Dirty Work for Doughgod

“No, sir,” says Mike Pelly. “No more female teachers for Paradise. ’Cause why? ’Cause all the fool punchers fall in love with her and ruin her educational qualities—that’s why. We don’t no more than get a she teacher, until all the saddle-slickers around here quit working and prevents her from teaching the young idea how to shoot straight.”

“This here miss, who writes me from Great Falls, orates that she’s the goods,” states “Doughgod” Smith. “She slings a good hand.”

“Let her sling it—in Great Falls,” says Mike. “As chairman of the Board of Trustees of Paradise, I hereby open and above board objects to anything but a male teacher.”

“I places my bet with yours,” says J. B. Whittaker, owner of the Cross J outfit. “Women has always been the bane of my existence, and in a case like this I opens my mouth like a wolf and openly howls for a man. Lignum vitæ.”

“E pluribus unum,” says Mike, and the session is over.

Me and “Chuck” Warner sets there on the saloon steps and listens to those words of wisdom. Chuck wiggles his ears a lot at the decision and watches them adjourn for a drink.

“Confounded old coots,” says Chuck sad-like. “Only one of them is married, and he ain’t got no kids. I don’t blame Mike for harboring resentment against the weaker sex—after seeing his wife, but them other two loveless lunatics ain’t got no cause to boycott calico for educational purposes. I figured on a woman teacher, Henry.”

“You and me both,” says I. “According to fiction, a puncher has to fall in love with a school-teacher.”

Old Doughgod Smith wanders out and comes over to us, wiping his mustache.

“You’re three lovely old joy-killers, Doughgod,” says Chuck. “Regular old race-suiciders.”

“Now, now, Chuck,” says Doughgod, setting down with us. “Don’t blame me. It’s two against one, and I’m the one. Also, I’m sort of up against it. I didn’t know them snake-huntin’ cohorts of mine were so bitter against women—honest to gosh! That Miss—” Doughgod scratched his head—“I don’t know her name right now—well, she sounds on paper like a regular teacher; so I told her to come and take the job. She’s on her way now, and I don’t know how to head her off.”

“Two ways out,” states Chuck. “Either shoot J. B. or Mike and get a warmhearted man in their place, or meet the train and send her back from whence she comes.”

“Meet her at the train? Me? Not Doughgod Smith! Not me, Chuck. I got rheumatism in the vocal cords when it comes to denying a female anything. I can stand without hitching long enough to meet a lady in a crowd, but I don’t walk right up and speak to one. Reckon I’ll have to pay her way back.”

“I could meet her if I was properly coaxed,” observes Chuck. “Me—I ain’t scared of no female woman.”

“Would you do that, Chuck?” asks Doughgod anxious-like. “Honestly, would you?”

“Yeah. Give me the money for the ticket.”

“By grab, Chuck, you and me are friends for life. Here’s twenty. I don’t know what the ticket costs, but I ain’t asking questions. If she asks for me, you tell her—what’ll you tell her?”

“I never rehearse, Doughgod. I’ll tell her something—you gamble on that.”

Doughgod wanders away, hugging himself, so me and Chuck buys a drink. We meets “Muley” Bowles and “Telescope” Tolliver, and Chuck tells them about the trustee meeting.

“That’s a danged shame,” states Telescope. “This here country is pining for the touch of a woman’s gentle hand. Now, when she shows up, we got to tell her to pilgrim along. Just ’cause them two old, dried-up specimens don’t want women, it ain’t no reason why we don’t.”

“Dogs in a manger,” says Muley, shaking his fat face until it wobbles. Muley had had about enough cheer for a fat man, and he ain’t none too secure on his feet. “As the poet would shay:

“Muley, you’re making light of a dark subject,” chides Telescope. “This is a case of two old pelicans trying to cut the sentiment out of the cow business, and we’ve got to frustrate it. Sabe?”

“Shentiment?” asks Muley serious-like. “This is my shentiments:

“That’s shentiment,” says Muley. “Deep from the heart. Who’s going to the dance at the Triangle tonight, eh?”

“Dances is secondary to the main issue,” says Telescope judicial-like, “and poetry is incidental. We must contemplate deep and act as our better natures dictates.”

Muley Bowles is a self-made poet. Something inside that two-hundred-and-forty-pound carcass seems to move him to rime, and nothing can stop him. He’s so heavy in a saddle that all of his broncs are bowed in the legs and run their shoes over awful.

