"'Now you go after him, you jealous old sore-head,' says I. 'Go on!' I says, as he started to argue the point, 'or I'll spread your nose all the way down your spinal column!' The only time to say 'no' to me is when I'm not meaning what I say, so away goes Wind-River, and they made it up all right in no time. Well, Shadder had to pull for England to take a squint at the ancestral estates, and all of us was right here at this station to see him off--Lord! it seems as if that happened last world!--well, it took a little bit the edge off any and all drunks a ranch as an institution had ever seen before. There was old Smithy crying around, wiping his eyes on his sleeve, and explaining to a lot of Eastern folks that it wasn't Shadder's fault--gad-hook it all! He was the best, hootin', tootin' son-of-a-sea-cook that ever hit a prairie breeze, in spite of this dum foolishness. "'They can't make no "lord" of Shadder!' hollers Smithy. 'That is, not for long--he's a _man_, Shadder is--ain't cher, yer damned old gangle-legged hide-rack?' "And Shadder never lost his patience at all, though it must have been kind of trying to be made into such a holy show before the kind of people he used to be used to. All he'd say was 'Bet your life, old boy!' Well, it was right enough too, as Smithy had nursed him through small-pox one winter up in the Shoshonee country, and mighty near starved himself to death feeding Shadder out of the slim grub stock, when the boy was on the mend; still some people would have forgot that. "But did your uncle Red get under the influence of strong drink? DID he? Oh _my_! Oh MY! I wish I could make it clear to you. The vigilantes put after a horse thief once in Montana, and they landed on him in a butt-end canon, and there was all the stock with the brands on 'em as big as a patent medicine sign, as the lad hadn't had time to stop for alterations.