“‘No, no,’ replied the fellow, ’I’m all right; I’ve got a good mule yet under me.’”

CHAPTER VI

A REMINISCENT NIGHT

On the ninth morning we made our second start from the Indian Lakes.  An amusing incident occurred during the last night of our camp at these water holes.  Coyotes had been hanging around our camp for several days, and during the quiet hours of the night these scavengers of the plain had often ventured in near the wagon in search of scraps of meat or anything edible.  Rod Wheat and Ash Borrowstone had made their beds down some distance from the wagon; the coyotes as they circled round the camp came near their bed, and in sniffing about awoke Borrowstone.  There was no more danger of attack from these cowards than from field mice, but their presence annoyed Ash, and as he dared not shoot, he threw his boots at the varmints.  Imagine his chagrin the next morning to find that one boot had landed among the banked embers of the camp-fire, and was burned to a crisp.  It was looked upon as a capital joke by the outfit, as there was no telling when we would reach a store where he could secure another pair.

The new trail, after bearing to the westward for several days, turned northward, paralleling the old one, and a week later we came into the old trail over a hundred miles north of the Indian Lakes.  With the exception of one thirty-mile drive without water, no fault could be found with the new trail.  A few days after coming into the old trail, we passed Mason, a point where trail herds usually put in for supplies.  As we passed during the middle of the afternoon, the wagon and a number of the boys went into the burg.  Quince Forrest and Billy Honeyman were the only two in the outfit for whom there were any letters, with the exception of a letter from Lovell, which was common property.  Never having been over the trail before, and not even knowing that it was possible to hear from home, I wasn’t expecting any letter; but I felt a little twinge of homesickness that night when Honeyman read us certain portions of his letter, which was from his sister.  Forrest’s letter was from a sweetheart, and after reading it a few times, he burnt it, and that was all we ever knew of its contents, for he was too foxy to say anything, even if it had not been unfavorable.  Borrowstone swaggered around camp that evening in a new pair of boots, which had the Lone Star set in filigree-work in their red tops.

At our last camp at the lakes, The Rebel and I, as partners, had been shamefully beaten in a game of seven-up by Bull Durham and John Officer, and had demanded satisfaction in another trial around the fire that night.  We borrowed McCann’s lantern, and by the aid of it and the camp-fire had an abundance of light for our game.  In the absence of a table, we unrolled a bed and sat down Indian fashion over a game of cards in which all friendship ceased.