"Williams' hotel is the best in town, and I'd ask him about the horse. You might do better if you didn't say I recommended him to you."
"Not if you don't want me to," responded Tex, smiling sardonically for some inexplicable reason. "Reckon he'd eat you because yo're sendin' him trade? Don't worry; I won't say you told me."
"So far as I am concerned it don't matter. It's you I'm thinking about."
Tex stretched, crossed his legs, and smiled. "In that case I'll use my own judgment," he replied. "Been workin' for th' railroad very long?"
"Little too long, I'm afraid," answered the agent, coughing again, "but I've been out here only two months." He hesitated, looked a little self-conscious, and continued. "It's my lungs, you know. I got a transfer for my health. If I can stick it out here I have hopes of slowly improving, and perhaps of getting entirely well."
"If you can stick it out? Meanin' yo're findin' it too monotonous an' lonely?" queried Tex.
The agent laughed shortly, the look of fear again coming into his eyes. "Anything but the first; and so far as being lonely is concerned, I find that my sister is company enough."
Tex cogitated and recrossed his legs. "From what I have already seen of this town I'd gamble she is; but a man's allus a little better off if he can herd with his own sex once in a while. So it ain't monotonous? Have many trains a day?" he asked, knowing from his perusal of the time-table that there were but two.
"One in and one out. You passed the other on the siding at Willow, if you've come from beyond there."
"Reckon I remember it. Much business here to keep you busy?"