Chapter XXI. How Bill Hit the Trail - Page 2

"Good stuff, eh?"

"Ain't he a daisy?"

"Daisy! He's a whole sunflower patch!"

"Yes," drawled Bill, highly appreciating their marks of approval. "That's what I call a partickler fine character of a man. There ain't no manner of insecks on to him."

"You bet!" said Hi.

"I say," broke in one of the boys, who was just emerging from the tenderfoot stage, "o' course that's in the Bible, ain't it?"

The Pilot assented.

"Well, how do you know it's true?"

The Pilot was proceeding to elaborate his argument when Bill cut in somewhat more abruptly than was his wont.

"Look here, young feller!" Bill's voice was in the tone of command. The man looked as he was bid. "How do you know anything's true? How do you know The Pilot here's true when he speaks? Can't you tell by the feel? You know by the sound of his voice, don't you?" Bill paused and the young fellow agreed readily.

"Well how do you know a blanked son of a she jackass when you see him?" Again Bill paused. There was no reply.

"Well," said Bill, resuming his deliberate drawl. "I'll give you the information without extra charge. It's by the sound he makes when he opens his blanked jaw."

"But," went on the young skeptic, nettled at the laugh that went round, "that don't prove anything. You know," turning to The Pilot, "that there are heaps of people who don't believe the Bible."

The Pilot nodded.

"Some of the smartest, best-educated men are agnostics," proceeded the young man, warming to his theme, and failing to notice the stiffening of Bill's lank figure. "I don't know but what I am one myself."

"That so?" said Bill, with sudden interest.

"I guess so," was the modest reply.

"Got it bad?" went on Bill, with a note of anxiety in his tone.

But the young man turned to The Pilot and tried to open a fresh argument.

"Whatever he's got," said Bill to the others, in a mild voice, "it's spoilin' his manners."

"Yes," went on Bill, meditatively, after the slight laugh had died, "it's ruinin' to the judgment. He don't seem to know when he interferes with the game. Pity, too."

Still the argument went on.

"Seems as if he ought to take somethin'," said Bill, in a voice suspiciously mild. "What would you suggest?"

"A walk, mebbe!" said Hi, in delighted expectation.

"I hold the opinion that you have mentioned an uncommonly vallable remedy, better'n Pain Killer almost."

Bill rose languidly.

"I say," he drawled, tapping the young