"Thank you," said Tom, retreating a step or two. "I'll take your word for it. I wouldn't have such a shaking up as you gave Elam a minute ago for anything."
Uncle Ezra laughed, and pulled a camp-stool near to the fire and sat down upon it. He couldn't get the nugget out of his head. He kept saying "By gum!" every time he looked at it, and now and then he glanced at Elam and pinched himself to see if he was wide awake or dreaming.
"Now, I will give you something to chew on while Carlos is getting supper for us," said Elam; and as that was a gentle hint that he was hungry, I got up and went to work. "We three boys are going to Texas."
"Going to Texas?" asked Uncle Ezra. "Now, wait till I tell you——"
"And another thing," said Elam, paying no attention to the interruption; "we don't want to stay here until this thing is panned out; so can't you lend us a thousand dollars on that nugget?"
"I know what you want," replied Uncle Ezra. "You want me to lend you a thousand dollars apiece."
"Well, yes. That's about the way the thing stands."
"Now, wait till I tell you. You will go away with all that money in your good clothes, and the first thing you know I will never see you again. Somebody will say 'Where's them three fellows that used to hang around your place?' and I will say 'Why, they went down to Texas to buy cattle, and those Texans found out that they had a lot of money about them and shot them.' That's what I'll say. Now, wait till I tell you. You can't go!"
That was just about what I expected to hear from Uncle Ezra at the start, but I knew it would turn out otherwise. I knew if he had the money we would get it, and so I kept still. Tom was very much disappointed, but I gave him a wink and nod which told him that our circumstances were not as bad as they appeared to be, and that everything would come out all right in the end. I didn't blame Uncle Ezra for not wanting to let us go away with so much money in our pockets, but I did not see any other way out of it. If we wanted to get our cattle for about half what they would cost us right there, Texas was the place for us to go. The Indians were bad, and we would have to go right across the country inhabited by the Comanches, and they were about the worst cattle-thieves I ever heard of. Those lawless men—those who did not think that they were bound by any legal or moral restraint unless it was right there to punish them—were found everywhere, and it was going to be a matter of some difficulty to evade them. I had been there once, and I had seen just enough of it to want to go again. I wished now that I had not had quite so much to say in regard to those Regulators and Moderators who seemed to turn up when you least expected them.
I got supper ready after a while and we all sat down to it—all except Uncle Ezra, who sat on his camp-stool with his eyes fastened on the nugget. He turned it first on one side and then on the other so that he could view it from all sides, said, "By gum!" every time he looked at it, and told us many stories connected with it that we had never heard before. To Elam's request that he would take charge of it he readily assented. He would keep it out until all the sheep-herders had seen it, and then he would hide it somewhere so that nobody would ever think of looking for it. It was in the hands of the rightful owner at last, and no one need think he was going to handle it again.