' then I savvied that dish-washin'
wasn't one of his hobbies. "Any sport here?" sez he.

"If you're good at dreamin," sez I, "you can have the time of your life
huntin' Chinamen. I never see a place yet where the huntin' was so
plentiful an' the game so scarce."

He got interested in a minute an' told me he had a shotgun, a rifle,
an' three revolvers.

"I wish I could write Chinese," sez I.

"What for?" sez he.

"So I could put up a sign warnin' him away," sez I. "Why, if we'd all
three get a chance at that Chinaman, it'd take me a solid week to clean
him off the lawn."

Ches an' me got along fine. He was a game little rooster, an' his
college stories used to tickle me half to death. I never would have
believed that a little feller could 'a' been a college athlete; but
Ches had got his pictures in the papers, time an' again. At college
they race in a boat about the size an' shape of a telegraph pole, eight
of 'em rowin' an' the coxswain perched tip behind, pickin' out the path
an' tellin' the rowers not to think of their future, but to kill
theirselves right then if it will win the race. Ches sez that the
coxswain is the most important man in the boat. He had a good deal the
same views about the quarter-back, in fact he took what they call a
purely personal estimate of life.

He showed me how to play football. It's pleasant pastime, but too
excitin' for a frail thing like me. He gave me his cap to carry, an'
told me to back off about twenty feet, an' try to run over him, or
stick my stiff-arm in his face or dodge him--any way at all to get by.
I backed off an' then I looked at him. He looked about as hard to get
by as a toadstool.

"Now, Ches, I don't want to have your blood on my head," I sez, "an if
you've just been jokin', why say so." But no, nothin' would do but I
must run him down. I never won much of a reputation for bein' slow, an'
I weigh one ninety when I'm ganted down to workin' trim. I took a full
breath an' sailed into him. I intended to give a jump just before I
reached him an' go clear over his head, but I lacked the time. Just as
I took my jump he gave a lunge, wrapped himself about my lower
extremities, an' we sailed up among the tree-tops. All the way up I was
tryin' to figure out how it happened; but when we struck the earth
again, I didn't care. I knew it would never happen again. I'd shoot
first.

We lit on top of my face an' whirled around a few times an' then sort
o' crumbled up in a