“How much did Thesis ever have?” asked Horace.
“Never heard of him,” sez Tank. “Who was he?”
“He was a Greek hero,” sez Horace. “He never had had a fight till he started out to go to his father; but he cleaned out all the toughs along the way, an’ when he reached his father, who was king of Athens, he found ’em just ready to send out seven young men an’ seven maidens, which they offered up each year to the Minnietor, which was a beast with the body of a man, and the head of a bull, just like Badger-face. Thesis volunteered, an’ what he did was to kill the Minnietor an’ end all that nonsense.”
“Well, I never heard tell o’ that before, an’ I don’t more ’n half believe it now,” sez Tank; “but I’m willin’ to bet four dollars ’at the Minnietor didn’t know as much about gunfightin’ as what Badger-face does. He’ll get ya yet, you see if he don’t.”
“Tell ya what I’m game to do,” sez Horace. “I’m game to go right to Ty Jones’s ranch house alone. Do ya dare me?”
“No, you don’t do that,” sez I. “That’s a heap different proposition. Ty Jones wouldn’t pull his gun without shootin’; and besides, he’d most likely set his dogs on ya.”
“Well, I own up ’at I don’t want no dealin’s with dogs,” sez Horace, thoughtful. “Dogs haven’t enough imagination to work on. If they’re trained to bite, why, that’s what they do; but give a human half a chance, an’ he’ll imagine a lot o’ things which are not so. You couldn’t tell Badger-face a big enough tale about me to make him doubt it. I tell ya, I got him scared.”
We didn’t argue with him none; the’ was some doubt about him havin’ Badger-face fooled; but the’ wasn’t any doubt about him havin’ himself fooled—which is the main thing after all, I reckon. Anyway, we let Horace sit there the whole evenin’, tellin’ Greek-hero tales which must have blistered the imagination o’ the feller ’at first made ’em up.
Along about nine o’clock we began to stretch an’ yawn; but before we got to bed, Mexican Slim said ’at he heard a noise at the corral, an’ we all looked at one another, thinkin’ it was the Cross-branders; but Horace was the first one to get back into his boots an’ belt; an’ he also insisted on bein’ the first to open the door, which he did as soon as we blew out the candle. Then we all filed out an’ sneaked down toward the corral; but first thing we knew, a voice out o’ the dark whispered: “This is me—Olaf. Is everything all right?”
We told him it was, an’ he whistled three times. You could ’a’ knocked me down with a feather when Kit Murray an’ the Friar came ridin’ up; an’ then we turned the ponies loose an’ went into the house. It only had two rooms, countin’ the lean-to kitchen, an’ we made consid’able of a crowd; but we were all in good spirits, on account of Olaf gettin’ the girl an’ us bein’ able to hand him back his stuff with not one head missin’.