A'm no lak' I seen you git hang."
"Beat it! You old reprobate!" called the Texan as he followed him up
the slope.
"How'm I goin' to git my boat back?" whined Long Bill, as the Texan
coiled his rope.
"Swim acrost. Or, maybe you'd better go 'round--it's some little
further that way, but it's safer if you can't swim. I'll leave your
guns in the boat. So long, an' be sure to remember not to furget
sometime an' pay me back that twenty."
The ride to Timber City was made almost in silence. Only once did the
Texan speak. It was when they passed a band of sheep grazing beside
the road: "They're minin' the country," he said, thoughtfully. "The
time ain't far off when we'll have to turn nester--or move on."
"Where?" asked Alice.
The cowboy shrugged, and the girl detected a note of unconscious
sadness in his tone: "I don't know. I reckon there ain't any place for
me. The whole country's about wired in."
Timber City, since abandoned to the bats and the coyotes, but then in
her glory, consisted of two stores, five saloons, a half-dozen less
reputable places of entertainment, a steepleless board church, a
schoolhouse, also of boards, a hotel, a post office, a feed stable,
fifty or more board shacks of miners, and a few flimsy buildings at the
mouths of shafts. It was nearly noon when the three drew up before the
hotel.
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