“Hy’re, Mink,” said several voices at once. Other men merely glanced up, their eyes expressing languid interest.
“Ye don’t want ter shoot, Mink,” said one, with a jocose manner. “Ye knowed all the chances would be sold by now. Ye hev jes’ kem ’kase ye hearn old Tobias Winkeye air out agin.”
Mink’s dark eyes seemed afire with some restless leaping light. His infectious laughter rang out. “Never s’picioned it,—so holp me Jiminy! When?”
“Ter-night. Ye keep powerful low,” with a cautionary wink.
“I reckon so,” promised Mink cordially.
A sullen remonstrance broke into these amenities.
“Waal, Jer’miah Price, I dunno ez ye hev enny call ter let all that out ter Mink Lorey.”
Pete Rood, who delivered this reproof, was not an ill-looking fellow naturally, but his black eyes wore a lowering, disaffected expression. His swarthy square-jawed face indicated a temperament which might be difficult to excite to any keen emotion, and was incapable of nice discrimination; but which promised, when once aroused, great tenacity of purpose. He wore a suit of gray jeans, loosely fitting, giving his heavy figure additional breadth. He carried his hands in his pockets, and lounged about, throwing an occasional word over his shoulder with a jerky incidental manner.
“Why not tell Mink?” exclaimed Jerry Price, a long, lank fellow, far too tall and slim for symmetry, and whose knees had a sort of premonitory crook in them, as if he were about to shut up, after the manner of a clasp-knife, into comfortable and convenient portability. His head was frankly red. His freckles stood out plainly for all they were worth; and, regarded as freckles, they were of striking value. A ragged red beard hung down on his unbleached cotton shirt. Physically, he had not a trait to commend him; but a certain subtle magnetism, that inborn fitness as a leader of men, hung upon his gestures, vibrated in his words, constrained acquiescence in his rude logic. “Ain’t Mink always been along of we-uns?” he added.
Mink dismounted slowly and hitched his mare to the limb of a dogwood tree hard by. Then, leaning upon his rifle, he drawled, “’Pears like everybody’s gittin’ sot agin me these days. I dunno who ’twar, but this very mornin’ somebody kem up on Piomingo Bald an’ shot a cow ez used ter b’long ter me.”