At that Adrian could be heard chuckling; while Billie turned fiery red, and appeared to bristle up more or less, as he hastily went on to say:
“Oh! go on and have your little joke, if it gives you any pleasure, fellows. But I’d do that same thing again, I reckon under similar circumstances. That poor chap was in a bad way, what with his cuts, and being nigh starved. I own up I didn’t just like his looks, but he was in a peck of trouble, and I just didn’t have the heart to desert him till he’d got to feeling better, and said he thought he might get on alone. Never thought to ask his name either; and when I told the boys all about it, and described him as a fellow with a squint in his left eye, why, they just laughed themselves sick over it, and told me I’d been playing nurse to the meanest rascal that ever went unhung.”
“Yes, not a man around the Red Spar has a good word to say about that Tod Harkness,” ventured
Donald, still grinning; “he’s been a cattle rustler and a general all-round shirk, a thief and everything that’s bad. They thought you’d been sold the worst kind. Why, some of the men wanted to know if the sneak hadn’t stolen your pocketbook while you were helping him walk to a place where you meant to camp, that night you got lost.”
“Well, he didn’t, and that’s all there is about it,” said Billie, firmly. “Mebbe Tod Harkness is everything you say; but he was a mighty sick man right then and there. So please forget it. I know I’m soft, and most anybody can impose on me; but I was born that way; and they say the leopard just can’t change his spots. Let that little episode drop. I ain’t sorry one whit, I tell you. Do it again if I ran across a sick man, don’t care if he was the Old Nick himself. So there!”
Donald gave Adrian a nod as if to say “just see how set he is in his ways;” but neither of them continued making any further remark upon the subject which was such a sore one with their stout chum.
Indeed, further conversation was rendered out of the question by Bray, for the pack mule took a sudden notion to give tongue; and when he let out his voice no human tones could prevail against the raucous sounds.
“I think I can see where we’re going to put up
tonight!” Donald called out, some ten minutes afterwards.
At that Billie brightened visibly.