“Where did you ever see any?” asked Bob, in great surprise.
“In Texas, where my home is. I own a big cattle ranche a little way from the Rio Grande (or rather I shall own it when I become of age; my uncle holds it in trust for me now), and I lived there all my life until about eighteen months ago. Then I went up the Mississippi on a pleasure trip with my uncle and cousin. I fell in with Mr. Black and Mr. Scanlan, the pilots on this boat, and they said so much about life on the river that I decided to follow it; and here I am.”
“I wonder that your uncle allowed you to go so far from home,” cried Bob.
“O, he didn’t care. He lets me do just as I please. But I am going to leave the river as soon as this trip is ended. I wrote to my uncle telling him of my decision, and he came up to urge me to stay until I become a full-fledged pilot; but I have made up my mind to go home, and I want you to go with me. I need a friend more than any other boy in the world, (I may tell you why some day), and you must be a friend to me or you would not have risked your life to save mine.”
“Don’t your uncle and cousin live at your house?”
“Yes, but they are—they and I don’t—will you go?”
Bob did not answer at once. He needed a friend as much as George did—he was already so homesick that he would have been glad to get away and cry over his folly—but it was hard to give up the plans he had cherished for so many long months.
“I tell you, Bob,” added George, earnestly, “I know what I am saying when I assure you that you never can succeed in any such wild scheme as this.”
“I’ll have plenty of fun and excitement anyhow,” said Bob, “and that is what I want.”
“There is a great deal more fun in drawing an easy-chair up in front of a comfortable fire on a blustering winter day and reading about it,” returned George, who told himself that he knew right where Bob had got all his foolish notions. “All you know about this life that you want to enter upon, you got out of some book; and I will venture the assertion that if you could see the man who wrote it, you would find that he had never been within five hundred miles of the plains, that he had never seen anything wild larger than a pigeon, and that he couldn’t tell a rifle from a shot-gun if he should see them together. Why, Bob, the men who are born hunters don’t make anything at it. Take them as a class, and you will find them poor, miserable fellows. If excitement is what you want, go home with me. The Mexicans are playing havoc with the stock-raisers down there—Uncle John says they stole two hundred head of cattle not more than a month ago—and they will give you excitement enough to satisfy you. Besides you will have a fine horse to ride, plenty to eat and a tight roof to shelter you. That’s more than you will have on the plains, I tell you.”