He’s a queer old coot. Imagine a man of his cognomen, add the smell of sheep, dress him up around the neck like a preacher, tuck his pants into the top of a pair of heavy boots, and you’ve got a portrait of Old Testament. He rides a little calico bronc, with one cropped ear and a rat-tail, and calls it Ebenezer. The only way, I figure, that he could ever hand out salvation would be by correspondence.
“Now, this here Le-mule Bowles,” remarks the old boy, “do you think I could induce him to come into the vineyard?”
“Muley will go into anything that’s got a door on it,” says I. “Also, he’ll take anything what ain’t nailed down.”
“I fear me it will be a task,” he says, sad-like, and then he sort of brightens up. “Have you ever considered your soul?”
“I have no soul,” says I.
“Say not that you are a lost sheep,” he chides me, and it makes me sore, and I points off down the valley.
“We’re in cow-land now, old-timer, so you lay off on that lost-sheep stuff. Sabe? Down here they calls ’em plain strays.”
We plods down into the Sleeping Creek country, and stops at Hank Padden’s place for dinner. Old Testament and Hank are old friends, but Hank don’t more than give me a nod. I reckon he ain’t forgot what he thought was Muley’s voice, and he blames me, too. When we gets ready to leave Hank acts like I had a contagious disease.
“Drop in any old time, Tilton,” says Hank. “Glad to see you.”
“Me, too, Hank?” I asks, and he gives me a hard look.