Page:Patches (1928).pdf/267



HREE friends of the once famous cow-puncher polo team sat in the smoker of the Rocky Mountain Limited as the long train coasted down the shiny rails close to the of the Sierra Madre mountains on the way to Wyanne. These friends were Pony Perkins, Long Tom and Larry. Pony and Tom were playing pitch while Larry sat in the seat next to them looking rather wistfully out of the window. They were passing through the sage brush country, the land of the purple sage or whispering sage if you happened to be in poetic mood. He was thinking how much more beautiful was the Crooked Creek country back in the mountains than was this land of sage brush.

Presently Pony paused in shuffling the cards and said, "I hev been thinkin' ever since we boarded this here flyer that there's one gent missing in this here party. Our company ain't complete. Of course, I am thinkin' of Big Bill."

"Pony, you get out," ejaculated Long Tom, "jest as if we didn't know of whom you was thinkin', Why, I hev been thinkin' of him ever since we been here play-