“Your foot is swelled, Tom, and this boot can’t be got off!” said Pike.
“Yes, it can,” cried Tom. “Pull, confound you, pull! He is stingin’ me all the time. Pull, Pike—confound you, pull! He’s stingin’ me to death!”
Pike gave several desperate plunges, lifting Tom clear of the ground each time; then stopped.
“I tell yer, Tom,” said he, “it ain’t no use; it’ll never come off, your foot is swelled so bad.”
“Cut it off then!” roared Tom, “cut it off, I can’t die this way!”
Pike drew his bowie-knife and had ripped the leg of Tom’s boot half way down when, thinking the joke had been carried far enough—for I was satisfied Pike had been playing a trick of some kind—I pushed Pike aside, and pulled the boot off at once. When the boot was off, behold! sticking to the bottom of Tom’s stocking, a small prickly pear.
On seeing the prickly pear, where there should have been a scorpion, all hands laughed, and all were pretty well satisfied that the trick was Pike’s, as a good deal of sport had been made of him in regard to his having been snake-bitten. To the surprise of all Tom neither raved nor swore—said not a word, in fact—but set quietly to work at extracting the spines which had penetrated his foot in fifty places. He then examined his boot, which was cut down almost to the heel, drew it on and took his seat in silence at the camp breakfast. This conduct on Tom’s part gave Pike great uneasiness, as all could see. At last he said:
“Who in thunder do you suppose put that air cussed par in your boot, Tom?”
“I suppose you know as much about it as anyone here,” said Tom.
“Me! good Lord I don’t purtend to know. I can’t account for it nohow, without one of them mountain rats might of done it.”