"You remember Tex Ewalt, don't you? You ought to, because he said some mighty nice things about you; I was scared he'd turn yore head. Now, Tex was a wise boy; he was amazin' wise. Do you remember what he told young Slim-Shanks, that there Baxter kid, who was all tangled up with tender feelin's? Mebby you don't; but I do. Slim-Shanks, he was fair wallerin' in misery, an' actin' like a sick calf. He hung around that gal's house like a dogie 'round a water hole. She must 'a' got sick of th' sight of him. Every place she looked, there was Slim-Shanks, an' his hope-I-die look. She couldn't get away from th' big calf. Tex never missed anythin', 'specially if it was under his eyes, an' one day young Slim-Shanks got bleatin' to him, moanin' an' groanin' about his busted heart. What did Tex tell him? I'll tell you. He says, slow an' deliberate: 'Slim-Shanks, some you got to rush; others you got to pique—an' th' best way to do that, in most cases, is to let 'em think you can look at 'em, an' not see 'em. It takes nerve—an' not one man in a hundred has got th' nerve. Make 'em keep a-thinkin' of you without chasin' after 'em. Yore medicine ain't no good—you might try th' other.' Now, just because Slim-Shanks didn't have th' nerve ain't sayin' Tex was wrong. I've got to decide which way is best, an' it's tough ridin'. Now you keep right still while I wrestle this thing out," and he became so wrapped up in the problem that he paid no attention to where Pepper was going; and she took him to the vantage point on the valley's rim from whence he had looked down at the posts and their enclosed quicksands; and arriving there, she stopped. Johnny was aroused from his abstractions by a voice which brought him back in touch with his surroundings, and with a jerk.
"Good morning," said Margaret.
He looked up, hauled off his sombrero and muttered something, his face in one instant giving up his secret. Then by an act of will almost brutal in its punishment, he mastered his feelings and nodded calmly.
"Good mornin', Ma'am," he replied. "You found me off my guard; I was miles away."
"Why aren't you?" she retorted, smiling.
"Meanin'?"
"If I were a man I'd stay near my friends as long as I could."
"I did, Ma'am; but there was too many wimmin', so I drifted."
"Ah! A woman-hater; or are you trying to forget?"
"They was all married," he grinned, "that is, all that had any chance to be. They married my friends, which took down th' bars on me. I was fair game when there was any blame which should 'a' been saddled on their partners. So I drifted. You can't use a gun on a woman, you know."