At that, Denver Jones cut in with: “I thought you said the one you was held up by was more’n fourteen foot high, and you killed him? This man ain’t big enough to hold up a baby-carriage with you in it––and he’s sure enough alive. What are you giving us––you blame fool?”
There’s no telling what kind of an answer Denver would a-got from Hart’s nephew––for he hadn’t a chance to give him no answer at all. Just then Hill did the talking, and what Hill said was: “Boys, he’s dead right about it. This here’s the bad man that held the coach up––and as I was there, and 72 seen it done, and drove the coach on with five mules to Santa Fé afterwards, I guess I know!” And Hill, and the little Mexican with him, just roared.
When Hill could talk for laughing, he went on: “I’ll own up right now, boys, I was extry over-precautious when I fixed up with empty shells that gun-shop Hart’s nephew took along on the coach when he started out with it. For all the harm he done with them guns, I might just as well a-left ’em loaded the usual way. He was that scared when this here gigantic ruffian stopped him––I just happened to be a-setting in among the cedar-bushes at the time, smoking a seegar and looking on sort of casual––he couldn’t do nothing more’n yell out he wasn’t going to shoot, and not to murder him; and then down he jumped from the box––me a-smoking away looking at him, and this here ruffian a-shooting his Winchester across the top of the coach to where he said he thought he seen a jack-rabbit––and cut out the near wheeler; and then he scrambled up anyhow on that mule’s back, and away he went down 73 the barranca as hard as hell!” (Hill oughtn’t to have said that word. But he was careless in his talk, Hill was, and he did).
“But Hart’s nephew being scared that way,” Hill went on, a’most choking, “don’t count one way or the other when you get down to the facts. It was this here dangerous devil that done that wicked deed, and he done it all alone by his dangerous self. At the risk of my life, gentlemen, I’ve got a-hold of him to bring him to justice, and here he is. And I guess the sooner we yank him up to the usual telegraph-pole, and so get shut of him, the sooner it’ll be safe for folks to travel these roads. He’s the most dangerous I ever see,” said Hill, and by that time Hill was so near busted with his laughing he was purple; “and what makes him such a particular holy terror is he goes disguised!” And then––choking so he could hardly speak plain––Hill whipped round to the little Mexican and says to him: “Get your disguise off of you, you murdersome critter! Get it off, I say, and give these gentlemen a look at the terrible wicked face of you––before 74 you and that telegraph-pole gets to being friends!”
And then the little Mexican switched his big black beard off––and right smack there before us was the Sage-Brush Hen! You never heard such a yell as the boys give in all your born days!
And you never in all your born days saw such goings on as there was that night at the Forest Queen! Everybody in Palomitas was right there. The other banks and bars hadn’t a soul left in ’em but the dealers and the drink-slingers––and they, not having nothing to do at home, just shut up shop and come along too. All the girls from all the dance-halls showed up, the Hen being real down popular with ’em––which told well for her––and they wanting to see the fun. Cherry happened to be down from his ranch that night; and Becker got wind of what was up and footed it across from Santa Cruz de la Cañada; and word was sent to the Elbogen brothers––they was real clever young fellows, them two Germans––and over they come 75 a-kiting on their buck-board from San Juan. I guess it was about the biggest jam the Forest Queen ever had.
Hart’s nephew was the only one around the place who hung back a little, but he got there all right––being fished out of an empty flour-barrel, where he’d hid under the counter in his uncle’s store, and brought along by the invitation committee sent to look for him all dabbed over with flour.
Some thought the way they used Hart’s nephew that night was just a little mite too hard lines––he not being let to have as much as a single drink in him, and so kept plumb sober while the Hen give him his medicine; but all hands allowed––after his sassy talk to her––he didn’t get no more’n she’d a right to give. She just went at him like a blister, the Hen did; and she blistered him worse because she did it in her own funny way––telling him she did just dote on stage-drivers, and if he really wanted to please her he’d take Hill’s job regular; and leading the boys up to him and introducing him, lady-like, as “the hold-up hero”; and asking him to please to tell her 76 all about that fourteen-foot road-agent he’d killed; and just rubbing the whole thing in on him every way she knowed how. Before the Hen got done with him he was about the sickest man, Hart’s nephew was, you ever seen! But I guess it learned him quite a little about how when he talked to ladies he’d better be polite.
Fun wasn’t no name that night for that Hen! She kept on wearing her Mexican clothes, and she did look real down cute in ’em; and she’d got a God-forsaken old rusty pepper-box six-shooter from somewheres, and went flourishing it about saying it was what she’d held up the coach with; and in between times, when she wasn’t deviling Hart’s nephew, she’d go round the room drawing beads on the boys with her pepper-box, and making out she was dangerous by putting her big black beard on, and standing up in attitudes so the boys might see, she said, how road-agenty she looked and bad and bold! Why, the Hen did act so comical that night all hands pretty near died with their laugh!