To
pass the time! Lord, that's our problem. Now if you all only had
a hankerin' for checkers. Shore I'll make a board an' make you
play. Thorne, you're the luckiest. You've got your girl, an' this
can be a honeymoon. Now with a few tools an' little material see
what a grand house you can build for your wife. Dick, you're
lucky, too. You like to hunt, an' up there you'll find the finest
bighorn huntin' in the West. Take Yaqui and the .405. We need
the meat, but while you're gettin' it have your sport. The same
chance will never come again. I wish we all was able to go. But
crippled men can't climb the lava. Shore you'll see some country
from the peaks. There's no wilder place on earth, except the poles.
An' when you're older, you an' Nell, with a couple of fine boys,
think what it'll be to tell them about bein' lost in the lava, an'
huntin' sheep with a Yaqui. Shore I've hit it. You can take
yours out in huntin' an' thinkin'. Now if I had a girl like Nell
I'd never go crazy. That's your game, Dick. Hunt, an' think of
Nell, an' how you'll tell those fine boys about it all, an' about
the old cowman you knowed, Laddy, who'll by then be long past the
divide. Rustle now, son. Get some enthusiasm. For shore you'll
need it for yourself an' us."
Gale climbed the lava slope, away round to the right of the arroyo,
along an old trail that Yaqui said the Papagos had made before his
own people had hunted there. Part way it led through spiked,
crested, upheaved lava that would have been almost impassable even
without its silver coating of choya cactus.
Pages:
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340