"Quick!" says I. "Lord of the Mormon hosts! Do you think I'm going to yappee with you all day? Nice morning, ain't it? Say 'yes.'"
"Yes," says he.
"I thought so," says I. "It's a raw deal when a man that's sat a horse as long as me can't say howdy on the open, without havin' a pup like you bark at him."
"Why," says he, feelin' distressed, "I didn't mean to make no bad play at you." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the prisoner, who sat like a white stone. "That's it. Misplaced horse. Got him with the goods."
"Oh!" says I. "Well, 'twouldn't have done no harm to mention that first place. I wasn't noticing you particular, till you got too much alive for any man of my size to stand." I dropped my gun. "Excuse haste and a bad pen," says I; "but why don't I draw cards? Both parents were light complected and I've voted several times. How is it, boys?"
"Sure!" says they. "Take a stack, brick-top."
"Gentlemen," I says; "one word more and I am done. The question as to whether my hair is any particular colour or not, is discussed in private, by familiar friends only—savvy the burro, how he kickee with hees hin' leg?"
They laughed.
"All right, Colonel!" says they. "Come with us!"
I had that crowd. You see, they was all under twenty-five, and if there's anything a young man likes—a good, hearty boy—it's to see a brisk play pushed home. I'd called 'em down so their spinal columns shortened, and gagging about my hair, and the style I put on in general, caught their eye. And their own laughing and easiness wasn't so durned abandoned, as Charley Halleck used to say. There was a streak of not liking the job, and everything a little "put on," evident to the practised vision.