"'Whoopee, you Grief ag'in!' he says. 'If you don't pull your freight, the branch'll get you. It's done riz over the stock of your rifle.'
"'Water won't hurt the wood none,' says Grief.
"'You Grief over thar!' roars the other after awhile; 'your feet an' laigs is half into the branch, an' the water's got up to the lock of your gun.'
"'Thar's no load in the gun,' says Grief, still a-layin', 'an' besides she needs washin' out. As for them feet an' laigs, I never catches cold.'
"An' thar that ornery Grief reposes, too plumb lazy to move, while the branch creeps up about him. It's crope up so high, final, that his y'ears an' the back of his head is in it. All Grief does is sort o' lift his chin an' lay squar', to keep his nose out so's he can breathe.
An' he shorely beats the game; for the rain ceases, an' the branch don't rise no higher. This yere Grief lays thar ontil the branch runs down an' he's high an' dry ag'in, an' then the sun shines out an' dries his clothes. It's that same night when Grief has drug himse'f home to supper, he says to his wife, 'Thar's nothin' like exercise,' an' then counsels that lady over his corn pone an' chitlins to take in washin' like I relates."
We walked on in mute consideration of the extraordinary indolence of the worthless Mudlow. Our silence obtained for full ten minutes. Then I proposed "courage" as a subject, and put a question.
"Thar's fifty kinds of courage," responded my companion, "an' a gent who's plumb weak an' craven, that a-way, onder certain circumstances, is as full of sand as the bed of the Arkansaw onder others. Thar's hoss-back courage an' thar's foot courage, thar's day courage an' night courage, thar's gun courage an' knife courage, an' no end of courages besides. An' then thar's the courage of vanity. More'n once, when I'm younger, I'm swept down by this last form of heroism, an' I even recalls how in a sperit of vainglory I rides a buffalo bull. I tells you, son, that while that frantic buffalo is squanderin' about the plains that time, an' me onto him, he feels a mighty sight like the ridge of all the yooniverse. How does it end? It's too long a tale to tell walkin' an' without reecooperatifs; suffice it that it ends disastrous. I shall never ride no buffalo ag'in, leastwise without a saddle, onless its a speshul o'casion.
"No, indeed, that word 'courage' has to be defined new for each case. Thar's old Tom Harris over on the Canadian. I beholds Tom one time at Tascosa do the most b'ar-faced trick; one which most sports of common sens'bilities would have shrunk from. Thar's a warrant out for Tom, an' Jim East the sheriff puts his gun on Tom when Tom's lookin' t'other way.
"'See yere, Harris!' says East, that a-way.