The day before my departure from Los Angeles was almost as terrible an
ordeal as I anticipated would be my first day's ride on Don Carlos.
And this ordeal consisted of listening to Romer's passionate appeals
and importunities to let him go on the hunt. My only defence was that
he must not be taken from school. School forsooth! He was way ahead of
his class. If he got behind he could make it up. I talked and argued.
Once he lost his temper, a rare thing with him, and said he would run
away from school, ride on a freight train to Flagstaff, steal a horse
and track me to my camp. I could not say very much in reply to this
threat, because I remembered that I had made worse to my father, and
carried it out. I had to talk sense to Romer. Often we had spoken of
a wonderful hunt in Africa some day, when he was old enough; and I
happened upon a good argument. I said: "You'll miss a year out of
school then. It won't be so very long. Don't you think you ought to
stay in school faithfully now?" So in the end I got away from him,
victorious, though not wholly happy. The truth was I wanted him to go.
My Jap cook Takahashi met me in Flagstaff. He was a very short, very
broad, very muscular little fellow with a brown, strong face, more
pleasant than usually seen in Orientals. Secretly I had made sure that
in Takahashi I had discovered a treasure, but I was careful to conceal
this conviction from R.
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