“Return!  I reckon not.  Why pard, he’s dead!”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Oh, you do?  Well I thought maybe you might be getting tangled some more.  Yes, you see he’s dead again—­”

“Again?  Why, has he ever been dead before?”

“Dead before?  No!  Do you reckon a man has got as many lives as a cat?  But you bet you he’s awful dead now, poor old boy, and I wish I’d never seen this day.  I don’t want no better friend than Buck Fanshaw.  I knowed him by the back; and when I know a man and like him, I freeze to him—­you hear me.  Take him all round, pard, there never was a bullier man in the mines.  No man ever knowed Buck Fanshaw to go back on a friend.  But it’s all up, you know, it’s all up.  It ain’t no use.  They’ve scooped him.”

“Scooped him?”

“Yes—­death has.  Well, well, well, we’ve got to give him up.  Yes indeed.  It’s a kind of a hard world, after all, ain’t it?  But pard, he was a rustler!  You ought to seen him get started once.  He was a bully boy with a glass eye!  Just spit in his face and give him room according to his strength, and it was just beautiful to see him peel and go in.  He was the worst son of a thief that ever drawed breath.  Pard, he was on it!  He was on it bigger than an Injun!”

“On it?  On what?”

“On the shoot.  On the shoulder.  On the fight, you understand.  He didn’t give a continental for any body.  Beg your pardon, friend, for coming so near saying a cuss-word—­but you see I’m on an awful strain, in this palaver, on account of having to cramp down and draw everything so mild.  But we’ve got to give him up.  There ain’t any getting around that, I don’t reckon.  Now if we can get you to help plant him—­”

“Preach the funeral discourse?  Assist at the obsequies?”

“Obs’quies is good.  Yes.  That’s it—­that’s our little game.  We are going to get the thing up regardless, you know.  He was always nifty himself, and so you bet you his funeral ain’t going to be no slouch —­solid silver door-plate on his coffin, six plumes on the hearse, and a nigger on the box in a biled shirt and a plug hat—­how’s that for high?  And we’ll take care of you, pard.  We’ll fix you all right.  There’ll be a kerridge for you; and whatever you want, you just ’scape out and we’ll ’tend to it.  We’ve got a shebang fixed up for you to stand behind, in No. 1’s house, and don’t you be afraid.  Just go in and toot your horn, if you don’t sell a clam.  Put Buck through as bully as you can, pard, for anybody that knowed him will tell you that he was one of the whitest men that was ever in the mines.  You can’t draw it too strong.  He never could stand it to see things going wrong.  He’s done more to make this town quiet and peaceable than any man in it.  I’ve seen him lick four Greasers in eleven minutes, myself.  If a thing wanted regulating, he warn’t a man to go browsing around after somebody to do it, but