Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/252

228 his fingers. When they were opposite, the driller spoke.

“Is that you, Alshire?” he said.

The giant threw bark his great shoulders and stopped his horse with a wrench on the bridle “Morg Gaston!” he announced with some trace of surprise in his voice, then he added, half-apologetically, “what's the good word with you?”

The driller climbed heavily over the big staked-and-ridered fence, “I saw you go down this morning,” he said, “and I have been watching for you back; I want to tell you something.”

Then he came over to the middle of the road and rested his greasy chin on the mane of the red roan.

“Hell of a high horse,” said the driller.

“Seventeen hands,” responded the giant.

The old man ran his eyes slowly over the immense proportions of the traveller, his deep, powerful chest, his broad, thick shoulders and his massive limbs almost grotesquely huge.

“You are not little yourself,” he observed, as though announcing a discovery, “and I am