“I can’t possibly ride, to-day,” he sez, shakin’ his head. “Honest, I’m in agony.”
“That’s just ’cause you’re stiff,” sez I, kindly. “That’ll all wear off when the sun softens up your joint-oil. Why, man, you’ll look back on this trip as one o’ the brightest spots in your whole life.”
“I got hit in the back o’ the head with a golf ball once,” he flares back real angry; “an’ that showed me a lot o’ brightness, too. I don’t want no more brightness, an’ I don’t intend to ride to-day.”
I was especial pleased at the human traits he was displayin’. He hadn’t acted so healthy an’ natural since he’d been with us, an’ I was encouraged to keep on with the treatment. “You will have to ride with us, even if we have to tie you on,” I sez. “We are now close to the Injun country, an’ we’re responsible for you. O’ course the’ ain’t any danger from regular war parties; but Injun boys is just as full o’ devilment as white boys, an’ they haven’t as many safety valves. They’re all the time sneakin’ off an’ playin’ at war, an’ they play a purty stiff game, too, believe me. If a dozen o’ these voting bucks, eighteen or twenty years old, was to stalk us, they’d try most earnest to lift our hair.”
“I’d as soon be killed one way as another,” he sez. “I can’t stand it to ride, an’ that’s all the’ is to it.”
Here was a queer thing: the little cuss actually wasn’t afeared of Injuns, which I had counted on as my big card. Nerves or no nerves, Horace Walpole Bradford wasn’t no coward; ’cause we are all afeared o’ crazy folks, an’ he thought Tank was crazy. If Tank had had two good eyes, chances are he wouldn’t ’a’ feared him; so I kicked Tank in the side an’ woke him up.
[CHAPTER TEN—INJUNS!]
Well, we sure had a hard time gettin’ Horace in the saddle that day. He was some like a burro, small but strong minded. Finally he agreed to try it if we would put the saddle-blanket on top the saddle instead of underneath.
“The hoss don’t need it as bad as I do,” sez he; “’cause he’s covered all over with hoss-hide an’ has hair for paddin’ besides; and furthermore, the saddle is lined with sheepskin underneath, while it’s as hard as iron on top; and I’m just like a boil wherever I touch it.”
We told him that a hard saddle was lots the easiest as soon as a feller got used to it; but he broke in an’ said he didn’t expect to live that long, an’ that we could take our choice of leavin’ him, or puttin’ the saddle-blanket on top. The’s lots of folks with the notion that a soft saddle or a soft chair or a soft bed is the easiest; an’ it ain’t much use to argue with ’em, though the truth is, that if a feller lived on goslin’ down, he’d get stuck with a pin feather some day an’ die o’ loss of blood; while if he lived on jagged stones, he’d finally wear into ’em until he had a smooth, perfect fittin’ mold for his body. Still, the truth is only the truth to them ’at can see it; so we put the blanket on top, an’ perched Horace astride it.