It had stopped blowin', but it was colder than ever, an' at last I began to take enough interest in things to want 'em to get settled one way or another. As soon as I was able to think along a straight line, the cook would give a heave to the pony an' I would give myself a jerk. The lantern shed a splash o' light on the shelf, but the jump-off looked like the mouth o' the pit, an' I jerked purty tol'able careful. At last I was out, an' if you'll believe it, my leg was only broke in two places. I thought it was broken clear off. I couldn't get back up the cliff to the trail any way we could figger, so the cook said I should roll up in the Navajos he'd brought an' he'd take the kid an' go back an' bring a couple o' the boys an' pack me in. The kid had found the blankets all right an' had rolled himself up, an' we had to shake the stuffin' out of him to rouse him again. He complained most bitter when he found he had to go back to the ranch house; but at last they got started an' it wasn't long before they had me there too, an' next day Phil McLaughlin rode over an' brought out a doctor who lined up my bones as good as new, while Jim told me about the cook. Old Monody was like a salamander for heat, an' you couldn't drag him away from the fire in the winter time; but when I didn't return he began to worry: "If the' was a man left in this outfit I reckon he'd go out an' get him," he'd say scornful. "Riders! you call yourselves riders? You're loafers an' eaters, that's what you are! I'm a cook, but if nobody else has the nerve to go an' git him, I'll go myself." Jim started to go at last, but he wouldn't let him. "You got the grit, Jim, but you ain't got the night sense yet. You stay where you are or you'd be on our hands too." Well, he steamed up an' down makin' new hot coffee an' drinkin' it by the bowl. All of a sudden he give a scream: "Oh, oh! there he goes over the cliff! Get me a pony--get me a pony, while I wrap up some coffee an' pick out some blankets!" Well, the cook was so blame wild by this time 'at they was glad to get shut of him; so they rigged him out an' he rode a bee line right to me, an' what led him you can figger out for yourselves. He was a queer cook, but after that night he was different: he acted as though he had adopted me; he petted me an' spoiled me an' you can talk all you want to about the flesh-pots of Egypt--why, that cook could fix beans eleven different ways, an' each one better'n the other. But while I was lyin' there waitin' for my leg to knit up, I kept thinkin' o' the little lass back at the Diamond Dot, an' when I got about again, I knew I was signed for a trip No'th. The cook was mighty good to me while I was backin' it; he used to deal out fussy little fixin's 'at kept the appetite an' the fever both down, an' when they wasn't no one around he used to pat out my pillers an' oncet he smoothed back my hair. He cut out his cussin' too, an' he used to line up the kid for it.