"Want to take a
ride up that way and let the sun shine on your nice new saddle?" Though
he called it Manuel's camp from force of habit, that hot-blooded
gentleman had not set foot over its unhewn doorsill for three weeks and
more.
Jack hesitated, having in mind the possibility of persuading Teresita
that she ought to pay a visit to the Simpson cabin that day to display
her latest accomplishment by asking in real, understandable English, how
the pup was getting along; and to show the pretty senora the proper way
to pat tortillas out thin and smooth, as Margarita had been bribed to
teach Teresita herself to do.
"Sure, I'll go," he responded, before the hesitation had become
pronounced, and managed to inject a good deal of his old heartiness into
the words.
"I'm going to have the cattle pushed down this way," Dade explained, "so
you can keep an eye on them from here and we won't have to keep up that
camp. Since they made Bill Wilson captain of the Vigilantes, there isn't
quite so much wholesale stealing as there was, anyway, and enough
vaqueros went with Manuel so I'll need every one that's left. I'll leave
you Pedro, because he can't do any hard riding, after that fall he got
the other day. The two of you can keep the cattle pretty well down this
way."
"All right. Say, what was it made you act so glum since we came down
here?" Jack, as occasionally happens with a friend, was not content to
forget a grievance while the cause of it remained clouded with mystery.
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