Two riders slumped comfortably in their saddles as the ponies slowly ambled along. The sun was hot, and the dust stifling, a cloud of it forming a floating screen about the horsemen and progressing with them down the trail.
One of the riders, a tall, lanky and weather-beaten cowboy, taking a long breath, raised his voice in what he doubtless intended to be a song.
It was, however, more a cry of anguish as he bellowed forth:
"Leave me alone with a rope an' a saddle,
Fold my spurs under my haid!
Give me a can of them sweet, yaller peaches,
'Cause why? My true-love is daid!"
"Bad as all that; is it, Slim?" asked the other, who, now that he had partly emerged from the cloud of dust, could be seen as a lad of about sixteen. He, like the other, older rider, was attired cowboy fashion.
"Eh? What's that, Bud?" inquired the lanky one, seeming to arouse as if from a day dream. "See suthin'?"
"Nope. I was just sort of remarking about that sad song, and——"
"Oh, shucks! That wa'n't sad!" declared Slim Degnan, foreman of the
Diamond X ranch. "Guess I wa'n't really payin' much attention to what
I was singin', but if you want a real sad lament——"
"No, I don't!" laughed Bud Merkel, whose father was the owner of Diamond X ranch. "Not that I blame you for feeling sort of down and out," he added.
"Oh, I don't feel bad, Bud!" came the hasty rejoinder. "We did have more'n a ride than I figgered on, but I don't aim to put up no kick. It's all in the day's work. You don't seem to mind it."