"That's the mischief of it. Nobody ever knows. The darned critters just get up and hike. Some of the boys are gettin' skeery about it, and they're likely to pull their freight if it keeps up. They're tellin' ghost stories now after supper, and Andy Miller has been reelin' off the whoppin'est yarns ever you heard. Between the ghost stories and the way the cow-brutes act the boys are gettin' plumb fidgety, and I'm mighty glad you've got back." "How does Andy get on with the work? Does he _sabe_?" "Yes; he's first rate; the best we've got, except José. But Andy does have main bad luck with the cow-brutes. This makes four times they've stampeded under him." Promise of day was flushing the eastern sky and faintly warming the gray semi-darkness when Pendleton's eyes flew open, to instant conviction of illness. From head to foot he ached with weariness, and he felt wretchedly sick. For a moment he kept quiet, feeling that it would be more comfortable to lie still and die than to try to move. But presently he thought, "I'll never live to die of consumption if I don't get up quick and find my whiskey!" He scrambled to his feet and looked around. Not nearly so many men were stretched on the ground as he had expected to see, and his friend was not in sight. He looked for his saddle-bags, where he kept his flask. Conrad had taken them from the horse when they unsaddled, and Pendleton had not noticed what he did with them. He could not find the bags, everybody left in camp was sound asleep, and Curtis had disappeared. Wrapped in his blanket he was wandering around forlornly, squirming with pain, when he saw some one moving in the group of horses farther down the hill. He started in that direction and saw the man stoop beside Conrad's mare, Brown Betty. "Hello, pard! Where's Curt?" Pendleton called loudly. The man straightened up quickly, and put away a knife. He looked at the curious figure coming toward him, and burst into a loud guffaw. "Gee whillikens, stranger! where'd you drop from?" he shouted back. Pendleton explained, and asked the other to help him find his saddle-bags. They were discovered in the chuck-wagon, and the invalid offered his flask, with a cordial admonition to "drink hearty, pard." The cowboy responded literally, and made several other visits to the saddle-bags before breakfast. By that time he was good-naturedly obstreperous, and had the camp in an uproar with his horse-play and noisy pranks. Conrad asked Peters where Andy got his whiskey. The foreman did not know, and said that this was the first time he had shown any signs of drink. The superintendent went to Pendleton. "Has Andy Miller been taking a pull at your flask?" "The cow-punch that's feeling so happy? Sure, Curt. He helped me find my saddle-bags, and I thought I'd be sociable with him. I told him to drink hearty; and by thunder, Curt! you ought to have seen him. He sure had a worse thirst on him than I had yesterday."