“Ain’t he a scream?” inquired Bud an hour later, when they had saddled up and were on their way. “I don’t wonder Tenny can’t get nobody to stay in camp with him. It would be about as cheerful as a morgue.” 249
“Must have got soured in his youth,” remarked Stratton. “I had to put up a regular fight to get him to look after the pack-horse till somebody can take it back to the ranch-house. Where do we hit this trail you were telling me about?”
“About a mile and a half further on. It ain’t much to boast of, but chances are we won’t meet up with a soul till we run into the main road a mile or so this side of Perilla.”
Bud’s prediction proved accurate. They encountered no one throughout the entire length of the twisting, narrow, little-used trail, and even when they reached the main road early in the afternoon there was very little passing.
“Reckon they’re all taking their siesta,” commented. Bud. “Perilla’s a great place for greasers, yuh know, bein’ so near the border. There’s a heap sight more of ’em than whites.”
Presently they began to pass small, detached adobe huts, some of them the merest hovels. A few dark-faced children were in sight here and there, but the older persons were all evidently comfortably indoors, slumbering through the noonday heat.
Further on the houses were closer together, and at length Bud announced that they were nearing the main street, one end of which crossed the road they were on at right angles.
“That rickety old shack there is just on the corner,” 250 he explained. “It’s a Mexican eating-house, as I remember. Most of the stores an’ decent places are up further.”
“Wonder where Hardenberg hangs out?” remarked Stratton.
“Yuh got me. I never had no professional use for him before. Reckon most anybody can tell us, though. That looks like a cow-man over there. Let’s ask him.”