Читать книгу Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders at Circle O Ranch онлайн

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“I am looking for Jim-Sam, who is to guide us,” announced Hippy, addressing the men.

“We’re Jim-Sam,” answered the men in chorus. “Be ye the dudes?”

“Well, not exactly,” interjected Stacy Brown.

“This is the party that engaged Jim-Sam,” repeated Hippy patiently. “Which of you is Jim-Sam?”

“Both of us,” added the taller of the two men. “I’m Sam, an’ this heah galoot standin’ side me is Jim, an’—”

“I’ll have ye understand that I ain’t no galoot,” objected Jim heatedly, shaking a finger under Sam’s nose.

“Hold on, you two! Let me get this clear,” interposed Tom Gray, stepping up to them. “Do you mean that we have engaged, not one guide, but two?”

Sam explained that he and Jim were “pards,” and that they had always worked together, and “fit an’ died together” these many years, adding further, that Jim, being a spavined, ring-boned old cayuse wasn’t much good to anyone, himself included, but that he could hold the horses and howl like a coyote at the pack-horses to keep them going.

“Haw, haw!” exploded Stacy.