第29章

"Moon comes rumblin' into Wolfville, over-doo mebby it's two weeks, bringin' both teams.Thar-upon he relates them outrages.Thar's but one thought, that agent has lived too long.

"'If he was the usual common form of felon,' says Enright, 'ondoubted--for it would be their dooty--the vig'lance committee local to them parts would string him up.But that ain't possible;this yere miscreant is a gov'ment official an' wears the gov'ment brand, an' even the Stranglers, of whatever commoonity, ain't strong enough, an' wouldn't be jestified in stackin' in ag'in the gov'ment.

Captain Moon's only show is a feud.He oughter caper over an', as private as possible, arrogate to himse'f the skelp of this yere agent who abandons his relatif to them hostiles.'

"Wolfville listens to Captain Moon's hist'ry of his wrongs; but aside from them eloocidations of Enright, no gent says much.Thar's some games where troo p'liteness consists in sayin' nothin' an'

knowin' less.But the most careless hand in camp can see that Moon's aimin' at reprisals.

"This Curly Ben is trackin' about Wolfville at the time.Curly ain't what you-all would call a elevated character.He's a rustler of cattle, an' a smuggler of Mexican goods, an' Curly an' the Yoonited States marshals has had more turn-ups than one.But Curly is dead game; an' so far, he manages to either out-luck or out-shoot them magistrates; an', as I says, when Moon comes wanderin' in that time mournin' for his nephy, Curly has been projectin' about camp for like it's a week.

"Moon sort o' roominates on the play, up an' down, for a day or so, makin' out a plan.He don't want to go back himse'f; the agent knows him, an' them Injuns knows him, an' it's even money, if he comes pokin' into their bailiwick, they'll tumble to his errant.In sech events, they're shore doo to corral him an' give them ants another holiday.It's the ant part that gives pore Captain Moon a chill.

"'I'll take a chance on a bowie knife,' says Moon to Dan Boggs,--Dan, bein' a sympathetic gent an' takin' nacherally to folks in trouble, has Moon's confidence from the jump; 'I'll take a chance on a bowie knife; an' as for a gun, I simply courts the resk.But then ants dazzles me--I lay down to ants, an' I looks on it as no disgrace to a gent to say so.' "'Ants shorely do sound poignant,'

admits Dan, 'speshully them big black an' red ants that has stingers like hornets an' pinchers like bugs.Sech insecks, armed to the teeth as they be, an' laid out to fight both ways from the middle, is likewise too many for me.I would refoose battle with 'em myse'f.'

"It ain't long before Captain Moon an' Curly Ben is seen confidin'

an' conferrin' with one another, an' drinkin' by themse'fs, an' no one has to be told that Moon's makin' negotiations with Curly to ride over an' down the agent.The idee is pecooliarly grateful to Wolfville.It stands to win no matter how the kyards lay in the box.

If Curly fetches the agent flutterin' from his limb, thar's one miscreant less in Arizona, if the agent gets the drop an' puts out Curly Ben, it comes forth jest the same.It's the camp's theery that, in all that entitles 'em to death, the case stands hoss an'

hoss between the agent an' Curly Ben.

"'An' if they both gets downed, it's a whip-saw, we win both ways;'

says Cherokee Hall, an' the rest of us files away our nose-paint in silent assent tharwith."It comes out later that Moon agrees to give Curly Ben fifteen hundred dollars an' a pony, if he'll go over an'

kill off the agent.Curly Ben says the prop'sition is the pleasantest thing he hears since he leaves the Panhandle ten years before, an' so he accepts five hundred dollars an' the pony--the same bein' the nacher of payments in advance--an' goes clatterin'

off up the canyon one evenin' on his mission of jestice.An' then we hears no more of Curly Ben for about a month.No one marvels none at this, however, as downin' any given gent is a prop'sition which in workin' out is likely to involve delays.

"One day, with unruffled brow an' an air all careless an' free, Curly Ben rides into Wolfville an' begins orderin' whiskey at the Red Light before he's hardly cl'ar of the saddle.Thar ain't nobody in camp, from Doc Peets to Missis Rucker, but what's eager to know the finish of Curly's expedition, but of course everybody hobbles his feelin's in them behalfs.It's Captain Moon's fooneral, an' he oughter have a first, oninterrupted say.Moon comes up to Curly Ben where Curly is cuttin' the alkali dust outen his throat at the Red Light bar.

"'Did you get him?' Moon asks after a few p'lite preeliminaries.

'Did you bring back his ha'r an' y'ears like we agrees?'

"'Have you-all got the other thousand ready,' says Curly Ben.'in the event I do?'

"'Right yere in my war-bags,' says Moon, 'awaitin' to make good for your tine an' talent an' trouble in revengin' my pore nephy's deemise by way of them insecks.' An' Moon slaps his pocket as locatin' the dinero.

"'Well, I don't get him,' says Curly Ben ca'mly, settin' his glass on the bar.