' it wouldn't be the best thing for her if you could."

Well, I sat there the whole blessed night, cheerin' him up. Every time
he'd get to thinkin' about his arm or his leg, I'd say somethin' to
rile him an' take his mind off his afflictions, an' along about dawn he
fell asleep. Spider Kelley had found the doctor almost in our
neighborhood, an' he arrived with him by ten in the mornin'. He paid me
a high compliment on the leg, an' after he'd rounded up a few splinters
it wasn't no trouble at all to set it; but Jabez was in for a good long
spell of it, an' the Spring round-up in sight. You might think that
this would rile him up too; but he took it like a hero, an' I kept him
in touch with everything.

We didn't have a regular foreman at the Diamond Dot. George Hendricks
took charge around the house, an' Omaha was a sort of ridin'
over-see-er; but Jabez himself tended to even little details when he
felt like it. When he didn't feel that way, any one else who thought of
it did. After the round-up Flap Jack decided to go on a bender. I tried
to talk him out of it, but he insisted, an' finally I sent him into
Jabez.

Flappy came away just tearin' mad. "He's the hardest-hearted old tyrant
ever breathed," sez Flappy to me.

"What now?" sez I.

"Last time I came back I was a day late," sez Flappy. "He fair frothed
at the mouth at it, an' made me promise to give him a month's notice
next time. How's a man to know a month ahead when he's goin' to be in
the notion for a bender. I'm fair ravin' for it now; but like's not
I'll be all out o' the notion in a month."

"Then you'll be a sight o' money ahead," sez I.

"Money? What's money for? Can you buy a thirst like mine with money?
Why, I could take this thirst o' mine to a city an' get independent
rich, just rentin' it out by the night. I've watched fellers drinkin'
when they didn't crave it, an' it hurt 'em somethin' dreadful. If you
don't want it, you can't enjoy it until you're under the influence of
it, an' after you're under the influence of it half the fun o' drinkin'
it is gone."

Flappy had studied this question more'n airy other man I ever see, an'
it was edicatin' to hear him lecture on it.

"The's only one way to get around ol' Cast Steel," sez I, winkin'; so
he got Barbie to beg for him when she went in that evenin', an' she got
Jabez to let him go next day; but after Jabez'd had time to think it
over, he sez to me, "Now see what I've done--I've let that chil