Читать книгу Hands Up! онлайн

61 страница из 67

"For him! No! He ain't got no appreciation. He's the kind of man if I wire for the Doc he would think me his slave—and he would like as not try to stand off paying the Doc his fee and I would go and offer to pay it and the Doc would be indignant and say 'Call off—Call off'—and that coyote would think he had done a smart deal. That's the kind of man he is. Come and eat."

The little crowd thinned, even the owner of the buck-board departing with a mere: "Well, mister, you're going to pay for a new buck-board when you get on your legs again." We went to "eat" lunch, Scotty and I, in the sun-blinded cool rear room of the hotel.

There had been plenty of incidents in that day. But I still felt more looking on at a show than as if they were my own incidents. You understand me? These were not my affairs.

We ate lunch and sat on the verandah afterwards with the remaining boys. One by one they departed—disappearing from the verandah and anon re-appearing on horseback and riding out of Black Kettle, one (who carried no blanket roll on his saddle) riding away by the waggon-road across the railway and straight up hill. Another (who packed a blanket, I noticed) rode away back of Black Kettle into the great plain striped with brush, and anon with sand and anon with grassy stretches. From the end of the house one could see him fade in that immensity.