When I got back to camp the old fellow was sitting on a tree-trunk,
very erect, with his rifle across his knees, and in response to my nod
of greeting he merely leered at me. I leaned my rifle against a tree,
walked over to where my bed was lying, and, happening to rummage in it
for something, I found the whisky flask was empty. I turned on him at
once and accused him of having drunk it, to which he merely responded by
asking what I was going to do about it. There did not seem much to do,
so I said that we would part company--we were only four or five days
from a settlement--and I would go in alone, taking one of the horses. He
responded by cocking his rifle and saying that I could go alone and be
damned to me, but I could not take any horse. I answered "all right,"
that if I could not I could not, and began to move around to get some
flour and salt pork. He was misled by my quietness and by the fact that
I had not in any way resented either his actions or his language during
the days we had been together, and did not watch me as closely as he
ought to have done. He was sitting with the cocked rifle across his
knees, the muzzle to the left. My rifle was leaning against a tree near
the cooking things to his right.
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