The admonition was not required, for Jake was always thorough. Neither was it his habit to waste time on argument or persuasion. Having roped Sliver, ten minutes thereafter, from behind a convenient bush, he gagged and cinched him in his saddle, hustled him in by the back gate of the compound, had him lashed to his catre in their adobe before Lee and Bull arrived.
So far, all was well. Their real troubles began when at supper Bull replied to Lee’s inquiry concerning Sliver’s absence that he “wasn’t feeling well.”
She jumped up at once. “Oh, the poor fellow! I must go and see what he can eat!”
A vivid mental picture of the “poor fellow,” gagged and lashed to his catre, filled them with consternation. Bull inwardly cursed himself for not having reported Sliver absent. But while he floundered, beating his brains for a second excuse, the crafty Jake supplied it.
“I wouldn’t—really, Miss.”
She stopped, half-way along the portales. He had spoken so earnestly. “Why not? Is it—catching?”
Bull would have replied in the affirmative, regardless of further complications. Jake shook his head. “No, it’s just chills an’ fever, a sorter constitutional ague he’s taken with at this time o’ the year. But—well, Miss, it’s this way, Sliver’s that bashful, though you mightn’t think it to look at him, he’d die of shame if a young lady was to see him in his bunk.”
She hesitated, then came back. “But—he ought to be looked after.”
“He has been.” Jake clinched the victory. “A copa’s the finest thing in the world for chills. He’s had a couple an’ was sleeping like a babe when we came in.”
She gave in with a sigh. “Then we won’t wake him. But you must take him a tray when you go out.”