“I’ll have to drink what the rest drink, I suppose.”
“I ’laow the Injuns are like to get us. They’re powerful bad in that thar desert. Ain’t afeared o’ Injuns, be yu?”
“I’ll have to take my chances on that, too, won’t I?”
“They sculped a whole passel o’ surveyors, month ago,” he persisted. “Yu’ll sing a different tyune arter yu’ve been corralled with nothin’ to drink.” He viciously snapped his whip, the while inspecting me as if seeking for other joints in my armor. “Yu aim to stay long in Zion?”
“I haven’t planned anything about that.” 166
“Reckon yu’re wise, Mister. We don’t think much o’ Gentiles, yonder. We don’t want ’em, nohaow. They’d all better git aout. The Saints settled that country an’ it’s ourn.”
“If you’re a sample, you’re welcome to live there,” I retorted. “I think I’d prefer some place else.”
“Haow?” he bleated. “Thar ain’t no place as good. All the rest the world has sold itself to the devil.”
“How much of the world have you seen?” I asked.
“I’ve seen a heap. I’ve been as fur east as Cheyenne—I’ve teamed acrost twice, so I know. An’ I know what the elders say; they come from the East an’ some of ’em have been as fur as England. Yu can’t fool me none with yore Gentile lies.”