"Oh, dang it, I'm tired!" continued the bird.
"This," remarked Dan Anderson, "seems to be a cultivated gentleman. But how about the twins? Where are they? And might we—er—ask whose are they?"
"Them?" said Tom. "Why, they're for Curly. They're asleep down under the seat here. Now, between the parrot and them twins, my trip down ain't been any lonesome to speak of."
All eyes were turned on Curly, the newly wedded cow puncher, who blushed a bright brick red to the roots of his hair. "Wh—where did they come from?" stammered he.
"I presume, Curly," said Dan Anderson, gravely, "like enough they came from somewhere over on the Brazos, your earlier home. Why didn't you tell us you were a married man?"
"I ain't—I never was!" cried Curly, hotly. "I never did have no twins nowhere. Where'd you git 'em, Tom?"
The freighter threw his leg across the seat. "Oh, they're yours all right, I reckon, Curly," said he. "Mother's dead. No relations. They come from Kansas, where all the twins comes from. I found 'em waitin' up there in Vegas, billed through to you. Both dead broke, both plumb happy, and airy one of 'em worth its weight in gold. Its name is Susabella and Aryann, or somethin' like that. Shall I wake it up? It's both alike."
"Now, why, my woman's folks," began Curly, "up there in Kansas—I reckon maybe that's how it happened! She had a sister done married a Baptis' preacher, onct. Say, now, I bet a horse that's right how this here happened. Say, they was so pore they didn't have enough to eat."
"Letter come with 'em," said Tom, taking out a handful of tobacco from his pocket with the missive. "I reckon, that explains it, I wouldn't take a thousand dollars for 'em if they was mine. Here, you kids, get out of there and come and see the nice gentlemen. Here they are, fellers."
He haled forth from beneath the wagon cover two solemn-eyed and sleepy little girls, perhaps five years of age, and of so close a personal resemblance to each other as impressed all as uncanny. The four men stepped to the wagon side, and in silence gazed at the curly-headed pair, who looked back, equally silent, upon the strange group confronting them. At length the twins buried their faces in Tom Osby's overalls.