Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/117

 Now he saw Mrs. Majors casting eyes at him again, and he feared that she was about to assail him with more questions on his origin and future intentions. While he had nothing to conceal, he did not feel that a man should tell all that he knew at once, so he withdrew to the office while Miss Viney was sighing through the last stanza of "'Tis a Flower from My Angel Mother's Grave."

Dee Winch escaped during the applause, also, and came out on his toes, sweating like he'd undergone an examination for a civil-service job.

"I like music," he said softly, with a cautious look back over his shoulder, "but I like it off a little piece."

"Yes, sir, there's kinds of music that a man ought to pay for, and—other kinds," Texas allowed.

"Yes," said Winch, looking carefully around the office, "it's like the sign of a Mexican dentist I saw in San Antone one time. 'Teeth pulled without pain, one dollar; with pain, fifty cents.' The pleasanter it is, the more a man ought to be willing to pay. I met Uncle Boley Drumgoole as I was comin' over here. He was tellin' me you thought some of trail-ridin'?"

"I've got to find a job of some kind. I thought I'd try for trail-ridin'."

"Well, I've been hirin' myself out to the associa-