VII
A SCURRY COUNTY WOOING
Scurry County is in the south of the Panhandle of Texas, and its southern border lies some forty miles or so north of Painted Rock. But as Painted Rock is the only town thereabouts everybody in Scurry County knows it. It is the trading centre of the district, and on the north-west plateau of Texas forty miles is not too far to ride for a drink, when a drink or a jamboree is indicated. It is not too far, either, to ride for the purposes of love-making, as Jack Higginson of Ennis Creek in Scurry knew well enough. The boys out there love space and distances and the fine clear atmosphere of the prairie, and they know in their hearts there is nothing so good as the air on which they were bred, or the girls who grow up there with them. And that is why Jerome Shaylor, who was a very quiet "boy" of twenty-five, though he had no objection to Jack's riding into Painted Rock to see Mary Smith, had a very great objection to Mr. George B. Remington's riding out to the creek to see Mamie Griggs, who was the belle of about thirty square miles of prairie country.
"I shed shoot him straight," said Jack Higginson; "the man what puts as much as his little finger between me and my Mary will get shot up some, and I'm the man that'll do it, and the boys know it. Ride in with me to the Rock, Jerome, and we'll call on thishyer Mr. Remington and show him death a-stickin' out a foot, lying coiled in his path like a rattler. Say, will you do it?"
Jerome was unhappy, and scratched his nose in doubt.
"You see, there's Paw," he said, referring to his father. "Paw's dead agin shootin' ever since he shot Jake Meadows. Jake's bin a sore burden to Paw ever since, bein' lame, and ridin' out here to see Paw and borrow money, moaning about his leg and his bust-up prospects in life. Paw says he'll shoot no more, and he says if any of his sons shoot there'll be serious trouble in Scurry County, and I darsn't run up agin Paw, him bein' the man he is."
For Colonel Shaylor, who really had been a Colonel in the Confederate Army, was a very hard man to deal with, and kept his family tightly on the rein, like the fierce old patriarch that he was. Jack Higginson recognised what an obstacle "Paw" must be, and shook his head.
"It's mighty hard lines havin' a father like your'n," he said; "an' I think it's a forsaken pity he didn't shoot straight when Meadows invited death. If Meadows had been dead, your ole Dad would ha' got over it by now. His borrowin' money perpetual on account of his wounded leg keeps the thing green in the Colonel's mind."
"That's so," said Jerome. "He said that to Meadows."
"Did he?"
Jerome nodded.
"And the limpin' ole scarecrow lets on he wishes he hed. You cayn't do nothin' with a thing like that. He rubs his derned ole leg and sobs, and Paw gets mad and hands out the dollars, wishin' it was lead. And then he says, 'The boy o' mine that resorts to guns in a difficulty ain't goin' to seecure no blessin' of mine and no share o' my property.'"
"Hum," said Jack, "that's very hard on a high-sperrited son o' Texas. I say, I'll think upon it as I ride into the Rock, Jerome. And mebbe I'll ask Mary's opinion. She's no love for thishyer derned Easterner Remington. She says he daren't walk out in the Rock when it's dark. But I dunno, women sez very spiteful things, and Remington don't look so easy to scare as that. I'll think it over, Jerome."
"I wish you would," replied Jerome; "and now I must whack into this derned ole mesquite for firewood. I wish I hed Remington's neck under the axe."
And Jack Higginson rode into town thinking.
"Blame me if I know," said Jack. "After all, I reckon Remington would cow down without shootin' if he was told that the boss of Scurry County had reckoned that Mamie Griggs wasn't for export, but for home consumption. Jerome ought to go to him and talk to him straight. I reckon he would, only he's scared his gun would go off of itself. But Jerome's a good boy, so he is, and it's mighty hard he's fitted with a father that don't believe in natur'. My ole Dad ain't that sort. By gosh! I think I'll see Remington myself. I ain't scared of him, nor of no father, nor of my gun. I'll take him on the way to Mary's, so I will. He's a bit of a lawyer. Well, I'll tell him law ain't no sech property out here."
He dropped down from the prairie and saw Painted Rock shining in the sun by its river and its sand-dunes. In another ten minutes he loped on his broncho into the town, and pulled up on South Street, outside a pretentious, brick-fronted building of which all the rest but the front was of wood. He hitched his pony to a post and slouched into Mr. Remington's office. He found his man working in his shirt-sleeves at a table covered with papers, and he stood gazing at the lawyer with a complicated feeling of contempt and respect. It took Jack about a minute and a half to sign his name, and he felt that it was impossible to despise Remington quite so thoroughly as he wished when he saw the disturber of Scurry County write about twenty words in half the time. And then Remington looked up.
"He has a keen eye," said Jack. "I dunno, maybe he won't scare worth a cent."
