"We have got to go to the Double Adobes anyhow, so why not go to-day?" I said, after breakfast, as I stood at the door of the Gray Place.
"Why not?" observed the Don. "If we can only get well started before night—which doesn't seem likely, at the rate you fellows stand still—we shall very likely manage to get soaked through, and have to camp on the plain in wet clothes, by the look of the sky over there."
"That'll be all right; I am not frightened at a little rain," said I, laughing.
"That settles it, then," rejoined the Colonel. "We shall have to go now, whether or no. This Englishman can't bluff us worth a cent. Murray! tell the boys not to turn the little black mules out to grass; and I guess you'd better come over with us, and see how old Tommy is fixing up that new spring he found back of Pigpen's place."
It was about sixteen miles to the Double Adobes ranch, and since, after all, it did not rain on our way thither, the drive was very enjoyable. The Colonel's rheumatism being somewhat better, he was in great spirits, and told a score of good tales as we went along, only one of which recurs to me at the present moment. That one, however, I will jot down at once lest it be forgotten also.
"Well," said Don Cabeza, something having given him his cue, "a lot of youngsters were collected, one Sunday afternoon, round a badger hole in which there was a mighty obstinate old badger—one of these old toughs that you could knock sparks out of with a hammer. Anyhow, the young sports had put all their swell imported terriers in to him, and the old badger had come out on top every time—at least, he hadn't 'come out' on top, because he hadn't come out at all; but when he and the dogs got to chewing one another underground, he appeared to have away ahead the finest appetite. It seemed he had enough patterns of hide down there for old Ma'am Badger to make a crazy quilt of; and the boys were just about to quit when a chap who was standing by looking on said, kind o' sadly:
"'I guess, misters, that my old dog 'd fetch that badger out for you—if you want him out, that is.'
"The stranger was one of these plank-shaped citizens, with shiny hair, like sea-weed; he was a coffee-coloured cuss, and looked as melancholy as a sick monkey. His clothes might have been entailed clothes, in which the family had lived for centuries; and the mongrel was about as nearly like his master as a dog could be. Well, sir, the young bucks took a look at them both, and the more they looked, the more they laughed. The notion that that cur could beat all their finely-bred, imported terriers, just tickled them to death; and first one, and then another, and finally the whole boiling of them offered to bet twenty, thirty, forty to one against him—anything the owner liked, in fact. But they couldn't bluff the old man off; he stayed with them; he seemed to have more money along, too, than you'd expect to find in such old clothes. And the more the boys kept sousing it to him, the more he kept taking 'em, till finally they quit. And when the bets were all laid out on a big stone, there was more money there than would patch hell a mile!
"Well, they stood around to see the fun. It was pretty clear that some one was going to fall awful sick before the deal was over. However, the visitor didn't seem like he thought that it was going to be he. He picked the mongrel up and stroked him tenderly, and the old dog winced a little mite too, as if he could see a chapter or so ahead of him. 'Put him in,' said the boys, 'put him in!' 'Right now, gentlemen,' said the stranger, and stooping down he prized him gently into the earth—stern first. Well, sir, you should have heard those boys laugh when they saw that. Laugh? Well, I should say they did laugh. For a minute or two the old dog lay there with his head out of doors—one eye fixed reproachfully on his master, the other cocked anxiously backwards. Then, all of a sudden there was a terrific yelp, and a cloud of dust, and he shot out of the hole with the badger fastened on to him. And for the life of you, you couldn't have told which looked the most foolish—the young sports, or the old badger. As for the stranger, he raked in the bets, and when he'd got a little way off, he turned around as if he'd forgotten something, and says he, mournfully: 'Boys—Misters, I'm from Pecos county, Texas. I'm on'y a schoolteacher thar, but they all know me. Shuf's my name—Eb'neezer Shuf—ask for "Joyful" Shuf.'
"'We're coming to call to-morrow,' said the boys."