"these clouds will settle down to business. It will rain; there will
be light enough for you to find your way by the regular trail over the
mountain, but not enough for any one to know you. If you can't push
through to-night, you can lie over at the posada on the summit. Them
greasers that keep it won't know you, and if they did they won't go back
on you. And if they did go back on you, nobody would believe them. It's
mighty curious," he added, with gloomy philosophy, "but I reckon it's
the reason why Providence allows this kind of cattle to live among white
men and others made in his image. Take a piece of pie, won't you?" He
continued, abandoning this abstract reflection and producing half a flat
pumpkin pie from the bar. Spencer Tucker grasped the pie with one hand
and his friend's fingers with the other, and for a few moments was
silent from the hurried deglutition of viand and sentiment. "YOU'RE a
white man, Patterson, anyway," he resumed. "I'll take your horse, and
put it down in our account, at your own figure. As soon as this cursed
thing is blown over, I'll be back here and see you through, you bet. I
don't desert my friends, however rough things go with me."
"I see you don't," returned Patterson, with an unconscious and serious
simplicity that had the effect of the most exquisite irony. "I was only
just saying to the sheriff that if there was anything I could have done
for you, you wouldn't have cut away without letting me know." Tucker
glanced uneasily at Patterson, who continued, "Ye ain't wanting anything
else?" Then observing that his former friend and patron was roughly but
newly clothed, and betrayed no trace of his last escapade, he added, "I
see you've got a fresh harness."
"That d----d Chinaman bought me these at the landing; they're not
much in style or fit," he continued, trying to get a moonlight view of
himself in the mirror behind the bar, "but that don't matter here." He
filled another glass of spirits, jauntily settled himself back in his
chair, and added, "I don't suppose there are any girls around, anyway."
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