"Well, th' rustling is over," he remarked. "Say, that Greaser wasn't no coward. I reckoned Greasers was all yaller dogs."
"Have you known many of 'em?" asked Skinny, quietly.
"No," replied Chick. "Didn't ever see none till I came down here. Reckon there ain't many up in Montanny. But I heard lots about 'em. He was all grit! I allus reckoned they was coyotes, an' mostly scared."
"If you stay down here for long you'll meet some more that ain't cowards," Skinny replied. "I have—more'n once. A Greaser is a man, same as me an' you, an' I've known some that would look th' devil hisself in th' eye an' call him a liar."
"Gee!" exclaimed Chick, thoughtfully.
CHAPTER XXXIX
THIRST
The stars grow dim and a streak of color paints the eastern sky, sweeping through the upper reaches of the darkness and tingeing the earth's curtain until the dim gray light outlines spectral yuccas and twisted, grotesque cacti leaning in the hushed air like drunken sentries of some monstrous army. The dark carpet which stretched away on all sides begins to show its characteristics and soon develops into greasewood brush. As if curtains were drawn aside objects which a moment before were lost to sight in the darkness emerge out of the light like ghosts, bulky, indistinct, grotesque, and array themselves to complete the scene.
The silence seems to deepen and become strained, as if in fear of what is to come; the dark ground is now gray and tawny in places and the vegetation is plain to the eye. Then out of the east comes a flash and a red, coppery sun flares above the horizon, molten, quivering, blinding; the cool of the night swiftly departs and a caldron-like heat bursts upon the plain. The silence seems almost to shrink and become portentous with evil, the air is hushed, the plants stand without the movement of a leaf, and nowhere is seen any living creature. The whole is unreal, a panorama, with vegetation of wax and a painted, faded blue sky, the only movement being the shortening shadows and the rising sun.