Telescope Tolliver came from down in the moonshine belt, and he’s got some strange and awful ideas of what constitutes a code of honor. He’s so long in the legs that a bronc has to pitch twice at the same time to get him high enough to throw.

Chuck Warner is a Roman-nosed puncher, with the shortest legs on record and the trusting eyes of a bird-dog. According to all we can find out, Chuck is a titled person. Of course, being an ordinary puncher, he don’t wish to have folks know him as anything but just plain Chuck, but the title remains just the same—Ananias the Second. I won’t go so far as to say that he can’t tell the truth, but I will insist that he won’t.

Me—I’m Henry Clay Peck. I play the banjo cheerfully, take my baths on the same day of every month and do what I’m told. I can’t blame nor credit anybody but me for what I am.

The four of us punches cows for the Cross J, draw down forty a month and spend our leisure time trying to figure out how old J. B. Whittaker ever got so much talent together in one bunch. We sure make a pretty good quartette for singing. We’ve got one tenor and three other voices.

We hives up around Mike Pelly’s bar that day and sings songs until Chuck suggests that we better go down to the depot and see if the lady comes in. We’ve got several trains a day; so it’s up to us to see ’em all. The train ain’t in yet; so we sings a few more songs. After a while the train comes in—but no lady. Muley starts an argument with the conductor over it, but the conductor is a big, mean-looking person; we takes Muley away from him and sets him on a truck.

The train pulls out, and on the far side of the track stands a female. She must have got off on the wrong side. She sure is fair to look upon, and Muley falls off the truck when he tries to take off his hat to her.

“Ma’am,” says Telescope, bowing and trying to take off the hat he’s already got in his hand, “ma’am, the town is on this side.”

“Oh,” says she and then stares at us.

“And I’d like to assassinate Mike Pelly and J. B. Whittaker—honest to gosh!” says Muley, still on his hands and knees with his hat down over one eye.

“Ma’am, it sure pains me to tell you this, but—you’ve got to go right back where you came from,” says Chuck sad-like. “Honestly.”

“Go back?” she gasps, and Chuck nods.

“Yes’m. You’ve got to. Not on our account, ma’am, but there seems to be a sentiment against women. One of them says that women is the banes of his existence, and the other says that—aw, Telescope, you talk a little. I ain’t going to stand here all day arguing with a perfect lady.”

“You heard him say it, ma’am,” agrees Telescope. “They’re against a woman. Now if you was a—wait a minute! Gosh, lady, I got a hy-iu scheme. We’ll slip one over on the women-haters.”

Telescope grabs her by the arm, and the lady acts mystified-like.

“I—I don’t understand,” says she. “I—I——”

“This ain’t no time or place to settle it,” says Telescope. “Come on, everybody.”

“That’s all right, ma’am,” says Muley, taking hold of her other arm. “You can trust Telescope—as long as me and Chuck and Hen are along to protect you. Where we going, Telescope?”

“We’ll leave our broncs here and take the buckboard,” says Telescope. “The old man is in a poker game by this time, and he won’t need it.”

“I asked you in a lady-like manner to tell me where we’re going,” says Muley. “Is it a secret, Telescope?”

“I’ll explain when we get there, Muley,” he replies.

The four of us helps the lady into the buckboard, while them two roan broncs dance a jig against the hitching-rack. The lady acts scared stiff, but that’s natural under these circumstances.

“I’ll drive,” proclaims Telescope. “The lady sets in the middle, and Muley on the end. You other two can set in the back or get your broncs.”

“Your statement shows lack of consideration and fine thought,” states Chuck. “I am going to ride on that seat. Sabe?”

“Nominations being in order, I’ll speak a word or two in favor of old man Peck’s son, Henry,” says I. “I don’t care a whoop who drives, but I’ll say right here that Henry Clay Peck is the third member of the seat-riders.”

All of which makes it hard to arrive at a peaceful solution. Telescope’s idea of a proper argument is to slam his sombrero on the ground and talk at the top of his voice. Naturally this aggravates said touchy team, with the result that they casts domestication to the four winds and whales off up the street with the fair one all alone on the seat and the lines dragging.

“Who in —— untied them animals?” yelps Muley.

“Which ain’t nothing but a question,” replies Chuck, throwing down the two halters in disgust. “Come on and let’s get our broncs. She’s due to get killed in about a minute.”

