’lowed I could persuade him.