Page:Morley roberts--Painted Rock.djvu/48

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

PAINTED ROCK

man bent his brows on him till his eyes were almost invisible.

"Get up the pinto, Jefferson," he said, and poor Jeff ran out of the shack into the burning sun as the tears rolled down his cheeks.

"There's no one but me, and Sis she's in Ole Virginny, and Mr. Walker will kill him for sure if they tell the trewth of him. But now Paw's mad. He's mad, and mebbe his hand won't shake."

He brought up the "pinto," and hitched the skewbald into the rattling old Studebaker wagon which was the carry-all for everything on Double Mountain Fork. And when it was ready old Dexter was ready too.

"I'll be back by midnight maybe," said Dexter. "Git up thar!" and he struck the horse over the flank with the doubled lines, and so far as Jeff could see the old man never turned his head after the pinto once got started. But the boy stared down the track across the prairie which Texans call a road, till he could see nothing but the brown

36