as mine.'

"'Boy, if I was backing your system,' says Kink, 'I'd shore copper
this move and play her to lose. You come on with me, and we'll make
it through--mebbe.'

"'No,' I says; 'here I sticks.'

"I made up a pack-strap out of my extry overhalls while he got grub
together, to start south through one hundred miles of the ruggedest
and barrenest country that was ever left unfinished.

"Next noon I was parching some coffee-beans in the frying-pan, when I
heard hoofs down the gully back of me. I never looked up when they
come into the open nor when I heard a feller say 'Halt!'

"'Hello there!' somebody yells. 'You there at the fire.' I kept on
shaking the skillet over the camp-fire.

"'What's the matter with him?' somebody said. A man got off and
walked up behind me.

"'See here, brother,' he says, tapping me on the shoulder; 'this
don't go.'

"I jumped clean over the fire, dropped the pan, and let out a deaf
and dumb holler, 'Ee! Ah!'

"The men began to laugh; it seemed to rile the little leftenant.