“Pore feller! I’m awful sorry for him. Anybody sick or ailin’ always gits my goat,” said Cochran sympathetically. “I couldn’t kill a rattlesnake, if it was hurted. One time I had a burro that busted its foreleg right above the pastern joint, and I couldn’t shoot it. Didn’t have the heart! And every time I tried to nuss it the damn thing bit me.”
David failed to draw the sympathetic connection between rattlers, mules, and his partner. Indeed, at the moment, he was solicitous for Goliath, and after a time went to investigate, and try to help, having much difficulty in dissuading Cochran from accompanying him. He found the giant on his back in the lower berth, calmly reading a dime novel.
“Thought you was seasick?” David blurted through the half-opened door.
“Seasick? Hell! I was talk sick!”
“Good! Never thought of that. I reckon I’m seasick, too. But what are we goin’ to do? Stay shut up here all the way to Frisco?”
“Either that, or chuck the perpetual-motion talkin’ machine overboard,” growled Goliath.
“Got another one of them dime novels? Gimme it. I’m sick, too,” David said as he climbed into the upper berth.
At intervals for the first few hours Cochran called on them, bringing various remedies that he had solicited from their fellow passengers; but when dusk came the partners ventured out, trusting to the darkness to escape the attention of their well-wisher. As time went on they gained courage, and began to enjoy their freedom. They even dared to saunter along the decks. From the smoke room, which was forward under the bridge, came inviting sounds of conversation, merriment, and human society. They paused and looked enviously through the open window and breathed more freely, for they discerned Cochran absorbed in a game of poker, but still talking steadily.
“That’s me. Lucky Cochran!” they heard him explode, as he raked in a pot.
“Good old sport! Hope he plays poker from now until this boat ties up at the dock,” David remarked. “That’ll keep him busy, and make it a lot nicer for us.”