"Let him have it," said Buck, good naturedly. "I never hankered much for beer, nohow." He passed the bottle to the Indian, not in the least suspecting what "an anchor he had cast to windward." The other two exchanged a look of regretful disapproval.
Half an hour later they had separated, Buck and Ned going on to the more distant NM ranch, Jack to gather up his fellow deputies, and the Cheyenne hitting the trail for Twin River with a thirst largely augmented by the sop he had thrown to it.
CHAPTER V
"COMIN' THIRTY" HAS NOTIONS
Up from the south, keeping Spring with him all the way, rode Tex. The stain of the smoke-grimed cities was washed out of him in the pure air; day by day his muscles toughened and limbered, his lightning nerves regained their old spontaneity of action, each special sense vied with the others in the perfection of service rendered, and gradually but surely his pulse slowed until, in another man, its infrequency of beat would have been abnormal. When he rode into Twin River, toward the end of a glorious day, he had become as tireless as the wiry pony beneath him, whose daily toll of miles since leaving the far-off Bar-20 was well nigh unbelievable.
Tex crossed the ford of the Black Jack behind the Sweet-Echo Hotel. Dirt had bespattered him from every angle; it was caked to mud on his boots, lay in broad patches along his thighs, displayed itself lavishly upon his blue flannel shirt, and had taken frequent and successful aim at his face; but two slits of sun-lit sky seemed peering out from beneath his lowered lids, the pine-tree sap bore less vitality than surged in his pulsing arteries, his lounging seat was the deceptive sloth of the panther, ready on the instant to spring; and over all, cool as the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies, ruled the calculating intelligence, unscrupulous in the determination to win, now that it was on the side of the right, as when formerly it fought against it.
One glance at the imposing Sweet-Echo and Tex turned his pony's head toward the trail. "No, no, Son John, you 'll not sleep there with your stockings on—though I shan't ask you to go much farther," Tex assured him. "I 've seen prettier, and ridden cleverer, but none more willing than you, Son John. Ah, this begins to look more like our style. 'I-Call'—sweet gamester, I prithee call some other day; I would feed, not play. 'Ike's'—thy name savors overly much of the Alkali, brother. Ha! 'By the prickling of my thumbs, something wicked that way bums.'" He had turned to cross the Jill and saw Pop Snow basking in the failing sunlight. "'Why-Not'—well, why not? I will."
"Come a long way, stranger?" asked Dirty, his gaze wandering over the tell-tale mud. He had come the wrong way for profit, but Dirty always asked, on principle: he hated to get out of practice.
Tex swung his right leg over his pony's neck and sat sideways, looking indolently at the pickled specimen who sat as indolently regarding him. "Plucked from a branch of the Mussel Shell," murmured Tex, "when Time was young"; and then drawled: "Tolerable, tolerable; been a-comin' thirty year, just about."
Dirty looked at him with frank disgust, spat carefully, and turning on his seat no more than was absolutely necessary, stuck his head in at the open door and yelled: "Hey, boys! Come on out an' meet Mr. Comin' Thirty. Comin' is some bashful 'bout drinkin' with strangers, so get acquaint."