“How’d you guess that, now?” he asked.
“Where’s the bag?”
“Lyin’ beside the mare, you precocious infant,” said Bill, showing his teeth. “The bag’s there, but it’s empty; the mail’s here. Jes’ you come and take off my boots, you mutton-headed idiot!”
The man, by no means resentful, obeyed, and the letters came pouring out of Bill’s long boots.
The men cheered and offered to grab them up, but Bill kicked out warningly.
“Thank you, all the same,” he remarked, with an ironical smile. “But I guess I’m capable of distributing her majesty’s mail without assistance;” and sweeping the letters into a small heap with his huge feet, he dealt them out to their owners with more than his usual solemnity. “And now, boys, I’m thinking I’ll go and fetch the mare. Oh, she’s safe enough; you bet those Dog’s Ear lambs will get back to their kennel as fast as they can moozle, now they know that I’ve got to shelter, and that Three Star is posted up in their little game.”
There were plenty of volunteers for the task of recovering the pony, but Varley remarked languidly that Bill and he were sufficient, and they decided to start after Bill had got his wound washed by Mother Melinda, who, as chief nurse in Three Star, was sent for.
While Bill was submitting to the operation as patiently as he could, Varley opened his letters. They were partly on business, partly personal; invitations from various camps to come and open a gambling saloon; flowery epistles from members of the fair sex—most of them reproaching him for his long absence and neglect of writing.
The men glanced at him from time to time as he leaned back in his tilted chair and read and tore up his letters with languid impassiveness; and Taffy, rousing from a peaceful slumber, got up and drifted across the room to him, and now quite sober, looked down at him sheepishly.
“Post in, Varley, eh?” he remarked in a low and insinuating voice. “Anything interestin’?”