II
THE DIFFICULTY WITH WINDY WALKER
The sun was hot upon the land and Double Mountain danced in the haze, while Double Mountain Fork, which empties itself into the Brazos miles to the northward, steamed between its banks. The sheep lay in their camps about the scanty mesquite and the cut banks of the creek, and under a couple of cottonwoods rooting in the slow waters. It was the time of day to do nothing, to say nothing, and to take, lying down, all the hammering that the sun and wind could give. Jeff said so, and he lay down under his cottonwood near which the sheep panted, while he played lazily upon a rickety old mouth-organ. And he knew just about as much of his tunes as the old man of Arkansaw did. Like him,
31
