“Nonsense,” sez Horace; “the Injuns haven’t riz for years, an’ they’re not likely to again.”
Tank only winked his lookin’ eye, an’ proceeded to fling the saddle on the picketed hoss. Horace was smilin’ purty contented with himself, until I sez: “Which hoss are you goin’ to ride to-morrow, Mr. Bradford?”
Then his face went blank as he recalled the blow-up we’d had that mornin’ gettin’ the pack ponies contented with their loads. “By Jove, I can’t ride any of them!” he exclaims. “It would kill me to have a hoss buck with me. I’m so sore now I can hardly move.”
“You don’t look as nervous as you did, though,” I sez to him for comfort.
He didn’t pay me no heed. “Here, Williams,” he calls, “you can’t take that hoss. He’s the only one I can ride, and you’ll have to catch another.”
“You ort have thought o’ that before,” sez Tank, goin’ on with his arrangements, but movin’ slow.
“Well, you two straighten it out among yourselves,” sez I. “I’m goin’ back to bed. No wonder you’re nervous. It would make a saw-horse nervous to jibe around the way you two do.”
I went off grumblin’, an’ I went to sleep before they settled it; but Tank stretched it out as much as he could, an’ Horace didn’t oversleep any that night. Next mornin’ when I looked out, I saw him tied up with his back again’ a tree, an’ Tank’s head in his lap. He was swathed in his slicker an’ saddle-blanket to keep warm, an’ was sound asleep. He looked purty well hammered out, but hanged if he didn’t look a lot more worth while ’n he did when he started to take my treatment.
It seemed a shame to do it, as it was just gettin’ into the gray; but I woke him up, an’ asked him in a whisper what he was doin’. He sat an’ blinked at me for a full minute before he remembered what or where he was, an’ then he told me that he finally induced Tank to try havin’ his head rubbed again, by lettin’ Tank truss him up so he couldn’t keel over on him. “Gee, but I’m cold an’ stiff,” he sez in a husky, raspin’ voice. “I don’t see how it can be so hot daytimes, an’ so cold nights.”
“This’ll do you a world of good, Mr. Bradford,” sez I. “You see, you swell up with the heat daytimes, an’ crimp down with the cold nights; an’ this will goad on your circulation, fry the lard out o’ ya, an’ give your nerves a chance to get toned up.” I quoted from the patent medicine almanac occasional, just so he wouldn’t forget he was takin’ treatment.