"Let's jog along together," suggested the second man, "and you sing, for if we stand here and strike a match this herd of oxen will just about get up and quit the flats."
Down along the river bank the dim spark of the cook's fire showed where the outfit was camped, while a short distance beyond it the Rio Grande at full flood roared like a sullen yellow monster.
The fringe of cottonwoods and Tornillos along its bank were outlined against the background of the sky like shadow pictures, while an occasional dull crash told of the loss of another slice of the Republic of Mexico where, undermined by the swift flood, a piece of the bank had dropped into the river and was on its way to the gulf.
"Do you reckon we'll have much trouble swimmin' these steers tomorrow?" asked the singer, as, contrary to the rules of night-herding of all cow outfits, they rode along together.
"No, I don't believe we will," was the reply. "Uncle John savvys this river like a native, an' if he looks at it tomorrow an' says 'Cross 'em,' they'll make it all right."
"Well, she's sure high, and 'tain't the water I'm afraid of half so much as the infernal quicksand. I never did like the water, nohow." He shook his head: "Once I got into the quicksand in the Little Colorado over in Arizony and like to ended up in the Campo Santo fer sure."
"Say" and his companion handed him a flaming match—"you smoke up a little an' fergit all that. We got troubles aplenty without huntin' up imaginary things to git skeered of. Did you hear the yarn that stray man was a-tellin' in camp tonight?" he remarked, with the evident intention of drawing his friend from so gloomy an outlook.
"Never a word; I was shoeing my horse when he was talkin' an' didn't hear what he was sayin'. What was he talkin' about?" the singer queried.
"Well," said the other, "it 'pears like he was workin' fer the Turkey Track outfit in Arizony and him an' another Turkey Track screw comes over the line to git a little touch of high life among the paisanos on this side. Well, they gits it all right, for between half a dozen Mexican women, two or three hombres, an' a kaig of mescal, 'tain't hard to start something; an' when the dust settled down this stray gent finds hisself with a dead man on his hands an' him over here where it's the eagle an' the snake instead of the Stars an' Stripes a-flyin' overhead. I was busy makin' down my bed an' never heerd how he come out 'ceptin' he says there was some fool law these Mexicans has which don't allow the body of any one what dies on Mexican soil to be taken out of the country for five years. So he had to leave his friend there instead of gittin' him acrost an' plantin' him up in the Pan Handle where his folks lived."
"What for don't they let any dead body be taken out of this here country?" And the boy turned uneasily in his saddle.