The other, nodding sulkily, indicated various features of identification.
With a final scrutiny, Ellis turned to the old man who, by this time, had recovered sufficiently to give fairly coherent answers.
“Let’s have a look at yore bill o’ sale, Dad,” he said.
The other, fumbling with shaking old hands about his pockets, at length produced a dirty folded paper. Benton opened it and proceeded to scan it closely, with a running commentary.
“‘Sold to Hiram Bryan. One bay team. Branded E four on right shoulder.’ H’m, h’m. ‘Thirteenth of June.’ Unlucky day for yu’, Dad. ‘One horse, two white’—h’m, h’m, descriptions correspond O. K. ‘Two hundred an’ fifty.’ Got th’ outfit cheap enough ... but I don’t know ... nigh horse is all right, but th’ off’n ain’t worth a d—n with them bog-spavins. Seems to be made out in order, all right. Hello! Whose signature’s this? ‘Gordon Brown’!” He looked up suddenly. “Now, perhaps you’ll tell me who, an’ what like of a feller this ‘Mister Gordon Brown’ is?”
The old man gazed at his interlocutor out of watering, rheumy eyes.
“Why, he’s a big feller, with a black beard,” he piped unhesitatingly. And slowly and haltingly, with heavy, asthmatical breathing, he began his labored explanation.
“I’d just come over th’ Line, from Nebrasky. Things was bad down ther’, an’ I figgered on filin’ on a bit of a homestead somewheres around this part o’ th’ country. I was in th’ hotel at Sabbano when I first met this feller—him an’ his partner, a younger chap—an’ we got a-talkin’ together. He said as how they’d had a homestead down this ways, but had got burnt out ... so they was—or he was—goin’ ter take up ’nother place, somewheres up in th’ bush, west o’ here ... later. I told him as I had a bit o’ money an’ was a-figgerin’ on buyin’ a wagon an’ team ... an’ he says: ‘Why, we’ll sell yu’ our’n ... we ain’t got no use fer ’em jest now, an’ afterwards I kin offer yu’ a job—freightin’ some stuff o’ ours up to our new place.’ He said as how him an’ his partner were a-workin’ fer an outfit called th’ Wharnock Cattle Company.” (Ellis started involuntarily.) “They was a freightin’ some supplies back ter th’ outfit with a four-horse team, an’ he says ter me: ‘Yu’ kin come back with us, ef yu’ like, an’ see th’ team an’ wagon ... an’ ef yu’ buy ’em, I guess I kin get yu’ a job teamin’ fer th’ company till we’re ready ter pull out ter our own place.’ They’d got a big load on, so it was a two-days’ trip, an’ th’ night we gets ther’, he says: ‘We’ve got ’em bein’ kept over at a friend o’ our’n. Me partner here’ll go get ’em in th’ mornin’.’ Well, th’ young feller brings ’em in th’ next afternoon an’, as they looked as th’ kind I wanted, an’ th’ price bein’ all right why, I buys ’em, an’ he gives me this bill o’ sale.”
“D’yu’ pay him cash?” inquired Ellis.
The old man nodded wearily. “Two hunnerd an’ fifty dollars,” he murmured. “I on’y had a hundred left, but they got me inter a poker game at th’ outfit, an’ they skinned me o’ that. Th’ big feller, he fixed it up with th’ foreman fer me ter work ther’ with me team fer a week or two. Th’ day before yestiddy he comes ter me an’ he says: ‘Termorrer mornin’ yu’ get yore team an’ pull out fer Cherry Creek. We’re ready ter quit now, an’ there’s some stuff down ther’ as we wants yu’ ter freight up ter our place in th’ bush.’ He tells me th’ way, an’ he says: ‘Yu’ hit th’ trail that goes south, past a feller called Barney Gallagher’s. Don’t yu’ stop ther’, though. Ther’ll be a feller with red hair, on a white hawss, meet yu’ somewheres around ther’, and’ he’ll show yu’ wher’ ther’ stuff is, an’ help yu’ ter get it loaded.’ Well, I pulls out, an’ comes over here, an’ fust thing I know is, I meets up with this feller” (here he indicated Pryce), “an’ he holds me up, an’ says as how th’ team an’ wagon’s his’n,” he wound up, with a hopeless inflection in his tones.