"Your friend must be in a partic'lar hurry."
"He was that," Jeff murmured. A queer buzzing in his ears and an overpowering feeling of giddiness made him close his eyes. When he opened them, the boy had disappeared. Jeff saw that his horse had been tied up in the shade of a scrub-oak.
"That boy seems to have some sense," he reflected. "This is a knock- out, sure."
Again he closed his eyes. A blue jay began to chatter; and when he had finished his screed, a cock-quail challenged the silence. Very soon the wilderness was uttering all its familiar sounds. Jeff, lying flat on his back, could hear the rabbits scurrying through the chaparral. After an interminable delay his ears caught the crackle of dry twigs snapped beneath a human foot.
"Feelin' lonesome?"
"I'm mighty glad to see you again," Jeff admitted. "Ah, water! That's a sight better'n whisky."
He drank thirstily, for the sun was high in the heavens, and the road as hot as an oven.
"I reckoned you'd come back," Jeff continued.
"Why?"
"To earn that dollar." He eyed the lad's somewhat ragged overalls. "Say--what do they call ye to home?"