ake on your chest, Will!" she cried, with her hands clasped
in terror.

"Oh! it wasn't as bad as it sounds--he was asleep--coiled up there
to get warm--sharpish nights on the prairie in August--but darn it!
Mattie!" wrinkling up his nose in disgust, "I hate the sight of the
brutes!"

"But you wouldn't be afraid of a man, Will!"

"Well, no," admitted he. "I've never been troubled much that way.
You see, everybody has a different fear to throw a crimp in them.
Mine's rattlesnakes and these little bugs with forty million pairs
of legs. I pass right out when I see one of them things. They
give me a feeling as if my stummick had melted."

"Weren't the Indians terrible out there, too?" asked Miss Mattie.
"I'm sure they must have been."

"Oh, they ain't bad people if you use 'em right," said Red. "Not
that I like 'em any better on the ground, than in it," he added
hastily, fearful of betraying the sentiment of his country, "but I
never had but one real argument, man to man. Black Wolf and I come
together over a matter of who owned my cayuse, and from words we
backed off and got to shooting. He raked me from knee to hip, as I
was kneeling down, doing the best I could by him, and wasting
ammunition because I was in a hurry. Still, I did bust his ankle.
In the middle of the fuss a stray shot hit the cayuse in the head
and he croaked without a remark, so there we were, a pair of fools
miles from home with nothing left to quarrel about! You could have
fried an egg on a rock that day, and it always makes you thirsty to
get shot anyways serious, thinking of which I hollered peace to old
Black Wolf and told him I'd pull straws with him to see who took my
canteen down to the creek and got some fresh water. He was
agreeable and we hunched up to each other. It ain't to my credit
to say it, but I was worse hurt than that Injun, so I worked him.
He got the short straw, and had to crawl a mile through cactus,
while I sat comfortable on the cause of the disagreement and yelled
to him that he looked like a badger, and other things that an Injun
wouldn't feel was a compliment." Red leaned back and roared. "I
can see him now putting his hands down so careful, and turning back
every once in awhile to cuss me. Turned out that it was his
cayuse, too. Feller that sold it to me had stole it from him. I
oughtn't to laugh over it, but I can't help but snicker when I
think how I did that Injun."

Generally speaking, Miss Mattie