She looked at Smith and smiled. There was the glory of untrammeled space in her clear eyes, a yearning as of the desert-born on the far bounds of home. Smith drove on, his back very straight.
“Older,” said he with laconic finality after holding his peace for a quarter of a mile.
Smith spoke as if he had known both Adam and the butte for a long time, and so was an unquestionable authority. Agnes was not disposed to dispute him, so they lurched on in silence along the dust-cushioned road.
“That ain’t the one the Indian girl jumped off of, though,” said Smith, meditatively.
“Isn’t it?”
She turned to him quickly, ready for a story from the picturesque strangler of bears. Smith was looking 68 between the ears of the off-leader. He volunteered no more.
“Well, where is the one she jumped from?” she pressed.
“Nowhere,” said Smith.
“Oh!” she said, a bit disappointed.
“Everywhere I’ve went,” said he, “they’ve got some high place where the Indian girl jumped off of. In Mezoury they’ve got one, and even in Kansas. They’ve got one in Minnesota and Illinoy and Idaho, and bend my eyebrows if I know all the places they ain’t got ’em! But don’t you never let ’em!take you in on no such yarns. Them yarns is for suckers.”