"Just let everything go as it lays," concluded Mr. Masterson, consolingly, "and when you are out and around again, it's two for one that you and Calamity'll be like turtledoves."
Rattlesnake said he hoped so, while Cimarron shook his head.
"That's the luckiest laig you ever broke, Rattlesnake," was the mysterious remark of Cimarron as the conference adjourned.
Rattlesnake Sanders, being recovered, invited the judgment of Mr. Masterson concerning his legs.
"What I wants," explained Rattlesnake, "is an opinion at once onprejewdyced an' offishul, an' nacherally I asts Bat."
Mr. Masterson, after a most critical survey of Rattlesnake from, as he himself expressed it, "foretop of fetlock," gave his honour for it that nothing showed amiss.
"Your leg," said Mr. Masterson, "is as straight as it ever was."
"Straighter," chimed in the confident Cimarron, who stood at his elbow. "Rattlesnake's laigs, on account of bein' frequent storm-soaked about the herds an' then dried preematoorly by camp fires, was a heap warped. Now they're as par'llel as two fiddle strings. I ain't the gent to say it, seein' I set that fracture myse'f, but it's my view Rattlesnake's laigs quits winner on the deal."
These assurances gave mighty satisfaction to Rattlesnake Sanders. So much set up by them was he, that he sought a meeting with Miss Barndollar, meditating in her shell-like ear a loving word. The lady was in the Wright House kitchen, and observing her lover's approach made haste to slam and bolt the door in his adoring face. Sinking under this rebuff, Rattlesnake withdrew to the Alhambra, and became grievously drunk.
The next day, Rattlesnake Sanders again attempted converse with his obdurate sweetheart as she was coming from Mr. Wright's store. She repelled him with double scorn.
"Not bein' desirous," observed Miss Barndollar on this withering occasion, "of the attentions of no sech tarripin as you, I forbids you speakin' to me now or yereafter."
It is to be supposed that a deal of Miss Barndollar's hardness was the growth of pique. Now that the unreasonable character of her surgical demands had been demonstrated, her resentment was multiplied. Also, because of this second effort at an interview, she complained to Mr. Masterson.