"I must hurry," I answered. "I'm late with the mail."
"These homesteaders are always in a rush. Shore amusin'. Act like the flood would be here tomorrow and no ark built." He spoke in a soft, southern drawl.
"They have to do more than build an ark," I told him. "They have to make time count. The country is too new to accomplish anything easily."
"Too old, you mean. These plains have been hyar too long for a little herd of humans to make 'em over in a day."
"We have fourteen months to do it in," I reminded him, referring to the revised proving-up period.
"You'll be mighty sore and stiff for a few days," he said as he laid the mail sack down on the floor; "sorry, miss, I scared your horse," and touching his ten-gallon hat he was gone.
"Where did he hail from?" Ma Wagor demanded from the store where she had been watching.
"He's not from Blue Springs, Ma."
"I declare you are as tormentin' as an Indian when it comes to finding out things," Ma exclaimed in disappointment. She couldn't understand how I could have ridden any distance with the man without learning all about his present, guessing at his past, and disposing of his future to suit myself. People, as Ma frequently pointed out, were made to be talked to.
Just before sunset one day a week or so later I was sitting in the shop when the cowboy walked in. "Got to thinkin' you might be hurt worse than you appeared to be." He said he was top hand, had charge of a roundup outfit over in the White River country some fifty miles away, and some of the stock had roamed over on the reservation. Name was Lone Star—Lone Star Len.