"She's in bed and asleep, an' if you're sure you 're alive you've lifted a ton off my heart. I thought you was dead," sez I.
"This whole pack of idiots thinks so yet," he yells, "an' they won't let me get up. I got to see her, Happy, I got to touch her an' make sure for myself that she's all right."
"Where was you hit, Jabez?" I sez.
"I was creased—I was creased the same as they crease a mustang" he sez. "I was just touched in the back o' the neck an' it paralyzed me. These blame pin-heads are crazy to strip me an' see if I ain't shot all to pieces, but I won't stand for it." He tried to get up, but his legs wouldn't work, an' he sank back again.
"You just set an' rest a bit, Jabez," I sez. "I want to see how old Monody is."
The boys hadn't paid much attention to him, thinkin' him one o' Brophy's gang, an' not carin' much whether or not he was comfortable, 'cause he was the most bloodthirsty lookin' of the whole bunch. "Are you hurt bad, Monody" I said. His face lit up with a smile. "I don't hurt at all, Happy, but I reckon I 'm done for—the' ain't no feelin' in me from the waist down."
I got three o' the boys to help me, an' we put him on the shack door an' packed him into the house an' put him into one o' the spare beds. He was shot three times in the left shoulder, an' it wasn't till I noticed it that I recalled my own fix. Monody's shoulder was all shattered to smash, but still, it wasn't no reason for him to die, so I begun to kid him about it. He grinned an' said he didn't intend to die on purpose, but he reckoned it was his turn, an' he didn't intend to side step. He was most unreasonable an' wouldn't let us bandage him nor nothin', said he had a salve 'at beat anything a doctor had, an' we got it for him out of his coat which was the one wrapped around Barbie. He examined my shoulder with his right hand, an' his fingers worked around inside my bones clear and true, but some way without hurtin' me much. "It ain't broke," sez he, "just grooved a bit. You got bones like a grizzly."
When his salve came he rubbed it on me an' then he rubbed it on himself, an' then he told us to clear out so he could sleep. We all left him after a little, an' I sent Spider Kelley after the doctor. The' was only one member of Brophy's gang alive when I got back to the side porch, an' he was sinkin' fast. He had told Jabez 'at then intended to clean him out completely, an' that Jim, the sub-cook, was one o' the gang an' had let the ridin' ponies loose so 'at the' was no choice but to walk after the herd when they stampeded. He said that if he hadn't 'a' had that chance he would 'a' put knock-out drops in the coffee that night, which made all the men madder'n ever. Knock-out drops ain't no fair way o' fightin'.
Well, this feller had been with Brophy a long time, an' he gave us a purty complete list of his doin's an' his ways. As a rule a man only lasted about a year with the gang, an' when it was possible Brophy tried to get boys to fill up the vacancies,—boys likin' the game an' not carin' much for the consequences. He tried to tell us where Brophy had a lot o' gold salted down in Nevada, but it was hard to understand him, an' before he made it clear he tuckered out.
We sent out word to the neighbors, an' that evening about forty of 'em rode over to the buryin', and they made a good bit of a fuss over us, 'cause the gang had been worse'n a plague an' a famine. You can judge o' their nerve when they made war on the Diamond Dot, we havin' one o' the biggest outfits in the territory, an' all patriotic toward the old man. Jabez give me more credit'n was due me, but he sure tried to do the fair thing by of Monody too. Monody had saved us all, an' that was the simple truth. It seemed odd to think of how that kick I had in the jaw won me a friend in Monody, an' then, when it was passed on, saved the Diamond Dot. I 'd like to know what it did for the French sailor an' the feller what handed it to him. Funny thing, life.