emergencies--although, as I found that the emergencies never arose
and that tea was better than whisky when a man was cold or done out, I
abandoned the practice of taking whisky on hunting trips twenty years
ago. When I got back to camp the old fellow was sitting on a tree-trunk,
very erect, with his rifle across his knees, and in response to my nod
of greeting he merely leered at me. I leaned my rifle against a tree,
walked over to where my bed was lying, and, happening to rummage in it
for something, I found the whisky flask was empty. I turned on him at
once and accused him of having drunk it, to which he merely responded by
asking what I was going to do about it. There did not seem much to do,
so I said that we would part company--we were only four or five days
from a settlement--and I would go in alone, taking one of the horses. He
responded by cocking his rifle and saying that I could go alone and be
damned to me, but I could not take any horse. I answered "all right,"
that if I could not I could not, and began to move around to get some
flour and salt pork. He was misled by my quietness and by the fact that
I had not in any way resented either his actions or his language during
the days we had been together, and did not watch me as closely as he
ought to have done. He was sitting with the cocked rifle across his
knees, the muzzle to the left. My rifle was leaning against a tree near
the cooking things to his right. Managing to get near it, I whipped it
up and threw the bead on him, calling, "Hands up!" He of course put
up his hands, and then said, "Oh, come, I was only joking"; to which I
answered, "Well, I am not. Now straighten your legs and let your rifle
go to the ground." He remonstrated, saying the rifle would go off, and
I told him to let it go off. However, he straightened his legs in such
fashion that it came to the ground without a jar. I then made him move
back, and picked up the rifle. By this time he was quite sober, and
really did not seem angry, looking at me quizzically. He told me that if
I would give him back his rifle, he would call it quits and we could go