Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/37

 soon behind them, their way plunging into country at once so bleak, rugged and uninhabited that the wonder rose in the traveler whence Saunders drew the sustenance for its sickly life. Toward sunset Dan took an observation from the top of a hill where he drew up a little while to let the horses catch their wind, announcing thereafter that he didn't think it would rain.

"If it don't, we'll camp on the Diamond Tail tomorrow night," he said.

"I hope there'll be a little romance left lying around for me," Barrett laughed, for the matter of romancehunting had grown to be a joke between them already.

"No man can tell what's waitin' by the trail," Dan returned, and seriously, much to the surprise of his companion, who began to have little glimpses such as this of more beneath the rind of this young man thanhis simple bearing might betray.