you don't fall in with their plans. Now,
Sonny, you keep your temper, and watch me play cushion carroms with
our friend there."

"Meaning how?"

"You see that block of stone just this side of him with the square
face towards us? Well, he's only covered in front, and I'm a-going
to shoot against that face and ketch him on the glance."

"Great, if you could work it!" says I. "But Lord!"

"Well, watch!" says he. Then he squinched down behind his cover,
so as not to give the Injun an opening, trained his cannon and
pulled the trigger. The old gun opened her mouth and roared like
an earthquake, but I didn't see any dead Injun. Then twice more
she spit fire, and still there weren't any desirable corpses to be
had.

"Say, pardner," says I, "you wouldn't make many cigars at this
game!"

"Now, don't you get oneasy," says he. "Just watch!"

"_Biff_!" says the old gun, and this time, sure enough, the Injun
was knocked clear of the rock. I felt all along that he wouldn't
be much of a comfort to his friends afterwards, if that gun did
land on him.

Still, he wasn't so awful dead, for as we jumped for the horses he
kind of hitched himself to the rock, and laying the rifle across
it, and working the lever with his left hand, he sent a hole plumb
through my hat.

"Bully boy!" says I. I snapped at him, and smashed the lock of his
rifle to flinders. Then, of course, he was our meat.

As we rode up to him, my pard held dead on him. The Injun stood up
straight and tall, and looked us square in the eye--say, he was a
man, I tell you, red-skin or no red-skin. The courage just stuck
out on him as he stood there, waiting to pass in his checks.

My pardner threw the muzzle of his gun up. "D--n it!" says he, "I
can't do it--he's game from the heart out! But the Lord have mercy
on his sinful soul if he and I run foul of each other on the
prairie again!"

Then we shacked along down to Johnson's and had breakfast.

"What became of Frosthead and his gang?" Oh, they sent out a
regiment or two, and gathered him in--'bout twenty-five soldiers to
an Injun. No, no harm was done. Me and my pard were the only ones
that bucked up against them. Chuck out a cigarette, Kid; my lungs
ache for want of a smoke.

A Red-Haired Cupid

"How did I come to get myself disliked down at the Chanta Seechee?
Well, I'll tell you," said Reddy, the cow-puncher. "The play came
up like this. First, they made the Chanta Seechee into