This time Hoke could only groan.

“Except I wouldn’t know anything about Belle’s own packing,” the girl went on then. “But concerning the trunk, well, Belle said I could borrow that. It’s my poor aged mother who’s pitifiil ill, you see, back home in Texarkana. I jest got the sad news tonight, from a wayfaring stranger who did the kindness of carrying the letter, and I have to hasten to her bedside. I’ve got a buckboard all prepared down below, too, but I jest can’t fathom how I’m gonter get it loaded, I mean all by my helpless self, and—”

“Huh?” Hoke finally roused himself from his stupor. “Oh. Oh, yair.” He got to his feet. “You’ll pardon my woo-lies, I reckon. But I’m still durned if’n I kin recollect what happened to my duds.”

But for that matter he was unable to remember having undressed either, on top of which his jaw did seem injured now at that. Rubbing it, and troubled by a persistent sense of disjunction, Hoke hestitated briefly. Then, with a shrug, he bent to the trunk.

Hoke blanched. “Whatcha got in there,” he asked, “Belle’s table silver?” It took virtually all of his strength to jerk it into the doorway.

The girl averted her face with a giggle. “Oh, you know the way a female does collect pretty things, like frilly drawers and such—”

Hoke shook his head. “Well,” he breathed. But at least he could see the buckboard hitched and accessible in the yard below. “I’m gonter have to bounce her some, going down.”

“Why, I think you’re doing right heroically—”

She waltzed down ahead of him while he coped with it as well as possible, which meant assaying no more than a step at a time and having to rest after each. He managed with an extravagant final effort to shoulder it onto the rear rack of the buckboard itself, however, although for an instant it teetered precariously when his knees threatened to give. Hoke staggered against the back wheel, panting.

So he was by no means fully recovered when the pistol shot cracked somewhere in the distance, although it was not merely fatigue which kept the sound from interesting him particularly. Rather it was the girl herself, only that moment mounting the wagon and suddenly, startlingly, presenting Hoke with a spectacular new perspective on her appearance. Viewed from below, massive and pillowlike, her bosom was little short of astounding.

But when a second shot followed, and quickly after that a third, even Hoke found himself disturbed. “Oh, dear me, then they truly are having that dreadful gun battle after all,” the girl exclaimed. “Why, it almost makes a lass happy she’s leaving, when—”

“Gunfight?” Hoke frowned. “Now who would be—?”

So then a new explosion cut him off, this time the roar of a shotgun instead of a pistol, or so it appeared from the booming echo that slithered and clapped about the town.

Yet Hoke’s attention reverted to that improbable bosom once more despite all, drawn there this time by the girl herself as she pressed a hand to it in concern. “But surely you heard the announcement? Heavens jest about every soul in the house ran on out seeking sheltered locations to watch it from. Because it’s that wicked desperado, Dingus Billy Magee, and—”

“Dingus?” Hoke raised his chin skeptically. “Shucks now, must of been somebody pulling your leg, Miss, since Dingus is locked up over to the—”

“Oh, yes,” the girl insisted. “Dingus William Magee himself. And the other one is the sheriff of the town, Mr. Broad-bill. Mr. Birdsoak? I’ve never had the opportunity to make the gentleman’s acquaintance myself, unfortunately, but I’m certain he’s involved also. Yes, positively. Dingus William Magee and Sheriff Birddripping.”

“Dingus and—” But Hoke decided there was no point in attempting to explain, since it was obviously some sort of joke. And the girl was seated now anyway, adjusting the reins. “Well,” she said, “I’d sure like to hear how it come out, but my poor aged mother is doubtless sobbing my name even as I dawdle. But I jest don’t know what I’d of done without your gallant and manly help, sir.”

“Oh, weren’t nothing—”

The girl blew him a kiss, bashfully it seemed, then roused her team, and Hoke stood watching with a knowing smile as she moved off. “Now ain’t that jest somebody’s smart idea of exactly the right girl to play a trick on, too,” he mused, “even if’n she sure is built fer better pastimes’n that. Dingus and me. And with the one of us standing right before her very eyes with a slow-rising johnny all the while!”

Yet back in Belle’s bedroom, when he still could not seem to locate his clothes, Hoke became perplexed after all. And then when he opened the opposite door, glancing into the main upper corridor, it developed that the girl had been right about that much at least, since the house itself could not have been more quiet. “Belle?” he voiced finally. “Well say, now, jest what in the—?”

So he was wandering thoughtfully back into the room, and exploring the extent of that curious injury to his face again now also, when the puzzlement suddenly became absolute. Because Belle was just arriving then herself, through the same rear door by which he had removed the trunk only moments before. She was carrying a shotgun, or so he noticed tangentially, although this had very little to do with his reaction. Neither did the sight of his clothes at last either, actually, so much as the diverting realization that they could hardly have fit her any better had they been her own. Even the derby rode with a reasonably natural jauntiness atop her tied-back hair.

“Sweetie pot!” Belle flung the shotgun carelessly onto the bed. “And you’re awake again. I’m so glad—”

Hoke stopped in his tracks. “And what say to a short snort in celebration?” she went on effusively, not really looking at him as she discarded the derby then also. “Oh, I doubt I murdered the critter, but I scared the crabs right off his smelly bottom for fair, and that’s a fact. He sure comprehends Hoke Birdsill is no titty-licker to be trifled with now, by golly!”

“He comprehends what?” Hoke kept on gawking. “Who does? Lissen, Belle, I’d sort of take it favorable if’n you’d inform me jest what all is—”

But Belle had already marched to a cabinet, selecting a whiskey bottle. Beaming from behind it she withdrew the cork with her teeth, then spat that aside. “Yep. Because I waited too durned long since my one previous marriage to let some runny-nozzled twerp of an outlaw turn me into a widow from this present one even before we got around to holding the official ceremony, I reckon. But jest how much of that cotton-picking nonsense did he think a girl would stand for anyways, busting out of jail and farting around challenging folks’ fiancees to gunfights, and smack in the middle of my busiest night of the week yet, or—”

“Busting out of — huh? Lissen, lissen, you mean he truly— and she weren’t jest—?”

“Oh, but it’s over now, ducky nuts.” Belle disregarded his confusion. She was pouring two drinks. “On top of which the whole cock-knocking town saw how brave you faced up to him, likewise. I hope your jaw don’t pain you too much, meanwhile — didn’t give you but a incidental jolt with the side of my fist, was all, especially since you were snoring up a storm from that there swoon you’d had to start with. But here, here, guzzle your booze—”

Hoke was too stupefied not to accept the glass. “Right smart fit in these duds too,” Belle continued happily. “I used your Smith and Wesson here, first couple of shots, but then when the mangy little sidewinder actually had the gumption to let fly back at me once, why I jest twiddled that ole scattergun and gave him hallelujah. And he sure lit out pronto after that, I reckon. Well, anyways, drink up, honey jewels, and as soon’s I get changed into something a shade more appropriate we’ll go fetch Brother Rowbottom. Any of the girls ain’t getting reamed can do for witnesses. But here’s to it, meanwhile, doll of mine!”