"I'm feelin' some hungry myself," asserted Broncho, with his slow, quiet drawl, which always grew slower and more serious the lighter and more flippant the remark he was making happened to be.
This was the way with the cowboy. On serious or more important subjects he assumed a lightness and indifference in his speech which he was very far from feeling, whilst he brought out a joke with more solemnity than a Chancellor of the Exchequer introducing the budget.
"We'll shore have to skin him," he went on. "Eating a gent unskinned when he's tattooed that-away would give folks delusions that they're consumin' of boa-constrictors, which same is liable to give palp'tations round the cartridge-belt to a gent who's been used to beans, salt pig, an' air-tights, bein' some rich an' high-flung as an edible."
Jack and Tari proceeded to have a long consultation together in the Marquesan dialect, at the end of which the former turned to the others and said:
"Tari wants us to set him loose. He says he'll watch him closely, and give us warning if he looks like having another fit of man-hunting. What do you say, boys?"
"Wall, you can bet your moccasins I'm goin' to pack 'round a six-shooter in future. That 'ere Lobu springs his little game on us that headlong an' sudden, an' puts sech fervor into it, that he comes near callin' a show-down on the crowd; an' in the event of his scoutin' off on the war-path again, I reckon I'll plant some lead amongst his idees, an' sober him some," pronounced Broncho.
"He don't look any too safe," said Jim, as Lobu, having recovered his breath, began to scowl and mutter to himself.
"I'm an Apache if he ain't hungerin' to begin his butchery again," drawled Broncho; "he's shore due to inaug'rate a holycaust if we turns him loose."