“And what discovery have you made?”
“None. I hain’t seen hide n’r hair o’ the Injin, n’r nobody else. I don’t see what’s become o’ him. I can’t make it out.”
Douglas was silent; and Joe asked:
“What do you make of it?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Ross replied meditatively. “One thing is certain, however. We’re tarrying too long.”
“Of course,” assented Joe.
“But we can’t proceed until Bright Wing returns.”
“No, of course not.”
“What do you suggest?”
“That we go an’ have somethin’ to eat while we’re waitin’. I’m as holler as a gun bar’l. I’ve fasted fer three ’r four days, an’ it seems I can’t git filled up, somehow. I’m jest like a feller in love—I am, by Caroline! Can’t git enough of it. I remember one time when a score o’ purty women was hankerin’ after me. They was perfectly distracted over my good looks. But I wasn’t in love with one of ’em; an’ it didn’t take me long to git enough o’ their billin’ an’ cooin’. Then I remember another time w’en a small piece o’ linsey-woolsey got in my mind, an’ I couldn’t git ’er out. She was purty as a pictur’, an’ sharper eyed ’n a blackbird. But she didn’t keer a continental fer me; an’ I nearly starved to death fer the want o’ her love. I pined away to skin an’ bone, an’ become a reg’lar shadder. Served me right, fer the way I’d used them other women, I reckon. I ain’t much on religion, but I b’lieve a man gits his punishment fer his evil deeds right here on earth—I do, by Samanthy! But what’re you thinkin’ ’bout, Ross Douglas?”