ied Miss
Mattie, rushing forward.

"Hurt?" said Red. "Try it!--Just jump
up in the air and sit on the floor where you
are now, and see if you get hurt! Oh, no!
I'm not hurt, but I'm astonished beyond
measure, like the man that tickled the mule.
I'll take my breakfast right here--shouldn't
wonder a bit if the floor went back on me and
landed me in the cellar--no sir! I won't get
up! Hand me the supplies, I know when I'm
well off. If you want to eat breakfast with
me come sit on the floor. I'm not going to
have my spine pushed through the top of my
head twice in the same day."

"Will! You are the most ridiculous
person I ever did see!" said Miss Mattie, and
she laughed till she cried in sheer
light-heartedness. "But there's a chair you can
trust--come on now."

"Well, if you'll take your solemn oath that
this one has no moustache to deceive me,"
said Red doubtfully. "It looks husky--well,
I'll try it--Hooray! She didn't give an inch.
This kind of reminds me of the time Jimmy
Hendricks came back from town and walked
off the edge of the bluff in the dark. It just
happened that Old Scotty Ferguson's cabin
was underneath him. Jim took most of the
roof off with him as he went in. He sat
awhile to figure out what was trumps, having
come a hundred and fifty feet too fast to do
much thinking. Then, 'Hello!' he yells.
Old Scotty was a sleeper from 'way back, but
this woke him up.

"'Hello!' says he. 'Was'er matter?'

"Jim saw he wasn't more than half awake
yet, so he says, 'Why, I was up on the bluff
there, Scotty, and seeing it was such a short
distance I thought I'd drop in!'

"'Aw ri',' grunted Scotty. 'Make y'self t'
home,' and with that he rolls over.

"Jim couldn't wait for morning, and though
his leg was pretty badly sprained, he made the
trip all the way round the trail and woke us
up to tell us how he'd gone through
Ferguson's roof and the old man asked him to make
himself at home. Next morning there was
Scotty out in front of his cabin, his thumbs in
his vest holes, looking up.

"'What's the matter, Scotty?' says I.

"'Well, I wisht you'd tell me what in the
name of God went through that roof!' says he.

"I swallered a laugh cross-ways and put on
a serious face. 'Must have been a rock,' says I.

"'Rock nothin'!' says he. 'If it had been
a rock 'twould have stayed in the cabin,
wouldn't it! Well, there ain't the first blasted
thing of any shape nor description in there b