Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.) -- Fiction; Western stories
He was quite right, but Specimen Jones was thinking of something else.
He went out to the corral, feeling disturbed and doubtful. He saw the
tall white freight-wagon of the Mexicans, looming and silent, and a
little way off the new fence where the man lay. An odd sound startled
him, though he knew it was no Indians at this hour, and he looked down
into a little dry ditch. It was the boy, hidden away flat on his stomach
among the stones, sobbing.
"Oh, snakes!" whispered Specimen Jones, and stepped back. The Latin
races embrace and weep, and all goes well; but among Saxons tears are a
horrid event. Jones never knew what to do when it was a woman, but this
was truly disgusting. He was well seasoned by the frontier, had tried a
little of everything: town and country, ranches, saloons, stage-driving,
marriage occasionally, and latterly mines. He had sundry claims staked
out, and always carried pieces of stone in his pockets, discoursing upon
their mineral-bearing capacity, which was apt to be very slight. That is
why he was called Specimen Jones. He had exhausted all the important
sensations, and did not care much for anything any more. Perfect health
and strength kept him from discovering that he was a saddened, drifting
man. He wished to kick the boy for his baby performance, and yet he
stepped carefully away from the ditch so the boy should not suspect his
presence. He found himself standing still, looking at the dim, broken
desert.
"Why, hell," complained Specimen Jones, "he played the little man to
start with. He did so. He scared that old horse-thief, Adams, just about
dead. Then he went to kill me, that kep' him from bein' buried early
to-morrow. I've been wild that way myself, and wantin' to shoot up the
whole outfit." Jones looked at the place where his middle finger used to
be, before a certain evening in Tombstone. "But I never--" He glanced
towards the ditch, perplexed. "What's that mean? Why in the world does
he git to cryin' for _now_, do you suppose?" Jones took to singing
without knowing it. "'Ye shepherds, tell me, ha-ve you seen my Flora
pass this way?'" he murmured. Then a thought struck him. "Hello, kid!"
he called out. There was no answer. "Of course," said Jones. "Now he's
ashamed to hev me see him come out of there." He walked with elaborate
slowness round the corral and behind a shed. "Hello, you kid!" he called
again.
"I was thinking of going to sleep," said the boy, appearing quite
suddenly. "I--I'm not used to riding all day. I'll get used to it, you
know," he hastened to add.
"'Ha-ve you seen my Flo'--Say, kid, where y'u bound, anyway?"
"San Carlos."
"San Carlos? Oh. Ah. 'Flora pass this way?'"
"Is it far, sir?"
"Awful far, sometimes. It's always liable to be far through the Arivaypa
Canon."
"I didn't expect to make it between meals," remarked Cumnor.
"No. Sure. What made you come this route?"
"A man told me."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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