Preacher Bill’s blankets were still spread from his last night’s sleep, but the larder was empty.
“I reckon yuh can get along,” said their guide. “I’m Jim Cates, but most everybody calls me ‘Mica.’ ’S I said before, if yuh start preachin’, I’m goin’ t’ have a front seat.”
He started away, but turned back.
“Say, if yuh get a call to speak over the remains of Ace Ault, I can tell yuh a few things to make yore oration easier. Ault was crooked as a snake in a cactus patch. He never——”
Mica Cates stopped talking and cleared his throat. A girl had come up near the doorway and was looking at them. She was about twenty years of age, fairly well dressed. A pair of big, brown eyes, misty with tears, looked at them from a cameo-like face, which was framed in a mass of brown hair. Her cheeks were streaked with tear-marks and her lips quivered as she looked around. Then she turned, without a word, and disappeared around the canyon wall.
“Sleed’s daughter,” said Cates softly. “Her name is Nola, but Sleed said she was his luck so many times that everybody calls her Luck.”
“Been cryin’,” said Steele wonderingly.
“Uh-huh. Mebbe yuh didn’t see her down to Hell’s Depot. She was there. I reckon she was the only one to care about Preacher Bill. Yuh see, she ain’t had no chance to learn book teachin’s, until Preacher Bill took to learnin’ her. He was eddicated a lot, and she sure wanted to learn.”