watchful during the day, so that if they came upon the pig he saw in his mind they could kill it promptly and replenish their bacon supply.
'Well, that's one less horse,' Long Bill commented. 'I guess one of us will have to ride a pack mule, unless the Captain intends to walk.' 'I doubt he intends to walk, we're a far piece out,' Call said, only to be confounded a few minutes later by the Captain's announcement that he intended to do just that.
'Kicking Wolf stole Hector while Hector was pissing--it was the only time he could have approached him,' Scull announced to the men.
'Famous Shoes figured it out. Took him while he was pissing. Famous Shoes thinks he might have whispered a spell into his ear, but I doubt that.' While the rangers watched he began to rake around in his saddlebags, from which he extracted his big plug of tobacco, a small book, and a box of matches wrapped in oilskin. He had a great gray coat rolled up behind his saddle, but, after a moment's thought, he left it rolled up.
'Too heavy,' he said. 'I'll be needing to travel light. I'll just dig a hole at night, bury a few coals in it, and sleep on them if it gets nippy.' Scull stuffed a coat pocket full of bullets, pulled his rifle out of its scabbard, and scanned the plain with a cheerful, excited look on his face, actions which puzzled Call and Gus in the extreme. Captain Scull seemed to be making preparations to strike out on foot, although they were far out on the llano and in the winter too. The Comanches knew where they were, Buffalo Hump and Slow Tree as well. What would induce the Captain to be making preparations for foot travel?
And what was the troop to do, while he walked?
But Scull had a cheerful grin on his bearded face.
'Opportunity, men--it knocks but once,' he said. 'I think it was Papa Franklin who said that--it's in Poor Richard, I believe.
Now, adversity and opportunity are kissing cousins, I say. My horse is missing but he's no dainty animal. He leaves a big track. I've always meant to study tracking--xs a skill I lack. Famous Shoes here is a great authority. He claims he can even track bugs. So we'll be leaving you now, gentlemen.
Famous Shoes is going to teach me tracking, while he follows my horse.' 'But Captain, what about us?' Long Bill asked, unable to suppress the question.
'Why, go home, boys, just go home,' Captain Scull said. 'Just go home-- no need for you to trail along while I'm having my instruction. Mr. Call and Mr.
McCrae, I'll make you co-commanders.
Take these fine men back to Austin and see that they are paid when you get there.' The rangers looked at one another, mightily taken aback by this development. Famous Shoes had not returned to camp. He was waiting on the plain, near where the big horse had been taken.
Captain Scull rummaged a little more in his saddlebags but found nothing more that he needed.
'I've got to pare down to essentials, men,' he said, still with his excited grin. 'A knife, some tobacco, my firearms, matches--a man ought to be able to walk from Cape Cod to California with no more than that. And if he can't he deserves to die where he drops, I say.' Call thought the man was mad. He was so impatient to be striking out alone, into the middle of nowhere, that he didn't even want to stop and give proper orders--he just wanted to leave.
S--suddenly and unexpectedly--he and Augustus had been thrown into a situation they had often discussed. They were in charge of a troop of rangers, if only for the course of a homeward journey. It was what they had long desired, and yet it had arrived too suddenly. It didn't seem right.
'So, we are just to go home?' Call said, to be sure he had it right.
'Yes, home,' Captain Scull said.
'If you encounter any rank bandits along the way, hang them. Otherwise, get on home and wait until you hear from me.' We won't hear from you, you fool, Augustus thought. But he didn't say it.
'What will we tell Mrs. Scull?' he inquired.
'Why, nothing,' Scull said. 'Inez ain't your concern, she's mine. If I were you I'd just try to avoid her.' 'Sir, she may be worried,' Call said.
The Captain stopped rummaging in his saddlebags for a moment and turned his head, as if the notion that his wife might be worried about him was a novelty he had never before considered.
'Why, no, Mr. Call,' he said. 'Inez won't be worried. She'll just be angry.' He grinned once more at the troop, waved his hand, picked up his rifle, and strode off toward Famous Shoes, who fell in with him without a ^w. The two men, both short, walked away into the empty distance.
'Well, there they go, Woodrow,' Gus said.
'We're captains now, I reckon.' 'I reckon,' Call said.
The departure of their captain was so sudden, so unexpected, and so incomprehensible to the rangers, one and all, that for a time they all stood where they were, staring at the two departing figures, who were very soon swallowed up by a dip in the prairies.
'If I wasn't awake I'd think I was asleep,' Long Bill said. 'I'd think I was having a dream.' 'Don't you be bossing me yet, Gus,' he added, a moment later. 'This might just be a dream.' 'No, it's no dream,' Call said. 'The Captain left, and he left on foot.' 'Well, the fool ought to have taken a horse, or a mule, at least,' Augustus said. His thoughts were confused, from the suddenness of it. Captain Scull was gone and now he was a captain himself, or half of one, at least.
'That's my view,' Neely Dickens said.
'If he didn't like none of the spare horses he could have taken the mule, at least. Then he'd have something to eat if there wasn't no game to be found.' 'He's with Famous Shoes,' Call reminded them. 'Famous Shoes travels all over this country and he don't starve.' 'He might find that pig before we do,' Finch Seeger remarked apprehensively. The pig he had seen in his mind, rooting behind a chaparral bush, had quickly become a reality to him. He was annoyed by the thought that Captain Scull might beat him to the pig--in his mind the pig belonged to the troop--Deets could cook it up in a tasty way.
