“How?” he inquired.
“Why, the heat. Say, git a peek at that sky. Look yonder. The sun. Get them durned banks o’ cloud swallerin’ it right up atop o’ them hills. Makes you think, don’t it? That’s storm. It’s comin’ big—an’ before many hours.”
“For which we’ll all be a heap thankful.” Beasley laughed. “Another day of this an’ I’ll be done that tender a gran’ma could eat me.”
His remark drew a flicker of a smile.
“She’d need good ivories,” observed the gambler, Diamond Jack, with mild sarcasm.
Beasley took the remark as a compliment to his business capacity, and grinned amiably.
“Jack’s right. You’d sure give her an elegant pain, else,” added Curly, in a tired voice. He was steadily staring down the trail in a manner that suggested indifference to any coming storm. Somebody laughed half-heartedly. But Curly had no desire to enliven things, and went on quite seriously.
“Say, when’s this bum sheriff gettin’ around?” he demanded.
Beasley took him up at once.