“Sh-h-h-h!” hisses Magpie. “Somebody coming! Let’s get out.”
He swung the door open and ducked out in the storm. That’s just like Magpie. In danger he forgets his responsibility, and Ike Harper, who is very cool, picks up the two babies off the bunk and follers in his wake. Man, it sure was pouring out there. Ever’ once in a while comes a flash of lightning, which is fine while she lasts but harder when she’s gone. I sure flounders around a lot.
“This way, Ike!” yelps Magpie, and I follers the best I can.
A flash of light shows me a couple of fellers on horseback milling around in the rain, and then we sure hit the high spots out of there.
After a mile or so we stops in the shelter of a washout and puffs plentiful.
“Suffering sidewinders!” groans Magpie. “I ain’t got no feet left! Honest to grandma, I’m a wreck from stem to stern, Ike.”
“Feller sufferer, I know how you feel,” says I. “But that ain’t no reason for you to forget what you owes to humanity. I don’t wish to chide no man for being absent-minded, Magpie, but I’m asking why you left me the responsibility of both offsprings in this direful e-mergency?”
“Meaning what?” he groans.
“Magpie Simpkins, do you mean to set there shivering and tell me that you got so scared that you forgot we had two suffering infants when we entered that cabin?”
“My ——!” he grunts. “You didn’t forget yours, did you?”