Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/44

 older of the two soldiers. "We're powerful obleeged to you fur helpin' us along this fur."

"All right, boys, you'll find yer train standin' on the side o' the track eatin' grass. Jes climb up, pull the lever and let her go."

The men's faces brightened, their lips twitched. They looked at Tom, and then at the old horse. They looked down the long dusty road stretching over hill and valley, hundreds of miles south, and then at Tom's wife and child, whispered to one another a moment, and the elder said:

"No, pardner, you've been awful good to us, but we'll get along somehow—we can't take yer hoss. It's all yer got now ter make a livin' on yer place."

"All I got?" shouted Tom, "man alive, ain't you seed my ole woman, as fat and jolly and han'some as when I married her 'leven years ago? Didn't you hear her cryin' an' shoutin' like she's crazy when I got home? Didn't you see my little gal with eyes jes like her daddy's? Don't you see my cabin standin' as purty as a ripe peach in the middle of the orchard when hundreds of fine houses are lyin' in ashes? Ain't I got ten acres of land? Ain't I got God Almighty above me and all around me, the same God that watched over me on the battlefields? All I got? That old stack o' bones that looks like er hoss? Well I reckon not!"

"Pardner, it ain't right," grumbled the soldier, with more of cheerful thanks than protest in his voice.

"Oh! Get off you fools," said Tom good-naturedly, "ain't it my hoss? Can't I do what I please with him?"

So with hearty hand-shakes they parted, the two astride the old horse's back. One had lost his right leg, the other his left, and this gave them a good leg on each side to hold the cargo straight.