“No,” replied the white man. “You can say what you please and they won’t tell on you.”
“Well, the question I should like to have you answer is, How in the world you ever came out here among them?” said I. “You have been to school and don’t talk as these Texans generally do.”
“No, I have been to school; that’s a fact,” said the man, after hesitating a little.
“What sent you down here?”
“Look here, my friend,” said the man, turning around in his saddle and looking at me with his snapping gray eyes; “I didn’t agree to take you into my confidence.”
He used the very same words to me that Coyote Bill had used when I asked him the same question; and he didn’t seem to be angry about it, either.
“What made you think anything brought me down here?” he asked. “What brought you down here?”
“I came to buy cattle, but the drought had got in ahead of me and I thought I would wait until it was over. Hallo! What’s the matter with you?”
“You came down here to buy cattle?” exclaimed the man, looking at me with an expression of great astonishment on his face.
“Yes, sir, I did; and there are two other boys in my party. But what surprises you so greatly?”