The four of us lopes down the street to where our animals are tied, and if you asks me I’d say that we went out of town fast. In fact we showed so much animation that Bill McFee, our progressive sheriff, took a shot at us, just on general principles.

We strung off up the road, me and Telescope fighting for first place with Chuck running a close second and Muley bringing up the rear, eating alkali dust like a machine.

We hammers along for about two miles, when all to once we sees a cloud of dust ahead of us. Said cloud is sliding toward the grade down to the Wind River crossing, and we all sighs to think what that runaway team will do to that lady when they hit the boulders of Wind River. We shoves on more steam and unhooks our ropes. Me and Telescope ain’t got room for two loops the way we’re running; so I slips back into second place.

Down that grade we sails and into the willows just short of the ford. Chuck and Muley have picked up a little, which hampers our show to do any fancy rope stunts, and them four animals runs almost a dead heat to where the road breaks straight down to the river. Which only gives us a pitch of about thirty feet to the water’s edge.

I don’t just know what happened then. We’re going too fast to even take a second look. I seen a buckboard, with the horses standing up in the water, and then the next thing I know I’m spinning over and over in the air. Above me is Muley, with his legs spread out like sails, and he’s flopping his arms like he was trying to fly higher. I remember that I laughed at Muley trying to imitate a bird, and just then I took my first bath short of Saturday evening.

I landed in the river flat on my stummick and found out that a feller don’t have to learn to swim in order to do it. All the wind is out of my carcass, but I sure done some fancy crawling until I lands on a sandbar down the river and pumps some more wind into my system. In my pocket is a bottle of “Track Annihilator,” and I immediate and soon finds the need of a stimulant. I hauls it out, removes the stopper and squints through it at the sun.

“Blam!” That bottle fades out of my hand, and all I’ve got left is the cork.

The next bullet cuts a rosette off my chaps; so I slides into the water like an alligator and proceeds to waller off downstream. I may die from drowning—I say may, ’cause I’m taking a chance—but it’s a cinch that if I stay on that sand-bar any longer that hombre with the rifle is going to improve with practise, which will spoil all of Henry Peck’s future ambitions.

I hears a few more shots before I grabs a willer and hauls myself out into the high grass. I’m too tired to hunt for information; so I rusticates there until I hears somebody tramping grass and grunting:

“Gol dang ’em! Gol dang ’em! Hope I drownded the whole mess of pups. Hope I leaded up all that didn’t drown. Half-witted horse-wranglers. No brains! Race right into me and my load of dynamite. Too bad it didn’t bust and blow ’em all to ——! Team runs away and leaves me on the wrong side. Gol dang——”

“Wick Smith, throw up your hands,” says I sweet-like.

He drops his gun and grabs atmosphere.

“Toss that rifle into the brush,” says I, and he reaches down like a nice little feller and obeys.

I takes it and throws it further into the woods, and then I walks out to him.

“Hello, Wick,” says I. “How’s things in Piperock?”

“Tolable, Hen. How’s the Cross J these nice days? Where’s your gun?”

“Lost it in the river,” says I.

We looks at each other for a while, and then he says—

“What was your hurry a while ago, Hen?”

“Runaway. Strange lady comes in on the train, and we’re going to take her to—I wonder where we was going to take her, Wick?”

“My gosh, didn’t you have no place picked out?”

“Maybe Telescope did. Well, she got in the buckboard, and the team runs away, and we thought you was it, and—well, what’s the matter with you?”

“Strange lady came in on the train?” he gasps. “What did she look like?”

“Morn in Spring,” says I. “She had hair and eyes and a mouth and——”

“Great lovely dove!” he whoops. “That’s her to a flea’s flicker.”

“Who?”

“My wife’s sister, Amelia. My ——! She ain’t due yet.”

“Came today,” says I. “Came today, and——”

“Went away,” says a sad voice, and there stands Muley, Telescope and Chuck.

They sure are something for to see. They look like they had been made of mud and hadn’t dried out yet.

“It was fate,” says Muley, digging the ooze out of his eye.

“Amen,” says Telescope. “You handled that well, Muley.”

“Gents,” says I, “don’t be sacrilegious. You are now standing in the presence of the bereaved brother-in-law. The lost lady was his wife’s sister.”

“Shucks!” exclaims Telescope, trying to remove the hat he ain’t got.

“This is painful, Wick. Where’s your outfit?”

