Jumbo came across to him and offered his friend a drink.
"You'll feel better if you take a swallow of old forty-rod," he promised.
The younger man shook his head. "Much obliged, old-timer. I'm all right now. It was a kind of sickenin' job, but I had to do it or kill him."
"What was it all about?" asked Jumbo eagerly. The fat line-rider was a good deal of a gossip and loved to know the inside of every story.
Jack cast about for a reason. "He—he said I had red hair."
"Well, you old son of a mule-skinner, what's the matter with that? You have, ain't you?" demanded the amazed Wilkins.
"Mebbe I have, but he can't tell me so."
That was all the satisfaction the public ever got. It did a good deal of guessing, however, and none of it came near the truth.
- To "take the hides off'n 'em" was the expressive phraseology in which the buffalo-hunter described his business. [5]