“Yes,” Manzanita replied. “And goodness knows they all but cover the desert! Did you ever see so many wagons and horses and mules and things?”
“By the way, Crip,” said Squawtooth to one of the vaqueros, “you want to have Ed kill a couple o’ steers and get ’em down to Mr. Mangan by to-night. I don’t know how often he’ll want beef after that, and I guess he don’t know himself just yet. But find out if you can when you deliver this, and try and not disappoint ’em.”
Manzanita winked at Mart. “That’s right, Pa Squawtooth,” she cut in. “Take care of ’em the best you know how. We don’t have such close neighbors often. Muy bueno!”
Squawtooth gravely stroked his long beard and eyed his beloved daughter speculatively.
“Still sore about us havin’ a railroad?” he asked.
“Us? That’s about right, Pa Squawtooth! Oh, I don’t know. I guess not. Mart says he and I are going to have lots of fun at the camps.”
“Oh, is that so! Well, Mr. Mart will be foggin’ it for Piñon when he’s had what fun his dad thinks is good for him. There’s drift fence needs buildin’ up there, ain’t they, Limpy?”
Limpy could not answer immediately, for Mrs. Ehrhart’s biscuits were large, and Limpy was of that school of epicureans who hold that half a biscuit constitutes a bite, regardless of the biscuit’s over-all dimensions. But he could nod—and did so, glancing guiltily at Manzanita, for he knew she was not of his school. Anyway, her little mouth, which always looked as if she had just kissed that brilliant desert flower called Indian paint brush, would have excluded her from the half-a-biscuit-at-a-bite cult.
“I don’t like to build drift fence, pa,” Mart told his father. “Can’t I go on herd when I go back, and let some one that likes to build drift fence do it?”
By this time Limpy had proved the efficacy of his school, and was able to remark: