They helped him back into the hills, but had Johnny been a little less disposed to confidence he might have doubted the integrity of that sprained leg, for Bob had a curious way of forgetting and then suddenly remembering it with many groans. If Johnny noticed this at all it only went to prove Mr. Bunny's statement that the mind of man was capable of furnishing a very superior article of suffering.
Mr. Graham's retreat was a shack set down in a grove of young pines. As far as Johnny could see, his grub-stake seemed to be in a convenient liquid form.
“Put the bottle down beside me, Bunny, where I'll have it handy,” said Bob, when they had helped him to his bed on the floor in a corner of the room.
“He needs a stimulant,” explained fluent Mr. Bunny. “When you're sufferin' like Bob is, you got to take a stimulant.”
“Folks, I've knocked around a heap,” said Bob. “I've drunk whatever can be got through the bung-hole of a barrel or out of the neck of a bottle; but when a man's really sufferin', whisky's got all the other souse skinned a mile!”
“What did I tell you?” asked Bunny of Johnny, with a glance of commiseration.
“Besides, I don't have no doctor from Alvarado,—my enemy's got the everlasting drop on me, that's why! If my leg's spraint she can stay spraint—if she's broke she can stay broke!” added Bob with resolute stoicism.
“You certainly talk like a man, Bob!” said Bunny admiringly.
“If I could only jest see my child—” said Bob, and passed the back of his hand before his eyes.
“It's them domestic feelin's that's hurtin' him so,” whispered Bunny to Johnny. Aloud he said: “I'm in favor of tellin' Mr. Severance just how you stand, Bob,—why you can't have no doctor.”