you thinks you'd know it.'

"'No,' says Pickles, mighty onconcerned, 'it can't be my oncle
nohow. If he's one of my fam'ly, it would be your ha'r on his
bridle. It must be some old shorthorn of a Mohave you downs. Let's
all take a drink on it.'

"So we-all goes weavin' over to the Red Light, Jack an' Pickles
surveyin' each other close an' interested, that a-way, an' the rest
of us on the quee vee, to go swarmin' out of range if they takes to
shootin'.

"'It's shore sad to part with friends,' says Pickles, as he secretes
his nose-paint, 'but jest the same I must saddle an' stampede out of
yere. I wants to see that old villyun, Tom Cooke, an' I don't reckon
none I'll find him any this side of Prescott, neither. Be you
thinkin' of leavin' camp yourse'f, Jack?'

"'I don't put it up I'll leave for a long time,' says Jack. 'Mebby
not for a month--mebby it's even years before I go wanderin' off--so
don't go to makin' no friendly, quiet waits for me nowhere along the
route, Pickles, 'cause you'd most likely run out of water or chuck
or something before ever I trails up.'

"It ain't long when Pickles saddles up an' comes chargin' 'round on
his little buckskin hoss. Pickles takes to cuttin' all manner of
tricks, reachin' for things on the ground, snatchin' off Mexicans'
hats, an' jumpin' his pony over wagon tongues an' camp fixin's. All
the time he's whoopin' an' yellin' an' carryin' on, an havin' a high
time all by himse'f. Which you can see he's gettin' up his blood an'