h, the pup didn't. First I knew, I got to missin' a right
smart o' sleep that really belonged to me; 'cause, while I'm opposed to
speakin' ill o' the absent, I'd just about as soon try to sleep with a
colicky hoss as with Bill an' the pup. When the pup wasn't chasin'
imaginary jack-rabbits or live fleas, Bill was jumpin' up an' down to
write somethin' new into his book; until Kid Porter swore that if any
more came, he was goin' to leave.

I like a dog the full limit, but I never hankered to sleep with 'em,
not when they have fleas; an' when they don't, they allus put me in
mind of a man 'at uses perfumery. I tried to devise a plan for sleepin'
on the floor, but I couldn't engineer it through.

"No," sez Bill, in a hurt kind of a tone, "I wouldn't inconvenience you
for the world. Me an' Cupid will sleep on the floor." Well, there I
was. I'm as tender-hearted as a baby antelope, so I just turned it off
as a joke, an' got to sleepin' in the saddle on the return trip.

Nothin' on earth made Bill so mad as to call the pup a bulldog, though
if he wasn't one, he sure looked the part. I knowed it wouldn't do to
take too many chances, so me an' the Kid used to post the boys, an'
when one of 'em would drop in an' say as natural as though he was
chattin' about the weather: "That's a mighty fine London, brindle,
bull-terrier you-uns have got," Bill's face would light up as if he was
the mother of it, an' he would turn in an' preach us a sermon on dogs.
That was why you liked Bill; he was just the same all the way through
an' if he was friendly when it paid, you was certain sure he'd be just
as friendly when it cost.

Colonel Scott's niece came out to visit him some time in May, an' we
heard of her long before we saw her. 'Bout every one we met had
somethin' to tell about what a really, truly heart-buster she was. She
learned to ride, an' one afternoon she an' the Colonel struck our
outfit just in front of a howlin' storm.

The' wasn't no show to get back to headquarters that night, so we
smoothed out the wide bunk for the lady, an' us men planned to flop in
the shed. She sure had dandy manners! She pitched in an' helped us get
supper, an' we had about everything to eat that a man could think
of--side meat an' boiled beans an' ham an' corn-bread an' baked beans
an' flapjacks an' fried potatoes an' bean soup, an' coffee so stout
that you couldn't see the bottom in a teaspoonful of it. We just turned
ourselves loose an' gave her