business, didn't tell us how we ought to punch cows and didn't bother
anybody what didn't want to be bothered, which we most of us did like.

"Well, one day Jed Thompson, who rustled our mail for us twice a month,
handed me a letter for the foreman, who was down South and wouldn't
be back for some time. His mother had died and he went back home for a
spell. I saw that the letter was from the Old Man, and wondered what it
would say. I sort of figured that it would tell us when to hitch up to
the buckboard and go after him. Fearing that he might land before the
foreman got back, I went and opened it up.

"It was from the Old Man, all right, but it was no go for him that spring.
He was sick abed in New York, and said as how he was plumb sorry he
couldn't get out to see his boys, and so was we sorry. But he said as
how he was sending us a friend of his'n who wanted to go hunting, and
would we see that he didn't shoot no cows. We said we would, and then
I went on and found out when this hunter was due to land.

"When the unfortunate day rolled around I straddled the buckboard and lit
out for Whisky Crossing, twenty miles to the east, it being the nearest
burg on the stage line. And as I pulled in I saw Frank, who drove the
stage, and he was grinning from ear to ear.

"'I reckon that's your'n,' he said, pointing to a circus clown what had
got loose and was sizing up the town.

"'The drinks are on me when I sees you again, Frank,' I said, for somehow
I felt that he was right.

"Then I sized up my present, and blamed if he wasn't all rigged out to
kill Indians. While my mouth was closing he ambled up to me and stared
at my gun, which must 'a' been purty big to him.

"'Are you Mr. Fisher's hired man?' he asked, giving me a real tolerating
look.

"Frank followed his grin into the saloon, leaving the door open so he
could hear everything. That made me plumb sore at Frank, him a-doing a
thing like that, and I glared.

"'I ain't nobody's hired man, and never was,' I said, sort of riled. 'We
ain't had no hired man since we lynched the last one, but I'm next door
to the foreman. Won't I do, or do you insist on talking to a hired man?
If you do, he's in the saloon.'

"'Oh, yes, you'll do!' he said, quick-like, and then he ups and climbs
aboard and we pulled out for home, Frank waving his sombrero at me and
laughing fit to kill.

"We hadn't no more than got started when the hunter ups and grabs at the
lines, which he shor