Penoch’s set face relaxed into the ghost of a grin.
“He’s pretty good at most card games,” he said mysteriously. “Going back to the tents, Slim?”
“Uh-huh. All quiet along the river, Cap.”
“I’ll go with you,” Penoch said evenly, and we marched out.
We were surely a comedy team together; and we frequently were together, because Penoch and I had become close friends as a result of several imbroglios in which we had engaged. He was just an inch over five feet, so you can readily realize that I could have worn the little squirt for a watch-charm.
“Anything special on your mind?” I inquired casually.
“Yeah; but I’ll wait until we get to the tent,” he told me.
We marched on down the line of buildings that bounded the southern end of the small sandy airdrome. To the east and west were big black corrugated iron hangars, baking in the sun. Northward, a fence was the rim of the field, and a few miles farther north was the rim of one hundred and fifty solid miles of mesquite.
While we are galloping down the line toward the tents, take a look at one of the most amazing chunks of humanity I’ve ever met. Penoch, as I’ve said, was short, but his torso was round as a barrel, and his legs straight and thick and sturdy. His muscles, I’d found, were like steel cables, and his strength was as much out of proportion to his size as his voice was.
It was his face, though, that made him prominent in any company. It was square and brown; and a pair of the largest, keenest, brightest blue eyes you ever saw sparkled forth from it and reflected an unquenchable joy in life for its own sake. His hair was red—not pink or sandy or auburn, but red. His eyebrows had been bleached by the sun to a pale yellow; and below his short, turned-up nose, a cocky little mustache, waxed to pin-points, was a similar tint.