PAINTED ROCK
"I wonder Mr. Remington didn't shoot him," said Mamie, sighing. "Oh, I wish I lived in a town or a city; I'm tired of Ennis Creek."
And while she was thinking that the prairie was monotonous, and that the cowboys were not all they imagined, Jerome and Jack Higginson were sitting gloomily outside the house of Jerome's "Paw," wondering what would happen or ought to happen, when Mr. Remington of Alabama, who was the best shot in Painted Rock, came out to Ennis Creek the day after to-morrow.
"Things is alterin'," said Jack bitterly. "Here's this fencing coming along! Sheep takes the place of steers. You cayn't ride ten miles without crossin' wire ten times. The buffalo ez a thing o' the past. There's not a head of 'em left even on the Staked Plain. Easterners comes here, Law comes here. I shall get up and git. The girls ain't what they was. Mary's all right, but mostly we ain't got a look-in with an Eastern drummer. Chuck it up, Jerome, and go to Arizona."
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