“If I’m lost agin I’ll hire some of the byes to lead me about by the hand, fur I ain’t fit to travel alone—hello! there’s one of ’em, that I’ll question without letting him know I’m a stray lamb.”
He had a glimpse of a moving body almost directly ahead, and knowing it was one of the scouts he called:
“I wish to remark, me friend, that it’s a foine day; if ye agraa wid me I shall be plaised to have ye signerfy the same.”
“Why, Mike, I’m so glad to see you again; you ain’t mad because I got lost?”
“Oh, not a bit, as Jim O’Toole said whin the sheriff apologized for shooting him on the wing.”
And Mike extended his hand to Hoke Butler as he came grinningly forward.
“How was it ye missed me?” asked Mike innocently.
“I’ll be hanged if I can tell; I hurried back after talking to Alvin and ought to have found you, but somehow or other I didn’t.”
“Why didn’t ye holler?”
“I nearly split my throat calling to you.”