"Winthrop!" she cried, for the first time recognizing him. "Where in
the world did you get those clothes, and what is the matter with your
face?"
Endicott grinned: "I shaved myself for the first time."
"What did you do it with, some barbed wire?"
"Looks like somethin' that was left out in the rain an' had started to
peel," ventured the irrepressible Tex.
Alice ignored him completely. "But the clothes? Where did you get
them?"
Endicott nodded toward the Texan. "He loaned them to me!"
"But--surely they would never fit him."
"Didn't know it was necessary they should," drawled Tex, and having
succeeded in building the fire, moved off to help Bat who was busying
himself with the horses.
"Where has he been?" asked the girl as the voice of the Texan came from
beyond the trees:
"It happened in Jacksboro in the spring of seventy-three,
A man by the name of Crego come steppin' up to me,
Sayin', 'How do you do, young fellow, an' how would you like to go
An' spend one summer pleasantly, on the range of the buffalo-o-o?'"
"I'm sure I don't know. He came back an hour or so ago and woke me up
and gave me this outfit and told me my whiskers looked like the
infernal regions and that I had better shave--even offered to shave me,
himself."
"But he has been drinking.
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