“All right,” I said. “I’ll pitch my camp down on the creek.”
“You better not,” says he. “These mountains is full of hyderphoby skunks. They crawls in yore blankets at night and bites you, and you foam at the mouth and go bite yore best friends. Now, it jest happens I got a spare cabin which I ain’t usin’. The feller who had it rented ain’t with us this mornin’ account of a extry ace in a poker game last night. I’ll rent it to you dirt cheap—ten dollars a day. You’ll be safe from them cussed skunks there.”
So I said: “All right. I don’t want to git hyderphoby.”
So I give him ten dollars in advance and put my plunder in the cabin which was on a slope west of the camp, and hobbled Satanta to graze. He said I better look out or somebody would steal Satanta. He said Mustang Stirling and his outlaws was hiding in the hills clost by and terrorizing the camp which didn’t even have a sheriff yet, because folks hadn’t had time to elect one, but they was gittin so sick of being robbed all the time they probably would soon, and maybe organize a Vigilante Committee, too. But I warn’t scairt of anybody stealing Satanta. A stranger had better take a cougar by the whiskers than to monkey with Satanta. That hoss has got a disposition like a sore-tailed rattlesnake.
Well, while we was talking I seen a gal come out from amongst the cluster of stores and saloons and things, and head up the canyon with a bucket in her hand. She was so purty my heart skipped a beat and my corns begun to throb. That’s a sure sign of love at first sight.
“Who’s that gal?” I ast.
“Hannah Sprague,” says Polk. “The belle of Blue Lizard. But you needn’t start castin’ sheep’s eyes at her. They’s a dozen young bucks sparkin’ her already. I think Blaze Wellington’s the favorite to put his brand onto her, though. She wouldn’t look twicet at a hill-billy like you.”
“I might remove the compertition,” I sejested.
“You better not try no Wolf Mountain rough stuff in Blue Lizard,” warned he. “The folks is so worked up over all these robberies and killin’s they’re jest in a mood to lynch somebody, especially a stranger.”
But I give no heed. Folks is always wanting to lynch me, and quite a few has tried, as numerous tombstones on the boundless prairies testifies.
“Where’s she goin’ with that bucket?” I ast him, and he said: “She’s takin’ beer to her old man which is workin’ a claim up the creek.”
“Well, listen,” I says. “You git over there behind that thicket and when she comes past you make a noise like a Injun.”
“What kind of damfoolishness is this?” he demanded. “You want to stampede the hull camp?”
“Don’t make a loud whoop,” I says. “Jest make it loud enough for her to hear it.”
“Air you crazy?” says he.
“No, dern it!” I said fiercely, because she was tripping along purty fast. “Git in there and do like I say. I’ll rush up from the other side and pertend to rescue her from the Injuns, and that’ll make her like me.”
“I mistrusts you’re a blasted fool,” he grumbled. “But I’ll do it jest this oncet.”
He snuck into the thicket which she’d have to pass on the other side, and I circled around so she couldn’t see me till I was ready to rush out and save her from being sculped. Well, I warn’t hardly in place when I heard a kind of mild war-whoop and it sounded jest like a Blackfoot, only not so loud. But immejitly there come the crack of a pistol and another yell which warn’t subdued like the first. It was lusty and energetic.
I run towards the thicket, but before I could git into the open trail old Polk come b’ilin’ out of the back side of the clump with his hands to the seat of his britches.
“You planned this a-purpose, you snake in the grass!” he squalled. “Git outa my way!”
“Why, Polk!” I says. “What happened?”
“I bet you knowed she had a derringer in her stocking,” he howled as he run past me with his pants smoking. “It’s all yore fault! When I whooped she pulled it and shot into the bresh! Don’t speak to me! I’m lucky that I warn’t hit in a vital spot. I’ll git even with you for this if it takes a hundred years!”
He headed on into the deep bresh, and I run around the thicket and seen Hannah Sprague peering into it with her gun smoking in her hand. She looked up as I come onto the trail, and I taken off my hat and said perlite: “Howdy, Miss. Can I be of no assistance to you?”
“I jest shot a Injun,” says she. “I heard him holler. You might go in there and git the sculp, if you don’t mind. I’d like to have it for a soovenear.”
“I’ll be glad to, Miss,” I says gallantly. “I’ll likewise kyore and tan it for you myself.”
“Oh, thank you, sir!” she says, dimpling. “It’s a pleasure to meet a real gent like you!”
“The pleasure’s all mine,” I assured her, and went into the bresh and stomped around a little, and then come out and says: “I’m arful sorry, Miss, but the varmint ain’t nowheres to be found. You must of jest winged him. If you want me to, I’ll take his trail and run him down.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t think of puttin’ you to sech trouble,” she says, much to my relief, because I was jest thinking that if she did demand a sculp, the only thing I could do would be to ketch old Polk and sculp him, and I’d hate to have to do that. I bet it would of made him arful mad.
But she looked me over admiringly and says: “I’m Hannah Sprague. Who’re you?
“I knowed you the minute I seen you,” I says. “The fame of yore beauty has reached clean to Wolf Mountain, Texas. I’m Pike Bearfield.”
“Glad to meetcha, Mister Bearfield,” says she. “They must grow big men in Texas. Well, I got to go now. Pap gits arful tetchy if he don’t git his beer along with his dinner.”
“I’d admire powerful to call on you this evenin’,” I says, and she says, “Well, I dunno. Mister Blaze Wellington was goin’ to call—”
“He cain’t come,” I says.
“Why, how do you know?” she ast surprised. “He said—”
“A unforeseen circumstance,” I says gently. “It ain’t happened to him yet, but it’s goin’ to right away.”
“Well,” she says, kind of confused, “I reckon in that case you can come on, if you want. We live in that cabin down yonder by that big fir. But when you git within hearin’ holler and tell us who you be, if it’s after dark. Pap is arful nervous account of all these outlaws which is robbin’ people.”
So I said I would, and she went on, and I headed for the camp. People give me some suspicious looks, and I heard a lot of folks talking about this here Mustang Stirling and his gang. Seems like them critters hid in the hills and robbed somebody nearly every day and night, and nobody could hardly git their gold out of camp without gittin’ stuck up. But I didn’t have no gold yet, and wouldn’t of been scairt of Mustang Stirling if I had, so I went on to the biggest saloon, which they called the Belle of New York. I taken a dram and ast the bartender if he knowed Blaze Wellington. He said sure he did, and I ast him where Blaze Wellington was, and he p’inted out a young buck which was setting at a table with his head down on his hands like he was trying to study out something. So I went over and sot down opposite him, and he looked up and seen me, and fell out of his chair backwards hollering: “Don’t shoot!”
“Why, how did you know?” I ast, surprised.
“By yore evil face,” he gibbered. “Go ahead! Do yore wust!”
“They ain’t no use to git highsterical,” I says. “If you’ll be reasonable nobody won’t git hurt.”