o' the
grasshoppers, an was wantin' to try his hand at a new dish!

"He laughed when I said this, an' told me he wos collectin' them to take
home to be _looked_ at. But that's not wot I wos goin' to tell ye about
him," continued Joe; "I wos goin' to tell ye how we made him eat
horseflesh. He carried a revolver, too, this Natter-list did, to load
wi' shot as small as dust a-most, and shoot little birds with. I've
seed him miss birds only three feet away with it. An' one day he drew
it all of a suddent and let fly at a big bum-bee that wos passin',
yellin' out that it wos the finest wot he had iver seed. He missed the
bee, of coorse, cause it was a flyin' shot, he said, but he sent the
whole charge right into Martin's back--Martin was my comrade's name. By
good luck Martin had on a thick leather coat, so the shot niver got the
length o' his skin.

"One day I noticed that the Natter-list had stuffed small corks into the
muzzles of all the six barrels of his revolver. I wondered what they
wos for, but he wos al'ays doin' sich queer _things_ that I soon forgot
it. `May be,' thought I, jist before it went out o' my mind,--`may be
he thinks that 'll stop the pistol from goin' off by accident,' for ye
must know he'd let it off three times the first day by accident, and
well-nigh blowed off his leg the last time, only the shot lodged in the
back o' a big toad he'd jist stuffed into his breeches' pocket. Well,
soon after, we shot a buffalo bull, so when it fell, off he jumps from
his horse an runs up to it. So did I, for I wasn't sure the beast was
dead, an' I had jist got up when it rose an' rushed at the Natter-list.

"`Out o' the way,' I yelled, for my rifle was empty; but he didn't move,
so I rushed forward an' drew the pistol out o' his belt and let fly in
the bull's ribs jist as it ran the poor man down. Martin came up that
moment an' put a ball through its heart, and then we went to pick up the
Natter-list. He came to in a little, an' the first thing he said was,
`Where's my revolver?' When I gave it to him he looked at it, an' said
with a solemcholy shake o' the head, `There's a whole barrel-full lost!'
It turned out that he had taken to usin' the barrels for bottles to
hold things in, but he forgot to draw the charges, so sure enough I had
fired a charge o' bum-bees, an' beetles, an' small shot into the
buffalo!

"But that's not what I wos goin' to tell ye yet. We comed to a part o'
the plains where we