Billy grinned and rolled over on his side, his head uphill and his feet toward the fire. A couple of feet away Bridge paralleled him, and in five minutes both were breathing deeply in healthy slumber.
CHAPTER III. “FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD”
“'WE KEPT a-rambling all the time. I rustled grub, he rustled rhyme,'” quoted Billy Byrne, sitting up and stretching himself.
His companion roused and came to one elbow. The sun was topping the scant wood behind them, glinting on the surface of the little creek. A robin hopped about the sward quite close to them, and from the branch of a tree a hundred yards away came the sweet piping of a song bird. Farther off were the distance-subdued noises of an awakening farm. The lowing of cows, the crowing of a rooster, the yelping of a happy dog just released from a night of captivity.
Bridge yawned and stretched. Billy rose to his feet and shook himself.
“This is the life,” said Bridge. “Where you going?”
“To rustle grub,” replied Billy. “That's my part o' the sketch.”
The other laughed. “Go to it,” he said. “I hate it. That's the part that has come nearest making me turn respectable than any other. I hate to ask for a hand-out.”
Billy shrugged. He'd done worse things than that in his life, and off he trudged, whistling. He felt happier than he had for many a day. He never had guessed that the country in the morning could be so beautiful.