“Shot it plumb through the head!” yelped Billy. “’Rah for Left-over!”
“What is it? What’s the matter?” stammered Left-over, struggling to sit up, while he blinked, red-eyed.
“Better take his tail for your scalp, Left-over,” bade Jim. “It’s a pity we don’t need meat, but you can butcher him if you want to.”
Not for some weeks did the Hee-Haw outfit get done teasing Left-over about his “Injuns.”
“Anyway,” soothed Mr. Baxter, “you made a good shot. Nobody can deny you that.”
“Huh!” agreed Left-over, swelling importantly. “I knew it was something, and I drew bead and whaled away.”
“Purty good to draw bead in the dark,” remarked Captain Hi. “Left-over must have eyes like a cat!”
They ate a rather scant breakfast, mostly cold; and leaving the luckless calf (which must have wandered from some emigrant party) minus a few steaks, they turned northwest on the cut-off to the next water. The stage route went straight on, over a bare plateau; but a number of emigrants evidently had been turning off here on a trail of their own.
So sandy was the soil and so hot the sun that very soon the ground was as dry as before, and Billy’s boast of “plenty water” failed to make good.