“Holy henhawks!” wails Wick. “You fellers bucked over it and through it, et cettery, and left me setting on the bank on a busted box of dynamite, with nothing left but my rifle—and Hen threw that in the jungle. The rest, if there’s anything left, is likely on its way to Piperock.”

“And we’re on foot,” wails Chuck. “My tobacco is wet, and there ain’t a drink in the crowd, and——”

“And Shakespeare’s dead, and Longfellow’s dead, and I don’t feel very good myself,” finishes Muley.

“And we’ve got to find that runaway,” says I. “They’re likely at the ranch—unless they’re strung out along the road.”

“My wife will give me particular thunder,” wails Wick. “She ain’t expecting me to bring back no deceased sister-in-law—darn it all! I reckon we better toddle over to the ranch, eh?”

“I know a short-cut,” offers Chuck. “We’ll walk back over that ridge and swing on to the road on the other side of Ghost Gulch. That’s only about four miles.”

“And still four miles from the ranch,” groans Muley. “And us wearing high-heeled boots.”

“Ye gods, I wish I had that rifle,” grunts Wick. “I’d kill four punchers right here.”

“Death ain’t nothing,” groans Muley, limping along.

It’s dark when we got to the Cross J ranch, and we limps in like five lost souls. There ain’t a trace of that buckboard or the lady. There ain’t nobody around the place.

“My gosh!” wails Wick. “Something has got to be did. She was my wife’s sister.”

“Why use the past tense?” complains Muley. “Maybe she still is your wife’s sister. We’ll be square with her, Wick, and consider her alive until she disappoints us.”

“I know where the old man keeps his spirits,” states Chuck, fussing with a window. “You fellers feel spirit voices calling?”

We did. Chuck found the cache, and we has quite a seance.

“Walking is too slow,” complains Wick. “I’ve got to go faster than that, boys. Ain’t there a danged thing around here I can ride upon?

“Ain’t you hombres got enough sabe in your system to know that out there somewhere in the stilly night is a remnant of my wife’s family, crying for succor?”

“Might he not ride, Solomon?” asks Chuck, wiggling his ears at Muley.

“Beyond question he may,” nods Muley. “Hang a hull on Solomon, Chuck, and let the sucker arrive at his wife’s sister’s side without delay.”

“Solomon is which?” asks Wick.

“Solomon,” says Telescope, “is a mule. A white mule—in color. He ain’t no speed-demon, but he sure can save shoe leather, Wick.”

“I accepts the nomination,” says Wick and takes another drink.

Chuck comes back in about ten minutes, leading that long, hungry-looking mule. We helps Wick into the saddle, wishes him a pleasant journey, and then Chuck hits Solomon across the rump with a strap. Solomon bucks stiff-legged down to the gate, and then we hear him pounding off down the hard road.

Chuck stands there looking at what he’s got in his hand, and then:

“Gee gosh! When I took the rope off that mule, I took the bridle, too. Poor Wickie ain’t got no rudder for his old white ship.”

“Cancel any help from Smiths,” says Telescope. “Solomon, with all his wives, never was half as crazy as that namesake of his. Let us all have another inoculation of paralysis microbes and start out being merciful. We’ve got to find that lady.”

Then four fools started out in the dark. We sang a song at the gate and then piked off down the road, arm in arm. As usual Muley gets so sentimental that he has to compose a little; so we has to stop while he recites:

Muley breaks down and begins to sob:

“I can’t finish it! My rimer gets drownded in tears.”

“Let me assist you,” begs Chuck. “How’s thish?

“Ain’t that shome finish?”

“Grewshome ghoul,” shudders Telescope.

“It’s a fac’,” argues Chuck. “Bet anybody forty dollars she never made the turn out of Sillman Gulch. Betcha she turned over there. Ain’t nobody got any shporting blood? Even money that she didn’t make that turn—thirty to forty that they hung up before they got that far. Any takers? Bet ten ’gainst forty that—that Solomon has killed Wick Smith before thish.”

“Now you’re getting into pleasant conversation,” says Telescope. “That’s what I call looking at the doughnut instead of the hole.”

I don’t know where we went. We took turns carrying that demijohn. We wanted something to pour between unresisting lips, like you read about, but we can’t seem to find no unresisting lips.

I know we all fell into Wind River, which is three miles from Paradise. Muley hung up on a sand-bar and sobbed himself to sleep. Telescope crawled back on the bank and implored us to go ahead and save the women and children and leave him to die like a man. I heard Chuck singing—

Me, I got tangled up in the limbs of a fallen tree and went to sleep with my feet over a limb.

