"I've been a-figuring that I must have given you and Hetty a right smart of trouble. There ain't no way of knowing it from you-all, but I kind of got the idea--"
"You make me tired," said Johnson angrily. "What's wrong with you, anyhow? You talk like an ol' woman."
"It's right queer," Shortredge continued, "ain't it?"
"Why, me and you both starting out the same way. We used to sleep under the same blankets, me and you did. And here you've got Hetty and li'l Lafe--say, Lafe, there's one kid for you. He says to me only yesterday--"
"Look out for this drop," Johnson cautioned.
"And I've got a bum heart and a bum lung. However, it's all in the game. Hey, Lafe? A feller's got to grin and face the music. That's all there is for him to do, I take it."
"What you need," his friend remarked sagely, "is a drink. But we ain't got any along. Now, take a brace and forget it, Buf'lo. Don't go talking like a quitter. Just as soon as you're a mite stouter, me and you'll go shares on that bunch of cattle we were looking over. I done had this in my mind for a long time. I need a partner--need him bad, what with ol' Horne's work coming on me more every day."
Buffalo started to say something to this, but Johnson touched Nugget with the spur and scrambled forward to the head of his men. They continued to climb. Often they would see the shooting flames; again, merely a dull glow revealed where the fire raged; and now they were mounting the sheer walls of a cañon, now dipping down the faces of cliffs. A horse rolled into a gulch and crushed his rider's leg. Johnson told off a man to look after the injured one. Another strayed from sight and sound, and bawled frantically for twenty minutes before he caught up with the party. Soon it was necessary to raise the cry of the night trail in broken country. Lafe began it.
"Here I go." He sent it weirdly behind him in a long yell.
And, "Here I go" went down the line to the last man.
Shortredge kept a firm seat and allowed the reins to swing loose. Well he knew that Scrapper was more to be trusted in this work than the guidance he or anybody else could give.
The sting of early morning was in the air, and often he shivered. Stare at the rider in front as he might, he could not shake off the impression that something kept pace at his side. Vainly he sought the silhouettes of the advance horsemen, stark against the yellow sky, when they rounded a bend. Those were real men. He counted them--nine.