I wish I'd plugged him! I c'ud bury a man like him, cheerful." He rolled a cigarette and inhaled it strenuously.
"It was a rotten trick, Red," said Sheridan, gravely. "I hate to have him for even a near neighbor. Some day we'll chivvy his sort out of here. It's too good a place for men of his breed."
Jackson had recovered his temper with the soothing indraughts of the smoke. He looked out across the mesa with his eyes crinkling to the wide grin of his mouth.
"Looks like Paradise to you, don't it?" he said. "An' to me it looks like—well Texas suits me a heap better," he added politely. After all this was his boss's holding.
"All Chico Mesa needs, Red, is a few good men and water."
"Yep," drawled Red. "They tell me Hell's in much the same condition." He stamped out the butt of his cigarette under his high heel and swung to his saddle while Sheridan roared with laughter.
"I'll show you the water before the sun's down," he said as the mare caught up with Jackson's fussing pinto. "We'll camp there tonight. Lake of the Woods, I call it, right at the base of Ghost Peak. Trout there and all the vension you want, later in the season. I've got a cache there under some rocks. Just a frying pan and coffee pot with a tin plate or so. And I built a compromise between a leanto and a cabin. I never knew of any one going there but myself. At least, I've never seen any sign. "
