“With a rope. In three minutes by; the watch he was found wanting—your boy now, Jim, as I was telling you. Going to say anything to him about it?”
“Why,” said Jim, bewildered, “why, I don’t know, Bud—guess not, just yet, on general principles. What do you think?”
“Think you’re right,” said Bud. “The poor little rooster couldn’t help but feel glad to hear the news, but it would sound kind of awful to hear a kid like that say he was glad two people were killed. Better wait till he’s been with you a while, Jim, and learned something different.”
Jim flushed at the implied compliment. “You’re right, Bud, I will.”
“Great little papoose, ain’t he?” said Bud, turning in his saddle before his starting rush. “Makings of a man there, all right. The boys in town are dead stuck on him. I’ll have to give a complete history when I get back. I must get a gait on, or I’ll have Uncle Sammy on my neck again—inspector started out with me this morning.”
“The devil he did!” cried Jim indignantly, well knowing the hardships and dangers of the big rider’s route.
“Oh, it’s all right!” replied Bud with a wave of his hand. “Come out fine. When the lad first told me he’d been sent out to see why the mails was so late on this line, I told him I’d show him right on the spot, but he said there was no use getting hot about it, as he was only doing his duty, so I quieted down.
“He was a decent sort of feller. I thought to myself before we got under way, ‘Now, there won’t nothing happen this day—everything’ll go as smooth and slick as grease, and this feller will report that I’m sojering,’ that’s the way it usually works, you know. But this time I played in luck.
“Two miles out of town we ran into a wild-eyed gang from somewhere, who was going to make us dance. We didn’t dance, and I’ll say for that inspector that he stood by me like a man, but he was awful sick at his stomach later on from the excitement.
“Next thing, the bridge was down at Squaw Creek, and we swum her. He’d have gone down the flume, if I hadn’t got hold of his bridle. ‘Nice mail route, this,’ says he, as he got ashore. ‘Oh, you’d like it,’ says I, ‘if you got used to it.’ I’d begun to wonder what was next myself. Ain’t many people swimming Squaw Creek, as you perhaps know.