“Of course,” she was fond of repeating, “if I was carrying a gun I would shoot him.”
Joey kept me awake long after we both should have been soundly sleeping to tell me how he would meet the bear in the woods some fine day when alone, and summarily dispose of him with the twenty-two calibre rifle he called his own, but which needless to say, he had never been allowed to use much. We were all pleasantly excited anent the grizzly.
“I feel sure that it will be my happy fortune to fire the shot that will bring to an inglorious end old big foot’s career,” I said dramatically one morning.
We had foregathered in the Dingle—Haidee’s mare, Buttons, and Wanza’s Rosebud were neighing just beyond in the pine thicket—for we were going to ride. Some days since we had taken our first jaunt on horseback, and Haidee had found that the excursion wearied her not at all. The crutches were infrequently used now. Haidee explained that her continued use of them was simply a manifestation of fear-thought. I little meant the words I said, but when we rode away I carried my thirty-thirty slung on my shoulder.
As we went through the village we met Captain Grif Lyttle mounted on his piebald broncho. It required no little urging to induce him to join our expedition. But eventually he was won over.
“If it was goin’ to ride only, I’d be for it. But I see you’re toting your dinner. I don’t hold with picnics. This carryin’ grub a few miles—an’ there be nothin’ heavier than grub—settin’ down and eatin’ it, and beatin’ it back home, is all tomfoolishness, ’pears to me. But you young folks sees things different; and if so be I’ll be any acquisition whatsoever to your party, I stand ready to go along.” He looked hard at Haidee as he spoke, and I was half prepared for the remark he addressed to her: “’Pears to me, young lady, you ain’t got up for a picnic, exactly. That there gauzy waist’ll snag on the bushes, and your arms’ll burn to a blister—there’s no protection in such sleazy stuff. Look at Wanza now—she’s rigged up proper!—stout skirt and high shoes and a right thick waist.”
We had gone some distance before I noticed that Wanza was carrying my twenty-two. I was not over civil when I saw it in her hands.
“I like to shoot things,” she explained, with a deprecatory glance.
Captain Grif chuckled.
“Wanza do be the beatenest gal with a gun, if I do say it,” he remarked.