"That there lady a-sleepin' into the nuptool hammick! You wished her onto
me--yaas you did! Whatnhel have I done to you, hey?"

We were dumb. He shoved his hand into his pocket, produced a slug of
twist, slowly gnawed off a portion, and buried the remains in his vast
jaw.

"All I done to you," he said, "was to write you them letters sayin's as
how I found a lot of ellerphants into the mud.

"What you done to me was to send that there lady here. Was that
gratitood? Man to man I ask you?"

A loud snore from the hammock startled us all. James Skaw twisted his
neck turkey-like, and looked warily at the hammock, then turning toward
me:

"Aw," he said, "she don't never wake up till I have breakfast ready."

"James Skaw," I said, "tell me what has happened. On my word of honor I
don't know."

He regarded me with lack-lustre eyes.

"I was a-settin' onto a bowlder," said he, "a-fig-urin' out whether you
was a-comin' or not, when that there lady rides up with her led-mule a
trailin'.

"Sez she: 'Are you James Skaw?'

"Yes, marm,' sez I, kinder scared an' puzzled.

"'Where is them ellerphants?' sez she, reachin' down from her saddle an'
takin' me by the shirt collar, an' beatin' me with her umbrella.

"Sez I, 'I have wrote to a certain gent that I would show him them
ellerphants for a price. Bein' strictly hones' I can't show 'em to no one
else until I hear from him.'

"With that she continood to argoo the case with her umbrella, never
lettin' go of my shirt collar. Sir, she argood until dinner time, an'
then she resoomed the debate until I fell asleep. The last I knowed she
was still conversin'.

"An' so it went next day, all day long, an' the next day. I couldn't
stand it no longer so I started for Fort Carcajau. But she bein' onto a
mule, run me down easy, an' kep' beside me conversin' volooble.

"Sir, do you know what it is to listen to umbrella argooment every day,
all day long, from sun-up to night-fall? An' then some more?

"I was loony, I tell you, when we met the mission priest. 'Marry me,' sez
she, 'or I'll talk you to death!' I didn't realise what she was sayin'
an' what I answered. But them words I uttered done the job, it seems.

"We camped there an' slep' for two days without wakin.' When I waked up
I was convalescent.

"She was good to me. She made soup an' she wrapped blankets onto me an'
she didn't talk no more until I was well enough to endoor it.

"An' by'm'by she brooke the nooze to m