And nothing else
matters--it was sublime."
"Curious--that thing happened to me once before,"
commented Thorpe, with ruminating slowness. "It was
out on the plains, years ago, and I was in pretty
hard luck, and was making my way alone from Tucson north,
and some cowboys held me up, and were going to make
kindling wood of me, they being under the impression
that I was a horse-thief they were looking after.
There was five or six minutes there when my life wasn't
worth a last year's bird's-nest--and I tell you, sir, I was
the scaredest man that ever drew the breath of life.
And then something happened to be said that put
the matter right--they saw I was the wrong man--and
then--why then they couldn't be polite enough to me.
They half emptied their flasks down my throat, and they
rode with me all the way to the next town, and there they
wanted to buy everything liquid in the place for me.
But what I was speaking of--do you know, those fellows
got a tremendous notion of my nerve. It wasn't so much
that they told me so, but they told others about it.
They really thought I was game to the core--when in reality,
as I tell you, I was in the deadliest funk you ever
heard of"
"That's just it," said Plowden, "the part of you which was
engaged in making mental notes of the occasion thought you
were frightened; we will say that it was itself frightened.
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