As I’ve said, folks in Palomitas mostly got for names what happened to come handiest and fitted. Likely that dude’s cuffs was marked with something he was knowed by; but as most of us wasn’t particular what his cuffs was marked, or him either, we just called him Boston––after the town he made out he belonged to––and let it go at that. Big game was what he said he was looking for: and Santa FÉ Charley, with Shorty Smith and others helping, saw to it he got all he wanted and some over––but I reckon the exercises would a-been less spirited if the Sage-Brush Hen hadn’t chipped in and played a full hand.

He was one of the sporting kind, Boston 128 was, that turned up frequent in the Territory in them days. Most of ’em was friends of officers at some of the posts, with a sprinkling throwed in of sons and nephews of directors of the road. Big game was what they all made out they come for; and they was apt to have about as much use for big game––when they happened to find any––as a cat has for two tails. But they seemed to enjoy letting off ca’tridges––and used to buy what skins was in the market to take home.

Boston turned out to be a nephew––nephews was apt to be worse’n sons for stuck-upness––and he come in one morning in a private car hitched onto the Denver train. He had a colored man along to cook and clean his guns for him––he had more things to shoot with, and of more shapes and sizes, than you ever seen in one place outside of a gun-store––and he was dressed that nice in green corduroys, with new-fangled knives and hunting fixings hanging all over him like he was a Christmas-tree, he might have hired out for a show. He wasn’t a bad set-up 129 young feller; but with them green clothes on, and being clean shaved and wearing eye-glasses, he did look just about what he truly was.

Wood had a wire a director’s nephew was coming––he was the agent, Wood was––and orders to side-track his car and see he was took care of; and of course Wood passed the word along to the rest of us what sort of a game was on. But he begged so hard, Wood did, the town would hold itself in––saying if rigs was put up on a director’s nephew he was dead sure to lose his job––we all allowed we’d give the young feller a day or two to turn round in, anyway; and we promised Wood––who was liked––we’d let the critter get through his hunting picnic without putting up no rigs on him if he made any sort of a show of knowing how to behave. Howsomedever, he didn’t––and things started up, and nobody but Boston himself to blame for it, that very first night over in the bar-room at the Forest Queen.

He had Wood in to supper with him in his car, Boston did, the darky cooking it; and 130 Wood said––except it begun with their having pickled green plums, and some sort of messed-up stuff that tasted like spoilt salt fish and made him feel sickish––it was the best supper he ever eat. Each of ’em had a bottle of iced wine, he said; and he said they topped off with coffee that only wanted milk to make it a real wonder, and a drink like rock-and-rye, but chalks better, and such seegars as he’d never smoked in his born days.

All the time they was hashing––and Wood said he reckoned they was at it a’most a full hour––Boston kept a-telling what a hell of a one (that was the sort of careless way Wood put it) he was at big-game hunting; but Wood judged––taking all his talk together––the only thing he’d ever really shot bigger’n a duck or a pa’tridge was a deer the dogs had chased into a pond for him so it hadn’t no chance. But it wasn’t none of Wood’s business to stop a director’s nephew from blowing if he felt like it, and so he just let him fan away. Bears wasn’t bad sport, he said, and he didn’t mind filling in time 131 with ’em if he couldn’t get nothing better; but what he’d come to Palomitas for ’special, he said, was mountain-lions––he seemed to have it in his head he’d find ’em walking all over the place, same as cats––and he wanted to know if any’d lately been seen.

Wood told him them animals wasn’t met with frequent in them parts (and they wasn’t, for a fact, and hadn’t been for about a hunderd years, likely) and maybe he’d do better to set his mind on jack-rabbits––which there was enough of out in the sage-brush, Wood told him, to load his car. And then he looked so real down disappointed, seeming to think jack-rabbits wasn’t anyways satisfactory, Wood said he told him there was chances some of the boys over at the Forest Queen––they being all the time out in the mountains looking for prospects––might put him on to finding a bear, anyway; and it wouldn’t do no harm to go across to the Queen and ask. And so over the both of ’em come.

It was Wood’s mistake bringing that green-corduroyed pill right in among the boys without 132 giving notice, and Wood owned up it was later––allowing he’d a-been more careful if the rock-and-rye stuff on top of the wine, not being used to either of ’em, hadn’t loaded him more’n he knowed about at the time. Boston didn’t seem to be much loaded, likely having the habit of taking such drinks and so being able to carry ’em; but he was that high-horsey––putting on his eye-glasses and staring ’round the place same as if he’d struck a menagerie and the boys was beasts in cages––all hands was set spiteful to him right off.

