"That's something I'll remember," drawled the cowpuncher.
"You ought to," answered the other quickly, "it comes in handy now and then."
"Feel sleepy?"
The candle guttered and flickered on the floor midway between the two bunks, and Bard, glancing to it, was about to move from his bed and snuff it; but at the thought of so doing it seemed to him as if he could almost sense with prophetic mind the upward dart of the noose about his shoulders. He edged a little lower in the blankets.
"Not a bit. How about you?"
"Me? I most generally lie awake a while and gab after I hit the hay.
Makes me sleep better afterward."
"I do the same thing when I've any one who listens to me—or talks to me."
"Queer how many habits we got the same, eh?"
"It is. But after all, most of us are more alike than we care to imagine."
"Yes, there ain't much difference; sometimes the difference ain't as much as a split-second watch would catch, but it may mean that one feller passes out and the other goes on."