Page:Short Grass (1926).pdf/99

 quick broadening of day. Shad Brassfield came along with a saddle on his shoulder, looking somewhat trifling and mean, Dunham thought, hatchet-faced and half-whiskered that he was; lean and gangling in the legs, spare in the body as a snake.

"Oh, you got up, did you?" Shad said, in a voice somewhat between derision and surprise.

"I made a stagger at it," said Bill, wide awake and alert, according to his habit, for he was a chap who left sleep on the pillow when he rose up, be it early or late.

"I got to go and chase up some horses," Shad informed him. "If you want to make a hit around this ranch grab that milk-bucket offen that bainch over there by the kitchen door and pump them two cows in the lot yonder. It'll save me the job when I git back, and I may have to go to hell-an'-gone after them damn horses."

The two cows got up when they saw Dunham coming with the pail, stretching their backs with the incredulous curves cows can put into that section of their anatomy when framing themselves up for the day's business. Brassfield hung around to see how the stranger would go about relieving the animals of their milk, his very attitude one of sardonic expectation, for the belief that Dunham was a railroader had got mixed up somehow in Shad's small and not too active brain. A railroader's ignorance of the workings of a cow was one of the standard jokes of the range.

Shad was more disappointed than pleased to see Dunham go about the operation from the proper side, sitting on the little tack of a one-legged stool that was