“How’re they coming this glad mo’ning, son?” he inquired with a grin.
“Fine and dandy,” grinned back Flandrau.
So he was, comparatively speaking. The pain in his arm had subsided. He had had a good sleep. And he was lying comfortably in a clean bed instead of hanging by the neck from the limb of one of the big cottonwoods on the edge of the creek.
A memory smote him and instantly he was grave again.
“How is Cullison?”
“Good as the wheat, doc says. Mighty lucky for Mr. C. Flandrau that he is. Say, I’m to be yore valley and help you into them clothes. Git a wiggle on you.”
Buck escorted his prisoner over to the ranch mess house. The others had finished breakfast but Maloney was still eating. His mouth was full of hot cakes, but he nodded across at Curly in a casual friendly way.
“How’s the villain in the play this mo’ning?” he inquired.
Twenty-one usually looks on the cheerful side of life. Curly had forgotten for the moment about what had happened to his friend Mac. He did not remember that he was in the shadow of a penitentiary sentence. The sun was shining out of a deep blue sky. The vigor of youth flowed through his veins. He was hungry and a good breakfast was before him. For the present these were enough.
“Me, I’m feeling a heap better than I was last night,” he admitted.