“Well!” says a voice, and I woke up. There is “Ricky” Henderson setting on his bronc, looking at us. “What’s the matter with you fellers? I helped rope your broncs yesterday when they came back to town, and they’re tied to the rack in front of the Eureka—or were last night.”

“The matter with us?” asks Muley mean-like. “That’s our business, Ricky. Who told you to tie up our broncs in Paradise? Next time you leave ’em alone and let ’em come home. Sabe?”

“Yeah?” snorts Ricky, riding away. “With their tails behind them, eh? All right, Little Bo-Peep.”

“Bo-Peep, eh?” whispers Chuck, wiggling his ears. “Mamma mine!”

“Our broncs are in Paradise,” mentions Telescope. “Three miles more, comrades.” We hobbles along on sore feet for a while, and then Chuck says—

“Say, Telescope, where was you aiming to take the lady? And what was your big scheme?”

“Out to the ranch, Chuck. I figured on dressing her up in our clothes and hiring her out as a male teacher. Sabe? Figured we’d slip one over on them three old pelicans, and then they’d have to keep her—or never hear the last of it. It was a good idea. If that little runt of a Warner had sense enough to leave the team tied,” adds Telescope a little later.

“You didn’t need to throw your hat on the ground and whoop like a drunken Indian,” reproves Muley. “You’re to blame, Telescope.”

“Yes,” says I. “You and Telescope has to argue like a pair of fools.”

“Oh, you wasn’t in the argument, was you?” sneers Telescope. “You three grocery-store punchers make me tired.”

“You cut out that runt talk,” says Chuck. “I’d rather be small and shapely than to be so tall that the buzzards roost in my hair. You think you’re a lady-killer, Telescope, and this is the one time when you likely qualify. Maybe the jury will adjudge so.”

“Yes, and he swore aloud before her,” says I. “He talked around her like she was his wife.”

“She smiled at me,” grins Chuck sweetlike, and Muley snorts:

“Smiled! Laughed, Chuck. Do you think for a minute that a person like her would smile at critters like you three? That woman’s got a soul.”

“Where do you qualify with soulful women, Muley?” asks Telescope. “Since when has the fair sex designated a hunk of lard as the target for soulful glances? Of course, if you designated a runt like Chuck or a squint-faced hombre like Hen Peck—”

Love has cut a breach in the Four Disgraces. Cupid has poisoned his arrows, and we forgets friendship ties. Maybe it was an accident—maybe not, but anyway we ain’t gone far when Muley steps on Chuck’s ankle. Chuck yowls like a tom-cat and slaps Muley right in the face. Telescope grabs Chuck by the neck, and I kicks Telescope’s feet out from under him.

That took team work, if anybody asks you. I reckon the buzzards were the only ones who enjoyed it. Somebody hit me between the eyes, and I up-ended in a mesquite bush, where I found a snag, about two feet long and as big as my wrist. So I waded right back into the conflict. Then somebody handed me an encore in the same spot, and I got used as a welcome mat. Then somebody laid down on top of me and pushed me into the dirt, but I got out, found an unoccupied boot and hit that somebody several times over the head. My eyes don’t permit me to judge distance, but I felt out my target and made no misses.

Then I laid down, too, and went to sleep.

After a while I woke up and sat there, looking around. I can see Telescope’s legs sticking up over the top of a mesquite, and Chuck is setting in the shade of the same bush, crooning to himself while he tries to light a cigaret on the sole of his boot. Muley is beside me, snoring sweetly, and setting there beside us on a dilapidated white mule is Wick Smith.

Wick sure looks like he had been someplace and met something awful. The mule’s head is hanging down weary-like, while Wick slouches in the saddle, with his jaw hanging down about three inches.

He weaves in the saddle and his mustache acts nervous-like.

“Find anything?” he asks like the weak croak of a frog.

“Not yet,” I whispers back at him.

He nods, slaps the mule side of its head and turns into the road.

“I’m still looking,” he whispers, and I says:

“That’s fine. So am I, but I can’t see nothing, Wick.”

And when I laid down beside Muley, I saw Wick and Solomon fade off up the road toward Paradise. After a while we all got up and sort of stood around. Chuck yawned and looked at his watch-chain. Pretty soon Telescope cleared his throat—

“I’m—I’m all through—with all of you—the whole danged bunch!” says he hesitating-like and starts limping toward town.

