“You are right there, Billy Jr., but that snake was dead and I ought to know, for I killed it and dragged it there just to scare you.”
“Oh, you did, did you? and where did you find it?”
“I found it about three feet from your head ready to spring upon you, so I made a spring first and killed it before it had time to bite you. After I killed it I put it under your nose for fun.”
“You are a brick, Stubby, that is what you are; a regular gold brick, and I will not forget this in a hurry. I hope some day I shall have a chance to do you a good turn or save your life.”
“Well, don’t lay awake nights trying to think of some way to help me, for you have already saved my life once, when you pulled me out of the whirlpool,” said Stubby.
One day when they were trotting along the foot-hills of the Sierra Madre mountains, tired and footsore, hungry and cold, feeling thoroughly discouraged and as if they should never reach their destination, they thought they saw a curl of blue smoke rising from the base of one of the foot-hills in among some tall cacti.
“Look, Billy, look,” cried Stubby, who had been the first to see it; “that smoke means some man is building a fire to cook his supper by. I have seen a little curl of smoke like that before and it always means that, at this time of the day. Let’s go and see if he won’t share with us. I am so hungry for a piece of meat I feel as if I could almost kill some one, if I had to, to get it, and I am so thin, I am sure if you listened you could hear my ribs rattle. Raw prairie-dog meat and roots are not very filling food for a dog, and I feel as if the only thing I had had to eat since we left Frisco was those ground bird eggs I sucked a week ago. You did not like them and said they were too stale and that if I waited half an hour they would hatch out and I could then have birds instead of eggs. You must be just as hungry, for buffalo grass may sustain life but it is dry stuff to eat, while the cacti leaves are juicy enough to eat, but the thorns on their edges run into one’s nose and mouth and make them bleed.”
While Stubby had been doing all this talking, they had cautiously approached the spot where they had seen the smoke rising and soon the delicious odor of juicy steak was wafted to their nostrils by the evening breeze.
“Oh, Billy, do you smell that steak? Don’t it smell better than anything you ever smelt in your life before?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, I would prefer carrots or turnips. You forget I am not a meat eater. I am a vegetarian, but for all that I can appreciate your feelings. Look between those two tall cacti. There is an Indian as sure as I am alive!” said Billy.