"But he wouldn't kill me. After I'd filled him full of lead, he let me go. After he had the advantage he wouldn't take it." Pete choked. He concluded briefly, "He mighty near bled to death before I could get the wounds bandaged, and then I stayed on here and nursed him. Matter of fact, Manners, he saved my life twice and that's why I'm tied to him for life. Besides, between you and me, he means more to me than the rest of the world put together."
"Listen," said Manners, after a pause. "I see what you mean and I'll tell you what you got to do. That big boy will do anything you tell him. He follers you with his eyes. Well, we'll find a hoss that will carry him. I guarantee that. Then you put your game up to him, best foot forward, and he'll come with us."
"Not in a thousand years," said Pete with emotion. "That boy will never go crooked if I can keep him straight. Do you know what he's done? Because his uncle and cousins tried to get me, he's sworn never to see one of 'em again. He's given them up—his own flesh and blood—to follow me, and I'm going to stick to him. That's complete and final."
"No, Pete, of all the fools—"
Bull waited to hear no more. He stole back to the table on the far side of the room sick at heart and sat down to think or try to think.
The truth came to him slowly. Pete Reeve, whom he had taken as his ideal, was, as a matter of fact—he dared not think what! The blow shook him to the center. But he had been living on the charity of Reeve. He had been draining the resources of the generous fellow. And how would he ever be able to pay him back?
One thing was definite. He must put an end to any increase of the obligations. He must leave.
The moment the thought came to him he tore a flyleaf out of the book and wrote in his big, sprawling hand:
Dear Pete:
I have to tell you that it has just occurred to me that you have been paying all the bills, and I've been paying none. That has to stop, and the only way for me to stop it is to go off all by myself. I hate to sneak away, but if I stay to say good-bye I know you'll argue me out of it because I'm no good at an argument. Good-bye and good luck, and remember that I'm not forgetting anything that has happened; that when I have enough money to pay you back I'm coming to find you if I have to travel all the way around the world.