“Right here he got off a joke.  It took some time—­I see it comin.’

“Rather dangerous play, that, Mr. Scraggs, heh?’ says he.  ’Ha, ha, ha!’

“Well, I reckon I enjoyed that joke as much as he did—­the two of us laughed for five minutes.  But, somehow, he looked so simple and innocent and foolish, my heart bucked on guyin’ him.  There wasn’t no bad pretensions about him; it was only that the old ladies had told him he was a wonder so long, he’d been more’n a man if he hadn’t come to believe it—­it’s pretty medium hard to keep to cases under them conditions.  That’s what made him cough so deep and important, and stand there with a frown on his brow, lookin’ as if he knew a heap more than he could understand.

“I side-stepped.  ‘I gather,’ says I, ‘you want to go campin’,’ and you want me to pilot you?’

“He just beamed on having the puzzle solved so simple, ’That’s it exactly,’ says he.

“‘I guessed it almost from the first,’ says I.  ’Well, we want a team and blankets and a camp kit; that’ll cost something.’

“‘It isn’t a question of cost,’ said he, pulling out a cucumber and skinnin’ much money off the top of it.  ’You take that and secure what we need.’

“‘I’ll do what’s right by you,’ says I, and meant it.  That afternoon the Rev. Percival Mervin and Mr. E. G. W. Scraggs pulled out with a team of mules for parts unknown.  I had no more idee what kind of land we were runnin’ into than Percival himself; howsomever, one country’s a great deal like another, after all.  But I gave him the history as we journeyed—­oh, sure!  Hadn’t he come out for pleasure?

“‘There,’ says I, p’inting with the whip, ’is Dooley’s Pillar, so called because a man by the name of Dooley, helped only by his widow, stood off eight ravagin’, tearin’ savages there for three weeks.’

“‘Good-ness gra-cious!’ says Percival.  ‘And did they escape?’

“‘The Injuns?  Oh, yes; they got away.’

“‘No, I mean the Dooleys.’

“’Yes, they got away, too; everybody got out all right—­only the name stayed.’

“‘I should have thought there would have been bloodshed,’ says he, astonished and a little disappointed, too, for all he was such a kind-hearted little man.

“‘It come mighty near it,’ says I; ’mighty.  The only reason there weren’t was because the Injuns couldn’t get at ’em—­don’t you notice that cliff at the bottom?’

“‘Yes.’

“’Well, that goes completely around, and it ain’t climbable, so the Injuns had to stay down.’

“‘I see,’ says he; and we rode three mile before he said:  ’But how did the Dooleys get there?’

“‘They was ketched by a tornado in Sore-toe Canon, over yonder,’ says I, ‘and blowed right to the top—­the Injuns chasin’ ’em horseback and shootin’ at ’em on the wing.’

“Percival he cleaned his glasses, looked hard at Dooley’s Pillar, and give me his honest opinion.