Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/20

 "I'm not so sure about the last part of it, sir."

"Well, if you're that nigh busted, you can stand me off till you git a job. I never took the last cent out of a man's pocket in my life."

"It must be a comfortable reflection at your age, sir."

"Well, I ain't as old as some," said Uncle Boley tartly, "and I'm a danged sight better man 'n many a one not half my age!"

"I didn't mean to imply that you had reached your dotage, sir." The stranger's grave, sensitive face reddened at the old man's heat. The flush appeared to increase his homeliness. For he was undoubtedly homely, but with a good plainness, Uncle Boley thought, like a man who would be kind to a horse or a woman.

"I'm as good as any man of forty-seven you can find in this country!"

Uncle Boley jerked his threads a bit sharply as he spoke, watching the stranger's face with sly, upward glancing of his wise old eyes which belied his apparent ill temper.

"Yes, and most of them at forty, I'll bet you a purty, sir."

There was a softness in the stranger's speech, a drawl in his words, that had marked him from the moment that he opened his mouth as somewhere