Mr. Dawson stooped and blew into Mr. Tunstall's right ear. Mr.
Tunstall began to snore gently. Growing irritated by this continued
indifference on the part of Mr. Tunstall, Mr. Dawson seized the chair
by rung and back and incontinently dumped Mr. Tunstall all abroad on
the saloon floor.
Mr. Tunstall promptly hitched himself into a corner and drifted deeper
into slumber.
Mr. Dawson turned a perplexed face on the bartender.
"Now what you gonna do with a feller like that?" Mr. Dawson asked,
plaintively.
Mr. Jack Richie, manager of the Cross-in-a-box ranch, entering at the
moment, temporarily diverted Mr. Dawson's attention. For Mr. Dawson
had once ridden for the Cross-in-a-box outfit. Hence he was moved
literally to fall upon the neck of Mr. Richie.
"Lean on yore own breakfast," urged Mr. Richie, studiously dissembling
his joy at sight of his old friend, and carefully steering Mr. Dawson
against the bar. "Here, I know what you need. Drink hearty, Racey."
"'S'on me," declared Mr. Dawson. "Everythin's on me. I gug-got money,
I have, and I aim to spend it free an' plenty, 'cause there's more
where I'm goin'. An' I ain't gonna earn it punchin' cows, neither."
"Don't do anything rash," Mr. Richie advised, and took advantage of a
friend's privilege to be insulting. "I helped lynch a road-agent only
last month."
"Which the huh-holdup business is too easy for a live man," opined Mr.
Dawson. "We want somethin' mum-more diff-diff-diff'cult, me an' Swing
do, so we're goin' to Arizona where the gold grows. No more wrastlin'
cows. No more hard work for us. _We're_ gonna get rich quick, we are.
What you laughin' at?"
"I never laugh," denied Mr. Richie. "When yo're stakin' out claims
don't forget me."
"We won't," averred Mr. Dawson, solemnly. "Le's have another."
They had another--several others.
The upshot was that when Mr. Richie (who was the lucky possessor of
a head that liquor did not easily affect) departed homeward at four
P.M., he left behind him a sadly plastered Mr. Dawson.
Mr. Tunstall, of course, was still sleeping deeply and noisily.
But Mr. Dawson had long since lost interest in Mr. Tunstall. It is
doubtful whether he remembered that Mr. Tunstall existed. The two
had begun their party immediately after breakfast. Mr. Tunstall had
succumbed early, but Mr. Dawson had not once halted his efforts to
make the celebration a huge success. So it is not a subject for
surprise that Mr. Dawson, some thirty minutes after bidding Mr. Richie
an affectionate farewell, should stagger out into the street and ride
away on the horse of someone else.
The ensuing hours of the evening and the night were a merciful blank
to Mr. Dawson. His first conscious thought was when he awoke at dawn
on a side-hill, a sharp rock prodding him in the small of the back and
the bridle-reins of his dozing horse wound round one arm. Only it was
not his horse. His horse was a red roan. This horse was a bay. It
wasn't his saddle, either.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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