He laughed awkwardly and rolled a cigarette.
“Got a match?” he demanded austerely. “Um, much obliged––be kinder handy to have you along now.” He knit his brows fiercely as he fired up, regarding Hardy with a furtive grin.
“Say,” he said abruptly, “I’ve got to make friends with you some way. You eat, don’t you? All right then, you come along with me over to the Chink’s. I’m going to treat you to somethin’, if it’s only ham ’n’ eggs.”
They dined largely at Charley’s and then drifted out to the feed corral. Creede threw down some hay to a ponderous iron-scarred roan, more like a war horse than a cow pony, and when he came back he found Hardy doing as much for a clean-limbed sorrel, over by the gate.
“Yourn?” he inquired, surveying it with the keen concentrated gaze which stamps every point on a cowboy’s memory for life.
“Sure,” returned Hardy, patting his pony carefully upon the shoulder.
“Kinder high-headed, ain’t he?” ventured Creede, as the sorrel rolled his eyes and snorted.
“That’s right,” assented Hardy, “he’s only been broke about a month. I got him over in the Sulphur Springs Valley.”
“I knowed it,” said the cowboy sagely, “one of them wire-grass horses––an’ I bet he can travel, too. Did you ride him all the way here?”