"Tramp, eh?" he said, addressing the pony. "What do you say, Sarko? Nothin', eh? Same as me.... Overland Red's kid pal, eh? Huh! I knowed Jack Summers, Red Jack Summers, down in Sonora in '83. Mexico was some open country then. Jack was a white pardner, too. Went to the bad, account of that Chola girl that he was courtin' goin' wrong.... Funny how the boss come to pick up that kid. Thinks there's somethin' in him. O' course they is. But what? Eh, Sarko, what? You say nothin', same as me.... Here, you! That's a lizard, you fool hoss. Never seen one before, so you're try in' to catch it by jumpin' through your bridle after it, eh? Never seen one before, oh, no! Don't like that, eh? Well, you quit, and I will. Exactly. It's me, and my ole Spanish spurs. I'm listenin'.... Nothin' to say?... Uhuh! I reckon little Louise had somethin' to do with gettin' the kid the job. Well, if _she_ likes him, I got to. Guess I'd love a snake if she said to. Yes, I'm listenin' to myself ..." And the taciturn foreman's hard, weathered face wrinkled in a smile. "I'm listenin' ... None of the boys know Red's camped up by the spring. I do. Red used to be a damn white Injun in the old days. I'll give the kid a chance to put him wise for old times. And I'll find out if the kid means business or not ... which is some help to know how to handle him later."
Williams picketed his pony in the meadow above the third cross-fence. Loafing down the slope toward the spring, he noticed the faint smoke of a fire. Farther down the line fence, he could see Collie in the distance, riding slowly toward the three live-oaks. The foreman found a convenient seat on a ledge, rolled another of his eternal cigarettes, and watched the boy approach from below.
Collie had already dismounted three times that morning; twice to mend fence, and once more involuntarily. He determined, with a mighty vow to the bow-legged god of all horseflesh, to learn to stay on a broncho or die learning.
The boy had a native fondness for animals, and he had already thought of buying a pony with his first few months' wages. But the vision of his erstwhile companion Overland, perhaps imprisoned and hopeless in the grip of the "bunch," annulled that desire. He would save every cent for that emergency.
