We were dumb. He shoved his hand into his pocket, produced a slug of twist, slowly gnawed off a portion, and buried the remains in his vast jaw.
"All I done to you," he said, "was to write you them letters sayin's as how I found a lot of ellerphants into the mud.
"What you done to me was to send that there lady here. Was that gratitood? Man to man I ask you?"
A loud snore from the hammock startled us all. James Skaw twisted his neck turkey-like, and looked warily at the hammock, then turning toward me:
"Aw," he said, "she don't never wake up till I have breakfast ready."
"James Skaw," I said, "tell me what has happened. On my word of honor I don't know."
He regarded me with lack-lustre eyes.
"I was a-settin' onto a bowlder," said he, "a-fig-urin' out whether you was a-comin' or not, when that there lady rides up with her led-mule a trailin'.
"Sez she: 'Are you James Skaw?'
"Yes, marm,' sez I, kinder scared an' puzzled.