So the Friar he caught his ponies and hit the back trail; but still it had been purty much of a drawn battle, for Ty Jones’s men had used their eyes and their ears, and they had to give in to themselves ’at the preacher had measured big any way ya looked at him; while their own boss had dogged it in the manger to a higher degree ’n even they could take glory in.
As the Friar rode away, he sagged in his saddle with his head bent over; and they thought him faint from his wound; but the truth was, that he was only a little sad to think ’at he had lost. He was human, the Friar was; he used to chide himself for presumptin’ to be impatient; but at the same time he used to fidget like a nervous hoss when things seemed to stick in the sand; and he didn’t sing a note as long as he was on the Cross brand range—which same was an uncommon state for the Friar to be in, him generally marchin’ to music.
[CHAPTER FIVE—THE HOLD-UP]
This was the way the Friar started out with us; and year after year, this was the way he kept up. He was friendly with every one, and most every one was friendly with him. Some o’ the boys got the idea that he packed his guns along as a bluff; so they put up a joke on him.
They lay in wait for him one night as he was comin’ up the goose neck. I, myself, didn’t rightly savvy just how he did stand with regard to the takin’ of human life in self-defence; but I knew mighty well ’at he wasn’t no bluffer, so I didn’t join in with the boys, nor I didn’t warn him; I just scouted along on the watch and got up the hill out o’ range to see what would happen.
He came up the hill in the twilight, singin’ one of his favorite marchin’ songs. I’ve heard it hundreds of times since then, and I’ve often found myself singin’ it softly to myself when I had a long, lonely ride to make. That was a curious thing about the Friar: he didn’t seem to be tampin’ any of his idees into a feller, but first thing the feller knew, he had picked up some o’ the Friar’s ways; and, as the Friar confided to me once, a good habit is as easy learned as a bad, and twice as comfortin’.
Well, he came up the pass shufflin’ along at a steady Spanish trot as was usual with him when not overly rushed, and singin’:
“Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah!
Pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;