It was just about this period that I begun to lose my serious view o' life and get more man-like. The usual idea is that a boy is a careless, happy, easy-goin' sort of a creature, and a man is a steady, serious minded, thoughtful kind of an outfit; but just the reverse. A boy starts out believin' most o' what's told him an' thinkin' that it's his duty to reform the world; an' about the only thing he is careless of is human life—his own or any one else's. Fact o' the matter is that if you watch him close enough you'll find out that even in his games a boy is about the solemnest thing on earth, an' you have to know the game purty thorough to tell when it drifts into a real fight. That's why all wars have been fought by boys. They believe in any cause 'at looks big enough to lay down their lives for, an' that's their chief ambition. A man, though; gets to see after a time that the' 's most generally somebody up behind who's working the wires, an' he gets so 'at he don't want to lay down ANYBODY's life, except as a last resort. He looks favorable upon amusement, an' after a while he kind o' sort o' gets hardened to the fact that the whole thing's a joke and he'd rather laugh than shoot. Why, I'd be more afraid of a boy with a popgun than I 'd be of a man with a standin' army.
So as I said, it was just about this time in my life that I begun to hunt up pleasant places to eat and sleep; an' if I heard of trouble in the next county I turned out an' went around. I did a little of everything; even lugged a chain in a surveyor outfit, but the' wasn't enough chance in that. I got to have a trace of gamblin' in anything I do; so the first thing I knew I was down in Nevada lookin' for the treasure 'at Bill Brophy had buried there. The last of his gang had tried to describe the place, but his description would have done for 'most any place in Nevada—she not bein' what you might call free-handed in the way of variety.
Well, I ragged around in the mountains between Nevada and California, lookin' for a flat-shaped rock with a mountain-peak on each side of it, an' a cold wind sweepin' up the canon—I don't know just how the cold wind got included, but the dyin' outlaw dwelt upon that cold wind something particular. I stayed out puny late in the season, an' if cold winds was identifyin', Brophy had his treasure buried purty unpartially all over the West.
I reckon I'd have died if I had it fallen in with Slocum. Slocum was a queer lookin' speciment when you first came upon him. His skin didn't fit him very well, bein' a trifle too big, an' wrankled an' baggy in consequence; his eyes was kind of a washy blue, an' they stuck out from his face, givin' him the most sorrowful expression I ever see. You just couldn't be suspicious of a man with such eyes as that; he seemed to have throwed himself wide open an' invited the whole world to come an' look inside. Why, a perfect stranger would have trusted Slocum with his last plug of tobacoo, and like as not he'd have gotten part of it back. Well, as I said, I was headin' for warmer weather, but I got overtook an' had about given up all hope when I noticed the smell of smoke in the air. I was walkin' on foot an' pullin' a burro with a pack behind me, an' after a time I located that smoke comin' right up through the snow.
I yelled and shouted around for a while without gettin' any response. Night and the snow was both fallin' fast, an' that smoke was exceeding temptin'. Finally I took a piece of burlap off the pack, put it over the hole where the smoke was comin' up through, an' piled snow on top of it. I was curious to see what would happen. I waited—perhaps it was only five minutes, but it seemed that many hours—an' then a low, calm voice, down somewhere beneath me, sez, "Get off that chimney!"
"I will," sez I, "when you tell me how to get to the fire."
I waited again, an' then a man with a lantern emerged into the cut about forty feet below me, an' told me how I could wind around and come down to him. Well, me an' the burro finally worked it out, an' there was a man with long whiskers standin' in his shirt-sleeves in front of a hole in the snow.
"You like to 'a' smothered me," he grumbled. "Don't you know better'n to stop up a chimney that's workin'?"
"I wanted the chimney to work double," sez I, "an' that was the only way I could think up to attract your attention."
"Do you live around here?" sez he. "Not very much," sez I, "but I 'm minded to try it a while, if there 's room in your burrow for two."