“Buffler,” said Nomad, “I’m glad to see ye, and likewise I ain’t glad to see ye. Seems a singular statement, don’t it? But I don’t need to explain.”
“I think I should like to have you do some explaining,” said the scout.
“About drappin’ through thet hole in the floor?” said Nomad. “Waal, thet war cur’us, and no mistake. I run into the room, and the floor jes’ yawned fer me, and I went through. I fell so durn hard, landin’ on the sharp p’int of my spine, that I didn’t know anything fer about a day, seemed ter me.
“When I come to myself better it war dark in there—darker’n a stack o’ black cats. I crawled along, and crawled along, and by and by I tumbled out of the hole kerplunk into ther river. I come nigh about bein’ drownded then. When I went under I swallered enough water, I reckon, ter float a boat, and I come near going down and stayin’ thar.
“The river is purty swift, as mebbe ye know, and it kerried me down considerable. When I got out, I didn’t know where I war, fer a fac’. But I sized up the sitervation as well as I could, and tried ter make back tracks. Waal, I run inter the Injuns while doin’ that, and they took me in. And hyar I am, and I don’t like ther looks of it.”
“If you wouldn’t talk so much, Nicholas, you’d git fatter!” Pizen Kate snapped.
That irresistible chuckle of old Nomad’s sounded.
“Katie, I don’t want ter git any fatter. A fat man can’t run; and I reely feel ther need of runnin’, so long as you persist in pursuin’ after me.”
“We’ll all quit runnin’, seems to me, now! Seems to me we’re in fer it. I don’t see nothin’ to laugh about, I don’t. Yit there you set and grin like a monkey! I keep wonderin’ what I ever married you fer, anyhow.”
“Me too!” said Nick. “And I keep wonderin’ why, havin’ found me out, you chase me about so. See what’s happened to ye by doin’ thet! If you’d stayed in Kansas City——”