Bud drew a half dollar from his pocket and regarded it
meditatively. "They're going fast--we'll just naturally have
to stop pretty soon, or we don't eat," He observed. "Smoke,
you're a quitter. What you want to do is go back--but you
won't get the chance. Heads, we take the right hand trail. I
like it better, anyway--it angles more to the north."
Heads it was, and Bud leaned from the saddle and recovered
the coin, Smoky turning his head to regard his rider
tolerantly. "Right hand goes--and we camp at the first good
water and grass. I can grain the three of you once more
before we hit a town, and that goes for me, too. G'wan,
Smoke, and don't act so mournful."
Smoky went on, following the trail that wound in and out
around the butte, hugging close its sheer sides to avoid a
fifty-foot drop into the creek below. It was new country--Bud
had never so much as seen a map of it to give him a clue to
what was coming. The last turn of the deep-rutted, sandy road
where it left the river's bank and led straight between two
humpy shoulders of rock to the foot of a platter-shaped
valley brought him to a halt again in sheer astonishment.
From behind a low hill still farther to the right, where the
road forked again, a bluish haze of smoke indicated that
there was a town of some sort, perhaps.
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