“The big augers of the outfit lived in Wichita, Kansas. Their foreman,
Bibleback Hunt, and myself were returning from hunting this missing
bunch of yearlings when night overtook us, fully twenty-five miles from
camp. Then this Bull Foot stage came to mind, and we turned our horses
and rode to it. It was nearly dark when we reached it, and Bibleback
said for me to go in and make the talk. I’ll never forget that nice
little woman who met me at the door of that sod shack. I told her our
situation, and she seemed awfully gracious in granting us food and
shelter for the night. She told us we could either picket our horses or
put them in the corral and feed them hay and grain from the
stage-company’s supply. Now, old Bibleback was what you might call shy
of women, and steered clear of the house until she sent her little boy
out and asked us to come in. Well, we sat around in the room,
owly-like, and to save my soul from the wrath to come, I couldn’t think
of a word that was proper to say to the little woman, busy getting
supper. Bibleback was worse off than I was; he couldn’t do anything but
look at the pictures on the wall. What was worrying me was, had she a
husband? Or what was she doing away out there in that lonesome country?
Then a man old enough to be her grandfather put in an appearance. He
was friendly and quite talkative, and I built right up to him. And then
we had a supper that I distinctly remember yet. Well, I should say I
do—it takes a woman to get a good supper, and cheer it with her
presence, sitting at the head of the table and pouring the coffee.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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