agon, an' when he came
around the tail of it he was holdin' a bear gun so it would explode
without much ceremony. He was usin' some language an' his speed was a
thing to covet; but I just stood with my back to the fire, waitin'
until I could get a chance to introduce myself. He was in the light,
an' he was enough to make a man reform. Nigger, Greaser, Injun--oh, he
was the hardest lookin' specimen I had ever seen, an' the think that
occurred to me was that some time a woman had rocked him to sleep
an'--kissed him. That's the queer thing about me. My face don't change,
but I never got into a mess in my life without some outlandish, foreign
idea poppin' into my head an' tryin' to hog my attention.

My attention wasn't much required just at that moment anyhow. He held
the bear gun loose in his hand an' swore on like the roar of a mountain
torrent. Once I glanced over my shoulder an' saw a pained look on the
fair-hair's face, while the ante-up bunch was grinning wickedly an'
waitin' for my finish. Me lookin' younger an' easier at that time than
I really was, proved a big thing in my favor. Well, as soon as the
mongrel cook had cussed himself clean an' dry, he yells at me, "Who in
the hell are you an' what in the hell do you want?"

"I'm the new foreman," sez I in a school-girl voice, "an' I want my
supper."

He wasn't prepared for it an' dropped his gun to his side while he
began to narrate false an' profane eulogies about my breedin' an' past
history. He took a few steps toward me so as I wouldn't lose none of
his remarks, an' all of a sudden I swung half around an' kicked him in
the jaw with my heel, which was a trick I had learned from a French
sailor. It took me forty-five minutes to come to, after I received my
first an' only lesson, an' I wasted a full year huntin' for that
sailor. Any time durin' the first six months I'd have ventilated him
completely, but after that I wanted to thank him, 'cause I had learned
an' tried the trick by that time, an' it was worth all it cost.

But this cook was no wax figger, an' he only lay quiet a moment before
he began to roll around an' groan. I picked up a neck yoke what was
handy, an' I went for him. I hit him in the butt o' the ear an' on the
back o' the neck an' in the center o' the forehead--I tried him out in
all the most stylish places, until finally he dozed off.

"Bring me a lantern--you man with the whiskers," I called out.

He riz to his feet like a machine. "It ain