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Waving aside Mizzoo's ghost, Wilfred elaborated his theory of an Indian attack, described Brick's peaceable disposition, his gentleness to Lahoma then dwelt on the friendship between himself and Brick, and the relations between himself and Brick's ward. "It all comes to this," Mizzoo declared: "if you could make me think Willock a harmless lamb and as innocent, it wouldn't change conditions.
When I returned, Johnny Black, Dick the wine agent, and a large red-faced man who looked as though he had helped to make Milwaukee famous, and who said he was from K. C., Mizzoo, were doing some close harmony that was great.
Lahoma, divining as much, urged Wilfred to hasten, assured him that she enjoyed the publicity and stirring life of the Mangum hotel and expressed confidence that should she need a friend, Mizzoo would help her through any difficulty. So Wilfred rode away with Bill, and Willock was not mentioned.
The young man was impatient, but he compelled himself to speak calmly. "As I never got around the spur of the mountain before you fellows were in full retreat, I object to being classed with the whipped curs, and you'll bear that in mind, Mizzoo. You saw the girl all right, didn't you?"
Mizzoo was so called from his habit of attributing his most emphatic aphorisms to "his aunt, Miss Sue of Missouri" a lady held by his companions to be a purely fictitious character, a convenient "Mrs. Harris" to give weight to sayings worn smooth from centuries of use. Of all the boys of the ranch, Mizzoo found Wilfred Compton most companionable.
It was no time to display a sense of the ludicrous; the young man hotly burst into passionate argument and reasonable hypothesis. "We've got civilization," Mizzoo declared doggedly, "and we aim to hold on to her, you bet! There's going to be no such doings as three corpses stretched out on the sidewalk for breakfast, not while I'm at the helm. How'd that look, if wrote up for the New York papers?
Cutting short his old friend's outburst of pleasure: "Look here, Mizzoo," said Wilfred, drawing him aside from the curious throng on the sidewalk, "have you got a warrant against Brick Willock?" Mizzoo tapped his breast. "Here!", he said; "know where he is?" Wilfred sighed with relief: "At any rate, YOU don't!" he cried. "No 'rat him! Where're you going, Bill?" "I want a horse..."
We're determined to live under the laws. This is civilization. The cattle business is dead, land is getting tied up by title-deeds, the deer's gone, and there's nothing left but civilization. And I am the er as sheriff of Greer County I am a I am the angel of civilization, you may say." Mizzoo started up, too excited to notice Wilfred's suddenly distorted face.
Mizzoo burst out in a hearty laugh. "I reckon it suits you better to take her as a little kid," he cried, his tall form shaking convulsively. "I'll never forget how you looked, Bill, when we tried to run a bluff on her daddy last month!" The other did not answer with a smile. Apparently the reminiscence pleased him less than it did the older man.
Mizzoo was one of the men whose duty it was to ride the line all night the line that the young man had guarded all day to keep Walker's cattle from drifting. "Come on, Mizz," called the young man, as the other swung upon his broncho, "I'm going back with you." The lean, leather-skinned, sandy-mustached cattleman uttered words not meet for print, but expressive of hearty pleasure.
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