"Pounds his ear [sleeps] like a baby, don't he?" and he passed his hand delicately over the boy's brow.
"Now, Cig," he continued, returning to his seat, "I want--you--to--take--this--kid--back--to--the--Horn. That's where he lives. What d' you say?"
There was only one thing I could say. A few months more at the outside and Red would be gone, and it was probably the last favor I could do him in payment for the many kindnesses he had shown me in the early days.
"If en'thing happens to 'im, Cig, w'y, it's got to happen, I s'pose; but he's so dead stuck on seein' his ma that I guess he'll be purty foxy. I'd take 'im myself, but I'm 'fraid I can't pull through. It's a tough trip 'tween here 'n' Omaha, 'n' I guess he'll be safer with you. I hate to let 'im go at all, but the devil of it is I ain't got the nerve to hang on to 'im. You see, I'm goin' to croak 'fore long--oh, you don't need to snicker; 't's a fact. A few more months 'n' there'll be one less hobo lookin' fer set-downs. Yes, Cig, that's straight. But that ain't the only reason I'm sendin' the kid home. I oughter sent 'im home 'bout a year ago, 'n' I said I would, too, 'f I found 'im. I lied, didn't I? Ye-es, sir; 'bout twelve months ago I told his mother I'd fetch 'im back 'f I collared 'im. How's that fer a ghost-story, eh? Wouldn't the blokes laugh, though, if they'd hear it? Denver Red takin' a kid home! Sounds funny, don't it? But that's jus' what I said I'd do, 'n' I wasn't drunk, nuther. Fill up yer schooner, Cig, 'n' I'll tell you 'bout it."
He braced himself against the wall, hugged his knees, and told me what follows.
"You know where the Horn is right 'nough, don't you? Well, 'bout a year 'n' a half ago I got ditched there one night in a little town not far from the main line. 'T was rainin' like the devil, 'n' I couldn't find an empty anywheres. Then I tried the barns, but ev'ry one of 'em was locked tighter 'n a penitentiary. That made me horstile, 'n' I went into the main street 'n' tackled a bloke fer a quarter. He wouldn't give me none, but 'e told me 'f I wanted a lodgin' that a woman called College Jane 'u'd take me in. Says he: 'Go up this street till you strike the academy; then cross the field, 'n' purty soon you'll find a little row o' brown houses, 'n' in No. 3 is where Jane lives. You can't miss the house, 'cause there's a queer sign hangin' over the front door, with a ball o' yarn 'n' a big needle painted on it. She does mendin'. I guess she'll take you in. She always does, anyhow.' Course I didn't know whether he was lyin' or not,--you can never trust them hoosiers,--but I went up jus' the same, 'n' purty soon, sure 'nough, I struck the house. I knocked, 'n' in a minnit I heerd some one sayin', 'Is that you, Jamie?' Course that wasn't my name, but I thought like lightnin', 'n' made up my mind that 't was my name in the rain, anyhow. So I says, in a kid's voice, 'Yes, it's Jamie.' The door opened, 'n' there was one o' the peartest little women y' ever see.