Black Bart crouched on the ground, and Dan Barry sat down cross-legged,
his shoulders leaning against the shaggy pelt of Bart. Daniels followed
the example with less grace. He was thinking very hard and fast, and he
rolled a Durham cigarette to fill the interlude.
"I s'pose you're bustin' to find out the news about the folks," he said
dryly, at last.
The other sat with his hands loosely clasped in his lap. His wide eyes
looked far away, and there was about his lips that looseness, that lack
of compression, which one sees so often in children. He might have sat,
in that posture, for the statue of thoughtlessness.
"What folks?" he asked at last
Buck Daniels had lighted a match, but now he sat staring blank until the
match burned down to his fingers. With an oath he tossed the remnant
away and lighted another. He had drawn down several long breaths of
smoke to the bottom of his lungs before he could speak again.
"Some people you used to know; I suppose you've forgotten all about 'em,
eh?" His eyes narrowed; there was a spark of something akin to dread in
them. "Kate Cumberland?" he queried.
A light came in the face of Dan Barry.
"Kate Cumberland?" he repeated. "How is she, Buck? Lately, I been
thinkin' about her every day."
A trembling took the body and the voice of Daniels; his errand, after
all, might meet some success.
"Kate?" he repeated. "Oh, ay, she's well enough. But Joe Cumberland
ain't.
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