This last he uttered in a low tone, and even at that something caused him to cast a glance of apprehension over his shoulder when speaking; but Mrs. Fred had vanished from the window.
As they turned the corner of the bunk-house they discovered the form of Thomas writhing on the ground.
“Here, what’s ailing you, my friend?” demanded the late manager; “if you’ve been suddenly taken sick I’m sorry that my medicine case is in my desk; and just at present it’s a physical impossibility for
either Billie or myself to step in there to get it. Where do you feel bad?”
At that the pilgrim of the trail looked up, and they saw that he was grinning.
“’Tain’t that I’m taken with the gripe, sir; not in the least,” he explained. “I’m only tickled to death at the narrow escape our young friend had. I thought he was a goner when I heard you shout out that warning, and saw him still inside there; but he made a great plunge. My! but the lady was provoked because he slipped out like a greased pig. It was a lucky escape for Broncho Billie, now, wasn’t it, sir?”
He chuckled as he said this, and even winked at Uncle Fred in a queer way. The late manager of the ranch turned somewhat red in the face, and eyed the other a little suspiciously. Then he shook his head.
“Perhaps you know how peculiar some women are when they can’t have everything they want, my friend,” he remarked; “and how they’re apt to carry on. It may be now that you’ve had experience in the years that are past and gone? Well, in that case you’ll understand me when I remark that the least said the soonest mended. Forget what you chanced to see, and things will come easier for you here. Ladies have their peculiarities, and my wife never did like me tracking up her floors. That may be why I had Billie here make use of the window; because
I’ve often used it myself rather than go all the way around.”
Mr. Thomas winked an eye again, and nodded his head in a knowing way, as if to admit that he might have passed through similar experiences at some time in his past life.