Breckenridge Elkins

Breckenridge heads out to Lonesome Lizard to deal with rustlers the only way Breckenridge knows how. But can this conquerin' hero of the Humbolts get the girl?

Breckinridge finds himself in the middle of a fight someone else started. All bets are off when this hilarious Western gets into full swing.

It all begun when Forty-Rod Harrigan moved his gambling outfit over to Alderville and left our one frame building vacant, and Gooseneck Wilkerson got the idee of turning it into a city hall. Then he said we ought to have a mayor to go with it, and announced hisself as candidate. Naturally Bull Hawkins, our other leading citizen, come out agen him. The election was sot for April 11. Gooseneck established his campaign headquarters in the Silver Saddle saloon, and Bull taken up his'n in the Red Tomahawk on t'other side of the street. First thing we knowed, Yeller Dog was in the grip of politics.

I hear a gang of buffalo hunters got together recently in a saloon in Dodge City to discuss ways and means of keeping their sculps onto their heads whilst collecting pelts, and purty soon one of 'em riz and said, 'You mavericks make me sick. For the last hour you been chawin' wind about the soldiers tryin' to keep us north of the Cimarron, and belly-achin' about the Comanches, Kiowas and Apaches which yearns for our hair. You've took up all that time jawin' about sech triflin' hazards, and plannin' steps to take agen 'em, but you ain't makin' no efforts whatsoever to pertect yoreselves agen the biggest menace they is to the entire buffalo-huntin' clan, which is Breckinridge Elkins!'

Some day, maybe, when I'm old and gray in the whiskers, I'll have sense enough not to stop when I'm riding by Uncle Shadrach Polk's cabin, and Aunt Tascosa Polk hollers at me. Take the last time, for instance. I ought to of spurred Cap'n Kidd into a high run when she stuck her head out'n the winder and yelled: 'Breckinridge! Oh, Breckinridddgggge!'...

My name's Breckinridge Elkins and I can lick any man here!' The gent from Bear Creek, Breckenridge Elkins, tells a (tall) tale like no other, that will leave readers laughing and craving more. Fortunately, most of them are here, including 'Mountain Man,' 'Guns of the Mountains,' 'The Scalp Hunter,' 'A Gent from Bear Creek,' 'The Road to Bear Creek,' 'The Haunted Mountain,' 'War on Bear Creek,' 'The Feud Buster,' 'Cupid from Bear Creek,' 'The Riot at Cougar Paw,' 'The Apache Mountain War,' 'Pilgrims to the Pecos,' 'Texas John Alden,' 'Pistol Politics,' 'Evil Deeds at Red Cougar,' 'High Horse Rampage,' 'No Cowherders Wanted,' 'The Conquerin' Hero of the Humbolts,' and 'Sharp's Gun Serenade.'

Breckenridge heads to Haunted Mountain to retrieve his uncle, but there are some surprises in store. Breckenridge is one of them.

First-off, it's a lie that I rode a hundred miles to mix into a feud which wasn't none of my business. I never heard of the Hopkins-Barlow war before I come in the Mezquital country. I hear tell the Barlows is talking about suing me for destroying their property. Well, they ought to build their cabins solider if they don't want 'em tore down. And they're all liars when they says the Hopkinses hired me to exterminate 'em at five dollars a sculp. I don't believe even a Hopkins would pay five dollars for one of their mangy sculps. Anyway, I don't fight for hire for nobody. And the Hopkinses needn't bellyache about me turning on 'em and trying to massacre the entire clan. All I wanted to do was kind of disable 'em so they couldn't interfere with my business. And my business, from first to last, was defending the family honor. If I had to wipe up the earth with a couple of feuding clans whilst so doing, I can't help it. Folks which is particular of their hides ought to stay out of the way of tornadoes, wild bulls, devastating torrents, and a insulted Elkins.

Breckenridge sets out to save a young man from himself. Nobody could be better suited for such a sensitive task than Breckenridge.

Breckenridge goes to Cougar Paw on an errand for his brother, and is unfortunate enough to become embroiled in a riot while he is there. Poor Breckenridge. Why does this always happen to him?

I hear the citizens of War Whoop has organized theirselves into a committee of public safety which they says is to pertect the town agen me, Breckinridge Elkins. Sech doings as that irritates me. You'd think I was a public menace or something.

Breckenridge's pap sends him in to War Paint to pick up his long lost uncle. Always obliging, Breckenridge does as he's told, in a way only Breckenridge can.

And then some more fellers butted in and everybody started cussing and hollering till it nigh deefened me. Someone else reaches for a gun and I seen that as soon as one feller shoots another there is bound to be trouble so I started to gentle the first feller by hitting him over the head. The next thing I know someone hollers at me, 'You big hyener!', and tries to ruint me with a knife. Purty soon there is hitting and shooting all over the town. High Horse is sure on a rampage.

The reason I am giving the full facts of this here affair is to refute a lot of rumors which is circulating about me. I am sick and tired of these lies about me terrorizing the town of Grizzly Claw and ruining their wagon-yard just for spite and trying to murder all their leading citizens. They is more'n one side to anything. These folks which is going around telling about me knocking the mayor of Grizzly Claw down a flight of steps with a kitchen stove ain't yet added that the mayor was trying to blast me with a sawed-off shotgun. As for saying that all I done was with malice afore-thought, if I was a hot-headed man like some I know, I could easy lose my temper over this here slander, but being shy and retiring by nature, I keeps my dignity and merely remarks that these gossipers is blamed liars, and I will kick the ears off of them if I catch them.

Breckenridge is volunteered to escort a hapless bunch of Kansas immigrants to Arizona. What could possibly go wrong?

Some day, maybe, when I'm a old man, I'll have sense enough to stay away from these new mining camps which springs up overnight like mushroomers. There was that time in Teton Gulch, for instance. It was a ill-advised moment when I stopped there on my way back to the Humbolts from the Yavapai country. I was a sheep for the shearing and I was shore plenty. And if some of the shearers got fatally hurt in the process, they needn't to blame me. I was acting in self-defense all the way through.

This business begun with Uncle Garfield Elkins coming up from Texas to visit us. Between Grizzly Run and Chawed Ear the stage got held up by some masked bandits, and Uncle Garfield, never being able to forget that he was a gun-fighting fool thirty or forty years ago, pulled his old cap-and-ball instead of putting up his hands like he was advised to. For some reason, instead of blowing out his light, they merely busted him over the head with a .45 barrel, and when he come to he was rattling on his way toward Chawed Ear with the other passengers, minus his money and watch. It was his watch what caused the trouble.

Pap dug the nineteenth buckshot out of my shoulder and said, 'Pigs is more disturbin' to the peace of a community than scandal, divorce, and corn licker put together. And,' says pap, pausing to strop his bowie on my scalp where the hair was all burnt off, 'when the pig is a razorback hawg, and is mixed up with a lady schoolteacher, a English tenderfoot, and a passle of bloodthirsty relatives, the result is appallin' for a peaceable man to behold. Hold still till John gits yore ear sewed back on.'