"Rattlesnakes."
"No. I reckon not. I shouldn't miss rattlesnakes."
Ben Boone said this so gravely that Rupert could not forbear laughing.
"Nor I," he said. "I am willing that Colorado should keep all her rattlesnakes."
Ben Boone, for a wonder, lay awake beyond his usual time. He could not get New York and its wonders out of his head. The more he thought of it the more he longed to see it.
And there wasn't so much time, either. He was forty-nine years old, and yet he had never been on the other side of the Mississippi River. Yet here was Rupert, who couldn't be more than sixteen or seventeen years old, who had actually lived in New York, and now had wandered to the far West and seen that also. If a boy could have those happy experiences, why not he?
Why not?
The question was easily answered. The difference between them was money. He didn't know how much money Rupert had, but probably he had more than the sum necessary to carry him to New York. Ben felt that it was not fair that a mere boy should have so much and he so little.
This was a dangerous path of thought, and led to a strong temptation. This temptation was increased when, waking at an early hour, he looked across at Rupert, lying not many yards away, and noticed that his pocketbook had in some way dropped out of his pocket and was lying on the grass beside him.
Ben's eyes sparkled with unholy excitement. An eager curiosity assailed him to learn how much money the pocketbook contained. It was a temptation which he did not seem able to resist.