Yet I was proud of that boy, keen, fierce, stubborn as a wild ass, with the air and temper of a thoroughbred, and a laugh which spoiled me for preaching. He was smart, too, in a new shirt of white silk, a handkerchief round his neck striped cream and rose colour, Mexican trousers of yellow leather studded down the seams with lumps of turquoise stones in silver settings, big silver spurs, and on his belt a silver-mounted 45-Colt revolver. I've got no earthly use for a boy who slouches. At supper, while I preached, he called me an old fool for caring when he was bad. Then he told me good-bye in the dusk, and set off on his hundred-mile trail for Holy Cross.
I rode home thoughtful, and lay long awake in my little dobe cabin at Las Salinas, thinking about that boy, whose mother was sick, and his father riding to sure destruction, a gambler, a drunkard, hopeless, lost—the best friend I ever had in the world. When I woke the faint light of dawn shone through the cabin window, and brightened the saddles on the wall. Something was touching my face, something cold, so I grabbed it quick—a little small hand. Then I heard Curly's low, queer laugh. "You, Chalkeye!" he whispered.
He was sitting on the stool beside my bunk, dead weary, covered with dust from the trail. Somehow the boy seemed to have got smaller instead of growing up, and he sure looked weak and delicate for such a life as he led. Twenty years old? He didn't seem fifteen, and yet he spoke old-fashioned, heaps wise and experienced.
"Whar you from?" says I, yawning.
"Speak low, and no questions," said Curly in a hard voice, for on the range we never ask a guest his name, or where he comes from, or which way he goes. When he comes we don't need to tell him any welcome; when he goes we say, 'Adios!' for he'll sure have need of an Almighty Father out in the desert.
"Chalkeye," says my wolf, "are you alone?"
"Sure."
"No boys over thar in yo' ram pasture?"
"My riders is wolfing in Grave City, but they'll stray back 'fore noon."
"Hide me up in yo' barn fo' the day, then."