"The cayuses raised their ears, wondering what we was taking the saloon for, and I reckoned we would make them twenty miles in about eight hours if nothing busted and we rustled real hard. "Well, about every twenty minutes I had to get off and hoist some of his furniture aboard, it being jolted off, for the prairie wasn't paved a whole lot, and us going cross-country. Considering my back, and the fact that he kept calling me 'My man,' and Frank's grin, I wasn't in no frame of mind to lead a religion round-up when I got home and dumped Davy Crockett's war-duds overboard for Jed to rustle in. I was still sore at Jed for bringing that letter. "Davy Crockett dusted for the house and ordered Sammy Johns to oil his guns and put them together, after which he went off a-poking his nose into everything in sight, and mostly everything that wasn't in sight. When he got back to the house from his tour of inspection he found his guns just like he'd left them, and that was in their cases. Then he ambled out to me and registered his howl. "'My man,' he said, 'My man, that hired man what I told to put my guns together ain't done it!' "'Oh, he didn't?' I said, hanging on to my cuss words, for I was some surprised and couldn't say a whole lot. "'No, he hasn't, and so I've come out to report him,' he said, looking mad. "'My man!' said I, mad some myself, and looking him plumb in the eyes. 'My man, if he had I'd shore think he was off his feed or loco. He ain't no hired man, but he is a all-fired good cow-puncher, and I'm a heap scared about him not filling you full of holes, you asking him to do a thing like that! He must be real sick.' "He didn't have no come-back to that, but just looked sort of funny, and then he trotted off to put his guns together hisself. I hustled around and saw that some work was done right and then went in to supper. After it was over my present got up and handed me a gun, and I near fell over. It was a purty little Winchester, and I don't blame him a whole lot for being tickled over it, for it shore was a beauty, but it oozed out a ball about the size of a pea, and the makers would 'a' been some scared if they had known it was running around loose in a grizzly-bear country. "'I reckon that'll stop him,' he said, happy-like. "'Stop what?' I asked him. "'Why, game--bears, of course,' he said, shocked at my appalling ignorance. "'Yes,' said I, slow-like, 'I reckon Ephraim may turn around and scratch hisself, if you hits him.' "'Why, won't that stop a bear?' "'Yes, if it's a stuffed bear,' I said. "'Why, that's a blamed good rifle!' "'It shore is; it's as fine a gun as I ever laid my eyes on,' I replied, 'for prairie dogs and such.' "Then I felt plumb sorry for him, he being so ignorant, and so when he hands me a peach of a shotgun to shoot coyotes with I laid it down and got my breach-loading Sharps, .50 caliber, which I handed to him.