At another time Blount, the conventional Blount, would have been
self-conscious and embarrassed, as any human being is when he is caught
talking to himself. But with the transformation had come a battering
down of doors in the house of the broader fellowship, and he laughed
good-naturedly.
"You caught me fairly," he acknowledged. "I thought I still had the
place to myself."
"But the chance?" persisted the big man, looking him over appraisively.
"You don't look like a man who has had to hang round on the aidges
hankerin' after things he couldn't get."
"I guess I haven't had to do that very often," was the reflective
rejoinder. "But a mile or so back we passed a bunch of cattle, with the
night man riding watch; I was just saying to myself that I'd like to
change places with that night-herd--only there wasn't going to be any
chance."
The bearded man's laugh was a deep-chested rumbling suggestive of rocks
rolling down a declivity.
"Lordy gracious!" he chuckled. "If you was to get a leg over a bronc',
and the bronc' should find it out--Say, I've got a li'l' blue horse out
on my place in the Antelopes that'd plumb give his ears to have you try
it; he shore would. You take my advice, and don't you go huntin' a job
night-ridin' in the greasewood hills. Don't you do it!"
"I assure you I hadn't thought of doing it for a permanency.
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