_Git._"

And with that, out goes Mister Bugs.

Then, grandpaw, he turns round to the baby again, plumb took up with them four new nippers. "Cluck, cluck," he says like a chicken, and pokes the kid under the chin. Over one shoulder, he says to Billy, "And, Trowbridge, you can make out _you'_ bill, too."

Billy didn't answer nothin'. Just went over to a table, pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil, and begun t' write. Pretty soon, he got up and come back.

"Here, Mister Sewell," he says.

I was right byside the ole man, and--couldn't help it--I stretched to read what Billy'd writ. And this was what it was:

"Mister Zach Sewell, debtor to W. A. Trowbridge, fer medical services--the hand of one Rose Andrews in marriage."

Sewell, he read the paper over and over, turnin' all kinds of colours.

And Silly and me come blamed nigh chokin' from holdin' our breaths.

Rose was lookin' up at us, and at her paw, too, turrible anxious. As fer that kid, it was a-kickin' its laigs into the air and gurglin' like a bottle.

Fin'lly, the ole man handed the paper back. "Doc," he says, "Rose is past twenty-one, and not a' idjit. Also, the kid is hern. So, bein'

this bill reads the way it does, mebbe you'd better hand it t' her.

If she don't think it's too steep a figger----"

Billy took the paper and give it over to Rose. When she read it, her face got all blushy; and happy, too, I could see _that_.

"_Rose!_" says Billy, holdin' out his two arms to her.

I took a squint through the winda at the scenery--and heerd a sound like a cow pullin' its foot outen the mud.

"Rose," goes on Billy, "I'll be as good as I know how to you."

When I turned round again, here was ole man Sewell standin' in the middle of the floor, lookin' back and forth from Rose and Billy to the kid--like it'd just struck him that he was goin' t' lose his gal and the baby and all them teeth. And if ever a man showed that he was helpless and jealous and plumb hurt, why, that was him. Next, here he was a-gazin' at me with a queer shine in his eyes--almost savage. And say! it got me some nervous.

"Seems Mister Cupid Lloyd is a-runnin' things 'round this here ranch-house," he begun slow, like he was holdin' in his mad.

I--wal, I just kinda stood there, and swallered oncet 'r twicet, and tried t' grin. (Didn't know nothin' t' say, y' savvy, that'd be likely t' hit him just right.)

"So Cupid's gone and done it again!" he goes on. "How accommodatin'!

Haw!" And he give one of them short, sarcastic laughs.

"Wal, just let me tell you," he _con_tinues, steppin' closter, "that I, fer one, ain't got _no_ use fer a feller that's allus a-stickin' in his lip."

"Sewell," I says, "no feller _likes_ to--that's a cinch. But oncet in a while it's plumb needful."

"It is, is it? And I s'pose _this_ is one of them cases. Wal, Mister Cupid, all I can say is this: The feller that sticks in his lip _allus gits into trouble._"

Sometimes, them words of hisn come back to me. Mebbe I'll be feelin'

awful good-natured, and be a-laughin' and talkin'. Of a suddent, up them words'll pop, and the way he said 'em, and all. And even if it's right warm weather, why, I _shiver,_ yas, ma'am. _The fetter that sticks in his lip allus gits into trouble_--nothin' was ever said truer'n that!

"And," the ole man goes on again, a little bit hoa.r.s.e by now, "I can feel you' trouble a-comin'. So far, you been lucky. But it cain't last--it cain't last. You know what it says in the Bible? (Mebbe it ain't in the Bible, but that don't matter.) It says, 'Give a fool a rope and he'll hang hisself.' And one of these times you'll play Cupid just oncet too many. What's more, the smarty that can allus bring other folks t'gether cain't never manage t' hitch hisself."

I'd been keepin' still 'cause I didn't want they should be no hard feelin's 'twixt us. But that last _re_mark of hisn kinda got my dander up.

"Aw, I don't know," I answers; "when it comes my own time, I don't figger t' have much trouble."

Wal, sir, the old man flew right up. His face got the colour of sand-paper, and he brung his two hands t'gether clinched, so's I thought he'd plumb crack the bones. "Haw!" (That laugh again--bitter'n gall.) "Mister Cupid Lloyd, _you just wait._" And out he goes.

"Cupid," says Billy, "I'm _turrible_ sorry. Seems, somehow, that you've got Sewell down on y' account of me----"

"That's all right, Doc," I answers; "_I_ don't keer. It mocks nix oudt, as Dutchy 'd say." And I shook hands with him and Rose, and kissed the baby.

It mocks nix oudt--that's what I said. Wal, how was I t' know then, that I'd made a' enemy of the _one_ man that, later on, I'd be willin' t' give my _life_ t' please, almost?--_how_ was I t' know?

