At the foot of the range Overland gave his companion a canteen and a piece of gunnysack wrapped round some hardtack and jerked beef.
"Don't I need my gun this time?" queried Winthrop.
"Nope, Billy. 'Cause why? You don't generally kill a little gopher or a little owl that's settin' up tendin' to his business, because you ain't scared of them. But you will go off of the trail to kill a rattler, a side-winder, because he's able to kill you if he takes a notion. Correct. Now a tenderfoot totin' a gun is dangerouser than any rattler that ever hugged hisself to sleep in the sun—and most fellas travelin' the desert knows it. Why, I'm plumb scared of a gun-totin' tenderfoot, myself. Not havin' a gun will be your best recommend, generally speakin'. Stick to the bugs, Billy; stick to the bugs."
"Well, you ought to know."
"I got seven puckers in my hide to prove what I say. Six of 'em were put there by plumb amachoors in the gun line; fellas I never took pains to draw on quick, never suspectin' nothin'. The other, number seven, was put there by a gent that meant business. He died of a kind of lead poisonin' right immediate."
They shook hands, the battered, sunburned adventurer, rough-bearded, broad-chested, genial with robust health, and the slender, almost delicately fashioned Easterner, who had forgotten that there were such things as lungs, or doctors,—for the time being.
"Say, Billy, you need a shave," commented Overland, as the other turned to begin his journey across the desert.
Winthrop grinned. "You need—er—decapitating," he retorted, glancing back. Then he faced the south and strode away.
Overland, ascending the range, paused halfway up. "Decap-itating," he muttered. "Huh! That's a new one on me. De-cap—Let's see! Somethin' to do with a fella's hat, I reckon. It's easy to run a word down and hole it if you got brains. Mebby Billy meant for me to get a new one. Well, the constable's friend only put one hole in her—she's a pretty good hat yet."