“I seen well enough,” said Ephraim, “when I found him that they wasn’t going to trouble us any, or they’d have been around by then.”
He was quite right, but Specimen Jones was thinking of something else. He went out to the corral, feeling disturbed and doubtful. He saw the tall white freight-wagon of the Mexicans, looming and silent, and a little way off the new fence where the man lay. An odd sound startled him, though he knew it was no Indians at this hour, and he looked down into a little dry ditch. It was the boy, hidden away flat on his stomach among the stones, sobbing.
“Oh, snakes!” whispered Specimen Jones, and stepped back. The Latin races embrace and weep, and all goes well; but among Saxons tears are a horrid event. Jones never knew what to do when it was a woman, but this was truly disgusting. He was well seasoned by the frontier, had tried a little of everything: town and country, ranches, saloons, stage-driving, marriage occasionally, and latterly mines. He had sundry claims staked out, and always carried pieces of stone in his pockets, discoursing upon their mineral-bearing capacity, which was apt to be very slight. That is why he was called Specimen Jones. He had exhausted all the important sensations, and did not care much for anything any more. Perfect health and strength kept him from discovering that he was a saddened, drifting man. He wished to kick the boy for his baby performance, and yet he stepped carefully away from the ditch so the boy should not suspect his presence. He found himself standing still, looking at the dim, broken desert.
“Why, hell,” complained Specimen Jones, “he played the little man to start with. He did so. He scared that old horse-thief, Adams, just about dead. Then he went to kill me, that kep’ him from bein’ buried early to-morrow. I’ve been wild that way myself, and wantin’ to shoot up the whole outfit.” Jones looked at the place where his middle finger used to be, before a certain evening in Tombstone. “But I never—” He glanced towards the ditch, perplexed. “What’s that mean? Why in the world does he git to cryin’ for now, do you suppose?” Jones took to singing without knowing it. “‘Ye shepherds, tell me, ha-ve you seen my Flora pass this way?’” he murmured. Then a thought struck him. “Hello, kid!” he called out. There was no answer. “Of course,” said Jones. “Now he’s ashamed to hev me see him come out of there.” He walked with elaborate slowness round the corral and behind a shed. “Hello, you kid!” he called again.
“I was thinking of going to sleep,” said the boy, appearing quite suddenly. “I—I’m not used to riding all day. I’ll get used to it, you know,” he hastened to add.
“‘Ha-ve you seen my Flo’—Say, kid, where y’u bound, anyway?”
“San Carlos.”
“San Carlos? Oh. Ah. ‘Flora pass this way?’”
“Is it far, sir?”
“Awful far, sometimes. It’s always liable to be far through the Arivaypa Cañon.”