UNDER FLYING HOOFS
By Bertrand W. Sinclair.
“Mormon Jack” stretched his generous length in the shade of the bed-wagon, thereby disturbing the sonorous slumbers of Johnny Layton, who muttered imprecations as he rolled over to make room.
“You blasted Mormon renegade,” he growled.
“Why don’t you go and lie down where you won’t be disturbin’ a fellow that has to stand guard to-night?”
“You’re a cantankerous cuss,” Mormon Jack calmly returned. “If I wasn’t a stranger in a hostile camp I’d climb your carcass for them insultin’ observations. Besides, it aint good for a kid to sleep too much. I don’t see how you got the heart to lay here snorin’ like a cayuse chokin’ down, when you could be sittin’ up enjoyin’ this here beautiful scenery that’s bein’ desecrated with bawlin’ cows and buckin’ bronks and greasy, old round-up wagons. You aint got no sense of nacheral beauty, Kid. You’re just about as ornery a varmint as old man Hartley, what once inhabited this same flat.”
“I’ve heard of him,” answered the now thoroughly awakened Layton. “He happened before my time, though. Were you in the country when they cleaned him out?”
“You bet I was!” Mormon Jack replied. “I knew him before he came over here, and I was here and saw his finish. There was high old jinks on this little green bottom that day.”
“So I’ve heard. He wanted to make a sheep-feedin’ ground of the east bench, didn’t he? How was it?” Layton propped himself up on his elbow to listen.
Mormon Jack settled his head comfortably against a rolled-up bed. He rolled a cigarette daintily and inhaled many breaths of smoke before replying.