Page:Owen Wister - The Virginian.djvu/446

Rh being overcome. He was indeed like a gallant swimmer against whom both wind and tide have conspired. And in this now foreboding solitude there was only myself to throw him ropes. His strokes for safety were as bold as was the undertow that ceaselessly annulled them.

"I reckon I made a fuss in the tent?" said he, feeling his way with me.

I threw him a rope. "Yes. Nightmare—indigestion—too much newspaper before retiring."

He caught the rope. "That's correct! I had a hell of a foolish dream for a growed-up man. You'd not think it of me."

"Oh, yes, I should. I've had them after prolonged lobster and champagne."

"Ah," he murmured, "prolonged! Prolonged is what does it." He glanced behind him. "Steve came back—"

"In your lobster dream," I put in.

But he missed this rope. "Yes," he answered, with his eyes searching me. "And he handed me the paper—"

"By the way, where is that?" I asked.

"I built the fire with it. But when I took it from him it was a six-shooter I had hold of, and pointing at my breast. And then Steve spoke. 'Do you think you're fit to live?' Steve said; and I got hot at him, and I reckon I must have told him what I thought of him. You heard me, I expect?"

"Glad I didn't. Your language sometimes is—"

He laughed out. "Oh, I account for all this