Then I looks carefuller and seen it wasn't no feather-duster at
all--nothing but an Injun.'

"'What about the other one?'

"'That's the strangest part,' says Kink. 'Pretty soon the other one
turns and hits the back-trail like he'd forgot something; then I seen
him drop off his horse, too, sudden and all togetherish. I'm awful
careless with this here gun,' he says. I hate to see a man laugh
from his tonsils forrard, the way he did. It ain't humorous.

"'See here,' I says, 'I ain't the kind that finds fault with my
pardner, nor saying this to be captious and critical of your play;
but don't you know them Cochises ain't on the warpath? Them Injuns
has been on their reservation for five years, peaceable,
domesticated, and eating from the hand. This means trouble."

"'My old man didn't have no war paint on him one day back at
Frisbee,' whispers Kink, and his voice sounded puckered up and dried,
'and my mother wasn't so darned quarrelsome, either.'

"Then I says, 'Well! them bodies has got to be hid, or we'll have the
tribe and the bluebellies from the fort a scouring these hills till a
red-bug couldn't hide.'

"'To hell with 'em,' says Kink. 'I've done all I'm going to for 'em.
Let the coyotes finish the job.'

"'No, siree,' I replies. 'I don't blame you for having a prejudice
agin savages, but _my_ parents is still robust and husky, and I have