"All right, pardner!" says he. "It's your own funeral. My orders
was to halt every one going through; but I ain't a whole company,
so you can have it your own way. Only, if your friends have to
take you home in a coal-scuttle, don't blame me. Pass, friend!"

So I went through the officers' quarters forty miles an hour,
letting out a string of yells you might have heard to the coast,
just to show my respect for the United States army.

Now this has always been my luck: Whenever I made a band-wagon
play, somebody's sure to strike me for my licence. Or else the
team goes into the ditch a mile further on, and I come out about as
happy as a small yaller dog at a bob-cat's caucus.

Some fellers can run in a rhinecaboo that 'd make the hair stand up
on a buffeler robe, and get away with it just like a mice; but that
ain't me. If I sing a little mite too high in the cellar, down
comes the roof a-top of me. So it was this day. Old Johnny
Hardluck socked it to me, same as usual.

Gosh a'mighty! The liquor died in me after a while, and I went
sound asleep in the saddle, and woke up with a jar--to find myself
right in the middle of old Frosthead's gang; the drums
"_boom_-blipping" and those forty-odd red tigers "hyah-hayahing" in
a style that made my skin get up and walk all over me with cold
feet.

How in blazes I'd managed to slip through those Injuns I don't
know. 'Twould have been a wonderful piece of scouting if I'd meant