“‘It ain’t no use, Bud,’ says he.  ’I can’t find no place to eat at.  I’ve been looking for restaurant signs and smelling for ham all over the camp.  But I’m used to going hungry when I have to.  Now,’ says he, ’I’m going out and get a hack and ride down to the address on this Scudder card.  You stay here and try to hustle some grub.  But I doubt if you’ll find it.  I wish we’d brought along some cornmeal and bacon and beans.  I’ll be back when I see this Scudder, if the trail ain’t wiped out.’

“So I starts foraging for breakfast.  For the honour of old Mojada County I didn’t want to seem green to them abolitionists, so every time I turned a corner in them marble halls I went up to the first desk or counter I see and looks around for grub.  If I didn’t see what I wanted I asked for something else.  In about half an hour I had a dozen cigars, five story magazines, and seven or eight railroad time-tables in my pockets, and never a smell of coffee or bacon to point out the trail.

“Once a lady sitting at a table and playing a game kind of like pushpin told me to go into a closet that she called Number 3.  I went in and shut the door, and the blamed thing lit itself up.  I set down on a stool before a shelf and waited.  Thinks I, ’This is a private dining-room.’  But no waiter never came.  When I got to sweating good and hard, I goes out again.

“‘Did you get what you wanted?’ says she.

“‘No, ma’am,’ says I.  ‘Not a bite.’

“‘Then there’s no charge,’ says she.

“‘Thanky, ma’am,’ says I, and I takes up the trail again.

“By and by I thinks I’ll shed etiquette; and I picks up one of them boys with blue clothes and yellow buttons in front, and he leads me to what he calls the caffay breakfast room.  And the first thing I lays my eyes on when I go in is that boy that had shot Pedro Johnson.  He was setting all alone at a little table, hitting a egg with a spoon like he was afraid he’d break it.

“I takes the chair across the table from him; and he looks insulted and makes a move like he was going to get up.

“‘Keep still, son,’ says I.  ’You’re apprehended, arrested, and in charge of the Texas authorities.  Go on and hammer that egg some more if it’s the inside of it you want.  Now, what did you shoot Mr. Johnson, of Bildad, for?’

“And may I ask who you are?’ says he.

“‘You may,’ says I.  ‘Go ahead.’

“‘I suppose you’re on,’ says this kid, without batting his eyes.  ’But what are you eating?  Here, waiter!’ he calls out, raising his finger.  ’Take this gentleman’s order.

“‘A beefsteak,’ says I, ’and some fried eggs and a can of peaches and a quart of coffee will about suffice.’

“We talk awhile about the sundries of life and then he says: 

“’What are you going to do about that shooting?  I had a right to shoot that man,’ says he.  ’He called me names that I couldn’t overlook, and then he struck me.  He carried a gun, too.  What else could I do?’