“Now,” says I to me, “you’re branded as a liar, Henry Peck. The best
thing you can do is to get your little jackass and go home. Your
forefathers never fought for glorious freedom, so there ain’t no use
of you celebrating the happy event. The men who were responsible for
the Pecks’ family tree was all hung for lying and stealing long before
the Declaration of Independence was signed.”
With these few cheering words ringing in my windpipe I ambles around
the corner, and down to where we left them burros. I gets there just
in time. Scenery Sims is untying one of my trusty animiles, so I
quickens my pace and shoves a gun in his ribs.
“Unhand that charger!” I roars in his ear, and Scenery wilts against
the hitch-rack. “You danged burro thief!” I hisses. “If you wants to
lead that pe-rade—go get your own rolling stock.”
“I—I—I dud-don’t want to le-lead nothing but the sus-simple life,” he
stutters. “I want to go home, Henry. Pup-Pole Cat shot the back out of
my suspenders, and stuck a bullet into the cylinder of my gun so she
won’t work. I’m through, Hen. You lead it.”
Here comes somebody down the street toward us, puffing like a bronc
with the heaves. He lopes up to us, sticks his heels into the ground
and skids around to the opposite side of the burros. It is old man
Whittaker.
“Quick!” he pants. “I’m rushed to death.”
Then he begins to fuss with a tie rope.
“Is speed essential?” I asks, and he snorts. “You know it is! I’m out
of shells—got more at the ranch. Dang the man what tied this rope!”
Just then somebody fires a shot up the street and I don’t hesitate. I
hops on to that Rocky Mountain canary, sets my spurs into his hide,
and down the street we goes, frog-hopping, high, wide and handsome. A
bullet plows under my steed, and he sails out of Paradise faster than
any burro ever did before or since.
We keep up that speed for about a mile, and then slows down to a
amble. I know where a pack-trail leaves the main road, a mile or so
above where the road does, so I opines to take the shortest route to
the Cross J. I leads my animile, while I searches for the trail in the
dark, and all to once I hears voices down the road. I hears Muley’s
bass and Chuck’s baritone, a cross between a greaseless wheel and
pneumonia, raised in song—
“‘It was at Aunt Dinah’s quilting partee-e-e-e——’”