"'But see here, Colonel,' I says; 'I couldn't squeal on Kink. We're _pardners_. I just _had_ to give him a chance to cut. I played dumb 'cause I knew if I talked at all, being simple and guileless, you all would twist me up and have the whole thing in a jiffy. That man give me the last drop of water in his canteen on the Mojave, and him with his own tongue swelled clean out of his mouth, too. When we was snowed in, up in the Bitter Roots, with me snow-blind and starving, he crawled from Sheeps-Horn clean to Miller's--snow twelve foot deep, too, and nary a snow-shoe in miles, but he brought the outfit in to where I was lyin' 'bout gone in. He lost some fingers and more toes wallering through them mountain drifts that day, but he never laid down till he brought the boys back. "'Colonel! we've slept on the same blanket, we've et the same grub, we've made and lost together, and I had to give him a show, that's all. I'm into this here trouble now. Tell me how I'm going to get out. What would you do?' "He turns to the open window and says: 'Partners are partners! That's my horse out there at that post. If I were you I'd run like hell.' "That was the willingest horse I ever rode, and I hated to sell him, but he was tolable used up when I got across the line." THE COLONEL AND THE HORSE-THIEF Those marks on my arm? Oh! I got 'em playin' horse-thief. Yes, playin'. I wasn't a real one, you know--Well, I s'pose it was sort of a queer game. Came near bein' my last too, and if Black Hawk hadn't been the best horse in Texas the old Colonel would've killed me sure. He chased me six miles as it was--me with one arm full of his buckshot and anxious to explain, and him strainin' to get in range again and not wishin' any further particulars. That was way back in the sixties, when I was as wild a lad as ever straddled a pony. You see five of us had gone over into the Crow Nation to race horses with the Indians, and it was on the way back that the old man and the bullet holes figger in the story. At the beginnin' it was Jim Barrett's plan, and it had jest enough risk and devilment in it to suit a harum-scarum young feller like me; so we got five of the boys who had good horses, lumped together all of our money, and rode out to invade the reservation. You know how an Indian loves to run horses? Well, the Crows had a good deal of money then, and our scheme was to go over there, get up a big race, back our horses with all we had, and take down the wealth. Takin' chances? Don't you believe it. That's where the beauty of Jim's plan commenced to sort of shine through. You see, as soon as the money was up and the horses started, every Indian would be watchin' the race and yellin' at the nags, then, in the confusion, our boys was to grab the whole pot, Indian's money and ours too, and we'd make our get away across the river back into Texas.