III
At midnight, Rain bustled me out to round the ponies up while she struck camp. Why should she be so eager to warn my Brat? She would not spare me time to water the ponies, but drove the outfit hard, wasting whole hours in bad ground by starlight which in the morning we could have crossed at ease. Day broke at last, and we took up the tracks of the stolen cow. Beside them went the marks of a white man's boots, just large enough for Brat and too small for any one else. Rain trailed her travois of lodge poles and our loose ponies, to blot out those telltale signs, while I rode well ahead down the Milk River Valley, under long cliffs of castellated rock. There were orchards of wild ripe fruit, but Rain insisted on a racking pace, while the sun climbed up the eastern and down the western sky. So when the sun was waning down the west, we came upon our quarry, El Señor Don Pedro de la Mancha, with his arms round the cow's neck, sobbing bitterly.
Such was the heat, that I rode in breech clout and moccasins, the Indian war-dress. Add to that the devilish Indian war screech, and the charging horse, and you will realize that poor Brat had scarcely time to jump out of his skin with fright, before a wild and naked roaring savage galloped over him.
He sat up, quite prepared for death, and yet, his nose being crushed, and his heart full of indignation, he resolved to sell his life dearly. Heroes, he remembered, in redskin fiction, always sell their lives dearly, but are never seriously killed because that would spoil the plot. The proper thing was to lug out his .44 Colt revolver with its eight and a half inch barrel and thus be prepared for great deeds of war. It was a pity that all his cartridges should be .45. Had they only fitted the gun, what a scene of blood!
"What d'ye mean by stealing cows?" I asked him. "Eh, you dirty rotter? Stand up and have yer head punched! I'll teach you to get into mischief! Now, Brat, I'm going to give you the durnedest hiding."
Yet, though I addressed the Brat in my very best Eton manner, the tone of the public schools, as proceeding from a naked savage, entirely failed to convince. It was not until I dismounted, and diligently performed my promise, and having given him a jolly good hiding, proceeded to give him some more, that Brat began dimly to realize that I was indeed his brother.
So far, dear Rain, very impatient with us, had from her saddle watched the ceremonial observances of white men, when brothers meet after long separation. Now seeing that I had dropped a tail of my false hair, she made me squat down while she hurriedly braided it on again, cooing with sympathy when she tugged too hard. Brat sat down opposite, to pant and make friends with my dog, and while his nose bled, announced that he also would turn red Indian.
I asked him, gravely, "How?"
"Then," said he, "I'll be a robber, anyway."
"Look here," said I, "you know I've come a long way and taken no end of trouble to keep you out of mischief. You're not going to play the hog. You Gadarene swine, if you're not respectable in this life, where will you go when you die?"