"You see me," said Peck, disparaging the exhibit to a most contemptible object, indeed.
"You changed your mind and came back? I thought you would, somehow."
"Did I?" Peck challenged, looking up from his overheated bacon, which was already black around the curled edges before it was half done. "Well, you've got another guess comin'. Dang this cookin' out here in this blame country! Nothing to cook but sowbelly and flopjakes, and canned beans warmed over in the grease. I'm so full of canned beans I spill 'em when I gape."
"Kind of early for dinner, unless you got your sheep out before daylight?"
"It ain't dinner; it's breakfast," Peck corrected, as Rawlins knew he must if he told the truth. "You don't ketch me gittin' up at daylight to wake up a bunch of stews and spread 'em out with their dang noses the right way accordin' to the wind—either with it or agin it, danged if I remember which—but the old lady's particular on that point as I used to be about my neckties before I come to this dad-blamed country.
"What the dickens do I care which way they ought to point in the wind? Head or tail, it's all the same to me. If they ain't got sense enough to turn around the right way if I start 'em wrong, I say let 'em go to the doo—let 'em go to hell!"
"So she followed you to Jasper and grabbed you before you could get your ticket to St. Joe, heh? Tough luck, Peck. But it may work out for the best, after all."
Peck took his smoking skillet from the fire, shook
