Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/36

 "You want to be a cowpuncher and I'd like to be a sailor. That's the way it goes, I guess, every man thinkin' the other one's got a better job than him. But I always did want to see the ocean, and wade out in her to my arm-pits and whoop."

When they had Barrett's trunk aboard, the sailor enlisted Dan's help in buying a proper outfit for the range.

"When we get out in the country," Barrett said, "I'd like for you to stop somewhere long enough for me to go back of a bush and change clothes. They'd kid the life out of me if I went to the ranch in this uniform, wouldn't they?"

"You might have a purty lively time handin' it out to all of 'em the way you did that feller down in front of Grimmitt's," Dan allowed. "It's funny you'd come to this country wearin' them clothes," he speculated, in a way that was nothing less than a polite inquiry into the reason why.

"I had just thirteen minutes to make the jump from the ship to the train," Barrett explained. "My trunk followed a day behind me, it didn't get here till this afternoon."

"You must 'a' been in a hurry to git here!" Dan whistled, still bidding for more.

"I'll tell you how it was one of these days," Barrett laughed, as if pushing the scent too hotly embarrassed him, or as if there might be something to his discredit in making that swift passage from deck to train.

They let it rest at that, for Dan was a true-born gentleman who had secrets of his own. The town was