"Yes, I got it," said Jowett, with a chuckle, interpreting the old man's
look. "I got it for good--a wonder from Wonderville. Damned queer-looking
critter, but there, I guess we know what I've got. Outside like a
crinoline, inside like a pair of ankles of the Lady Jane Plantagenet.
Yes, I got it, Mr. Druse, got it dead-on!"
"How?" asked the Ry, feeling the clean fetlocks with affectionate
approval.
"He's off East, so he says," was the joyous reply; "sudden but sure, and
I dunno why. Anyway, he's got the door-handle offered, and he's off
without his camel." He stroked the neck of the bay lovingly. "How much?"
Jowett held up his fingers. The old man lifted his eyebrows quizzically.
"That-h'm! Does he preach as well as that?" he asked.
Jowett chuckled. "He knows the horse-country better than the New
Jerusalem, I guess; and I wasn't off my feed, nor hadn't lost my head
neither. I wanted that dust-hawk, and he knew it; but I got in on him
with the harness and the sulky. The bridle he got from a Mexican that
come up here a year ago, and went broke and then went dead; and there
being no padre, Tripple did the burying, and he took the bridle as his
fee, I s'pose. It had twenty dollars' worth of silver on it--look at
these conchs.
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