Late the next summer, I got a fine long letter from Horace—and blame if he didn’t succeed in surprisin’ me again. He wrote this letter from Africa, which is about the foreignest parts this world is able to exhibit, I reckon. He told about the East not findin’ favor with Promotheus, though he had done all he could for him, startin’ out with high society and endin’ up by takin’ him down one night to a sailor’s saloon and lettin’ him mix into a general fight; but that Promotheus just simply couldn’t stand the tameness, and so they had gone to Africa to hunt big game, and give the folks out our way a chance to forget there ever had been such a cuss as Badger-face.

He sent along some photographs, too, and they was as novel as a blue moon—Horace, Promotheus, and a lot o’ naked niggers totin’ packs on their heads. Horace was the funniest lookin’ mortal a body ever saw; but Promotheus had him beat a mile. They both wore bowls on their heads an’ colored glasses; but Promotheus with side-burns was sure enough to frighten a snake into convulsions! His gnawin’ teeth stuck out through a self-satisfied grin; and I was willin’ to bet that as soon as the heathen saw him, they’d give up bowin’ down to wood an’ stone.

The next time I saw Friar Tuck, he told me about receivin’ a letter from Horace who had gone to Berlin on his way to Africa, but hadn’t been able to learn anything satisfactory. The singer had been the big card at their concerts, an’ there had been some talk about her gettin’ drugged by an Austrian who belonged to the em-bassy; but she had disappeared complete, an’ nobody could be found who seemed to know anything about it. The Friar kept himself goin’ like a steam-engine these days; but while he became a little more tender if possible, he lacked something of his old-time spirits. Before this, he used to come sweepin’ along like a big cool breeze, an’ a feller’s spirits just got up an’ whirled along with him, like dry leaves dancin’ in the wind.

He said ’at since Promotheus had slipped out o’ the country, the Cross-branders hadn’t bothered Olaf any; but I called his attention to the fact that this was a wet spring, an’ told him ’at when we had a long dry spell, Ty Jones would just swallow Olaf like quicksand.

Things drifted along purty steady in our parts for several years. Once in a while, the Friar would tell me something about Olaf or something about Ty Jones; but for the most part, I was too much took up with other things to care much for even the Friar’s doin’s.

I was takin’ my own Moses-trip durin’ these years; and I say now, as I allus have said, that it wasn’t a square shake to show Moses the promised land, an’ then not let him into it for even one meal o’ milk an’ honey. I’ve handled a small bunch o’ men an’ trailed cattle with ’em for only three months at a stretch; but I don’t mind tellin’ you that the’ was times when I had to sit up till after midnight, sewin’ up the rips in my patience—an’ we didn’t have any women an’ children along either. Moses had forty years of it in the desert; with a whole blame tribe of Israelites; and yet, instead o’ praisin’ him for hangin’ on to his sanity with all the odds again’ him, he was handed a tantalizer, simply because he said he couldn’t see why somethin’ didn’t happen in a natural, orderly way, once in a while, without everlastingly ringin’ in some new kind of a miracle on him.

If I had to pilot a mob like that through a desert for forty years, follerin’ a cloud by day an’ a pillar o’ fire by night, havin’ dressed quail an’ breakfast-food tossed to me out o’ the sky, gettin’ my drinkin’ water by knockin’ it out of a rock, an’ tryin’ to satisfy the tourists that it wasn’t altogether my fault that we traveled so everlastin’ slow—I’d ’a’ been mad enough to bite all the enamel off my teeth, and yet as far as I could see, Moses didn’t do a single thing but show out a little peevish once in a while.

Still, we didn’t choose our natures nor the kind o’ life to range ’em over nor the sorts o’ temptations we’d prefer to wrastle with; an’ even our own experiences are more ’n we can understand—to say nothin’ o’ settin’ back an’ decidin’ upon the deeds of others. My own test wasn’t the one I’d ’a’ chosen; and yet, for all I know, it may ’a’ been the very best one, for me.

Little Barbie had finally grown up through childhood to the gates o’ womanhood—and as generally happens, she had found a man waitin’ for her there. Through all the years of her growin’, she had been sendin’ out tendrils which reached over an’ wound about my heart, and grew into it an’ through it, and became part of it. If it hadn’t ’a’ been for Friar Tuck, I might ’a’ married her, myself; for I could have done it, if all the men I’d had to fight had been other men—but the man I couldn’t overcome, was myself.

Through all the years I had known Friar Tuck an’ rode with him an’ worked with him an’ slept out under the stars with him, he had been quietly trainin’ me for the time when it would be my call to take my own love by the throat, for the sake of the woman I loved. It don’t weaken a man to do this; but it tears him—My God, how it does tear him!

I, my own self, brought back the man she loved to her, and gave her into his arms; and I’ve never regretted it for one single minute; but I doubt if I’ve ever forgot it for much longer ’n this either.

I did what it seemed to me I had to do—an’ the Friar thinks I did right, which counts a whole lot more with me ’n what others think. I went through my desert, I climbed my hill, for just one moment I saw into my promised land—and then I was jerked back, and not even given promotion into the next world, which Moses drew as his consolation prize. And yet, takin’ it all around, I can see where life has been mighty kind and generous to me after all, and I’m not kickin’ for a minute.

The great break in my life came in the fall, and it left ol’ Cast Steel a more changed man ’n it did me. I wanted to swing out wide—to ride and ride and ride until I forgot who I was and what had happened; but the ol’ man worked on my pity, an’ I agreed to stay on with him a spell. Durin’ the three years precedin’, I had got into the handlin’ of the ranch, more ’n he had, himself; so I spent the winter makin’ my plans, an’ goin’ over ’em with him. He came out toward spring and was more like himself; but when the first flowers blossomed on the benches, they seemed to be drawin’ their life blood out o’ my very heart. All day long I had a burnin’ in my eyes, everywhere I went I missed somethin’, until the empty hole in my breast seemed likely to drive me frantic; an’ one day I pertended to be mad about some little thing, an’ threw up my job for good and all.

The ol’ man was as decent as they ever get. He knew how I had been hit, an’ he didn’t try any foolishness. He gave me what money I wanted, told me to go and have it out with myself, an’ come back to him as soon as I could. I rode away without havin’ any aim or end in view, just rode an’ rode an’ rode with memories crowdin’ about me so thick, I couldn’t see the trail I was goin’.

Then one night I drew up along side o’ Friar Tuck’s fire, saw the steady light of his courage blazin’ out through his own sadness, the same as it had done all those years; an’ I flopped myself off my hoss, threw myself flat on the grass, an’ only God and the Friar know how many hours I lay there with his hand restin’ light on my shoulder, the little fire hummin’ curious, soothin’ words o’ comfort, and up above, the same ol’ stars shinin’ down clear and unchangin’ to point out, that no matter how the storms rage about the surface o’ the earth, it’s allus calm and right, if a feller only gets high enough.