"Well, sir," said the lawyer, "and what can I do for you?"
"You don't remember me?" said Jack.
"I can't say I do," replied Remington.
"I'm Jack Higginson, from Ennis Crick, Scurry County," said Jack, "and I mind seein' you out to Mr. Griggs a month back."
Remington nodded.
"Ah, to be sure, I think I remember you now. What can I do for you, Mr. Higginson? Anything in the legal way?"
"Not much," said Jack; "I do despise havin' anythin' to do with law, and so does Dad. And we mostly reckons out in Scurry County that we ain't takin' any. What I wanted ain't nothin' to do with law. Some of us out yonder hev been talkin' about you, and we reckoned we'd tell you about it."
Remington pushed his chair back a little, and looked straight at Jack.
"You've been talking about me, eh? Well, there's no charge for talk, Mr. Higginson."
"I ain't so dead sure of that," replied Jack. "I've known big bills for talk, sure's death. But I reckon you're a man that acts fair and haven't no desire to cause trouble."
"That's so," said Remington; "but come to the point."
"The point is," said Jack, "that you air causin' trouble in Scurry County. It's talk around the Crick that you air courtin' Mamie Griggs."
"Miss Griggs!" said Remington.
"Miss Mamie Griggs," said Higginson. "It's talk around the Crick that you air courtin' her, and the boys out thataway hev considered the matter, and hev come to the conclusion that she ain't for export but for home consumption, and that the boy who's to hev her is Jerome Shaylor."
"And what does the lady say?" asked the lawyer.
"Haow?" said Jack blankly.
"What does the lady say?"
"Derned if I know," said Jack hastily. "But that ain't the point. The point is what we say, and what Jerome says; and Jerome is a terror, and mighty cruel to strangers and set agin' 'em. And he reckons that she ain't to be cut out of the herd and branded by a stranger like as if she was a maverick; and he reckons, moreover, that he ain't goin' to stand by and see the iron put on her."
"Indeed," said Remington.
And Jack's enthusiasm for his friend ran away with him.
"Yep and indeedy," said Jack. "He sez he'll fill up any stranger with a fine quality of lead as comes around her corral. She's the flower of the flock and the flower of the prairie, and Jerome says he'll kill and shoot up any stranger that looks at her. And all the boys along the Crick reckons to back him up; and we says that you bein' a legal lawyer, and probably stuck on peace, will see that the only safe way of proceedin' is to keep outside the borders of Scurry County, and prob'ly to return home by an early East-bound express."
"And if I don't I am to be shot up?" asked Remington.
"Considerably shot up," said Jack with much emphasis; "so to speak, riddled like a sieve."
"That would be inconvenient," said Remington, "very inconvenient. And what would you think of me if, to adopt the language current in this romantic locality, I took water and an express?"
"We'd think you war wise," said Jack, "but our opinion of you would be poor. We'd reckon to forget you quick, havin' better to remember."
"Your candour is refreshing," said the lawyer. "But I happen to be an American."
"From the East. Our opinion of the East is poor," said Jack Higginson. "Our opinion of them as was raised East is mean to a degree."
Remington nodded.
"So it seems," said the lawyer; "and if I decided to shift my stakes at the request of the innocents of Scurry County I should agree with you. I suppose Mr. Jerome Shaylor has made you his intermediary in this matter?"
"His what?" asked Jack.
"I mean he asked you to come and tell me this?"
"That's what it comes to," said Jack rather uneasily. "We cayn't allow no stranger to cavort about in Scurry County."
"Is that all?" asked Remington.
"That's all," said Jack.
"Then I wish you good-afternoon," said Remington.
"And what am I to tell Jerome?"
"Tell him I shall be in the romantic neighbourhood of Ennis Creek some time the day after to-morrow," said the lawyer. And Jack Higginson opened his mouth, shut it, opened the door, went out and shut that, and stood by his pony shaking his head, as if flies were worrying him too.
"I hev my doubt about his havin' been raised in the East," said Jack. "But it's done now! Whatever ole Colonel Shaylor says, Jerome will hev to shoot him some."
And after thinking over the matter he rode on to see Mary, who gave him still more to think of when he told her what he had done.
"And what will Mamie say?" she asked.
"Blessed if I know," replied Jack. "That's what the law-sharp says."
"If I know girls she'll make you wish you were dead," said Mary viciously. "How do you know she doesn't like him best?"
Jack shook his head sulkily.
"She cayn't possibly like a law-sharp and a stranger. And now it's fixed. Jerome will hev to shoot him some, because I said he would. And then the ole Colonel will be mad."
"You've done a very silly thing," said Mary. "What would you do if I liked someone better than you?"
