“I’ve heard you say so. How much does she weigh?”
“Well, I guess close to three hundred, John. If she was taller, it wouldn’t show so much on her––she can walk under my arm. But it’s surprisin’ how that woman can git around after them sheep!”
Dad added this hopefully, as if bound to append some redeeming trait to all her physical defects.
“How many does she own?”
“About four thousand. Not much of a band, but a lot more than I ever could lay claim to. She’s got a twelve-thousand acre ranch, owns every foot of it, more than half of it under fence. What do you think of that? Under fence! Runs them sheep right inside of that bull-wire fence, John, where no wolf can’t git at ’em. There ain’t no bears down in that part of the country. Safe? Safer’n money in the bank, and no expense of hirin’ a man to run ’em.”
“It looks like you’ve landed on a feather bed, Dad.”
“Ain’t I? What does a man care about a little 175 hobble, or one eye, or a little chunk of fat, when he can step into a layout like that?”
“Why didn’t you lead her up to the hitching-rack while you were there? Somebody else is likely to pick your plum while your back’s turned.”
“No, I don’t reckon. She’s been on the tree quite a spell; she ain’t the kind you young fellers want, and the old ones is most generally married off or in the soldiers’ home. Well, she’s got a little cross of Indian and Mexican in her, anyway; that kind of keeps ’em away, you know.”
It was no trouble to frame a mental picture of Dad’s inamorata. Black, squat, squint; a forehead a finger deep, a voice that would carry a mile. Mackenzie had seen that cross of Mexican and Indian blood, with a dash of debased white. They were not the kind that attracted men outside their own mixed breed, but he hadn’t a doubt that this one was plenty good enough, and handsome enough, for Dad.