I'd gained two points. Made myself pretty solid with the boys, for one, and give 'em something besides hanging their fellow-man to think of for another: distracted their attention, which you got to do with children.
"I speak for my friend," says I, pointing to Burton.
"We hear you talk, Colonel," says the joker. "He's with us." So we trotted on towards the cotton-woods.
The line of work was marked out for me. I put on a grim look and sized the prisoner up from time to time as though he was nothing but an obstruction to my sight, although the face of the poor devil bit my heart. He glanced neither way, mouth set, face green-white, the slow sweat glassy all over him. Not a bad man, by a mile, I knew. It don't take me a week to size a man up, and I've seen 'em in so many conditions, red and pale, sick, dead, and well, that outside symptoms don't count for much.
I noticed another thing, that I expected. Out of the corner of my eye I see them boys nudgin' each other and talkin' about me. And the more I rode along so quiet, the more scart of me they got.
I tell you how I'd test a brave man. I'd line the competitors up, and then spring a fright behind them. Last man to cross the mark is the bravest man—still, he might only be the poorest runner. With fellers like me, it ain't courage at all. It's lunacy. I ain't in my right mind when a sharp turn comes. Why, I've gone cold a year after, thinking of things I laughed my way through when they happened. But I'm not quarrelling with fate—I thank the good Lord I'm built as I am, and don't feel scornful of a man that keeps his sense and acts scart and reasonable.
In one way, poor old Burton, lugging himself into the game by the scruff of his pants, showed more real man than I did. Yet, he couldn't accomplish anything; so there you are, if you know where that is.
I said nothing until we slid off beneath the first tree. Then I walked up to the three leaders and says, whilst the rest gathered around and listened:
"Has this critter been tried?"
"Why, no!" says one man. "We caught him on the horse."