“Seems like you done raised hell again, Win.  Standin’ around listenin’ to ribald songs, like you done, ain’t helped our case none.  Well, we better go eat it before she throws it away.  Come on, Bat, you’re included in the general gloom.  Your face looks like a last year’s circus bill, Win, with them patches of paper hangin’ to it.  Maybe that’s what riled her.  If I thought it was I’d yank ’em off an’ let them cuts bleed no matter how bad they stung, just to show her my heart’s in the right place.  But that might not suit, neither, so there you are.”

Alice sat well back from the fire as the three men poured their coffee and helped themselves to the food.

“Ain’t you goin’ to join us in this here repast?” asked Tex, with a smile.

“I have eaten, thank you.”

“You’re welcome—­like eight dollars change for a five-spot.”

In vain Endicott signalled the cowboy to keep silent.  “Shove over, Win, you’re proddin’ me in the ribs with your elbow!  Ain’t Choteau County big enough to eat in without crowdin’?  ’Tain’t as big as Tom Green County, at that, no more’n Montana is as big as Texas—­nor as good, either; not but what the rest of the United States has got somethin’ to be said in its favour, though.  But comparisons are ordorous, as the Dutchman said about the cheese.  Come on, Win, me an’ you’ll just wash up these dishes so Bat can pack ’em while we saddle up.”

A half-hour later, just as the moon topped the crest of a high ridge, the four mounted and made their way down into the valley.

“We got to go kind of easy for a few miles ’cause I shouldn’t wonder if old man Johnson had got a gang out interrin’ defunck bovines.  I’ll just scout out ahead an’ see if I can locate their camp so we can slip past without incurrin’ notoriety.”

“I should think,” said Alice, with more than a trace of acid in her tone, “that you had done quite enough scouting for one day.”

“In which case,” smiled the unabashed Texan, “I’ll delegate the duty to my trustworthy retainer an’ side-kicker, the ubiquitous an’ iniquitous Baterino St. Cecelia Julius Caesar Napoleon Lajune.  Here, Bat, fork over that pack-horse an’ take a siyou out ahead, keepin’ a lookout for posses, post holes, and grave-diggers.  It’s up to you to see that we pass down this vale of tears, unsight an’ unsung, as the poet says, or off comes your hind legs.  Amen.”

The half-breed grinned his understanding and handed over the lead-rope with a bit of homely advice.  “You no lak’ you git find, dat better you don’ talk mooch.  You ain’ got to sing no mor’, neider, or ba Goss!  A’m tak’ you down an’ stick you mout’ full of rags, lak’ I done down to Chinook dat tam’.  Dat hooch she mak’ noise ’nough for wan night, sabe?”

“That’s right, Bat.  Tombstones and oysters is plumb raucous institutions to what I’ll be from now on.”  He turned to the others with the utmost gravity.  “You folks will pardon any seemin’ reticence on my part, I hope.  But there’s times when Bat takes holt an’ runs the outfit—­an’ this is one of ’em.”