Mr. Scraggs | Page 4

party to act as messenger. The rest of us, without bothering him by taking him into our confidence, decided that Scraggs was the proper man, because, if he didn't know Women and her Ways, the subject belonged to the lost arts.
"But, man! Didn't he r'ar when we told him!
"'ME go after a woman!' says he. '_ME_!!!--Take another drink!' But we labored with him. Told about what a horrible time he'd had--he always liked to hear about it--and how there wasn't anybody else fit to handle his discard in the little game of matrimony--and what was the use of sending a man that would break at the first wire fence? If we was going to do the thing, we wanted to do it; and so forth and so forth, till we had him saddled and bridled and standing in the corner of the corral as peaceful as a soldier's monument, for he was the best-hearted old cuss under his crust that ever lived.
"'All right,' says he. 'I'll do it, and it's "Get there, Eli!" when I hook dirt. Poor old Aleck is as good as married, and the Lord have mercy on his soul! But there's one thing I wish to state: I'm running the job, and I run it my own way. I don't want any interfering nor no talk afterward--'s that understood?
"It was. He was to cut loose.
"'All right,' says he. 'Poor Aleck!' So that night E. G. W. Scraggs took his cayuse and made for the railroad station, bound east.
"Aleck had give us full details. We knew all about his little town and about that house in particular; just how the morning-glories grew over the back porch, looking out on the garden patch, and where the cistern was, which, with his usual good luck, Aleck had managed to fall into, whilst they were putting a new cover on it. Yessir; we knew that little East Dakota town as well as if we'd been raised there; but we were some shy on details concerning the girl. I swear I don't believe Aleck had ever looked her full in the face. She was medium height, plump, blue eyes, brown hair, and that ended the description,
"We suffered any quantity from impatience before E. G. W. showed up. You see, there ain't such a lot that happens to other people occurrin' on a ranch, and we was really more excited over Aleck and his girl than a tenderfoot would be over a gun fight, and for the same reason; it was out of our ordinary.
"Scraggsy didn't keep us on the anxious seat. He was the surest thing I ever saw. Often I've watched him rope a critter; he never whirled his rope, even when riding--always snapped. And he never made a quick move--that is, a move that looked in a hurry--all the same, every time he let go of the rope, there was his meat on the other end of it. Women was the only thing that did E. G. W. Scraggs, and that's because he wholesaled the business. That ambition of his wrecked him. When he trotted around the track for fun, nobody else in the heat could see him for the dust.
"One evening about half-past eight, when the glow was still strong, here come Scraggs, prompt to the schedule. He was riding and a buggy trailed behind him.
"We chased Aleck over to the main house, where the old man, who stood in on the play, was to keep him busy until called for.
"Then up pulls E. G. W. and the buggy. In the buggy was a young woman, and a man.
"'Here we are,' says Scraggs, in the tone of one who has done his painful duty. 'Check the outfit--one girl and one splicer--have you kept holt of Aleck?'
"'Yes,' I says. 'We've got him--come in, folks.' I was crazy to hear how he'd pulled it off. Soon's they got inside I lugged him to the corner, leaving the other boys to welcome the guests. 'Tell me about it,' I says.
"'Short story,' says he. 'Moment I got off the choo-choo I spotted the house--couldn't mistake it. Laid low in the daytime and scouted around as soon as night come. Girl goes down to the barn and comes back with a pail of milk. I grabbed her and put my hand over her mouth so's she couldn't holler. "Now listen," I says to her. "There's a friend of mine wants to marry you. When I let you go, you'll skip into the house and pick up what clothes is handy, and you'll vamoose this ranch at quarter of eleven, sharp, so we can make the next train west. If you ain't there, or if you say a single word to a human being--you see this?" and I stuck the end of my hoss-pistol