They drifts away in the dark, and me and Magpie wipes the perspiration off our brows.
“Thank the Lord for the little rabbits!” grunts Magpie. “Now get busy on the dairy proposition, Ike. I’ll buy you a new hat.”
I ain’t no milkmaid. All my life I’ve punched cows, prospected, gambled a little and played deputy to Magpie while he was sheriff. I’ve always put milk in the same class with water—meek and mild. I’m not qualified to pail a cow—not even gentle cows, but under the existing circumstances I tries to do my duty.
The baby raises its voice in discords; so I hurries to get it a grub stake.
Magpie is holding firm; so I takes off my new hat and kneels down on the ground. Then I got up on my feet, walked around to the other end of the critter and told Magpie what I thought of him as a cow-man. We had a hard time letting that critter loose without it doing us bodily harm, and then we crawled back through the fence, and Magpie picked up our audible off-spring.
“Well,” says he, “there’s one steer that will have something to think about for a while, even if I did lose a sock and some skin. Wonder who the posse was after?”
“Not us,” says I, holding my hands over my ears to shut out the wails of misery coming from that bundle. “Where in thunder do we find something to appease that kid’s appetite?”
“Gawd only knows,” says he solemn-like, limping along in the dark. “If it dies, you’re a murderer, Ike. I’m doing all I can to save both of your lives.”
Then we saw a light. Over to the left of us comes a flicker from a cabin window. Magpie turns like the needle of a compass and points straight for the flicker.
“Where there’s light, there’s succor,” says Magpie.