Mintie was about to enter the house, when she saw down the road a tiny
reek of white dust. "Gee!" she exclaimed for the second time.
"Who's this?"
Being summer, the hauling had not yet begun. Mintie, who had the
vision of a turkey-buzzard, stared at the reek of dust.
"Smoky Jack, I reckon," she said disdainfully. Nevertheless, she went
into the house, and when she reappeared a minute later her hair
displayed a slightly more ordered disorder, and she had donned a clean
apron.
She expressed surprise rather than pleasure when a young man rode up,
shifted in his saddle, and said:--
"How air you folks makin' it?"
"Pretty fair. Goin' to town?"
"I thought, mebbe, of goin' to town nex' week. I come over jest to
pass the time o' day with the old man."
"Rode ten miles to pass the time o' day with--Pap?"
"Yas."
"Curiously fond men air of each other!"
"That's so," said Smoky admiringly. "An' livin' alone puts notions o'
love and tenderness into my head that never comed thar when Maw was
alive an' kickin'. I tell yer, its awful lonesome on my place."
He sat up in his saddle, a handsome young fellow, the vaquero rather
than the cowboy, a distinction well understood in California.
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