“It is quite natural he should, saint or sinner,—all the more if he is sinner. It must be terrible for a man who has ugly secrets to wake up at night, alone in bivouac, with a grisly dream, no human being near, and find the stars watching him keenly, or the great white, solemn moon pitying him, yet saying, with her inflexible look, that, moan and curse as he may, no remorse will save him from despair.”
“Yes,” said Brent, knocking the ashes out of his pipe; “night always seems to judge and sentence the day. A foul man, or a guilty man, so long as he intends to remain foul and guilty, dreads pure, quiet, orderly Nature.”
The objectionable stranger came up to our camp-fire.
“Hello, men!” said he, with a familiar air, “it’s a fine night”; and meeting with no response, he continued: “But, I reckon, you don’t allow nothin’ else but fine nights in this section.”
“Bad company makes all nights bad,” says Jake Shamberlain, gruffly enough.
“Ay; and good company betters the orneriest sort er weather. The more the merrier, eh?”
“Supposin’ it’s more perarer wolves, or more rattlesnakes, or more horse-thieving, scalpin’ Utes!” says Jake, unpropitiated.
“O,” said the new-comer a little uneasily, “I don’t mean sech. I mean jolly dogs, like me and my pardener. We allowed you’d choose company in camp. We’d like to stick our pegs in alongside of yourn, ef no gent haint got nothin’ to say agin it.”
“It’s a free country,” Jake said, “and looks pooty roomy round here. You ken camp whar you blame please,—off or on.”
“Well,” says the fellow, laying hold of this very slight encouragement, “since you’re agreeable, we’ll fry our pork over your fire, and hev a smoke to better acquaintance.”