f
all the good times we had had, an' how he wished I was goin' back with
him, or else he was goin' on with me. I told him all about the Diamond
Dot, an' how to get to it, an' invited him out for a visit any time he
could get away. I didn't tell him much about Barbie; but I made him
promise that if ever his Cousin found out the facts about the Creole
Belle mine, he'd let me know at once. I couldn't bring myself to
believe that Sandy Fergoson had been crazy, an' I was beginnin' to come
to the conclusion that the' must have been both a woman an' a mine
mixed up--an' that's a combination to bowl over the best of us.

Ches said he was so stuck on the West that he half believed he'd learn
to be a minin' engineer an' come out here an' live. He tried to get me
to promise to come an' visit him, but I told him that I ranged over the
same territory mostly, an' wouldn't know how to act in the East; but
that if I ever did head in that direction, I'd sure look him 'up. He
bought my ticket while I was gettin' my roll out of the wagon, an' I
couldn't make him take the money for it.

"This ain't on me," he sez, "the Camerons's payin' for this; but even
if I was, I reckon I could afford it. You've brought me my luck."

"How about it bein' your bringin' me mine?" sez I, but he wouldn't
stand for it, so I got on the train with purty close to a thousand
dollars in my clothes an' a pair of chickens in my basket. He stood on
the platform until we were out o' sight, an' then I settled back to
think things over.

People are more different than the other kinds of animals, an' yet
they're a heap alike, too. Now, me an' Ches was about as different as
they ever get, most ways, an' yet we pulled a level double-tree out in
the open. I could see the difference between my kind o' talk an' his;
but neither one of 'em was the booky kind that Mr. Cameron talked, an'
yet we had all three sat out one night watchin' the stars, an' the'
wasn't much difference in what we thought about a lot o' things; but by
the time we reached Oakland, I wasn't takin' such friendly views of
humanity.

Now, I don't mind what a feller does as long as it don't interfere with
me, an' even then, I can put up with a sight o' bother; but all the
passengers on that train, an' the train crew too, seemed to think that
it just about capped the climax to see a man o' my build totin' along a
pair o' chickens. The' wasn't anybody on that train who behaved any
better'n those chickens