Bransford hastened to the kitchen. “Ma Sanders, a bronc fell on me yesterday and my poor body is one big stone bruise. Can I borrow some boiling water to mix a small prescription, or maybe seven? One when you first feel like it, and repeat at intervals, the doctor says.”
“Don’t you get full in my house, Jeff Bransford, or I’ll feed you to the hawgs. You take three doses, and that’ll be a-plenty for you.”
Jeff put the steaming kettle on the rusty store stove, used as a waste-paper basket through the long summer. Touching off the papers with a match, he smashed an empty box and put it in. Then he went into the post-office corner and laid impious hands on the United States Mail.
First he steamed open Lake’s unregistered letter from the Land Office. It was merely a few typewritten lines, having no reference to the Butterbowl: “Enclosing the Plat of TP. 14 E. of First Guide Meridan East Range S. of 3d Standard Parallel South, as per request.”
He paused to consider. His roving eye lit on the wall, where the Annual Report of the Governor of New Mexico hung from a nail. “The very thing,” he said. Pasted in the report was a folded map of the Territory. This he cut out, refolded it till it slipped in the violated envelope, dabbed the flap neatly with Pappy’s mucilage, and returned the letter to its proper pigeonhole.
He replenished the fire with another box, subjected Lake’s registered letter to the steaming process and opened it with delicate caution. It was the decision; it was in Lake’s favor; and it went into the fire. Substituting for it the Plat of TP. 14 and the accompanying letter he resealed it with workmanlike neatness, and then restored it with a final inspection. “The editor sits on the madhouse floor, and pla-ays with the straws in his hair!” he murmured, beaming with complacent pride and reaching for the bottle.
Pappy and Leo found him with his hands to the blaze, shivering. “I feel like I was going to have a chill,” he complained. But with a few remedial measures he recuperated sufficiently to set off for Rainbow after supper.
“Charley’s ankle seems better,” said Leo artlessly.
“Don’t you lay no stress on Charley’s ankle,” said Jeff, in a burst of confidence. “Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be otherwise. Just let Charley’s ankle slip your memory.”
The following day Bransford drew rein at Wes Pringle’s shack and summoned him forth.