“Me—me, too,” says Muley and follers Telescope.

Chuck looks at me mean-like and says—“Me too.”

He pilgrims after Muley.

Then the whole danged bunch limped in behind Chuck.

I passed Chuck in a few minutes, and then I made Muley eat my dust. Telescope has contracted a limp, which causes him to weave across the road a lot and makes it hard for me to pass him. But I made it. Nobody said anything to me, and, when folks don’t speak to me as I go past, I get snobby, too.

I hobbles into Mike Pelly’s saloon and sets down. There ain’t nobody there except the bartender. Pretty soon Telescope weaves in and sets down in the other corner. Chuck points straight for the pool-table, and then Muley stumbles in. He looks to have lost twenty pounds, and his feet have swelled until he’s had to slit his boots.

“You fellers quitting the Cross J?” asks the bartender. “Thought maybe you was,” he continues when we don’t answer, “’cause I seen your boss leading four horses behind the wagon when he left last night.”

“Last night?” asks Muley. “Wagon?”

“Uh-huh. Borrowed Mike’s team and wagon.”

I rolled a smoke, and the match made as much noise as a six-shooter. We never thought to look in the corral last night.

Then Wick Smith comes in. He buys himself a drink, and then he wipes his mustache. He looks at us sad-like and shakes his head.

“Been to the post-office,” says he. “She ain’t coming until this afternoon.”

“——!” grunts Telescope. “That team must ’a’ taken her a long ways.”

“Didn’t have nun-nothing on that—that mum-mule,” grunts Wick, and then he weaves out of the door.

Wick has been drinking.

“What seems to be the trouble with you fellers?” asked the bartender. “You look like you’d been to battle and got run over by a cannon.”

We ignores the inquiry, and pretty soon Telescope says—

“Been anything startling going on here lately?”

“——!” snorts the bartender. “Startling! Nothing ever happens in Paradise.” And he goes on wiping glasses.

“That’s good,” says Muley soft-like. “I love a quiet village.”

We got up, one at a time, and wandered outside. I’m the last one out. There ain’t nothing to do but walk back. We might chip in and hire a rig at the livery stable, but under the circumstances—well, we don’t feel like riding so close together, and rigs cost money.

I seen Muley setting on the sidewalk, pulling off his boots, and over on the watering-trough, one on each end, sets Telescope and Chuck like a couple of snow-birds, soaking their sore feet. Muley joins them, and then Henry Peck goes over and immerses his corns. We ain’t been there long when here comes Doughgod Smith, galloping up the street.

“If he’s got any more dirty work to have done, he can do it himself,” proclaims Chuck. “I’m through deceiving women.”

Doughgod races up to us and hops up and down around us.

“Get down to the depot, Chuck!” he yelps. “She’s there.”

“Who?” asks Chuck.

“The lady—dog-gone you! The one I gave you the money for. Sabe? Point her homeward, boys, and make it sudden,” and Doughgod lopes on up the street.

He sure is skittish around calico.

“We’ve got to stand together,” observes Chuck, pulling on his boots. “We’ve got to. Divided we fall.”

“Under them circumstances I waves a flag of truce,” says Telescope. “I may kill a friend later on, but it never can be said that a Tolliver ever went back on a friend in need.”

We all plods down the street, with Muley carrying his boots, and, just as we got to the depot, a freight-train whistles. The lady is there. She’s setting there on a low truck in the shade, doing fancy work, and she’s the same lady.

“My ——!” snorts Telescope. “She must be made of cast-iron. Ain’t bunged up a bit.”

“And I ain’t only got seven dollars of that money left,” wails Chuck. “I must ’a’ lost it.”

We all digs down and manages to collect enough to make up the original twenty, and, just as the freight rolls in, we walks over to the lady. Chuck leans over and drops the money in her lap, and her face turns white as flour when she looks up at us.

“Get right into the caboose,” orders Chuck. “Dog-gone it, ma’am, we’re sorry as ——, but we ain’t got no time to argue. There’s the money, and here’s your train. Get on like a nice little girl, and you can write to Doughgod for further information. Sabe?”

I sure felt sorry for her. She sort of gasps and slides off that truck, but I reckon our looks were enough. She allows herself to walk right into the train, and away she goes off up the track toward Silver Bend.