Things was running about as usual at the Queen: most of the boys setting around the table and Santa FÉ dealing; a few of ’em standing back of the others looking on; two or three getting drinks at the bar and talking to Blister; and the girls kicking their heels on the benches, waiting till it come time to start up dancing in the other room. The only touch out of the common was the way the Sage-Brush Hen had fixed herself––she being rigged up in the same white duds she’d wore when Hart’s aunt come to town, and looking so real cute and pretty in ’em, and acting demure to suit, nobody’d ever a-sized her for the gay old licketty-split Hen she was.

It was between deals when Wood and Boston come in, and Santa FÉ got up from the table and crossed over to ’em––Charley always was that polite you’d a-thought he was a fish-hook with pants on––and told Boston he hoped he seen him well, and was glad he’d come along. Then Wood told how he was after mountain-lions, and wasn’t likely to get none; and Charley owned up they was few, and what there was of ’em was so sort of scattered the chances for finding ’em was poor.

Boston didn’t say much of nothing at first, seeming to be took up with trying to make out where Santa FÉ belonged to––hitching on his eye-glasses and looking him over careful, but only getting puzzleder the more he stared. You see, Charley––in them black clothes and a white tie on––looked for certain sure like he was a minister; and there he was getting up red-hot from dealing faro, and having on 134 each side of where he set at the table a forty-five gun. It was more of a mix-up than Boston could manage, and you could see he didn’t know where he was at. Howsomedever, Wood had told him he’d better make out to be friendly, and take just what happened to come along without asking no questions; and I reckon the shoat really meant, as well as he knowed how to, to do what he was told. So he give up trying to size Santa FÉ, and said back to him he was obliged and was feeling hearty; and then he took to grinning, like as if he wanted to make things pleasant, and says: “Really, I am very much interested in my surroundings. This place has quite the air of being a barbarian Monte Carlo. It really has, you know.”

That was a non-plusser for Charley––and Santa FÉ wasn’t non-plustered often, and didn’t like it when he was––but he pulled himself together and put down what cards he had: telling Boston monte was a game he sometimes played with friends for amusement––which was the everlasting truth, only 135 the friends mostly was less amused than he was––and he’d had a dog named Carlo, he said, when he was a boy.

Boston seemed to think that was funny, and took to snickering sort of superior. He was about a full dose for uppishness, that young feller was: going on as if he’d bought the Territory, and as if the folks in it was the peones he’d took over––Mexican fashion––along with the land. Then he said he guessed Santa FÉ did not ketch his meaning, and Monte Carlo was the biggest gambling hell there was.

Being in the business, Santa FÉ was apt to get peevish when anybody took to talking about gambling; and Boston’s throwing in hell on top of it that way was more’n he cared to stand. He didn’t let on––at least not so the fool could see it––his dander was started, setting on himself being one of the things his work trained him to; but the boys noticed he begun to get palish up at the top of his forehead––where there was a white streak between his hair and where his hat come––and all hands knowed that for a bad 136 sign. Boston, of course––being strangers with him––didn’t know what Charley’s signs was; and he just kept on a-talking as fresh as his green clothes.

“Not less psychologically than sociologically,” says he, “is it interesting to find in this slum of the wilderness the degenerate Old-World vices in crude New-World garb. Here,” says he, jerking his head across to the table, “is a coarse reproduction of Monaco’s essence; and there, I observe, are other repulsive features equally coarse”––and he jerked his head over to where Shorty Smith was setting up drinks for Carrots at the bar.

“If you dare to say one word more about my features, young man,” says Carrots––having a pug-nose, Carrots was techy about her features; and she had a temper the same color as her hair––“I’ll smack you in the mouth!”

“And Oi’ll smack your whole domn head off!” put in Blister Mike. “D’you think Oi’m going to have ladies drinking at my bar insulted by slush like you?” And Blister 137 reached down to where he kept it among the tumblers to get his gun.

