Then Horace came in and sat by Badger again. “I’ve got a proposition to make to you,” sez he, “and you think it over before you answer. I have plenty o’ money; but I’ve wasted most o’ my life, sittin’ down. If you are sick of livin’ like a wolf, I’ll pay your expenses and half again as much as Ty Jones is payin’ you, and all you’ll have to agree to is to go along as a sort of handy-man for me. I think we can get to be purty good friends, but that can wait. I intend to ramble around wherever my notions take me. If you’ll give your word to be as decent as you can, I’ll give my word to stand by you as far as I’m able. Your life is forfeit to me, an’ if you’ll do your part, I intend to make the balance of it worth while to ya. Now, don’t answer me; but think it over an’ ask all the questions you want to. I’ll answer true what I do answer; but I won’t answer any ’at I don’t want to.”
If Horace had crept in an’ cut off his two ears, Badger wouldn’t have been any more surprised. Well, none of us would, as far as that goes; though why we should let anything ’at Horace chose to do surprise us by this time is more ’n I know.
He an’ Badger talked it over complete for several days, Horace agreein’ that he wouldn’t ask Badger to go anywhere the army or the law was likely to get him an’ not to make him do any stunts ’at would make him look foolish. He told Horace ’at he had served one enlistment an’ got a top-notch discharge, an’ had then took on again; but a drunken officer had him tied on a spare artillery wheel because Badger had laughed when the officer had fallen off his horse into a mud puddle. He said they had laid the wheel on the ground and him across it, the small of his back restin’ on the hub o’ the wheel, an’ his arms an’ legs spread an’ tied to the rim, an’ had kept him there ten hours. He said that he had deserted the first chance he got; but he refused to tell what had happened to the officer afterward.
Finally Badger said he would take up Horace’s proposition; an’ Horace called Olaf in to see if Badger was speakin’ true. This was the first Badger had ever heard about Olaf’s eyes seein’ soul-flames; but he said ’at this explained a lot to him he hadn’t understood before. Olaf looked at him careful; an’ Badger held up his right hand an’ said that as long as Horace treated him square, he would be square with Horace, even to the point of givin’ up his life for him.
“He is speakin’ true,” sez Olaf; and from that very minute, Badger-face became a different man, an’ Horace took off the ropes.
“You do look some like a badger with that bum beard on,” sez Horace; “but I don’t like this name, and I want you to pick out a new one. Pick out some Christian name, your own or any other; but now that you are startin’ on a new life, it will help to have a new name.”
Badger-face studied over this a long time, but he couldn’t root up any name to suit him so he told Horace to pick out a name, and he’d agree to wear it.
“Well,” sez Horace, after he’d give it a good thinkin’ over, “I think I’ll call you Promotheus.”
Badger looked at him purty skeptical. “I don’t intend to take no Greaser name,” sez he. “Is that Mexican?”
“No,” sez Horace. “That’s Greek; an’ the original Promotheus was an all around top-notcher. He was a giant, so you couldn’t complain none on your size; he rebelled again’ the powers, so you couldn’t call him a dog-robber; but the thing ’at you two are closest together in, is your infernal stubbornness. They tried to break Promotheus down by chainin’ him to a rock while the vultures fed on his liver, but they couldn’t make him give in. ‘Pity the slaves who take the yoke,’ sez he; ‘but don’t pity me who still have my own self-respect.’”