Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/232



"Want a warsh?"

The stranger inspected a pair of hands that looked as if they had been greasing axles.

"No, I ain't very dirty."

"Grab a root and pull! " Bowers urged with all the hospitality he could inject into his voice, as the guest squeezed in between the table and the sideboard. " Jest bog down in that there honey, pardner — it's something special — cottonwood blossoms and alf alfy. And here's the turnips 1 "

Conversation was suspended until a pan of biscuits had vanished along with the fried mutton, when Bowers, feeling immeasurably better natured, inquired sociably as he passed the broom :

"Where have I saw you before, feller? Your countenance seems kind of familiar."

The stranger looked up quickly.

" I don't think it. I'm a long way off my own range."

He averted his eyes from Bowers's puzzled inquiring gaze and focused his attention upon the business of extracting a suitable straw from the politely tendered broom. When he had found one to his liking, he leaned back and operated with a large air of nonchalance.

" You're fixed pretty comfortable here," he commented, as his roving eye took in the interior of the wagon.

" 'Tain't bad," Bowers agreed, prying into the broom for a straw that was clean, comparatively.

" Is them all kin o' yourn? " The stranger pointed to a wire rack suspended from a nail on the opposite side of the wagon in which was thrust some two dozen photographs, fly-specked and yellow, while the cut of the sub- jects' clothes bore additional evidence of their antiquity.

" Lord, no I I don't know none of 'em. There was