eetin' you wi' the rest o' the boys. Say,
cap, what's fetched ye out hyar?"

"You."

"Me!"

"Yes; we came to bury you."

"Yis, hoss," adds Cully, confirming the captain's statement. "We're on
the way to gie burial to your bones, not expecting to find so much flesh
on 'em. For that purpiss we've come express all the way from Peecawn
Crik. An' as I know'd you had a kindly feelin' for yur ole shootin'-
iron, I've brought that along to lay it in the grave aside o' ye."

While speaking, Cully slips out of his saddle and gives his old comrade
a true prairie embrace, at the same time handing him his gun.

Neither the words nor the weapon makes things any clearer to Walt, but
rather add to their complication. With increased astonishment he cries
out,--

"Geehorum! Am I myself, or somebody else? Is't a dream, or not?
That's my ole shootin' stick, sartin. I left it over my hoss, arter
cuttin' the poor critter's throat. Maybe you've got him too? I shedn't
now be surprised at anythin'. Come, Nat; don't stan' shilly-shallyin',
but tell me all about it. Whar did ye git the gun?"

"On Peecawn Crik. Thar we kim acrost a party o' Tenawa Kimanch, unner a
chief they call Horned Lizart, o' the whom ye've heern. He han't no
name now, seein' he's rubbed out, wi' the majority of his band. We did
that. The skrimmage tuk place on the crik, whar we foun' them camped.
It didn't last long; an' arter 'twere eended, lookin' about among thar
bodies, we foun' thar beauty o' a chief wi' this gun upon his parson,
tight clutched in the death-grup. Soon's seeing it I know'd 'twar
yourn; an' in coorse surspected ye'd had some mischance. Still, the gun
kedn't gie us any informashun o' how you'd parted wi' it. By good luck,
'mong the Injuns we'd captered a Mexikin rennygade--thet thing ye see
out thar. He war joined in Horned Lizart's lot, an' he'd been wi' 'em
some time. So we put a loose larzette roun' his thrapple, an' on the
promise o' its bein' tightened, he tolt us the hul story; how they hed
attackted an' skuttled a carryvan, an' all 'bout entoomin' you an' a
kimrade--this young fellur, I take it--who war wi' ye. Our bizness out
hyar war to look up yur bones an' gie 'em a more Christyun kind o'
beril. We were goin' for that cave, the rennygade guidin' us. He said
he ked take us a near cut up the gully through which we've just come--
arter ascendin' one o' the heads o' the Loosyvana Rod. Near cut!
Doggone it, he's bee