“I am sorry I gave you that money yesterday. You had by far too much.”
“I know it,” said Frank. “But with stuff like this, one can drink all he wants to, and it won’t go to his head. But we had a good fill-up on account of your success, and there wasn’t any shooting done, as I was afraid there was going to be.”
“Shooting! I should think not.”
“Well, now, I was afraid there was going to be. When Mr. Chisholm was passing that little stream yesterday, and reached down and filled his hat, as you saw me doing, it was all I could do to keep Lem from shooting that hat away from his mouth.”
“Why, how far off was he?” enquired Bob, who had never heard of such a thing as that.
“We were a hundred yards or so behind him.”
“Why, the old villain! He might have missed the hat, and struck Mr. Chisholm through the face.”
“That was just what I was afraid he was going to do, although I have seen Lem, when he was perfectly sober, put all his bullets into the same hole at that distance. But he is not a villain, by any means,” said Frank earnestly. “It shows what a man will do when he gets too much old rye in him.”
I tell you I believed it, and I swore off on whiskey then and there. And I have kept my pledge from that day to this.
Lem and Frank being all right and having no Henderson to look out for, we were longer going than we were coming, and it took us six days to overtake our cattle, which were being driven slowly toward their respective ranches. We went a little out of our way to enable Bob to visit his father’s grave, and stood around with our hats in our hands while Bob’s eyes, his face suffused with tears, gazed upon the scene he never was to see again. I supposed, of course, that Bob, having been admitted by all hands to be the heir of that property, would be allowed to rest in peace; but I did not know Henderson and Coyote Bill. They persecuted him from the word go, and it was to end only with his leaving the country. The cattle were getting fat now, the full moon was close at hand, and the Mexicans and Indians were waking up. I heard the men talking about it as we rode along, and only wished I could be there to see some of it; but I tell you one raid by the Comanches fairly took that all out of me.