a water-drinker out of Uncle Shadrach or something.
I tied Cap’n Kidd and started into the barn, and what should I see but Bill’s three youngest boys engaged in daubing paint on Uncle Jeppard Grimes’ favorite jackass, Joshua.
“What air you all a-doin’ to Joshua?” I demanded, and they jumped back and looked guilty. Joshua was a critter which Uncle Jeppard used for a pack-mule when he went prospecting. He got the urge maybe every three or four year, and between times Joshua just et and slept. He was the sleepin’est jackass I ever seen. He was snoozing now, whilst them young idjits was working on him.
I seen what they was at. Bill had loaned a feller some money which had a store down to War Paint, and the feller went broke, and give Bill a lot of stuff outa the store for pay. They was a lot of paint amongst it. Bill packed it home, though I dunno what he aimed to do with it, because all the houses in the Humbolts was log cabins which nobody ever painted, or if they did, they just white-washed ’em. But anyway, he had it all stored in his barn, and his boys was smearing it on Joshua.
He was the derndest sight you ever seen. They’d painted a big stripe down his spine, like a Spanish mustang, only this stripe was green instead of black, and more stripes curving over his ribs and down under his belly, red, white and blue, and they’d painted his ears green.
“What you all mean by sech doin’s?” I ast. “Uncle Jeppard’ll plumb skin you all alive. He sets a lot of store by that there jack.”
“Aw, it’s just funnin’,” they said. “He won’t know who done it.”
“You go scrub that paint off,” I ordered ’em. “Joshua’ll lick it off and git pizened.”
“It won’t hurt him,” they assured me. “He got in here yesterday and et three cans of paint and a bucket of whitewash. That’s what give us the idee. He kin eat anything. Eatin’est jack you ever seen.”
“Heh, heh, heh!” snickered one of ’em. “He looks like a drunkard’s dream!”
Instantly a idee hit me.
“Gimme that jackass!” I exclaimed. “He’s just what I need to kyore Uncle Shadrach Polk of drinkin’ licker. One glimpse of that there jack in his present state and Uncle Shadrach’ll think he’s got the delerious trimmin’s and git so scairt he’ll swear off whiskey for life.”
“If you aims to lead Joshua to Joel’s stillhouse,” they said, “you’ll be all day gittin’ there. You cain’t hustle Joshua.”
“I ain’t goin to lead him,” I said. “You all hitch a couple of mules to yore pa’s spring wagon. I’ll leave Cap’n Kidd here till I git back.”
“We’ll put him in the corral behind the barn,” they says. “Them posts are set four foot deep in concrete and the fence is braced with railroad iron, so maybe it’ll hold him till you git back, if you ain’t gone too long.”
* * * *
When they got the mules hitched, I tied Joshua’s laigs and laid him in the wagon bed, where he went to sleep, and I climbed onto the seat and lit out for Apache Mountain. I hadn’t went far when I run over a rock and woke Joshua up and he started braying and kept it up till I stopped and give him a ear of corn to chew on. As I started off again I seen Dick Grimes’ youngest gal peeping at me from the bresh, and when I called to her she run off. I hoped she hadn’t heard Joshua braying. I knowed she couldn’t see him, laying down in the wagon bed, but he had a very pecooliar bray and anybody in the Humbolts could recognize him by it. I hoped she didn’t know I had Joshua, because she was the derndest tattletale in the Bear Creek country, and Uncle Jeppard is such a cross-grained old cuss you can’t explain nothing to him. He was born with the notion that the whole world was plotting agen him.
It hadn’t been much more’n good daylight when I rode past Uncle Shadrach’s house, and I’d pushed Cap’n Kidd purty brisk from there; the mules made good time, so it warn’t noon yet when I come to Apache Mountain. As I approached the settlement, which was a number of cabins strung up and down a breshy run, I swung wide of the wagon-road and took to the trails, because I didn’t want nobody to see me with Joshua. It was kind of tough going, because the trails was mostly footpaths and not wide enough for the wagon, and I had to stop and pull up saplings every few yards. I was scairt the noise would wake up Joshua and he’d start braying again, but that jackass could sleep through a bombardment, long as he warn’t being jolted personal.
I was purty close to the settlement when I had to git out of the wagon and go ahead and break down some bresh so the wheels wouldn’t foul, and when I laid hold of it, a couple of figgers jumped up on the other side. One was Cousin Buckner Kirby’s gal Kit, and t’other’n was young Harry Braxton from the other side of the mountain, and no kin to none of us.
“Oh!” says Kit, kind of breathless.
“What you all doin’ out here?” I scowled, fixing Harry with a eye which made him shiver and fuss with his gun-belt. “Air yore intentions honorable, Braxton?”
“I dunno what business it is of yore’n,” said Kit bitterly.
“I makes it mine,” I assured her. “If this young buck cain’t come sparkin’ you at a respectable place and hour, why, I figgers—”
“Yore remarks is ignorant and insultin’,” says Harry, sweating profusely, but game. “I aims to make this here young lady my wife, if it warn’t for the toughest prospective father-in-law ever blighted young love’s sweet dream with a number twelve boot in the seat of the pants.”
“To put it in words of one syllable so’s even you can understand, Breckinridge,” says Kit, “Harry wants to marry me, but pap is too derned mean and stubborn to let us. He don’t like the Braxtons account of one of ’em skun him in a hoss-swap thirty years ago.”
“I don’t love ’em myself,” I grunted. “But go on.”
“Well,” she says, “after pap had kicked Harry out of the house five or six times, and dusted his britches with birdshot on another occasion, we kind of got the idee that he was prejudiced agen Harry. So we has to take this here method of seein’ each other.”
“Whyn’t you all run off and git married anyway?” I ast.
Kit shivered. “We wouldn’t dare try it. Pap might wake up and catch us, and he’d shoot Harry. I taken a big chance sneakin’ out here today. Ma and the kids are all over visitin’ a few days with Aunt Ouachita, but pap wouldn’t let me go for fear I’d meet Harry over there. I snuck out here for a few minutes—pap thinks I’m gatherin’ greens for dinner—but if I don’t hustle back he’ll come lookin’ for me with a hickory gad.”
“Aw, shucks,” I said. “You all got to use yore brains like I do. You leave it to me. I’ll git yore old man out of the way for the night, and give you a chance to skip.”
“How’ll you do that?” Kit ast skeptically.
“Never mind,” I told her, not having the slightest idee how I was going to do it. “I’ll ’tend to that. You git yore things ready, and you, Harry, you come along the road in a buckboard just about moonrise, and Kit’ll be waitin’ for you. You all can git hitched over to War Paint. Buckner won’t do nothin’ after yo’re hitched.”
“Will you, shore enough?” says Harry, brightening
