“Help! Help! Help!” and suddenly realized that it was himself. He heard Frijole’s voice calling, “Whoa, you buzzard-heads! Whoa, whoa! Where are yuh, Henry?”
Slim said, “Stop yellin’ and help me git this horse back on his feet, Frijole!”
“That ain’t no horse—that’s Oscar.”
“It is, huh? How can yuh tell, in the dark?”
“He’s got on high-heel boots. What happened? Didn’t I tell yuh that buckboard wouldn’t make the turn? Didn’t I—huh?”
Henry managed to extricate himself from the manzanita and staggered around the end of the wagon, where he almost fell over somebody. He grabbed the end-gate of the wagon and felt for some matches.
“Henry must have got killed, Slim,” came Frijole’s voice.
“Yeah,” said Slim vacantly. “We lost the jug, too.”
“Well, what happened?” asked Frijole. “I seen somethin’—Slim! It was a wagon and team! I ’member now. But where did they go?”
Henry managed to light the match and look down. He was standing astride of James Wadsworth Longfellow Pelly, and the vitrolic editor of the Clarion was staring up at him, blinking slowly. Frijole and Slim came over and lighted more matches. Pelly was fast recovering. Slim said, “We have to take the bitter with the sweet—he ain’t dead.”