"'Pete, I'll do it,' I says, and I shook hands with him.
"'Now, see that!' says he. 'That's the first time you've ever treated me like an ekal, Zeke; and I can tell you I don't like to be pitied no more'n any other man. God knows there wouldn't 'a' been a perter monkey in the bunch, if so it hadn't come I was scart, or thinkin' of somethin' else, when a hot-box arrived. The good Lord took the trouble to make me, and it seems kind of onjustifiable for me to prove He plumb wasted His time. You tell Maggy I done it for her. I ain't hidin' my light under a bushel, because I need it to see by. Ouch!' says he. 'This racket hurts!'
"I reckon it did. I sewed him up with a piece of deer-sinew and a darning-needle. Never was a great hand at tailorin', nohow, and Pete's hide was that tough I mostly had to pound the needle through with a chunk of wood.
"Well, I fixed him comfortable as I could, and prepared to start.
"'Zeke,' says he, 'don't'—he kinder swallered hard—'don't be no longer'n you kin help,' says he. There come a tear in his eye. 'An' take my respects to Maggy,' says he.
"'Shaw, Pete!' says I. 'Now, don't you go borrowin' no trouble—that's so easy to git without collaterial, it ain't worth the time. I'll be back imejate.' I patted him on the shoulder and he squeezed my hand hard.
"'No man could be a better pardner than you be, Zeke,' says he. 'I ain't a mite afraid of nothin' when that bald head of your'n is in sight, an' you understand a feller—it's a tough play for a rooster that don't come by sand natural.'
"'You got plenty of sand, Pete,' says I, 'all the trouble is, you let it git choked in your hoppers. By-by.' And away I went, slopin' fast, with Pete's forty-eight dollars down in my jeans.
"I was so took up with his affairs I didn't watch out careful, and that ain't wise in a hard-luck country. All of a suddent I hears a v'ice say, 'Puttee hands light uppee!' Sounds like I'd struck a day nursery, but that ain't so, for just before I hears them words there popped out from behind a rock a Chinaman—not, by no means, one of these here little Charlie-boys that does your wash and gives you a ticket with picters of strange insecks painted on it, but a whoopin', smashin' old Tartar pirate, seven foot by three, with mustaches like two tails of a small hoss, and cheekbones you could hang your hat on. More'n that, he was armed and equipped with two hoss-pistols as required by circumstances.
"That tired feelin' come over me, and I stretched; yessir, the hands of E. G. W. Scraggs went up toward the sky.