Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/18

 hands with him and push him out a cheer. That's the way Uncle Boley always told it; he had felt just like he wanted to shake hands with him and push him out a cheer.

"I wonder if I could get a shoe fixed here?" the stranger asked.

Uncle Boley looked him over before replying, the waxed-end hanging down his beard. He saw that the young fellow was tall and lanky, with steady, dark eyes which had a sparkle of humor in them, and dark hair that looked as if it needed cutting so badly that it must give him pain. But, Uncle Boley concluded in the same breath, they'd have to rope and hobble that chap to do it, more than likely, he looked so skittish and shy. He seemed a grave man for his years, which the bootmaker estimated at twenty-five or thirty, long-jointed, big-nosed, big-handed. Uncle Boley looked at his feet; they were made to carry a man.

"Shoe," said Uncle Boley, with plain disparagement of that sort of. "Nobody but the women and kids around here wears shoes."

"I'm a stranger; I'll get into the customs of the country when I learn them."

"Yes, you likely will. Now, if you want a good pair of boots, dog cheap"—Uncle Boley turned to the shelf behind his bench and took down a pair that he estimated might fit—"I can fix you up."