I said, an' we shook hands on it. Then I decided that
I'd leave Starlight with her. He wasn't as good for knockin' around as
a range pony, and I didn't know what I'd be doin', so I took my stuff
off him, picked out a tough little mustang from the home herd, shook
hands with her again, an' started. I glanced up toward old Savage, and
she read my thoughts. "I'll take flowers to him now and again," sez
she, "and I'll go up there and talk to him about you; and Happy, Happy,
we'll both be lonesome until you come back!" And so I kissed her on the
lips, and rode away the second time.

CHAPTER NINE

ADRIFT AGAIN

Well, I rode purty tol'able slow. Some way I didn't want to go back to
the Lion Head Ranch. I knew 'at Jim would be glad to see me, but I knew
I'd be lonesomer there than among total strangers; so I just floated,
punchin' cows most o' the time, but not runnin' very long over the same
range.

It was just about this period that I begun to lose my serious view o'
life and get more man-like. The usual idea is that a boy is a careless,
happy, easy-goin' sort of a creature, and a man is a steady, serious
minded, thoughtful kind of an outfit; but just the reverse. A boy
starts out believin' most o' what's told him an' thinkin' that it's his
duty to reform the world; an' about the only thing he is careless of is
human life--his own or any one else's. Fact o' the matter is that if
you watch him close enough you'll find out that even in his games a boy
is about the solemnest thing on earth, an' you have to know the game
purty thorough to tell when it drifts into a real fight. That's why all
wars have been fought by boys. They believe in any cause 'at looks big
enough to lay down their lives for, an' that's their chief ambition. A
man, though; gets to see after a time that the' 's most generally
somebody up behind who's working the wires, an' he gets so 'at he don't
want to lay down ANYBODY's life, except as a last resort. He looks
favorable upon amusement, an' after a while he kind o' sort o' gets
hardened to the fact that the whole thing's a joke and he'd rather
laugh than shoot. Why, I'd be more afraid of a boy with a popgun than I
'd be of a man with a standin' army.

So as I said, it was just about this time in my life that I begun to
hunt up pleasant places to eat and sleep; an' if I heard of trouble in
the next county I turned out an' went around. I did a little of
everything; even lugged a chain in a surveyo