The Open Boat and Other Stories

r, and examined every part of it. It was the revolver that had dealt death to the foreman, and it had also been in free fights in which it had dealt death to several or none

minion smote where he listed, even to the battering of a far penny. Wherefore it was his dearest possession, and was not

mesquit when the instinct of the plainsman warned him that the stillness, the desolation, was again invaded. He saw a motionless horseman in black outline against the pallid sky.

onounced American features, and a skin too red to grow o

called th

" answe

ard. "Good evening," he sa

ill, without committing hi

y that is not ill-mannered on the plains, where one

was clear that the young man was of a far, black Northern city. He had discarded the enormous stirrups of his Mexican saddle; he used the small English stirrup, and his feet were thrust forward until the steel tightly gripped his ankles.

. He saw a pair of eyes that at first looked at him as the wolf looks at the wolf, and then became childlike, almost timid, in their glance. Here wa

from his horse. "Well, sir, I suppose you

said

l let me camp here

answered, scowling in inhospitable annoyance-"well, I don't

ned quickly from

"You don't want me here? Yo

company well enough, but-you see, some of these here greasers are goin' to chase me off the range to-night; and while I mig

u off the range?"

hey were goin' to

! will they kill y

e has a chance to git at 'em. They lay around and wait for their chance, and it comes soon enough. Of course a feller alone like me has got to let up watching some time. Maybe they ketch 'im asleep. Maybe the feller git

camp to-night?" cried the strange

come and

e you going

" answered Bill gloomily, stil

ut in an amazed cry. "Well, I never heard of such

ere just now, and you might better lope off before dark. I don't ask no help in this here row. I k

onder don't you go get the

-!" sai