Brent gave the greasy man a fling.
He went down. Then he got up, with a trace of Bridger’s claim on his red shirt.
“Yer needn’t be so blame hash with a feller,” said he. “I didn’t mean no offence.”
“Very well. Learn to talk like a man, and not like a brute!” said Brent.
The two men walked off together, with black looks.
“You look disappointed, Shamberlain,” said I. “Did you expect a battle?”
“Ther’s no fight in them fellers,” said Jake; “but ef they can serve you a mean trick they’ll do it; and they’re ambushin’ now to look in the dixonary and see what it is. You’d better keep the lariats of that black and that gray tied round your legs to-night, and every good horsethief night while they’re along. They may be jolly dogs, and let their chances slide at cards, but my notion is they’re layin’ low for bigger hauls.”
“Good advice, Jake; and so we will.”
By this time the head wagons of Elder Sizzum’s train had crept down upon the level near us. For the length of a long mile behind, the serpentine line held its way. On the yellow rim of the world, with softened outlines against the hazy horizon, the rear wagons were still climbing up into view. The caravan lay like a slowly writhing hydra over the land. Along its snaky bends, where dragon-wings should be, were herds of cattle, plodding beside the “trailing-footed” teams, and little companies of Saints lounging leisurely toward their evening’s goal, their unbuilt hostelry on the plain.
Presently the hydra became a two-headed monster. The foremost wagon bent to the right, the second led off to the left. Each successor, as it came to the point of divergence, filed to the right or left alternately. The split creature expanded itself. The two wings moved on over a broad grassy level north of the fort, describing in regular curve a great ellipse, a third of a mile long, half as much across.