“‘By gum, Bob Kelly! is that you? I’ll be shot if I didn’t take you fur an Injun. I’m mighty glad I didn’t hit you, Bob!’
“‘You can’t blarney me, Black Bill,’ said I. ‘I know you;’ an’ as I stood thar lookin’ at the rascal, an’ thought of all the badness he had done, I had half a mind to shoot him. The way of it war, the varlet kind o’ thought that somebody had been listenin’ to what he said ’bout robbin’ the cap’n, an’ he had hid behind the log to watch. When he seed me come out of the bushes, he knowed that I had heered all that had been goin’ on, an’ he thought his best plan war to leave me thar dead. But, although he warn’t twenty yards off when he fired at me, he missed me teetotally. Wal, when he seed that I knowed him, an’ that he couldn’t fool me into b’lievin’ that he tuk me fur an Injun, he thought he would skeer me, so he growled:
“‘If you know me, Bob Kelly, you know a man that won’t stand no nonsense. I have friends not fur off, an’ if you know any thing, you’ll travel on ’bout your own bisness.’
“‘Now, look a here, Black Bill,’ said I, ‘I haint never been in the habit of standin’ much nonsense, neither—leastways not from such fellers as you, an’ if you knowed me, you would know that I don’t skeer wuth a charge of gunpowder. That ’ar is the way to the camp, an’ if you want to live two minutes longer, you’ll travel off to onct.’ Seein’ that he didn’t start, but that he stood eyein’ me as if he’d a good mind to walk into me, I stepped back, an’ p’intin’ my rifle straight at his heart, said: ‘I shan’t tell you more’n onct more that ’ar is the way to camp. You can go thar, or you can stay here fur the wolves, jest as you please.’
“I guess he seed that I war in ’arnest, fur he shouldered his empty rifle, an’ started through the woods, I follerin’ close behind, ready to drop him if he should run or show fight. I felt mighty on-easy while travelin’ through that timber, ’cause I knowed well enough that the rascal had friends, an’ if one of ’em should happen to see me marchin’ Black Bill off that ’ar way, he’d drop me, sartin. But I reached the camp in safety, an’ thar I found two of our own fellers, an’ four that I had allers thought war friends of Black Bill. They all jumped up as we came in, fur they knowed by the way I looked that somethin’ war wrong, an’ one of ’em said:
“‘What’s Bosh Peters been a doin’, Bob?’
“‘That aint no Bosh Peters,’ said I; ‘that ’ar chap is Black Bill.’
“Now comes the funniest part of the hul bisness. Every trapper on the prairy, as I told you, had heered of Black Bill, an’ when I told ’em that my prisoner war the very chap, an’ that he had been layin’ a plan to rob the cap’n, I never seed sich a mad set of men in my life.
“They all sot up a yell, an’ one of ’em, that I would have swore war a friend of Black Bill, drawed his knife, an’ made at the varlet as if he war goin’ to rub him out to onct. But my chum, Ned Roberts, ketched him, and tuk the we’pon away from him. This sot the feller to bilin’, and he rushed round the camp wusser nor a crazy man. He said that Black Bill had shot his chum, an’ that he war swore to kill him wherever he found him; and he war goin’ to do it, too. An’ the fust thing we knowed, he grabbed somebody’s rifle, an’ jumped back to shoot the pris’ner. But he war ketched ag’in, afore he could fire, and then he howled wusser nor ever. Wal, we tied Black Bill to a tree in the camp, an’ this feller kept slippin’ round, with his tomahawk in his hand, an’ it tuk two men to get the we’pon away from him.