“Where I seen bad doings.”
“Right. Seeing you was there yourself. What doings was they?”
In ordinary the older men had little to say to Antonio’s “Left Hand,” but he afforded them diversion, just then, when they were all a little anxious and downhearted over their captain’s departure on what seemed to some of them a wild-goose chase.
Ferd went through a pantomime of theft. Furtively putting one hand into his neighbor’s pocket to instantly thrust it back into his own. He produced a buckskin bag and twisting some eucalyptus leaves into rolls, suggesting those of money, thrust these within the bag and that within his jacket. Then he glanced about with an absurdly innocent expression, threw his shoulders back, and stepped forward a few paces with so firm a step and erect a bearing that more than one instantly recognized the mimicry.
“Forty-niner.”
Having produced the effect he had intended, Ferd slouched back into his own natural attitude and begged:
“Something to eat.”
At that moment Ephraim had been approaching and was an indignant witness of this performance, nor was he less quick to see its significance than his mates had been. Also, to him that buckskin bag was a familiar object. With one stride he collared Ferd and shook him like a rat.
“You imp! What do you mean by that? And how came you by Elsa Winkler’s pouch?”
Ferd broke from his captor and his face changed color beneath its filth. He was one who was perfectly satisfied to live in a country where water was scarce; but, by way of fun, another ranchman caught him as he escaped from Ephraim, and forcibly ducked his head and shoulders in the washing-trough. After that he was let go and later on was given a liberal supper at the messroom. He ate this as if he had not seen food since he had gone away two days before, but he was greedy at all times, and the present instance excited no comment.