nkles and wrists with a blunt knife."
"That's about the state of my wrists," I said. "I don't mind my wrists
so much," he said; "it's my feet bothers me. I shall be such a time
before I can walk." "You needn't bother about that, Rube," said I. "It
isn't much more walking your feet have got to do." "I hope they've got
more to do than they've ever done yet, old hoss," Rube said; "at any
rate, they've got a good thirty miles to do to-night." "Are you in
earnest, Rube?" said I. "Never more so," said he. "All we've got to do
is to get away, and then tramp it." "How do you mean to get away, Rube?"
"Easy enough," Rube said carelessly. "Get our hands loose first, then
our legs, then kill them fellows and make tracks." Now it ain't very
often that I larf out. I don't suppose I've larfed right out three times
since I was a boy; but Rube's coolness tickled me so, that I larfed out
like a hyaena. When I began, Rube he began; and when he larfed, it was
tremendous. I don't think Rube knew what I war larfin' at; but he told
me afterwards he larfed to see me larf, which, in all the time we had
been together, he hadn't seen. What made us larf worse, was that the
Mexicans were so startled that they seized their rifles and rushed to
the doorway, and stood looking at us as if we were wild beasts. Keeping
the guns pointed at us, they walked round very carefully, and felt our
cords to see that they were all right; and finding they were, went back
into the next room, savage and rather scared. Our larfing made them
terribly uneasy, I could see; and they had an idea we couldn't have
larfed like that, if we hadn't some idea of getting away. When we had
done I said: "Now Rube, tell me what you have planned out, that is, if
you're downright in arnest." "In arnest!" says he, almost angry; "of
course I'm in arnest. Do you think I'm going to be fool enough to stop
here to be frizzled and sliced by that El Zeres to-morrow? No, it's just
as I said: we must get our hands free; we must kill all these fellows,
and be off." "But how are we to get our hands free, Rube?" "That's the
only point I can't make out," he said. "If these fellows would leave us
alone, it would be easy enough; we could gnaw through each other's
thongs in ten minutes; but they won't let us do that. All the rest is
easy enough. Just think it over, Seth." I did think it over, but I did
not see my way to getting rid of our thongs. That done, the rest was
possible enough. If we could get ho