"Look," said Shoepack Sam—oh, he remembered treason well—"he is forgetful that he has a wife on Mushrat."
This was so appearedly. There he stood in the blue star-shine, fingering his flute to bring her back to mind. Now, I thought, he will be asking what description of wife is this answering to my name on Mushrat? Oh, man is careless in appointing himself among various women.
Now, my friend, Rainbow Pete, blew a note on his flute to settle the thing clear in his mind. Oh, he was not too brisk in looking up at the black ledge, with the candle in the window. Now he was taken by the knees. This is not the convenient part of a marriage of convenience. No. But Shoepack Sam was waving a hand to us to be telling the man nothing of destiny at that moment.
"Come," he said, "the flute is nothing now. There must be more song than this, by what is going on."
Here he took Rainbow by the elbow, telling him to come and eat at Scarecrow Charlie's, for he will need his strength.
"I am in charge here for the day," said Shoepack.
"How is this?" said Rainbow, whispering.
They went laughing on all sides of him. Oh the demons, they were cackling while he sat devouring a great moose joint, until he was close to braining them with the yellow ball of the joint. He went eating like a timber-wolf from Great Bear.
"This is the palm-tree man," they sang in his ear. "Oh, why is it he grew no cocoanuts stumbling on that lost trail? Isn't it convenient for the man he is married this night?"
Oh, they were full of mischief with him, remembering the secret face he had for them in the days of his experiment.