“Say, Zeb, I wonder if them same jaspers didn’t hit that sheep? By golly! I’ll bet that was it. Mebby—aw say, Zeb, if that was uh rifle-bullet why don’t we hear th’ report?”
Zeb smiled patronizingly and relieved Ricky of his tobacco.
“Ricky, them high-power rifles kin shoot three miles, and they don’t make much noise a-tall. At this distance yuh wouldn’t hear it a tall, sabe?”
Ricky got up and climbed back on the rock. He gazed off in the direction from which the bullet had come and then sat down and began dealing the cards.
“Come on up, Zeb,” he urged. “Three miles is uh long ways to see uh target and th’ man who can hit me at that distance is plumb welcome to cut uh notch on his gunstock, and besides it’s too danged hot out there in th’ sun.”
Zeb climbed back and sat down against the tree.
“Ricky, I plumb wish we hadn’t taken this job.”
“Unha,” agreed Ricky, intent on his solitaire layout.
“Yes, sir, I am,” continued Zeb. “I knowed something was wrong when Jim Watts offers us uh hundred apiece uh month to dry nurse these darn animated wool gardens. Ricky, uh hundred dollars uh month is too much money to pay uh sheep-herder. Didn’t yuh ever notice it?”
Ricky laid down the cards and laughed.