“My ——!”
He yanks the team around, and away he goes, rattlety bang, down toward
the jail, while the crowd races along behind him. Muley and Telescope
sets there on the steps and finishes up their song.
“Ret-ret-retribution,” pronounces Telescope. “The old man kills Chuck,
and then gets hoist with his own petard.”
“Hoisted,” corrects Muley. “I never heard dynamite called petard but a
rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Some celebration, eh,
Telescope. I wonder if anybody has yet killed Henry Peck this fair
morning?”
“The day is yet young, so why worry?” says Telescope. “I fain wouldst
look upon the red when it is wine. Let’s tend a little bar, Muley.”
I wanders around back of Mike’s place. I feels weary, and when I
notices Mike’s little barn, I gets an inspiration. Why not sleep until
celebration time? I climbs into the loft and sprawls on the hay.
“All the comforts of home,” says I out loud.
“Hey, Henry,” comes a whisper. “Was Chuck dead?”
“Uh-huh,” says I. “Is Scenery with yuh?”
“He is,” squeaks Scenery. “What was that explosion, Henry?”
“They say that Harelip and Pole Cat blew up the jail. I don’t know how
much truth there is in it.”
“Henry,” quavers the old man, “you was a friend in need. I’ll—”
Just then a faint voice begins singing, somewhere in the hay. It’s a
voice that nobody ever heard and forgot. Cross between a greaseless
wheel and pneumonia.
“‘Rockuhvages clef’ for me-e-e, le’ me hide myself——’”
We listens for a few seconds. Old man Whittaker gathers his legs under
himself like a rabbit, and shoots out a that hay-loft like a swaller.
We hears him hit the ground and gallop out of range. Scenery don’t say
a word. He yawns, crawls over to the window, and lets himself down,
easy-like, and sneaks away.
“Henry,” says Chuck, “did I hear your voice?”
“You did.”
“Stop talking to yourself, you shepherd, and let a man sleep. I had a
awful dream, Henry. Dreamed that the world blowed up. It hit me
and—ho, hum-m-m!”
“Ho, hum-m-m-m!” says I, and goes to sleep, too.
* * * * *
When I woke up the birds were singing, and the sun was shining through
the cracks in the loft. Chuck is still snoring, so I climbs down
alone. I’m as dry as a drouth in Arizona, so I pilgrims into Mike’s
place regardless of consequences.
The place is fairly filled, and sadness is the prevailing color
scheme. On the bar stands Scenery’s old stove-pipe hat, with a wide
band of black cloth around it, and Mike’s mirror is hung with the
emblem of mourning.
McFee is standing there with bowed head, and sadness fairly drips from
his lips.
“It’s a most awful situation,” he orates. “If we could only find a
single piece of ’em. There ain’t nothing left—nothing!”
“There ain’t nothing left of poor Chuck either,” tolls Muley. “Poor
old Chuck. He was a gentleman and a scholar. I’d love to gaze upon his
face once more.
“He’s went away and left us
In the prime of his young life.
He’s gone from this here vale of tears
With all it’s joy and strife.
No more we’ll see his banty legs,
Nor hear him tell a lie.
He’s vanished from old Paradise,
And we never said good-by.”
“That’s a mighty pretty thing, Muley,” applauds Pole Cat. “Can’t yuh
think of something nice to say for old man Whittaker?”
“The rest of you fellers stand back from Pole Cat and Harelip, and old
man Whittaker will say something for himself,” states a voice at the
door, and there stands the old man, with a shotgun which he levels at
Pole Cat and Harelip.
The crowd obeys. Bill McFee’s legs get so weak that he sets down on
the bar-rail where he gasps like a fish out of water.
“You danged pair of dynamiters!” snaps the old man. “With the shadder
of the gallows staring me in the eye, and Chuck Warner’s ghost
haunting my dreams, I comes back to show yuh that your dastardly deed
failed. When yuh blowed up that jail yuh didn’t get me and Scenery.