It looked as if there was going to be a ruction right off. There was Carrots red-hotter than her hair; and Blister, who was special friends with Carrots, shooting mad at having anybody sassing her; and Santa FÉ’s forehead getting whiter and whiter; and all hands on their hind legs at having Palomitas called a slum of the wilderness––and likely worse things said about the place in words nobody’d ever heard tell of longer’n your arm. The only one keeping quiet was Wood. He was sure, Wood was, trouble was coming beyond his stopping; and as he knowed which side his bread was buttered, and how he’d be fired from his job if things happened to go serious, he just went and sat down in a corner and swore to himself sorrowful, and was about the miserablest-looking man you ever seen alive. I guess it was more’n anything else being pitiful for Wood made things take the turn they did when the Sage-Brush Hen come into the game.

“Now you all hear me!” the Hen sung out sudden––and as the Hen wasn’t much given to no such public speaking, and the boys was used to doing quick what she wanted when she asked for it, everybody stopped talking and Blister put his gun down on the bar. Most of us, I reckon, had a feeling the Hen was going to let things out in some queer way she’d thought of in that funny head of hers––same as she’d done other times when matters was getting serious––and we all was ready to help her with any skylarking she was up to that would put a stop to the rumpus and so get Wood out of his hole. As for Boston––being too much of a fool to know what he’d done to start such a racket––he was all mazed-up by it: staring straight ahead of him like a horse with staggers, and looking like he wished he’d never been born.

“You all hear me, I tell you!” says the Hen, taking a-hold of Boston’s arm sort of motherly. “While I am the school-teacher in Palomitas I shall not permit you boys to play your pranks on strangers; and ’specially 139 not on this gentleman––whom I claim as a friend of mine because we both come from the same dear old town.”

That was the first time anybody’d ever heard the Hen wasn’t hatched-out in Kansas City. But it didn’t seem as if calling her hand would be gentlemanly, so nobody said nothing; and off she went again––talking this time to Boston, but winking the eye away from him at the boys.

“It is merely a joke, sir,” says the Hen, “that these young men are playing on you––and as silly a joke as silly can be. Sometimes, in spite of my most earnest efforts to stop them, they will go on in this foolish way: pretending to be wild and wicked and murderous and all such nonsense, when in reality there is not a single one among them who willingly would hurt a fly. What Miss Mortimer said about smacking you, as I hardly need to explain, was a joke too. Dear Miss Mortimer! She is as full of fun as a kitten, and as sweet and gentle”––Carrots, not seeing what the Hen was driving at, all the time was looking like a red-headed 140 thunder-storm––“as the kindest-hearted kitten that ever was!

“And now, I assure you, sir, this reprehensible practical joking––for which I beg your indulgence––definitely is ended; and I am glad to promise that you will find in evidence, during the remainder of your stay in Palomitas, only the friendliness and the courtesy which truly are the essential characteristics of our seemingly turbulent little town.”

The Hen stopped for a minute to get her wind back––which give the boys a chance to study over what they was told they was, and what kind of a town it turned out to be they was living in––and then off she went again, saying: “I beg that you will pardon me, sir, for addressing you so informally, without waiting for an introduction. We do not always stand strictly on etiquette here in Palomitas; and I saw that I had to put my cards down quick––I mean that I had to intervene hurriedly––to save you from being really annoyed. Now that I have cleared up the trifling misunderstanding, I 141 trust satisfactorily, we will go back to where we ought to have started and I will ask Mr. Charles to introduce us.” And round she cracked to Santa FÉ and says: “Will you be so kind as to introduce my fellow-townsman to me, Mr. Charles?”

Santa FÉ had begun to get a little cooled off by that time; and, like as not––it was a wonder the way them two passed cards to each other––the Hen give him some sort of a look that made him suspicion what her game was. Anyway, into it he come––saying to Boston, talking high-toned and polite like he knowed how to: “I have much pleasure, sir, in presenting you to Miss Sage, who is Palomitas’s idol––and a near relative, as you may be interested in knowing, of the eminent Eastern capitalist of the same name. As she herself has mentioned, Miss Sage is our school-teacher; but her modest cheek would be suffused with blushes were I to tell you how much more she is to us––how broadly her generous nature prompts her to construe her duties as the instructress of innocent youth. Only a moment ago you had an 142 opportunity for observing that her word is our law paramount. I am within bounds in saying, sir, that in Palomitas she is universally adored.”

