“Ignorance,” sez he, “is the trouble with most people. The ignorant allus judge by appearances. If body-size was what really counted, why, we’d have an elephant for an emperor. Instead of which we use ’em to push logs around. Goliath did a lot o’ talkin’ about squashin’ David, but as soon as David got around to it, he fixed Goliath all ready for the coroner. Napoleon was of small size, an’ fat, an’ nervous, but he didn’t count it a fair day’s work unless he had presented one of his relatives with a full-sized kingdom. Where are the buffalos—where are they—the big clumsy brutes! They’re shut up out o’ harm’s way, that’s where they are; but where are the mosquitoes? Why the mosquitoes are takin’ life easy at all the fashionable summer resorts. If you feel like freightin’ your big, fat carcass back to where it don’t run any risk o’ bein’ bumped into, why go ahead; but I’m goin’ to stick around here an’ see what happens.”
Well, there we were: we didn’t none of us have the courage to own up ’at we were afraid of anything ’at Horace wasn’t afraid of; so we decided to stick with him, but that he had to take the blame. It was Tillte Dutch who said this, an’ Horace looked at him an’ grinned. “Take the blame?” sez he. “Why you big chump, it’s the small-sized men who allus take the blame. The big boobs rush about, makin’ a lot o’ noise; but they only do what the small-sized men tell ’em to. I’ll take the blame all right, an’ if you back me up, you’ll be right pleased to have a share in the kind o’ blame the’s goin’ to be. This Ty Jones outfit is nothin’ but a set o’ cowardly bullies who sneak around in the dark doin’ underhanded work; but I intend to let the daylight in.”
“I’ll bet the daylight will be let in, somewhere,” sez I; “but I’m just fool enough to stick with ya.”
Tank was still smartin’ from the way it had been handed to him. “Say,” sez he, “p’raps you don’t know it; but that David you was cacklin’ about a while ago wasn’t nothin’ but a sheep-herder.”
“That don’t change no brands,” sez Horace, who didn’t have any more use for a sheep-herder ’n we did. “He was a small-sized man, an’ he just drove sheep a while to help his father out. Sheep-herdin’ wasn’t his regular trade. Bossin’ men an’ fightin’ an’ bein’ a king was his natural line o’ business. It allus seems to me ’at big, overgrown men ought to be sheep-herders, so they could drive about in house-wagons, an’ not wear down so many good hosses.”
Ol’ Tank slammed about, makin’ a lot o’ noise; but he had lost this deal, an’ it was plain to see.
“I’m goin’ to ride over to Olaf’s, an’ tell him about what happened last night, an’ say ’at we’ll keep an eye on his stuff if so be he wants to take a little trip to Billings,” said Horace; and when he started I went along with him. At first Olaf was so white-hot about havin’ another cow killed that he couldn’t think; but finally he looked at Horace a long time, an’ said: “You have very brave flame, an’ you speak true. I shall go to Billings, an’ trust everything with you.”
I was flabbergasted clear out o’ line at this; but Olaf packed some stuff on one hoss, flung his saddle on another, an’ set off at once. Now, I knew Olaf to be slow an’ stubborn, an’ I couldn’t see through this.
After Olaf had rode out o’ sight to the north, Horace sez: “Has he allus been crazy?”
“He’s not crazy,” sez I.