"I'd shorely slay him in the tracks, Mary," said her lover, "and I would jump upon him, and become ravin', tearin' luny, and turn myself loose upon the town and do up all my enemies."
"Oh dear! oh dear!" said Mary, "I think men are dreadful. Would you really do all that?"
"I would," replied Jack; "shore pop I'd do it."
"And what should I feel like?"
"You'd shorely be sad and lonesome, both bein' dead," replied Jack. "But I reckon you don't love no one better, do you, Mary?"
"No," said Mary; "but I think you are foolish all the same, and I shall write to Mamie and tell her about it."
Jack looked awfully alarmed.
"You won't do that, Mary; she'll be on to me like, oh, like a coyoot on a sick sheep, and I'll feel as mean as if I was raised East."
"You shouldn't interfere then in what isn't your business," said Mary. "I'll write now, and you shall take the letter to her."
"Shorely that's playin' it low down on me," urged her lover plaintively.
"I can't help that," said Mary. "I won't have Jerome killed."
"You mean you won't have Mr. Remington killed," suggested Jack.
"I mean nothin' of the sort," said Mary. "Mr. Pillsbury, the gambler, told father only yestiddy that Mr. Remington was the best shot in Painted Rock."
Jack gasped.
"You don't say that, Mary?"
"I do," said Mary; "and he's not an Easterner either. He comes from Alabama."
"Alabammer! well, I'm doggoned," said Jack. "And I talked to him just s'if he came from Philadelphy! I shore think Jerome has run agin a snag, talkin' of killin' him. For what with the ole Colonel's derned foolishness, Jerome cayn't shoot worth a cent."
But Mary wrote her letter to Mamie, and Jack took it very unwillingly, and rode back to Ennis Creek at the slowest pace he could get out of his pony.
"Alabammer! Oh, good men comes from Alabammer," said Jack; "I'm some alarmed that Jerome will hev to back down. I'll persuade him to peace. But thishyer letter lies heavy on my mind. Mary's mighty cruel to send it by me. Women is some spiteful, so they are. I do dread seein' Mamie now!"
And he rode to the Griggs' house up Ennis Creek as if he was going to his own immediate execution. He met Jerome at the ford just below the ranch, and pulled up.
"Jerome, my son," said Jack, "I've shore a sad confession to make, and it's a deal tougher than cuttin' mesquite with a blunt axe. I'm a blamed fool, so I am, and the proof of it is the way I feel. And there's further corroboratin' written evidence of it in my pocket, very convincin'. I'm no better than a burro, and I own I'm worse than a mule."
"What's wrong now?" asked Jerome in great alarm.
"When I rode in to Painted Rock," said Jack, "I'd gotten it all clear in my mind, and now it ain't no clearer than a riley crick. I reckoned I'd see Remington myself and set out the sitaation clear. So in I went, and I s'plained to him that we 'uns didn't want him near, and not in the county. I further said we was clearly of opinion we could even do without him in Texas, and I said the East-bound express was hankerin' to haul him back East. And he was cool as a January mornin'. So I played the rest of my hand, and I said you was yellin' for his blood and would shoot him up on sight. And I allowed all the boys in Scurry County was ekal set on his immediate decease."
"And did he crawl down?" asked Jerome.
"Not a solitary crawl," groaned Jack. "On the contrary, he bucked up s'if he'd took a cocktail, and he intimated that I could acquaint you with the interestin' fact that he would be in the rowmantic neighbourhood of Ennis Crick the day arter ter-morrer. And it shore seemed to me that you'd hev to shoot him, in spite of your Dad."
"It looks like it," said Jerome, "but I don't much want to."
Jack shook his head again.
"That ain't all. I went on to see Mary, and like a derned silly galoot I let on I'd seen Remington. And under pressure I revealed all I'd said; and she was tearin' mad with me, and she revealed the fact that Pillsbury told her Dad that now Ben Williams is deceased Remington is the quickest on the trigger of any man to Painted Rock."
"Pillsbury allowed that?" asked Jerome in obvious alarm.
"Pillsbury took his oath to it," said Jack; "and, moreover, it seems that Remington is from Alabammer, not from the East. It 'pears to me I've bin wildly foolish this day, and I regret it on your account; all the more because Mary wrote a letter to Mamie, and I've got it burnin' like mustard in my left-side pocket. And she swore me to give it her. And I feel meaner than a trapped coyoot, and I a'most wish I'd died in my youth."
And Jerome swore viciously.
"So do I," he yelled. "Jack, you are the biggest interferin' fool in Scurry County."
"Speak up," said Jack; "say it again, rub it in, I allow you're right, I'm the biggest fool in Texas; I've more square miles of idiocy in my territoary than any man I know."
