“How do you make that out?”
“That big bull has much more flesh on him than a cow.”
Sam looked at me mockingly. “Much more flesh!” he cried. “And this youngster shot a bull for his flesh! Why, boy, this old stager had surely eighteen or twenty years on his head, and his flesh is as hard as leather, while the cow’s flesh is fine and tender. All this shows again what a greenhorn you are. Now go get your horse, and we’ll load him with all the meat he can carry.”
In spite of Sam’s mocking me, that night as I stood unobserved in the door of the tent where he and Stone and Parker sat by their fire I heard Sam say: “Yes, sir, he’s going to be a genuine Westerner; he’s born one. And how strong he is! Yesterday he drew our great ox-cart alone and single-handed. Now to-day I owe him my life. But we won’t let him know what we think of him.”
“Why not?” asked Parker.
“It might swell his head,” replied Sam. “Many a good fellow has been spoiled by praise. I suppose he’ll think I’m an ungrateful old curmudgeon, for I never even thanked him for saving my life. But to-morrow I’ll give him a treat; I’ll take him to catch a mustang, and, no matter what he thinks, I know how to value him.”
I crept away, pleased with what I had heard, and touched by the loving tone of my queer friend’s voice as he spoke of me.
CHAPTER III.
WILD MUSTANGS AND LONG-EARED NANCY.
The next morning as I was going to work Sam came to me, saying: “Put down your instruments; we have something on hand more interesting than surveying.”