As a matter of fact, poor Tail-Feathers had come in the night, had loaded his horse with beef, and now, well hidden in the cliffs, was eating the same while he watched Buckie's futile attempts at tracking. The soldier came back blue with cold, gray with despair and only too glad when I proposed that Rain should be free from arrest if she could find his clothes. She placed a string in his hands, and bade him pull. So he hauled the bundle of arms and clothes out of the lake.
Over a big fire inside the teepee, we hung his clothes to dry, and after breakfast, while I made a most careful toilet, a naked constable drafted in a damp note-book the full official version of his patrol.
"How will this do?" he began. "'Dear Guts!' I mean, 'Sir, I have the honor to report for your information that when I made Lane's from information received'—from Got-Wet when we hid up in the barn loft—'to the effect, viz: that old Shifty was up to his usual games, cheating said Pedro la Mancha out of four months' wages, so Pedro skinned out with Got-Wet's cow, which didn't belong to Lane anyway, because Pedro's brother Hosay la Mancha, a respectable British subject, had gone to collect the cow for Got-Wet.' So that's all clear, eh?"
"Fine," said I, from behind the hanging clothes. "'Meanwhile, I sent the interpreter ahead'—so he wouldn't catch on to Got-Wet and me in the barn loft—'with instructions to pick up the cow tracks, and when I caught up'—Say, old fellow, don't want to let on that I invaded the damned States under arms. It wouldn't be good for Guts, and he'd throw Catherine wheels if he thought I'd raided Montana. We'll say I caught you up at the boundary line, 'where my interpreter was shooting up the cow, the pony and Hosay la Mancha. I detained the prisoner in close custody, but he skinned out'—and you can't see his tail for dust—'so I brung in Mr. la Mancha, who wants to take on in in the Outfit, and have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, regimental number'—I'll have to look that up—'David Buckie, Constable.' How's that, umpire?"
"Bull's-eye!" So I stepped out from behind the clothes-line. After all, my dress suit was by a jolly good cutter in Savile Row, the shirt a bit rumpled but a decent fit, the pumps and socks quite new and, nothing paid for. In my best Oxford manner, I held out the white tie and asked Buckie to make the bow. "You bally idiot!" I added, because he rolled into the fire, singeing my painted cow-skin.
Stark naked, the buck policeman rolled back over the cooking-pots and prayed to be carried away for burial. Then he sat up wiping his eyes with my necktie. "Chee! Now whar hev I put me lavender kids?" he howled. "Oh, hang my collar on the chandelier while I sweat! Me pants is split from ear to ear, and it's my night to how-w-l! Yow-ow-w!"
I told him these were all the clothes I had.
"Just turn them loose on Slide-out. Think of Guts! Why, you ring-tailed, lop-eared coyote, you can't join Our Outfit dressed like a blasted Comet!"
"What's to be done?"
"I guess I'll cache you in a prairie-dog hole until I've stole you a shirt and overalls. Allee samee, that kit would take first prize for fancy dress at a ball, or I'm a shave-tail."