“Never fear, sir,” said Mrs. Widdup, cheerfully.  “Miss Coulson, she ran away with the iceman last night, sir!”

X

A TECHNICAL ERROR

I never cared especially for feuds, believing them to be even more overrated products of our country than grapefruit, scrapple, or honeymoons.  Nevertheless, if I may be allowed, I will tell you of an Indian Territory feud of which I was press-agent, camp-follower, and inaccessory during the fact.

I was on a visit to Sam Durkee’s ranch, where I had a great time falling off unmanicured ponies and waving my bare hand at the lower jaws of wolves about two miles away.  Sam was a hardened person of about twenty-five, with a reputation for going home in the dark with perfect equanimity, though often with reluctance.

Over in the Creek Nation was a family bearing the name of Tatum.  I was told that the Durkees and Tatums had been feuding for years.  Several of each family had bitten the grass, and it was expected that more Nebuchadnezzars would follow.  A younger generation of each family was growing up, and the grass was keeping pace with them.  But I gathered that they had fought fairly; that they had not lain in cornfields and aimed at the division of their enemies’ suspenders in the back—­partly, perhaps, because there were no cornfields, and nobody wore more than one suspender.  Nor had any woman or child of either house ever been harmed.  In those days—­and you will find it so yet—­their women were safe.

Sam Durkee had a girl. (If it were an all-fiction magazine that I expect to sell this story to, I should say, “Mr. Durkee rejoiced in a fiancee.”) Her name was Ella Baynes.  They appeared to be devoted to each other, and to have perfect confidence in each other, as all couples do who are and have or aren’t and haven’t.  She was tolerably pretty, with a heavy mass of brown hair that helped her along.  He introduced me to her, which seemed not to lessen her preference for him; so I reasoned that they were surely soul-mates.

Miss Baynes lived in Kingfisher, twenty miles from the ranch.  Sam lived on a gallop between the two places.

One day there came to Kingfisher a courageous young man, rather small, with smooth face and regular features.  He made many inquiries about the business of the town, and especially of the inhabitants cognominally.  He said he was from Muscogee, and he looked it, with his yellow shoes and crocheted four-in-hand.  I met him once when I rode in for the mail.  He said his name was Beverly Travers, which seemed rather improbable.

There were active times on the ranch, just then, and Sam was too busy to go to town often.  As an incompetent and generally worthless guest, it devolved upon me to ride in for little things such as post cards, barrels of flour, baking-powder, smoking-tobacco, and—­letters from Ella.