“Jest one old prospector that befriended him once. That was all. You see the old man couldn’t find no gold and he went to trappin’, and he used the language that Bill had taught him to call up the coyotes and git ’em in his traps. Bill said it was a dirty trick, and he wouldn’t teach nobody else how to speak coyote. Bill would of killed the old prospector if it hadn’t of been that the old man done him a favor once.”
“What did he do?” asked Lanky.
“Why, it was him that found Bill and brought him back to civilization and liquor, which Bill had jest about forgot the taste of.”
“How old was Bill at that time?” asked Lanky.
“Oh, I guess he was about ten years old,” said Joe. “One day this old prospector comes along and he hears the most terrible racket anybody ever heard of—rocks a-rollin’ down the canyon, brush a-poppin’, and the awfullest howlin’ and squallin’ you could imagine; and he looks up the canyon and sees what he first thinks is a cloud comin’ up, but purty soon he discovers it’s fur a-flyin’.
“Well, he decides to walk up the canyon a piece and investigate, and purty soon he comes on Pecos Bill, who has a big grizzly bear under each arm jest mortally squeezin’ the stuffin’ out of ’em. And while the old prospector stands there a-watchin’, Bill tears off a hind leg and begins eatin’ on it.
“‘A game scrap, son,’ says the old prospector, ‘and who be ye?’
“‘Me?’ says Bill. ‘I’m a varmit.’
“‘Naw, ye ain’t a varmit,’ says the old prospector; ‘you’re a human.’
“‘Naw,’ says Bill, ‘I ain’t no human; I’m a varmit.’