"Oh, I've read some books," said John eagerly, "and I thought I knew something till that dude feller told all about the things he knew. But that chap couldn't ride a sway-backed cow," and John smiled, sad as he was, at the thought.
"You struck a poor sample," the ranchman responded. "He saw you could beat him physically, so he tried to get even with you mentally."
For a time they rode along in silence, the boy busy with his own thoughts, which Mr. Baker was wise enough not to interrupt.
At length Smith Creek, the half-way mark of their journey, was reached, and they stopped for water, rest, and food. The horses were unharnessed and allowed to feed a while. Thirty miles had been covered in less than five hours—thirty miles of diversified country, hill and plain, rock and mud. The road was not worthy of the name, it was merely a wheel track more or less distinct.
John was restless, the short hour of relief allowed the faithful beasts seemed long to him, and he was more at ease when they were spinning along the trail again. He had been living on his nerve all the morning and the strain was beginning to tell.
Soon Mr. Baker began to talk again. He was interested in the young companion by his side, this boy so filled with determination, so energetic and forceful and yet so abounding in loyalty and affection, as his grief over Jerry's death and his fondness for his horse testified; this boy who read books and yet had such a whole-souled contempt of affected learning as evidenced by his ill-concealed disdain of the Eastern "dude." "You've never been East," began the ranchman, "or to school?"
"No. I was born in Bismarck, North Dakota," was the answer. "It must be queer," he added after a pause, and a smile lit up his tired face. "There's lots of women there, they say, and the men get their hair cut every month; the people have to always dress for dinner, the paper novels say, and everybody goes to school."
Mr. Baker smiled at this description of the life and manners of the East, and kept plying the boy with questions, put kindly, until he had learned pretty much all there was to know about him. It was long since John had had so much interest shown him, and it warmed his heart; it was specially grateful at this time, when he felt that he had lost a tried and true friend. The ranchman advised him to work out the year and save his money, and at the end of that time doff his cowboy clothes and manners, array himself in a "boiled shirt," enter some good-sized town, and go to school and church.
John was rather dubious about this; "muscle work," as he called it, work requiring a quick eye, a strong will, and the ability to endure, he knew he could do, but about brain work and book learning he was not so confident. The idea of wearing a "boiled shirt" made him smile.
"Those stiff-bellied things the dudes wear," said he derisively. "Me wear one of those things!" and he laughed aloud at the thought.