“Sol is right,” said Henry, “and since he is so it’s his duty to go and kill the buffalo. Tom, you’ll go with him, won’t you?”
“O’ course,” replied Silent Tom.
Shif’less Sol rose and looked to his rifle.
“I knowed I would hev to do all the work, besides supplyin’ the thinkin’,” he said. “Here I tell what’s to be done when the others ain’t able to think it out, an’ then they tell me to go an’ do it. It ain’t fair to a lazy man, one who furnishes the intelleck. The rest o’ you ought to work fur him.”
“Go on you, Sol Hyde,” said Long Jim Hart, rebukingly, “an’ kill that buffler. Don’t you know that when you kill it I’ll hev to cook it, an’ I ain’t complainin’?”
“Quit braggin’ on yourse’f, Jim Hart. You ain’t complainin’, ’cause you ain’t got sense ’nuff to complain. You’re plum’ sunk so deep in sloth an’ ig’rance that you’re jest satisfied with anythin’, no matter how bad it is. It’s men o’ intelleck like me who complain and look fur better things, who make the world go forward.”
“Your idea uv goin’ forward, Sol Hyde, is to do it ridin’ on my shoulders.”
“O’ course, Jim. Ain’t that what you’re made fur? You’re a hind—ain’t that the beast, Paul, that carries burdens?—an’ I’m the knight with the shinin’ lance that goes forth to slay dragons, an’ I go ridin’, too.”
“You go ridin’, too! I don’t see no hoss! An’ you ain’t been astride no hoss in years, Sol Hyde!”
“You deserve to be what you are, a hind, a toter o’ burdens, Jim Hart, ’cause your mind is so slow an’ dull. You ain’t got no light, no imagination, no bloom, a-tall, a-tall! Did I say I wuz ridin’ a real hoss? No, sir, not fur a second! But in the fancy, in the sperrit, so to speak, I’m ridin’ the finest hoss that ever pranced, an’ I’m settin’ in a silver saddle, holdin’ reins o’ blue silk, an’ that proud hoss o’ mine champs an’ champs his jaws on a bit made o’ solid gold. Come on, Tom, I ain’t ’preciated here. We’ll kill that buffler, ef you don’t talk me to death on the way. Remember now to hold your volyble tongue. The last time you spoke, ez I told you, you used two words when one would hev done jest ez well. Don’t let your gabblin’ skeer the buffler plum’ to the other side o’ the Ohio.”