“Oh, Mr. Charles! How can you!” says the Hen, kind of turning away and looking as if what Charley’d said really had made her feel like blushing a little. Then she faced round again and shook hands with Boston––who was so rattled he seemed only about half awake, and done it like a pump––and says to him: “Mr. Charles is a born flatterer if ever there was one, sir, and you must pay no attention whatever to his extravagant words. I only try in my poor way, as occasion presents itself”––she let her voice drop down so it went sort of soft and ketchy––“to mollify some of the harsher asperities of our youthfully strenuous community; to apply, as it were, the touchstone of Boston social standards––the standards that you and I, sir, recognize––to the sometimes too rough ways of our rough little frontier settlement. It is true, though, and I am proud to say it, that the boys do like me––of course Mr. 143 Charles’s talk about my being an idol and adored is only his nonsense; and it is true that they always are nice about doing what I ask them to do––as they were just now, when they were naughty and I had to make them behave.

“And now, since the formalities have been attended to and we have been introduced properly, and since you and I are fellow-Bostonians and ought to be friendly”––the Hen give him one of them fetching looks of hers––“you must come over to the bar and have a drink on me. And while we are performing this rite of hospitality,” says the Hen––pretending not to see the jump he give––“we can discuss your projected lion-hunt: in which, with your permission, I shall take part.” Boston give a bigger jump at that; and the Hen says on to him, sort of explaining matters: “You need not fear that I shall not sustain my end of the adventure. As any of the boys here will tell you, I can handle a forty-five or a Winchester about as well as anybody––and big-game hunting really is my forte. Indeed, I may say––using one of our 144 homely but expressive colloquialisms––that when it comes to lion-hunting I am simply hell!”

Boston seemed to be getting worse and worse mixed while the Hen was rattling her stuff off to him––and I reckon, all things considered, he wasn’t to be blamed. He’d got a jolt to start with, when he come in and found what he took to be a preacher dealing faro; and he was worse jolted when his fool-talk––and he not knowing how he’d done it––run him so close up against a shooting-scrape. But the Hen was the limit: she looking and acting like the school-ma’am she said she was, and yet tangled up in a bar-room with a lot of gamblers and such as Kerosene Kate and old Tenderfoot Sal and Carrots––and then bringing the two ends together by talking one minute like he was used to East, and the next one wanting to set up drinks for him and telling him she knowed all there was to know about gun-handling and how at lion-hunting she was just hell! I guess he was more’n half excusable, that young feller was, for looking 145 like he couldn’t be counted on for telling for certain on which end of him was his heels!

What he did manage to work out clear in that fool head of his was he had the chance to get the drink he needed, and needed bad, to brace him; so over he come with the Hen to the bar and got it––and it seemed to do him some good. Then Carrots––who’d begun to ketch on a little to what the Hen was after––spoke up and told him it was true what Miss Sage had told him about her kittenishness, and she hadn’t meant nothing when she was talking about smacking him; and to show he had no hard feeling, she said, he must have one on her. Then Blister Mike, having sized matters up, chipped in too: saying it would make him feel comfortabler––having done some joking himself by talking the way he did and getting his gun out––if they’d all have one on the bar.

As drinks in Palomitas was sighted for a thousand yards, and carried to kill further, by the time Boston had three of ’em in him––on top of the ones he’d had with Wood at supper––he was loaded enough to be careless 146 about what was happening among the sunspots and ready to take things pretty much as they come along. The boys was ready for what might be coming too: allowing for sure the Hen was getting a circus started, and only waiting to follow suit to the cards she put down.

What was needed, it turned out, was stacked with Shorty Smith; and the Hen sort of picked up Shorty with her eyes and says to him: “Your little boy Gustavus––he is such a dear little fellow, and I do love him so!––was telling me at recess to-day, Mr. Smith, that you saw a lion when you were out in the mountains day before yesterday prospecting. I think that very likely you may have seen the fierce creature even more recently; and perhaps you will have the kindness to tell us”––the Hen winked her off eye at Shorty to show him what was wanted––“where he probably may be found at the present time?”

Some of the boys couldn’t help snickering right out when the Hen took to loading up Shorty with little Gustavuses; but Boston 147 didn’t notice nothing, and Shorty––who had wits as sharp as pin-points, and could be counted on for what cards was needed in the kind of game the Hen was playing––put down the ace she asked for and never turned a hair.

