Page:Morley roberts--Painted Rock.djvu/250

 "A bewtiful country, suh," said Old Bill when he was good-tempered and things well, "a bewtiful country, and the feed is just right. My steers is fat, and water's plenty. I'm a happy and contented man, suh. I ask nothin' of Prov'dence, I ask nothin' of no man, but am ready to give to all. That's me, suh."

He dressed in an antique black frock-coat, and wore a Panama hat. Both dated "from befo' the wah, suh!" there was no mistake about that. He rode about the ranges and the prairie on an ancient broncho, not quite so antique as his clothes, but so antique that the cowboys said the "pinto" had been in the ark.

"He was a fine animal," Old Bill said with a heavenly smile, when things went well. "You mayn't believe it, suh, but that pony I've refused two hundred dollahs for."

But when Bill was in trouble, when his temper got out of gear, he was a different man.

"Suh, this God-forsaken kentry of Texas is my blight and bane. It's the backwater of Nowhere River. I pine in these solitudes, and ache for my own kentry!"