I came home _after dark_, and left again _before daylight_, and that was the last I saw of my native village for some time.
"You don't let on yer much of a fighter ?" asked the great scout, as he saw me hunt all over six pockets and blush like a girl when the conductor came for our tickets, and finally hand him a postal-card instead of the bit of pasteboard he was impatiently waiting to punch.
"Oh, I guess I'll fight like a rat when it comes to that," I answered.
"I'm brave as a lion--only I'm bashful." "Great tomahawks! is that yer disease ?" groaned Bill.
"Yes, that's my trouble," I said, quite confidentially, for somehow I seemed to get on with the brave hunter more easily than with the starched minions of society.

"I'm bashful, and I'm tired of civilized life.

I'm always putting my foot in it when I'm trying the hardest to keep it out.

Besides, I'm in love, and the girl I want don't want me.
It's either deliberate suicide or death on the plains with me." "Precisely.

I understand.