All the homeward way was a dream of joy. We forgot there was a Civil War; that this was a land of aching hearts and dreary homes, and bloodshed and suffering and danger and hate. We were young, it was April on the prairies, and we had kissed each other in the pink-wreathed shadows of the twilight. Oh, it was good to live!
The next morning O'mie came grinning up the hill.
"Say, Phil, ye know I cut the chape Neosho crowd last evening up to Rid Range fur that black-eyed little Irish girl they call Kathleen. So I came home afterwhoile behind you, not carin' to contaminate meself wid such a common set after me pleasant company at Rid Range."
"Well, we managed to pull through without you, O'mie, but don't let it happen again. It's too hard on the girls to be deprived of your presence. Do be more considerate of us, my lord."
O'mie grinned more broadly than ever.
"Well, I see a sight worth waitin' fur on my homeward jaunt in the gloamin'."
"What was it, a rattlesnake?"
"Yes, begorra, it was just that, an' worse. You remember the draw this side of the big cottonwood, the one where the 'good Injun' come at us last August, the time he got knocked sober at the old tepee ring?"
I gave a start and my cheeks grew hot. O'mie pretended not to notice me.
"Well," he went on, "just as I came beyont that ring on this side and dips down toward the draw where Jean come from when he was aimin' to hang a certain curly brown-haired scalp—"