"Here's your horse, Johnson," said Wilkins. "You've been mighty decent. Muchas gracias. All right, Osborne. I'm ready."
"Hold on," Lafe cut in; "say, wait a minute. What's the matter, anyhow? What's it all about? I want to get the rights of this."
"A deserter, Mr. Johnson," said the sergeant. "He used to be in Troop F. Ran off, he did. Some post exchange funds went, too."
"That's a lie," Wilkins shouted; "I never touched a cent. And you know it better'n anybody else, Osborne."
"We've been chasing him a year, Mr. Johnson."
Wilkins was watching Lafe much as a dog would watch his master to see whether he was angry. "I'd like to talk to you a minute, if you're agreeable, Mr. Johnson." The sergeant nodded acquiescence, and he led Lafe aside. "It's a wonder you'll speak to me after that. Osborne, there--he wouldn't shake hands."
"I'm not a soldier," the boss said guardedly.
"And I'm not a thief. You believe that, don't you? It was the rotten sameness of the life. Oh, you know how it is--and Mary Lou waiting--well, I hated the post, and it wasn't long before I grew to hate the boys. What'd you say? Sure, they're all right. But when you're cooped up with the same crowd day in and day out, the best men on earth will soon hate one another. You ain't never done it, so you don't know. Nothing to see but those ol' mountains, solemn as death all the time." He broke off, striving to compose himself. "See that high one yonder? I swear I've seen it nodding at me. Yes, sir, just like this. And Mary Lou and her father--oh, I got afraid of those hills--honest to God, I did. And the boys--why even your cowboys look down on us. And Mary Lou--so I beat it and swore I'd never come back."
"That's the queer part of it"--he laughed without mirth--"I can't rightly explain that myself. Mary Lou--no, I'd have come back anyhow. I was going dippy down there among the yellow-bellies. And Mary Lou, she--"
He told Lafe that he had wandered four times to the line, merely to get a glimpse of the country. The air this side of the border fence was different to the other; he was positive of that, although the boundary consisted of some strands of barbed wire. Once a corporal, returning from Naco to the post, had come upon him a mile within American territory. What was he doing there? Oh, just looking round. He had taken back with him a prickly-pear plant. The corporal had almost caught Wilkins that time, but he managed to put the fence between them. On the other side he could twiddle his fingers at the corporal, who dared not pursue.