on
of the N. P. and I will find it. I know that you and Bat will see that
Miss Marcum reaches the railway in safety, and----"

"Hold on, Win! That oration of yourn ain't got us no hell of a ways,
an' already it's wandered about four school-sections off the trail. In
the first place, it's me an' not you that does the permittin' for this
outfit. I've undertook to get you acrost to the N. P. I never started
anythin' yet that I ain't finished. Take this bottle of _hooch_
here--I've started her, an' I'll finish her. There's just as much
chance I won't take you acrost to the N. P., as that I won't finish
that bottle--an' that's damn little.

"About neglectin' my business, as you mentioned, that ain't worryin' me
none, because the wagon boss specified particular an' onmistakeable
that if any of us misguided sons of guns didn't show up on the job the
mornin' followin' the dance, we might's well keep on ridin' as far as
that outfit was concerned, so it's undoubtable that the cow business is
bein' carried on satisfactory durin' my temporary absence.

"Concernin' the general direction of the N. P., I'll enlighten you that
if you was to line out straight for Texas, it would be the first
railroad you'd cross. But you wouldn't never cross it because
interposed between it an' here is a right smart stretch of country
which for want of a worse name is called the bad lands. They's some
several thousan' square miles in which there's only seven water-holes
that a man can drink out of, an' generally speakin' about five of them
is dry. There's plenty of water-holes but they're poison. Some is gyp
an' some is arsnic. Also these here bad lands ain't laid out on no
general plan. The coulees run hell-west an' crossways at their
littlest end an' wind up in a mud crack. There ain't no trails, an'
the inhabitants is renegades an' horse-thieves which loves their
solitude to a murderous extent. If a man ain't acquainted with the
country an' the horse-thieves, an' the water-holes, his sojourn would
be discouragin' an' short.

"All of which circumlocutin' brings us to the main point which is that
_she_ wouldn't stand for no such proceedin'. As far as I can see that
settles the case. The pros an' cons that you an' me could set here an'
chew about, bein' merely incidental, irreverent, an' by way of passin'
the time."

Endicott laughed: "You are a philosopher, Tex."

"A cow-hand has got to be."

"But seriously, I could slip away