u don't know it? 'Twas a
hard place; cowboys, liquor saloons, cursin' and swearin', poker and
shootin' nearly every night At the beginning I seemed to get along all
right, and I liked the boys, and thought they liked me. One night a
little Irishman was rough on me; first of all I didn't notice, thought
he meant nothin', and then, all at once, I saw he meant it--and more.

"Well, I got a kind of scare--I don't know why--and I took what he said
and did nothin'. Next day the boys sort of held off from me, didn't
talk; thought me no account, I guess, and that little Irishman just rode
me round the place with spurs on. I never kicked once. I thought I'd get
the money--I had done well with the stock I had bought--and go back
East and marry, and no one would be any the wiser. But the Irishman kept
right on, and first one and then another of the boys went for me, and
I took it all. I just," and here his voice rose, and his manner became
feverishly excited, "I just ate crow right along for months--and tried
to look as if 'twas quail.

"One day I got a letter from home. She wanted me to hurry up and come
back. She thought a lot of me, I could see; more than ever, because I
had got along--I had written and told her my best news. And then, what
had been hard grew impossible right off. I made up my mind to sell the
stock and strike for new diggings. I couldn't stand it any longer--not
after her letter. I sold out and cleared.... I ought to hev stayed in
Laramie, p'r'aps, and gone for the Irishman, but I just couldn't. Every
one there was against me."

"I guess you oughter hev stayed.... Besides, if you had wiped up the
floor with that Irishman the boys would hev let up on you."

"P'r'aps so," Charley resumed, "but I was sick of the whole crowd. I
sold off, and lit out. When I got on the new stage-coach, fifty miles
from Laramie, and didn't know the driver or any one, I made up my mind
to start fresh. Then and there I resolved that I had eaten all the crow
I was going to eat; the others should eat crow now, and if there was any
jumpin' to be done, I'd do it, whatever it cost. And so I went for Bent
right off. I didn't want to wait. 'Here's more crow,' I thought, 'but
I won't eat it; he shall, if I die for it,' and I just threw him out
quick."

"I see," said Crocker, with a certain sympathy in his voice, "but you
oughter hev waited. You oughter make up to wait from this on, Charley.
'Tain't hard. You don't need to take anythin' a