“Gustavus will be tickled out of his little boots, Miss,” says Shorty, “when I tell him how nice you’ve spoke about him; and I’m much obliged myself. He give it to you straight, the kid did, about that lion. I seen him, all right––and so close up it most scared the life out of me! And you’re right, Miss, in thinking I’ve ketched onto him since––seeing I was a blame sight nearer to him than I wanted to be less’n four hours ago. Yes, ma’am, as I was coming in home to-night from the CaÑada I struck that animal’s tracks in the mud down by the ford back of the deepo––he’d been down to the river for a drink, I reckon––and they was so fresh he couldn’t a-been more’n five minutes gone. When I got to thinking what likely might a-happened if I’d come along them five minutes sooner, Miss, I had cold creeps crawling all up and down the spine of my back!”

Them statements of Shorty’s set the boys to snickering some more––there not being no ford on the Rio Grande this side of La Chamita, and the wagon-bridge being down back of the deepo where he said his ford was––but Shorty paid no attention, and went on as smooth as if he was speaking a piece he’d got by heart.

“As you know, Miss, being such a hunter,” says he––making up what happened to be wanted about lions, same as he’d done about fords––“them animals takes a drink every four hours in the night-time as regular as if they looked at their watches. Likely that feller’s bedded just a little way back in the chaparral so’s to be handy for his next one; and I reckon if this sport here feels he needs lions”––Shorty give his head a jerk over to Boston––“he’ll get one by looking for it right now. But for the Lord’s sake, Miss, don’t you think of taking a hand in tackling him! He’s a most a-terrible big one––the out and out biggest I ever seen. The first thing you knowed about it, he’d a-gulped you down whole!”

“How you do go on, Mr. Smith!” says the Hen, laughing pleasant. “Have you so soon forgotten our hunt together last winter––when I came up and shot the grizzly in the ear just as he had you down and was beginning to claw you? And are you not ashamed of yourself, after that, to say that any lion is too big for me?”

Without stopping for Shorty to strain himself trying to remember that bear-hunt, round she cracked to Boston––giving Shorty and Santa FÉ a chance to get in a corner and talk quick in a whisper––and says to him: “We just are in luck! These big old ones are the real fighters, you know. Only a year ago there was a gentleman from the East here on a lion-hunt––it was his first, and he did not seem to know quite how to manage matters––and one of these big fierce ones caught him and finished him. It was very horrible! The dreadful creature sprang on him in the dark and almost squeezed him to death, and then tore him to pieces while he still was alive enough to feel it, and ended by eating so much of him that only a few 150 scraps of him were left to send East to his friends. This one seems to be just that kind. Isn’t it splendid! What superb sport we shall have in getting him––you and I!”

What the Hen had to say about the way lions done business––’specially their eating hunters like they was sandwiches on a free-lunch counter––seemed to take some of the load off Boston, and as he got soberer he wasn’t so careless as he’d been. From his looks it was judged he was thinking a lion some sizes smaller would be a better fit for him; but he couldn’t well say so––with the Hen going on about wanting hers as big as they made ’em––so he took a brace, and sort of swelled himself out, and said the bigger this one was the better he’d be pleased.

“But I cannot permit you, my dear young lady,” he says, “to share with me the great danger incident to pursuing so ferocious a creature. I alone must deal with it. To-morrow I shall familiarize myself with the locality where Mr. Smith has found its tracks; and to-morrow night, or the night after––as the weather may determine. Of course nothing 151 can be done in case of rain––I will seek the savage brute in its lair. And then we shall find out”––Boston worked up as much as he could of a grin, but it seemed to come hard and didn’t fit well––“which of us shall have the other’s skin!”

“Danger for me!” says the Hen, giving him another of them looks of hers. “Just as though I would not be as safe, with a brave man like you to protect me, as I am teaching school! And to-morrow night, indeed! Do you think lions are like dentists––only the other way round about the teeth!” and the Hen laughed hearty––“and you can make appointments with them a week ahead! Why, we must be off, you and I, this very minute! I’ll run right round home and get my rifle––and meet you at your car as soon as you’ve got yours. To think of our having a lion this way almost sitting on the front-door step! It’s a chance that won’t come again in a thousand years!”

Away the Hen went a-kiting; and, there not being no hole he could see to crawl out of, away went Boston––only the schedule he 152 run on was some miles less to the hour. To make sure he didn’t try to side-track, Shorty went with him––leaving Santa FÉ to fix matters with the Hen, and do what talking was needed to ring in the boys.

