“Finally,” sez Tank, “I came upon a lonely cabin at the bottom of a gorge; and in it was a little man who was minin’ for gold. He was about your build, except that toilin’ with pick and shovel had distributed his meat around to a better advantage, and he wore his whiskers complete, without any patch scraped off the chin. It was just night when I reached the cabin, and he invited me in to eat; which I am free to say I did until I was stuffed up to my swaller, and then we prepared to sleep.
“Now, a feller would nachely think I’d ’a’ gone right to sleep; but instead o’ this, my nerves began to twist an’ squirm an’ gnaw at me until I was almost beside myself; and after fightin’ it for several hours, I woke up the miner, and asked him as polite as a lady, if he wouldn’t rub my brow for a few minutes. Seems like when I’m nervous, the’ won’t nothin’ soothe me so quick as to have my brow rubbed; but this little coyote refused pointblank to do it.
“I finally got down on my knees and begged him to; but he still refused. He said he had fed me six meals at once and given me shelter, and this was as far as he’d go if my confounded nerves exploded and blew the place up. I was meek about it, I tried my best to ward off trouble; but just then a nerve up under my ear gave a wrench which twisted me all out o’ shape, and I lost patience. I seized that little cuss by the beard and I yanked him out on the floor, and I said to him—”
Tank had once been unusual gifted in framin’ up bright-colored profanity, but he had been shuttin’ down on it since the night he had helped to fake the hold-up on the Friar, and I thought he had lost the knack. This night, though, he seemed to find a spiritual uplift in tellin’ to Horace exactly what he had said to the lonely miner. Before he finished this part, he had used up all of Horace’s good cigars, as lighters, and the Eastener’s face had turned a palish blue. I’d be willin’ to bet that Tank made the swearin’ record that night; though of course, the’ ain’t any way to prove it.
When Tank couldn’t think of any new combinations, he covered his face and broke into tears. Horace sat and looked at him with his eyes poppin’ out. “Don’t you think you could go to sleep?” he asked after a bit.
“Sleep!” yelled Tank. “Sleep? I doubt if I ever do sleep again. I feel worse right now ’n I did that night in the gorge.”
“What did you finally do that time?” asked Horace.
“I hate to think of it,” sez Tank; and he put his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands, and stared into the fire as though seein’ ghosts.
Horace watched him a while, and then he lit a cigar out of the second layer. He took one puff and then removed the cigar and stared at it. He tried another puff, and then threw it into the fire, where it spluttered up in a blue flame. He tried six more, and then said somethin’ I couldn’t quite catch and threw the whole box into the fire; while Tank continued to stare into it as though he had forgot the’ was any one else on earth.
“Let’s go to bed,” sez Horace.