“Milk. He wants to get fat, like a traveling man he saw in Opaco once. And when we have boiled beef he eats the marrow, too. Now he goes to your camp and makes Lardo the Cook let him dig the marrow out of the beef bones, because you folks have lots of it. But he’ll never get fat—he eats too much squawtooth for his kidneys. It counteracts the milk and marrow.”
A man who thinks it his duty to be serious and cannot is a pitiable sight. Hunter Mangan was such.
“So Mart doesn’t drink intoxicants?”
“That little podhead? I should say not! He likes red pop too well, like I do. We both tasted beer once. Pa Squawtooth gave it to us. No more for us—squawtooth is bitter enough. Come on, now—there’s another bush. Try it once!”
“No, I’m no fancy rider. Something would crack if I were to lean very far from the saddle. So you didn’t play roulette?”
“No—we backed out. Mart’s going to make a roulette wheel out of an old wheelbarrow wheel we’ve got. He says he can make a wheel of fortune out of it, anyway. Did you ever buck a wheel of fortune, Hunt?”
“I’m not on the confessional carpet to-day,” he replied evasively. “I guess I’ve been as big a sucker as the next man in my time, though. Where do you get such weird ideas, Manzanita?”
“Quién sabe!” She shrugged. “Hearing the boys talk around cow camps, I guess. I’m going to be a moving picture actress. I can ride and shoot, and I’m pretty. How about that last?”
“You are,” he assured her fervently.
“Well, that’s what I want to be. Mart’s going to be my manager. We were going to run away several times, but something always prevented us. In the pictures cowgirls go into saloons and buck the games and all. I’m a cowgirl; but this country’s always been so tame. Do you think I have the screen face?”