Hope and love had, for a moment, lighted the cowboy’s eyes, but the last part of Mary’s importuning had seemed to be entirely for another, and so, as he turned away, Jerry’s heart was heavy.
Mary’s gaze, he noticed, had quickly turned from him up to the sky where a silver plane was still discernible riding toward the moon.
Dick took an arm of each girl and the crowd made a path for them.
“I like these cowmen and boys, don’t you, Dora?” Mary had climbed into the rumble with her friend. “They have such nice, kind faces and they’re so picturesque with their wide hats and colored shirts and handkerchiefs.”
Dora nodded. “There’s a boy over there on horseback. See his leather chaps are fringed and he has spurs on his boots.”
“They act as though this was some sort of a celebration, don’t they, Dick?”
The boy was leaning against the car watching the milling throng which was being augmented in numbers by newcomers riding in from the dark desert.
“What’s the big show?” A weazened, grizzly-headed man in tattered clothes had suddenly appeared at Dick’s side. He had a canvas-covered roll strapped to his back and carried a stout stick. His pinched face was starved-looking and his eyes were feverishly bright.
Dick explained what was happening and, without a word, the queer creature scuttled out of sight in the crowd.
“That poor man!” Mary exclaimed sympathetically. “What can he be?”