“Lie still!” said Ike, kindly. “Keep your shirt on, Pete, and we’ll git you outa this pretty soon.”
But Pete was excited about something and insisted on trying to talk, though the froth of blood on his lips indicated the folly of it. In vain Ike soothed him and implored him to rest. His black eyes snapped and his right hand made feeble motions toward the floor of the wagon where, on a pile of supplies and camp equipment, lay a burlap sack containing something lumpy and rough.
“Zose sheep—and zose r-rock!” he whispered, shifting to English mixed with accented French. 25 “Pour vous—et le bébé! Le p’tit bébé an’ she’s mère—France—or——”
“Never mind the sheep,” said Ike. “You rough-lock your jaw, Pete, an’ we’ll take care o’ the sheep. Lie still, now!”
But Pete moaned and turned his head from side to side with his last strength.
“Mais—mais oui! ze sheep!” He again stuttered words meaningless to his hearers who, of course, had no Basque at command. But here and there were words of English and French, and even some Spanish, which most of them understood a little.
“Ze r-rock—pierre—or! Eet eez to you et le bébé one half. Ze res’ you send—you send heem—France—pour ma femme—mi esposa an’ ze leet-leetla one? Mi padron—you do heem?”
“What’s he drivin’ at?” muttered one of the cowboys. But Ike motioned them to proceed and drive as fast as possible toward Willow Spring. He bent toward the agitated herder again.
“I’ll take care of it, Pete,” he assured him. “Don’t worry none.”
But Pete had more on his mind. He groped feebly about and whined a request which Ike finally understood to be for paper and a pencil. He looked about but found nothing except a paper bag in which were some candles. These he dumped out and, to pacify the man, handed the paper to him with his own pencil. It was evident that Pete would not rest until 26 he had had his way, and if he was crossed further his excitement was bound to kill him almost at once. In obedience to Pete’s wishes Ike lifted him slightly and held him up while he wrote a few scrawling, ragged characters on the sack. Almost illegible, they were written in some language which Ike knew nothing about but, at the bottom of the bag Pete laboriously wrote a name and address which Ike guessed was that of his wife, in the far-off Basse Pyrenean province of France.