Shorty put through his part in good shape: helping Boston get as many of his guns as he thought was wanted to hunt lions with––which was as many as he could pack along with him––and managing sort of casual to slip out the ca’tridges, so he wouldn’t hurt nobody. It turned out Shorty needn’t a-been so extry-precautious––but of course he couldn’t tell. By the time Shorty had him ready, the Hen come a-hustling up––having finished settling things with Santa FÉ––and sung out to him to get a move on, or likely the lion would a-had his drink and gone. The move he got wasn’t much of a one; but he did come a-creeping out of the car at last, and having such a load of weepons on him as give him some excuse for going slow.

“Good luck to you!” says Shorty, and off he skipped in a hurry to get at the rest of his 153 part of the ceremonies––not paying no attention to Boston’s most getting down on his knees to him begging him to come along. Then Boston wanted the colored man to come––who was scared out of his black skin at the notion, and wouldn’t; and if the Hen hadn’t ended up by grabbing a-hold of him––saying as it was dark, and she knowed the way and he didn’t, she’d better lead him––likely she wouldn’t a-got him started at all. Pulling him was more like what she did than leading him, the Hen said afterwards; but she didn’t kick about his going slow and wanting to stop every minute, she said, because it give Santa FÉ and Shorty more time.

The night was the kind that’s usual in New Mexico, and just what was wanted. There was no moon, and the starshine––all the stars looked to be about the size of cheeses––give a hazy sort of light that made everything seem twice as big as it really was, and shadows so black and solid you’d think you could cut ’em in slices same as pies. And it was so still you could a-heard a mouse sneezing half a mile off. The rattling all 154 over him of Boston’s weepons sounded like there was boilers getting rivetted close by.

The Hen yanked him along easy, but kept him a-moving––and passed the time for him by telling all she could make up about what desprit critters lions was. Starting from where his car was side-tracked, they went round the deepo; and then down the wagon-road pretty near to the bridge, but not so near he could see it; and then across through the sage-brush and clumps of mesquite till they come to the river––where there was a break in the bluff, and a flat place going on down into the water that looked like it was the beginning of a ford. For a fact, it was where the Mexican women come to do their clothes-washing, and just back from the river was a little ’dobe house––flat-topped, and the size and shape of a twelve-foot-square dry-goods box––the women kept their washing things in. But them was particulars the Hen didn’t happen to mention to Boston at the time.

When they come to the ’dobe she give him a jerk, to show him he was to stand still there; 155 and then she grabbed him close up to her, so she could whisper, and says: “It was here that Mr. Smith saw the ferocious animal’s foot-marks almost precisely four hours ago. The habits of these creatures are so regular, as Mr. Smith mentioned, that this one certainly will return for his next drink when the four hours are ended––and so may be upon us at any moment. I hope that we may see him coming. If he saw us before we saw him––well, it wouldn’t be nice at all!”

The Hen let that soak in a little; and then she snuggled up to Boston, all sort of shivery, and says: “I wish that we had taken the precaution to ask Mr. Smith from which direction the tracks came. These lions, you know, have a dreadful way of stealing up close to you and then springing! That was what happened to that poor young man. So far as was known, his first notice of his peril was finding himself crushed to the ground beneath the creature’s weight––and the next instant it was tearing him with its teeth and claws. I––I begin to wish I 156 hadn’t come!” And the Hen snuggled up closer and shivered bad.

Boston seemed to be doing some shivers on his own account, judging from the way his guns rattled; and his teeth was so chattery his talking come queer. But he managed to get out that if they was inside the house they’d have more chances––and he went to work trying to open the door. When he found he couldn’t––it being locked so good there was no budging it––he got worse jolted, and his breath seemed to be coming hard.

The Hen got a-hold of him again and done some more shivers, and then she says: “It all will be over, one way or the other, in a very few moments now. And oh, how thankful I am––since so needlessly and so foolishly I have placed myself in this deadly peril––that I have for my protector a brave man! If salvation is possible, you will save me I am sure!”

Boston tried to say something, but he’d got so he was beyond talking and only gagged; and while he was a-gagging there come a queer noise––sounding like it was a critter 157 crawling around in among the bushes––that made him most jump out of his skin! Down went his guns on the ground all in a clatter; and he was scared so limp he’d a-gone down a-top of ’em if the Hen hadn’t got a good grip on him with both arms. They stood that way more’n a minute, with him a-shaking all over and the Hen doing some shaking for company––and then she hiked him round so he pointed right and says: “Look! Look! There by those little bushes! Oh how horrible!” And the Hen give a groan.

