Goodrich sets him behind them little pinto cavallos
he has. Say! that son of a gun a driver! He couldn't drive
nails in a snow bank." An expressive free-hand gesture told all
there was to tell of the runaway. "Th' shorthorn landed
headfirst in Goldfish Charlie's horse trough. Charlie fishes him
out. 'How the devil, stranger,' says Charlie, 'did you come to
fall in here?' 'You blamed fool,' says the shorthorn, just cryin'
mad, 'I didn't come to fall in here, I come to drive horses.'"
And then, without a transitory pause:
"Oh, my love has a gun
And that gun he can use,
But he's quit his gun fighting
As well as his booze.
And he's sold him his saddle,
His spurs, and his rope,
And there's no more cow-punching
And that's what I hope."
The alkali dust, swirled back by a little breeze, billowed up and
choked him. Behind, the mules coughed, their coats whitening
with the powder. Far ahead in the distance lay the westerly
mountains. They looked an hour away, and yet every man and beast
in the outfit knew that hour after hour they were doomed, by the
enchantment of the land, to plod ahead without apparently getting
an inch nearer. The only salvation was to forget the mountains
and to fill the present moment full of little things.
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