After a time the youngster's monologue became a sort of soothing hum, for which the other was grateful. "I was cross and sleepy and chilly and nervous," Brunner explained, "and the boy's gabble rested me."
I gathered that the young man was more excited than he cared to confess, even to himself. He talked, as others whistle, to "keep up his courage." Yet the implication that he needed distraction or stimulation would have angered him. Youth and courage are twins, or should be, and a man of twenty-two takes it for granted. At forty, a man may confess to turning tail and yet save his self-respect. I had heard Brunner tell of "back downs" that would have shamed a young village constable, and it had never occurred to me to question his courage.
It was only in the last mile of their ride that the chatter of young Thomas really became audible to Brunner.
"I woke up," he said, "and actually listened to him. I don't remember exactly what he was saying, but this was the idea: 'All of you fellows that chase outlaws make too much fuss about it.' Well, some of us do, though the newspapers and the wind-bags that follow us around make ten times the fuss we do. He went on to say that the only way to nab a horse-thief or an express robber was to go right up to him, don't you know, like the little boy went up to the sign-post that he thought was a ghost.
"It's a good theory and generally works. I told him so, and then apologized for doing any other way. The way I thought about this business of a deputy marshal's was the way an old soldier thinks about war. I was hired to get the criminals, and not to be caught by the criminals, to shoot the bad man, if I had to, but not to be shot by the bad man if there was any way to help it. One way to help it is to run and hide. It's a good way, too, for I've tried it."
The young man roused Brunner's curiosity. It was possible that he might be of the exceptional breed that puts a fine theory to the test of action.
"I decided to watch him," the ranchman told me, "and see if he would play up to his big talk. When we left our ponies, half a mile from the camp, I pretended to argue with 'Cap' White, told him he ought to leave young Thomas with the horses and not get such a boy as that all shot up. 'Cap' caught my point and begged him to stay, but, of course, he wouldn't hear of it. 'I'll stick to Brunner,' says he.
"'All right,' says I, 'come on.'
"When we started afoot, we trailed out single file, and I noticed that old man Thomas waited for the boy and me to pass him, dropping in right behind his son. 'Cap' was in front, then Bruce, then Paden Tolbert, then Ryder and Kelso, and then I and the Thomases. The old man was at the tail of the procession.
"Old man Thomas was the kind that you never think about one way or the other. You said to yourself that he would do his share, whatever it amounted to, and you wouldn't have to bother about him. That's your notion of him, ain't it?"