Next day when I got back to the Diamond Dot, I found Horace all packed up for leavin’; and it made me feel mournful to the bones o’ my soul. I didn’t know how much I thought of him until he started to pull out; and I felt so ashamed at what I had done, that I offered to let him kick me all about the place if he’d just forget about it and stick along.
But Horace had a stiff neck, all right, and he wouldn’t give in. Tank had had all he could do to get Horace to take the check back; and now, try as I would, I couldn’t get him to stay. I drove over to the station with him, and we had a long talk together. He was in a good humor when he left, and I could see he was wishful to stay; but havin’ made up his mind, he stuck to it. He said he had had more fun while with us than durin’ all the procedure of his life; and that if we had just kept the joke among us Dotters, he wouldn’t have felt so cut up about it. I told him he had acted just right and that I had acted dead wrong, although it was him takin’ Tank’s word above mine which had first made me sore.
This was new light to him, and he softened up immediate. Fact was, we got purt’ nigh girlish before the train pulled out with him wavin’ his handkerchief from the back porch.
I still feel some shame about this episode; and if any o’ you fellers ask any more questions to lead me into tellin’ of my own silly pranks, why, I’ll drive you off the place, and then get my lips sewed shut.
[CHAPTER SEVENTEEN—KIT MURRAY]
Horace had left, I felt purty lonely for a while. It’s hard for me to look back and keep things in regular order; because the different lines cross each other and get mixed up. Always, little Barbie’s affairs came first with me; but I reckon most of you have heard her story, so I’m keepin’ shy of it this time. First of all there was my innermost life, which would have been mostly mine no matter where I’d gone; then there was the part of my life which touched Barbie’s, and this was the best and the highest part of it; and then there was the part which touched Friar Tuck an’ a lot of others, each one of which helped to make me what I am; but back of it all was my work; so it’s not strange if I find it hard to stick to the trail of a story.
Anyway, it was while I was feelin’ lonesome about Horace leavin’ that the Friar first began to use me as a trump card, and called on me for whatever he happened to want done. I was mighty fond o’ bein’ with the Friar; so I lent myself to him whenever I could, and we got mighty well acquainted. He loved fun of a quiet kind; but the’ was allus a sadness in his eyes which toned down my natural devilment and softened me. The’ was lots o’ things I used to enjoy doin’, which I just couldn’t do after havin’ been with the Friar a spell, until I had give myself a good shakin’, like a dog comin’ up out o’ water.
For several quiet years about this time, I used to act as scout for him, now and again, goin’ ahead to round up a bunch when he had time to give ’em a preachin’; or goin’ after him when some one who couldn’t afford a doctor was took sick. We talked about purt’ nigh everything, except that some way, we didn’t talk much about women; so I was never able to pump his own story out of him, though he knew exactly how I felt toward Barbie, long before I did myself.
Durin’ these years, the Friar tried his best to get on terms with the Ty Jones crowd; but they refused to get friendly, and the more he did to make things better in the territory, the more they hated him.
It was right after the spring round-up that I first heard the Friar’s name mixed up with a woman. This allus makes me madder ’n about anything else. When a man and a woman sin, why, it’s bad enough, and I’m not upholdin’ it; but still in a way it’s natural, the same as a wolf killin’ a calf. It’s the cow-puncher’s business to kill the wolf if he can, and he ought to do it as prompt as possible. This is all right; but gossip and scandal is never all right.