CHAPTER TWO

A THIRST-PARLOUR MIX-UP GIVES ME A NEW DEAL

AIN'T it funny what little bits of things can sorta change a feller's life all 'round ev'ry which _di_rection--shuffle it up, you might say, and throw him out a brand new deal? Now, take my case: If a sa.s.sy greaser from the Lazy X ranch hadn't 'a' plugged Bud Hickok, Briggs City 'd never 'a' got the parson; if the parson hadn't 'a' came, I'd never 'a' gone to church; and mebbe if I hadn't never 'a' gone to church, it wouldn't 'a' made two cents diff'rence whether ole man Sewell was down on me 'r not--fer the reason that, likely, I'd never 'a' met up with Her.

Now, I ain't a-sayin' I'm a' almanac, ner one of them crazies that can study the trails in the middle of you' hand and tell you that you're a-goin' to have ham and aigs fer breakfast. No, ma'am, I ain't neither one. But, just the same, the very first time I clapped my lookers on the new parson, I knowed they was sh.o.r.e goin' to be sev'ral things a-happenin' 'fore long in that par_tic_ular section of Oklahomaw.

As I said, Bud was _re_sponsible fer the parson comin'. Bud tied down his holster just oncet too many. The greaser called his bluff, and pumped lead into his system some. That called fer a funeral. Now, Mrs. Bud, she's Kansas City when it comes to bein' high-toned. And nothin' would do but she must have a preacher. So the railroad agent got Williams, Arizonaw, on his click-machine, and we got the parson.

He was a new breed, that parson, a genuwine no-two-alike, come-one-in-a-box kind. He was big and young, with no hair on his face, and brownish eyes that 'peared to look plumb through y' and out on the other side. Good-natured, y' know, but actin' as if he meant ev'ry word he said; foolin' a little with y', too, and friendly as the devil. And he didn't wear parson duds--just a grey suit; not like us, y' savvy--more like what the hotel clerk down to Albuquerque wears, 'r one of them city fellers that comes here to run a game.

Wal, the way he talked over pore Bud was a caution. Say! they was no "Yas, my brother," 'r "No, my brother," and no "Heaven's will be done" outen _him_--nothin' like it! And you'd never 'a' smelt gun-play. Mrs. Bud ner the greaser that done the shootin'-up (he was at the buryin') didn't hear no word _they_ could kick at, _no,_ ma'am.

The parson read somethin' about the day you die bein' a darned sight better 'n the day you was born. And his hull razoo was so plumb sensible that, 'fore he got done, the pa.s.sel of us was all a-feelin', somehow 'r other, that Bud Hickok had the drinks on us!

We planted Bud in city style. But the parson didn't sha.s.say back to Williams afterwards. We'd no more'n got our shaps on again, when Hairoil blowed in from the post-office up the street and let it out at the "Life Savin' Station," as Dutchy calls his thirst-parlour, that the parson was goin' to squat in Briggs City fer a spell.

"Wal, of all the dog-goned propositions!" says Bill Rawson, mule-skinner over to the Little Rattlesnake Mine. "What's he goin'

to do that fer, Hairoil?"

"Heerd we was goin' to have a polo team," answers Hairoil. "Reckon he's kinda loco on polo. Anyhow, he's took my shack."

"Boys," I tole the crowd that was wettin' they whistles, "this preachin' gent ain't none of you' ev'ry day, tenderfoot, h.e.l.l-tooters. Polo, hey? He's got _savvy_. Look a leedle oudt, as Dutchy, here, 'd put it. Strikes me this feller'll hang on longer 'n any other parson that was ever in these parts ropin' souls."

Ole Dutch lay back his ears. "Better he do'n make no trubbles mit me,"

he says.

Say! that was like tellin' you' fortune. The next day but one, right in front of the "Station," trouble popped. This is how:

The parson 'd had all his truck sent over from Williams. In the pile they was one of them big, spotted dawgs--keerige dawgs, I think they call 'em. This par_tic_ular dawg was so spotted you could 'a' come blamed nigh playin' checkers on him. Wal, Dutchy had a dawg, too. It wasn't much of anythin' fer fambly, I reckon,--just plain purp--but it sh.o.r.e had a fine set of nippers, and could jerk off the stearin' gear of a cow quicker 'n greazed lightnin'. Wal, the parson come down to the post-office, drivin' a two-wheel thing-um-a-jig, all yalla and black.

'Twixt the wheels was trottin' his spotted dawg. A-course, the parson 'd no more'n stopped, when out comes that ornery purp of Dutchy's.

And such a set-to you never seen!

But it was all on one side, like a jug handle, and the keerige dawg got the heavy end. He yelped b.l.o.o.d.y murder and tried to skedaddle. The other just hung on, and bit sev'ral of them stylish spots clean offen him.