Sabe? Shut up!” he snaps, as Harelip starts to say something. “Don’t
try to deny it, Harelip. I can prove it by the heero what let us out.
There he stands, gents. Henry Clay Peck. He busted the lock and
liberated——”
The crowd turns to look at me, but I don’t seem to be the point of
interest at that. They looks right past me. Old man Whittaker’s gun
slips from his hands, and clangs on the floor. I twists my neck and
looks behind me, and there stands Chuck. He yawns and leans against
the pool-table.
“Well,” says Chuck, in a dry voice, “ain’t somebody going to set ’em
up? Sleeping in timothy makes a feller dry.”
Bill McFee looks at Chuck and back at Whittaker and the tears of joy
runs out of his eyes. Whittaker leans against the door and tries to
laugh, but he can’t.
“Haw!” says Harelip, but that’s as far as he got.
Chuck ambles up to the bar, and looks ’em over.
“Holy henhawks!” he snorts. “Have yuh all gone loco?”
“Ain’t—ain’t yuh dead, Chuck?” stutters the old man.
“Almost—from thirst.”
Bill McFee has been looking, steady-like, at me for some time, and
when he gets on his feet he sort of starts edging toward me. I edges
the other way, sort of unconcerned-like, and bumps into Calamity. He’s
got a billiard cue in his hands.
“Henry,” he whispers, “you lied to me.”
I nods, kicks his feet out from under him, and goes out of that back
door like a shot. I races around to the front, and runs into
something. They’re grouped, and I’m into ’em before I has time to
think.
There’s the two Mudgett sisters, Hulda Peterson, Annie Schmidt, Mrs.
Benson, Maggie Smith, Clarice Chaffin and the widder Saunders. The
male members of the vigilance committee is Abe Mudgett and Breezy
Benson.
“We’ve been waiting for you, Henry,” states the widder, sort of
belligerent-like, and the chorus sings the last four words.
* * * * *
“We’re looking for a little explanation from you,” states Breezy
Benson, and Abe nods—
“We desires the same.”
“Exactly,” says I. “In the course of human e-vents——”
“Grab that dynamiter!” yells McFee, from the front door, and Breezy
tried to foller instructions. Anybody that reaches out to grasp old
man Peck’s loving son Henry, in times of stress, is in continuous
danger. Breezy got it on the jaw, and yours truly went away from there
with the enraged citizens on the trail.
Never again do I sic a pack of hounds after a coyote. What few broncs
are in town are immediate and soon rode after me, and I sure have a
plenty to attend to. I got a good start, but I know I can’t keep it
forever. I’m hopping off down a washout, when I happens to see McFee’s
corral. I gets an idea right there.
The gang is quite a ways behind me, trying to make me come out of a
old shack, so I takes a chance and races for that corral. The
autymobile is pointed the wrong way, and I ain’t got no time to turn
it around. I yanks the front wheels around, sets the brake, grabs the
crank and prays. Bingo! She took it the first turn. I yanks off the
brake, and away I goes, straight for the posse.
I yanks the little jigger down and we sure hits for Paradise in a
hurry. They scatters at my approach, swings in behind me, and up the
main street of Paradise we goes, strung out for a quarter of a mile
and stretching all the time.
That machine was a humdinger as long as I’m in danger, but when I
leaves ’em far behind she lays down and quits like a yal-ler pup. I
sets there and looks around, and out into the road wanders three
saddled broncs. I ducks, thinking they’re some of the posse, but a
second look tells me that they’re some of the broncs what left
Paradise yesterday, when the autymobile first came in.
One Cross J bronc has a long rope dragging, so I catches him and then
ropes the other two. I strings out across the hills toward home, puts
’em in the home corral, and goes to bed. I reckon it’s almost morning
when the Cross J bunch gets home. Muley, Telescope, Chuck and the old
man all comes into the bunk-house, but they don’t see me.
“Ho, hum-m-m-m!” yawns the old man. “I’m glad to be home. This has
been one strenuous holiday, fellers.”
“She sure has,” agrees Telescope. “That pe-rade was a humdinger.”