And Jerome relented.
"You done your best," he said. "If he'd crawled down it would ha' bin all right."
Jack shook his head.
"That's where the flaw was," he said. "And now I'll face the music of Mamie's voice, like a man if I can."
And when he got to the Griggs' house, and found Mamie outside, he showed his courage by hastily dropping the letter into her hand and driving the spurs into his pony.
"I wonder why he did that?" asked the belle of Scurry County, as she saw him galloping as hard as a stampeding steer down the trail to the creek.
And when she had read Mary's letter she knew.
"I wish he had stayed," said Mamie, and the manner in which she said it was a promise of a hot day for Jack when next she saw him, unless indeed something happened before then to moderate her justifiable wrath.
"I wonder Mr. Remington didn't shoot him," said Mamie, sighing. "Oh, I wish I lived in a town or a city; I'm tired of Ennis Creek."
And while she was thinking that the prairie was monotonous, and that the cowboys were not all they imagined, Jerome and Jack Higginson were sitting gloomily outside the house of Jerome's "Paw," wondering what would happen or ought to happen, when Mr. Remington of Alabama, who was the best shot in Painted Rock, came out to Ennis Creek the day after to-morrow.
"Things is alterin'," said Jack bitterly. "Here's this fencing coming along! Sheep takes the place of steers. You cayn't ride ten miles without crossin' wire ten times. The buffalo ez a thing o' the past. There's not a head of 'em left even on the Staked Plain. Easterners comes here, Law comes here. I shall get up and git. The girls ain't what they was. Mary's all right, but mostly we ain't got a look-in with an Eastern drummer. Chuck it up, Jerome, and go to Arizona."
"I ain't stuck on Arizona," said Jerome; "I'm stuck on Mamie."
"But is Mamie stuck on you?" asked Jack. "When did you ask her last?"
"Not sence we was both ten," said Jerome uneasily.
"That's a long time lost, ain't it? I asked Mary every time I run up agin her this last seven years."
"Well, I never reckoned on no Remington," said Jerome bitterly. "I'm stuck, fair stuck. If I kill thishyer Remington, Paw won't give me no start; and if Remington kills me, I'm shore out of it."
"That's so," said Jack Higginson. "I own you don't seem to hev no luck. Supposin' you conclude that Mamie ain't the girl you took her for, Jerome? From what Mary said it seems girls are dead set on havin' their own way. It seems like this, that if she's set on Remington, she won't hev you if you kill him; and if she's set on you, she won't hev Remington."
"It looks like it," said Jerome; "but what of that?"
"It stands to reason, the way I look at it," said Higginson, "that arter all Mamie hez the call of both of you, and shootin' seems vain. It goes agin a man to own it, but it looks a solid fact. For once I own I don't see what good killin' a man is. I'd go to Mamie and ask her straight what her mind is, and if she says 'you,' you hev the laugh on Remington; and if she says Remington, you kin look for another girl."
"I don't want to look for no other," said Jerome angrily.
"But you must," urged Jack, "of course you must. She'll be mad if you do. Mary said as much. It appears women isn't the same as men. They hate to lose any man; but if a man don't want a girl he don't care if she marries any galoot, even from the East. You go up to the Griggs', and speak your mind plain and fair and square to Mamie."
"I will," said Jerome.
"Right off!"
"Ter-morrer," said Jerome.
"It makes you mad, I reckon, to think she can as much as think of Remington," said Jack, "even if he is from Alabammer."
"It does make me mad," said Jerome.
"There's prettier girls than Mamie, after all," said Jack. "Do you reklec' that fair-haired girl to Fort Worth, the time we took steers to Saint Louey?"
"Oh, she was a daisy," said Jerome pensively.
"She said you was a mighty fine-lookin' young feller," said Jack. "I never tole you that. When will you speak to Mamie?"
Jerome shrugged his shoulders.
"She ain't treated me fair. I'll ask her the day arter ter-morrer."
"Remington's comin' that day."
"Let him come," said Jerome. "I ain't one to go where I ain't wanted. There's just as pretty girls as Mamie. Your Mary's just as sweet."
"She is," said Jack; "and I know it. She says you're a good-lookin' chap, Jerome."
"Straight?"
"She says it."
"I seed a Mexican girl at El Paso that Mamie ain't in it with," said Jerome. "Mamie's too much stuck on herself."
"She is," said Jack. "She has a bitter tongue, and I'll hear it when we meet."
Jerome got up.
"Look here, Jack, I don't think I'll speak to her at all, for seein' that she said years ago that she loved me dear I reckon she ain't treated me fair."
"Times I've tho't she didn't,"said Jack.
"She can marry thishyer Remington if she likes," said Jerome haughtily.
And she did marry him.