Doughgod has sneaked up and saw the whole thing, and he sure is glad. We all sets down on the platform, and all to once we feels that it has been a year since we had anything to eat. Doughgod offers to take us to a restaurant, but we ain’t presentable; so he offers to bring us a ton of crackers and cheese and sardines. We accepts and cheers Doughgod as he hurries up-town. There’s another train due in an hour; so we sets down there in the shade to eat. We seen the depot-agent looking at us through the window. He’s a new man there; so we don’t blame him for looking with suspicion upon us. We sure filled our skin with food, and then the train comes rambling in.

The usual bunch of folks hops off to stretch their legs, and all to once we hears a voice behind us—

“Can you tell me where I can find Mr. Smith?”

We all turns, and there stands a tall, skinny female, with a nose like the beak of a hawk and a lot of mustard-colored hair. I glances around and saw Doughgod galloping off up the street like a scared coyote.

“Ma’am,” says Telescope, “I can’t say. He may stop in Paradise, but I’d favor Canada.”

“Say!” yelps a heavy voice behind us, and we all turns. It is the new station agent, and in his hands is one of them sawed-off shotguns which are furnished by express companies, and he’s got it cocked. “I want to know,” says he, “if you are the four whelps who kidnapped my wife and put her in that rig yesterday. The team ran away, turned the corner and ran into a fence, and that’s all that saved her life. I’m asking a question?”

“Yesterday?” asks Telescope foolish-like. “Yesterday?”

“I said it!” he yelps. “And an hour or so ago the same four whelps forced her to climb on a freight-train. She just wired me from Silver Bend. I’m still asking questions, gents.”

I seen that skinny lady edging away from us, and I seen her hop on to the last step as the train starts, and she ducks inside like a rabbit.

“Wait!” says Telescope. “You got that right? The team ran around the corner and into a fence and stopped. Is that right?”

“Ke-rect!” he snaps. “I’ve sworn out John Doe warrants for the men who did it, and the sheriff is investigating right now. All I want is to find ’em and I’ll fill ’em so full of ——”

Blam!

Telescope hooked one of his feet behind that feller’s legs, and yanked so quick and hard that the station agent got an upside-down view of his own place of business.

Man, we moved. A buckshot cut a groove in my boot heel, and Muley got one across his hip pocket before we got out of range, which was fast work with a gun.

We dusts straight for town, when we almost runs over Wick Smith. He’s coming along, taking up most of the road, and me and him both tries to turn the same way. I picked myself up as quick as possible, and started on, when I heard Wick say—

“Train in yet?”

“Not yet,” I yells back and tries to catch up with the rest of my bunch, who seem to have met somebody and then went on.

That somebody was Doughgod. I finds him setting in the middle of the road with the brim of his hat down around his neck and a fool look on his face. As I come up, he holds up the letter he’s hanging on to and he says to me:

“Huh-Henry, she ain’t—ain’t coming here. She’s gug-got a bub-better job. She ain’t coming here, Henry.”

“She shows a lot of sense,” says I, and I lopes on.

I seen Telescope and Chuck and Muley gallop off the street and cut across the hills; so I puts on more speed and catches them.

“Bill McFee is up there,” pants Telescope when we slows to a walk. “Dud-don’t forget we’re four John Does.”

“That ain’t nothing to the word I’d use,” groans Muley.

Well, we eventually got home. We collapses on the steps of the bunk-house, and I don’t care if I never move again. Pretty soon Telescope glances up at the door and grunts.

Half-way up the door a piece of white paper has been pasted; so we creaks to a standing position and peruses same:

“——!” snorts Muley. “He—he just led them down to the stable, and that fool bartender thought he was taking them home.”

“And we been walking away from them all this time,” groans Chuck.

“Here comes Mike Pelly and the old man now,” says Telescope.

We watches old J. B. Whittaker and Mike Pelly walking down from the ranch-house, talking serious-like. The old man turns at the barn, but Mike comes on down to us.

“Howdy,” says Mike. “How’s everything, boys?”

“Ain’t able to kick,” says Telescope. “How’s it with you?”

“Tolable. See Doughgod in town?”

“He was there the last we seen of him,” admits Muley. “Why?”

“Going down to see him. Dang this trustee business, anyway. Nothing but trouble. Me and the old man have decided to accept that teacher that wrote to Doughgod, even if she is a female. Never mix into the school-teacher business, boys. She’s ——!”

“She is,” agrees Muley, and we all nods.