"How 'd you come to be explorin' around Gospel, anyway?"
Dirk quizzed finally. "A person'd think, short-handed as the
Muleshoe is this spring, 't you'd git all the ridin' yuh want
without prognosticatin' around aimless."
Now Bud was not a suspicious young man, and he had been no
more than mildly inquisitive about that trail. But neither
was he a fool; he caught the emphasis which Dirk had placed
on the word aimless, and his thoughts paused and took another
look at Dirk's whole conversation. There was something queer
about it, something which made Bud sheer off from his usual
unthinking assurance that things were just what they seemed.
Immediately, however, he laughed--at himself as well as at
Dirk.
"We've been feeding on sour bread and warmed-over coffee ever
since the cook disappeared and Bart put Hen in the kitchen,"
he said. "If I were you, Dirk, I wouldn't blister my hands
shovelling that grub into myself for a while. You're bilious,
old-timer. No man on earth would talk the way you've been
talking to-day unless his whole digestive apparatus were out
of order."
Dirk spat angrily at a dead sage bush. "They shore as hell
wouldn't talk the kinda talk you've been talkie' unless they
was a born fool or else huntin' trouble," he retorted
venomously.
"The doctor said I'd be that way if I lived," Bud grinned,
amiably, although his face had flushed at Dirk's tone.
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