THE FIGHTING SHEPHERDESS
"Want a warsh?"
The stranger inspected a pair of hands that looked as if they had been greasing axles.
"No, I ain't very dirty."
"Grab a root and pull! " Bowers urged with all the hospitality he could inject into his voice, as the guest squeezed in between the table and the sideboard. " Jest bog down in that there honey, pardner — it's something special — cottonwood blossoms and alf alfy. And here's the turnips 1 "
Conversation was suspended until a pan of biscuits had vanished along with the fried mutton, when Bowers, feeling immeasurably better natured, inquired sociably as he passed the broom :
"Where have I saw you before, feller? Your countenance seems kind of familiar."
The stranger looked up quickly.
" I don't think it. I'm a long way off my own range."
He averted his eyes from Bowers's puzzled inquiring gaze and focused his attention upon the business of extracting a suitable straw from the politely tendered broom. When he had found one to his liking, he leaned back and operated with a large air of nonchalance.
" You're fixed pretty comfortable here," he commented, as his roving eye took in the interior of the wagon.
" 'Tain't bad," Bowers agreed, prying into the broom for a straw that was clean, comparatively.
" Is them all kin o' yourn? " The stranger pointed to a wire rack suspended from a nail on the opposite side of the wagon in which was thrust some two dozen photographs, fly-specked and yellow, while the cut of the sub- jects' clothes bore additional evidence of their antiquity.
" Lord, no I I don't know none of 'em. There was
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