“There,” he said, as Creede blinked at the heap, “I reckon that’s mail enough for both of us. You can read the advertisements and I’ll see what the judge has to say for himself. Pitch in, now.” He waved his hand towards a lot of business envelopes, but Creede shook his head and continued to smoke dreamily.
“Nope,” he said briefly, “don’t interest me.”
He reached out and thumbed the letters over dumbly, spelling out a long word here and there or scrutinizing some obscure handwriting curiously, as if it were Chinese, or an Indian sign on a rock. Then, shoving back his chair, he watched Hardy’s face as he skimmed rapidly through the first letter.
“Good news in the first part of it and bad in the last,” he remarked, as Hardy put it down.
“That’s right,” admitted Hardy, “but how’d you know?”
He gazed up at his complacent partner with a look of innocent wonder, and Creede laughed.
“W’y, hell boy,” he said, “I can read you like a book. Your face tells the whole story as you go along. After you’ve been down here in Arizona a few seasons and got them big eyes of yourn squinched down a little––well, I may have to ast you a few questions, then.”
He waved his hand in a large gesture and blew out a cloud of smoke, while a twinkle of amusement crept into Hardy’s unsquinched eyes.
“Maybe I’m smoother than I look,” he suggested dryly. “You big, fat fellows get so self-satisfied sometimes that you let lots of things go by you.”