I was feeling for ’em when the back door busted open and I had a brief glimpse of a tall figger darting out, and it was carrying something on its shoulder. Then I remembered that the poke had been on that table. Mister Jones had got holt of the gold and was skedaddling with it!
I run out of the back door after him jest as a mob of men come whooping and yelling up to the front door with torches and guns and ropes. I heard one of ’em yelclass="underline" “Somebody’s fightin’ in there! Listen at ’em!”
Somebody else yelled: “Maybe the whole gang’s in there with the hill-billy! Git ’em!” So they went smashing into the cabin jest as I run in amongst the trees after Mister Jones.
And there I was stumped. I couldn’t see where he went and it was too dark to find his trail. Then all to oncet I heard Satanta squeal and a man yelled for help, and they come a crash like a man makes when a hoss bucks him off into a blackjack thicket. I run in the direction of the noise and by the starlight I seen Satanta grazing and a pair of human laigs sticking out of the bresh. Mister Jones had tried to git away on Satanta.
“I told you he wouldn’t let nobody but me ride him,” I says as I hauled him out, but his langwidge ain’t fit to be repeated. The poke was lying clost by, busted open. When I picked it up, it didn’t look right. I struck a match and looked.
That there poke was full of nothing but scrap iron!
I was so stunned I didn’t hardly know what I was doing when I taken the poke in one hand and Mister Jones’ neck in the other’n, and lugged ’em back to the cabin. The mob had Mister Jones’s six men outside tied up, and was wiping the blood off ’em, and I seen Shorty and Black-Beard and Squint-Eye and the others, and about a hundred more.
“They’re Stirling’s men all right,” says Warts. “But where’s Mustang, and that hill- billy? Anyway, le’s string these up right here.”
“You ain’t,” says Black-Beard. “You all elected me sheriff before we come up here, and I aims to uphold the law. . . . Who’s that?”
“It’s Old Man Sprague,” says somebody, as a bald-headed old coot come prancing through the crowd waving a shotgun.
“What you want?” says Black-Beard. “Don’t you see we’re busy?”
“I demands jestice!” howled Old Man Sprague. “I been abused!”
At this moment I shouldered through the crowd with a heavy heart, and slang the poke of scrap iron down in front of him.
“There it is,” I says, “and I’ll swear it ain’t been monkeyed with since Blaze Wellington gave it to me!”
“Who’s that?’ howled Sprague.
“The hill-billy!” howled the mob. “Grab him!”
“No, you don’t!” I roared, drawing a gun. “I’ve took enough offa you Blue Lizard jackasses! I’m a honest man, and I’ve brung back Mister Jones to prove it.”
I then flang him down in front of them, and Warts give a howl and pounced on him. “Jones, nothing!” he yelled. “That’s Mustang Stirling!”
“I confesses,” says Mustang groggily. “Lock me up where I can be safe from that hill-billy! The critter ain’t human.”
“Somebody listen to me!” howled Old Man Sprague, jumping up and down. “I demands to be heard!”
“I done the best I could!” I roared, plumb out of patience. “When Blaze Wellington give me yore gold to guard—”
“What the devil air you talkin’ about?” he squalled. “That wuthless scoundrel never had no gold of mine.”
“What!” I hollered, going slightly crazy. Jest then I seen a feller in the crowd I recognized. I made a jump and grabbed him.
“Branner!” I roared. “You was at Wellington’s shack when he give me that poke! You tell me quick what this is all about, or—”
“Leggo!” he gasped. “It warn’t Sprague’s gold we hid. It was our’n. We couldn’t git it outa camp because we knowed Stirling’s spies was watchin’ us all the time. When you jumped Blaze in the Belle of New York, he seen a chance to git ’em off our necks. He filled that poke with scrap iron and give it to you where the spy could see it and hear what was said. The spy didn’t know whether it was our gold or Sprague’s, but we knowed if he thought you had it, Stirling would go after you and let us alone. He did, too, and that give Blaze a chance to sneak out early tonight with it.”
“And that ain’t all!” bellered Old Man Sprague. “He taken Hannah with him! They’ve eloped!”
My yell of mortal agony drownded out his demands for the sheriff to pursue ’em. Hannah! Eloped! It was too much for a critter to endure!
“Aw, don’t you keer, partner,” says Shorty, slapping me on the back with the arm I hadn’t busted. “You been vindicated as a honest citizen! You’re the hero of the hour!”
“Spare yore praise,” I says bitterly. “I’m the victim of female perfidy. I have lost my faith in my feller man and my honest heart is busted all to perdition! Leave me to my sorrer!”
So they gathered up their prisoners and went away in awed silence. I am a rooint man. All I want to do is to become a hermit and forgit my aching heart in the untrodden wilderness.
Your pore brother,
Pike
P.S.—The Next Morning. I have jest learnt that after I withdrawed from the campaign and left Antioch, you come out for sheriff and got elected. So that’s why you persuaded me to come up here. I am heading for Antioch and when I git there I am going to whup you within a inch of yore wuthless life, I don’t care if you air sheriff of Antioch. I am going to kick the seat of yore britches up around yore neck and sweep the streets with you till you don’t know whether yo’re setting or standing. Hoping this finds you in good health and spirits, I am,
Yore affectionate brother,
P. Bearfield Esquire
The Riot Of Bucksnort
Table of Contents
THE SAN SIMEON BRANDING IRON
April 6, 1885
EDITORIAL
It has lately been brought to our notice by some of the less fastidious of our citizens who, presumably, have been amusing themselves by a slumming tour which naturally included a visit to our neighboring city of Bucksnort, that a campaign for sheriff is now raging in that aforesaid Hellhole of Iniquity. The candidates, as they were informed by such of Bucksnort’s citizens as were out of jail and sober enough to talk lucidly, are the present Sheriff of Papago County, John Donaldson, and the City Marshal of Bucksnort, Cheyenne Campbell, whose term of office evidently expires about election time. Not, however, that the undemocratic spectacle of a man holding one office and simultaneously running for another would create any impression on the stunted sensibilities of the denizens of that Miners’ Bedlam, that Blot on the Desert, that reeking Cesspool of Infamy, Bucksnort!
Each of the candidates seems to be straining nerve and sinew (we had almost said brain!) to distinguish himself in some spectacular manner which will catch the alcohol-soaked fancy of the citizenry. While we would no more descend to mingle into Bucksnort’s politics than we would dip our hands in any other mud puddle, we humbly suggest to whichever candidate may be elected, that he devote less time to persecuting innocent citizens of San Simeon, whom misfortune catches in Bucksnort, and more to the pursuit of that notorious scourge of the Border, Raphael Garcia, or El Lobo, the bandit, whose depredations are a thorn in the flesh of all honest men, and who, incidentally, seems to be reaping the larger proceeds of the mines of which Bucksnort is so proud. Within the last few months his robberies of stagecoaches, ore-trains, and company offices have cost the mine owners several hundred thousand dollars. This is of no consequence to San Simeon, the fair queen-city of the cow country, but doubtless is to the muckgrubbers of Bucksnort.