What was wanted to be looked at was on hand, right enough––and I reckon it showed to most advantage by about as much light as it got from the stars. All they could make sure of was something alive, moving sort of awkward and jumpy, coming out from a tangle of mesquite bushes not more’n three rods off and heading straight for ’em; and seeing it the way they did––just a black splotch all mixed in with the shadows of the bushes––it looked to be most as big as a cow! Limp as he was––so you’d a-thought there wasn’t any yell in him––Boston let off a yell 158 that likely was heard clear across the mesa at San Juan!

“Shoot!” says the Hen. “I can’t. I’m too frightened. Shoot quick––or we are lost!” She let go of him, so he could reach down to where he’d spilled his gun-shop and get a weepon; but Boston wasn’t on the shoot, and he hadn’t no use for weepons just then. All he wanted to do was to run; and if the Hen hadn’t got a fresh grip on him and held him––she was a strapping strong woman, the Hen was––he would a-made a bolt for it certain sure.

“No! No! Don’t attempt to run!” says the Hen, talking scared and desprit. “In an instant, should we turn our backs on him, the terrible creature would be upon us with one long cruel bound!”

From the way the terrible creature, as the Hen called him, was a-going on––sort of hopping up and down, and not making much headway––it didn’t look as if long cruel bounds was what he was most used to. But Boston wasn’t studying the matter extra careful, and as the Hen found he took pretty 159 much what she give him she just cracked along.

“To run, I tell you,” says the Hen, “is but to court the quicker coming of the torturing death to which we are doomed. It will come quick enough, anyway!”––and she handed out a fresh lot of shivers, and throwed in sobs. Then she give a jump, as if the notion’d just struck her, and says: “There is a chance for us! Up on the roof of this house we may be safe. Lions can spring enormous distances horizontally, you know; but, save in exceptional cases, their vertical jumping powers are restricted to a marked degree. Quick! Put your foot in my hand and let me start you. When you are up, you can pull me up after you. Now then!”––and the Hen reached her hand down so she could get a-hold of Boston’s foot and give him a send.

Her using them long words about the way lions did their jumping––being the kind of talk he was used to––seemed to sort of brace him. Anyways––the lion helping hurry things by just then giving another jump or two––he 160 managed to have sense enough to put his foot in the Hen’s hand, same as she told him; and then she let out her muscle and give him such an up-start he was landed on the roof of the ’dobe afore he fairly knowed he’d begun to go! Being landed, he just sprawled out flat––and getting the Hen up after him seemed to be about the last thing he had on his mind.

“Help! Help!” sung out the Hen. “The lion is almost on me! Give me your hand!” But Boston wasn’t in no shape to give hands to nobody. All he did was to kick his legs about and let off groans.

“Oh, I understand, now,” says the Hen in a minute. “You are crying out in the hope of luring the creature into trying to reach you––as he can, if he happens to be one of the exceptional jumpers––and so give me a chance to get away. How noble that is of you! I shall take the chance, my brave preserver, that your self-sacrifice gives me––and I shall collect, and bedew with tears of gratitude, all that the savage monster leaves me of your bones! Heaven bless you––and 161 good-bye!” And away the Hen cut––leaving Boston high and dry on the roof of the ’dobe, so scared he just lay there like a wet rag.

She didn’t cut far, the Hen didn’t. The rest of us was a-setting around under the mesquite bushes, and she joined the party and set down too––stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth, and holding both hands jammed tight over it, to keep from yelling out with the laugh that was pretty near cracking her sides.

Then we all waited till daylight––with Shorty, who had charge of the lion, working that animal as seemed to be needed whenever Boston quieted down with his groans. All hands really enjoyed theirselves, and it was one of the shortest nights I think I ever knowed.

Daylight comes sudden in them parts. One minute it’s so darkish you can’t see nothing––and the next minute the sun comes up with a bounce from behind the mountains and things is all clear.

When the sun did his part of the work and 162 give all the light was needed, we done ours––which was coming out from among the mesquite bushes and saying good-morning polite to Boston, up on the roof of the ’dobe, and then taking the hobbles off old man Gutierrez’s jackass so it could walk away home.

The Hen felt she needed to have one more shot, and she took it. “My brave preserver!” says the Hen, speaking cheerful. “Come down to me––that I may bedew with tears of gratitude your bones!”