"
However, the "little old gun" took its place, not in Senor
Johnson's hip pocket, but inside the front waistband of his
trousers, and the old shiny Colt's forty-five, with its worn
leather "Texas style" holster, became a bedroom ornament.
Thus, from a frontiersman dropped Senor Johnson to the status of
a property owner. In a general way he had to attend to his
interests before the cattlemen's association; he had to arrange
for the buying and shipping, and the rest was leisure. He could
now have gone away somewhere as far as time went. So can a fish
live in trees--as far as time goes. And in the daily riding,
riding, riding over the range he found the opportunity for
abstract thought which the frontier life had crowded aside.
CHAPTER TWO
THE SHAPES OF ILLUSION
Every day, as always, Senor Johnson rode abroad over the land.
His surroundings had before been accepted casually as a more or
less pertinent setting of action and condition. Now he sensed
some of the fascination of the Arizona desert.
He noticed many things before unnoticed. As he jingled loosely
along on his cow-horse, he observed how the animal waded fetlock
deep in the gorgeous orange California poppies, and then he
looked up and about, and saw that the rich colour carpeted the
landscape as far as his eye could reach, so that it seemed as
though he could ride on and on through them to the distant
Chiricahuas.
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