“What’s up?” sez I, lookin’ at him.
“Look,” he whispers, pointin’ at the cow an’ calf; “there’s food.”
We drew back an’ consulted about it. “The great danger after a fast,” I sez in warnin’, “lies in overeatin’. All we can do is to drink a little blood for the first few hours.”
“Why can’t we broil a steak over some coals?” sez Horace.
“It would kill us to eat steak now,” sez I.
He held out for the steak; but I finally sez that if he won’t promise to be temperate an’ eat only what I tell him, I’ll drive off the cow; and then he comes around, and agrees to it.
“You sneak around to the far openin’, Tank,” I sez, then I pauses, an’ looks at him as though shocked. “Where’s your cartridges, man?” I asked.
Tank felt of his belt, and seemed plumb beat out, then he looked at mine, an’ yelled, “Where’s yours?”
We both sat down on stones an’ went over what we had done every minute o’ the time since we had started out; until Horace became frantic, an’ sez: “What’s the difference what became of ’em? Your revolvers are loaded. You can sure kill one cow out o’ twenty-four shots.”
“Twenty shots,” I corrected. “We allus carry the hammer on an empty chamber; an’ I’m so bloomin’ weak I doubt if I could hit a cow in ten shots.”