Among traits less agreeable, Boise Bill had a strong sense of humour, albeit of a somewhat ghoulish brand, usually. As he rode back to report to Canby, the ludicrous side of the encounter grew on him until it outweighed the chagrin he first had felt at getting the worst of it.
Thinking of Wallie in his "dude" clothes, his face pale and his eyes gleaming, swinging the frying-pan in his rage at the loss of his supper, when a more experienced man would have thrown up his hands promptly, Boise Bill slapped his leg and rocked in the saddle as he chuckled: "That's the closest queak I ever had; he might a trembled his gun off and killed me!"
To Canby he declared with a face that was unsmiling and solemn: "I 'low I got my share of nerve when it comes to a show-down, and I ain' no skim-milk runt, neither, but that nester--he's a giant--and hos-tile as they make 'em! He had me lookin' at my hole card from the outset."
"Are you afraid of him?" Canby demanded, incredulously.
"I wouldn't say I'm actually afraid of him, but I got an old mother in southern Idyho that's dependin' on me and I can't afford to take chances."
"I'll go myself," said Canby, curtly.
"Don't let him git the drop on you," Boise Bill warned him. "I never see anybody so quick as he is. He had out his weepon and was over the fire at me before I knew what was happenin'," with conviction. "He gets 'ringy'--that feller."
Canby's cold gray eyes glittered, though he said nothing of his intentions.
* * * * * Pinkey put up Wallie's silk tent and staked it, showed him how to hobble and picket his horse and to make baking-powder biscuit, and left him.
"It'll be lonesome at first, and the work'll come hard on you, but you'll be jest as happy as if you was in your right mind, onct you git used to it," he assured Wallie.
"The work doesn't bother me, but I imagine it will be lonesome."
"You ought to git some kind of an animal and tame it," Pinkey suggested. "I mind one winter when I 'bached' I tamed and halter-broke two chipmunks so I could lead 'em anywhur. You wouldn't believe what company they was for me."
Wallie agreed that it was an idea, but he was privately of the opinion that there would be a limit to the pleasure which the company of chipmunks, however accomplished, could afford him.
"If only I had a congenial neighbour," he sighed, "it would make a great difference."
"There's Canby--you might call on him," Pinkey suggested, grinning. "Or if you ketch yourself pickin' at the bed-clothes you can saddle up and scamper over and see me. 'Tain't fur--forty miles across the mounting. Jest below that notch--you can't miss it."