Light yellow hair, little yellow moustache, light blue eyes. And
clean! Say, I never saw anybody that looked so aggravating clean in
all my life. It seemed kind of wrong for him to be outdoors; all the
prairie and the cabin and everything looked mussed up beside him.
"As soon as he opened up, I noticed he had a little habit of speaking
in streaks, that bothered me. I missed the sense of his remarks.
"'Would you mind walking over that trail again?' I asked him. 'I do
most of my thinking at a foot-step and your ideas is over the hill and
far away before I can recognise the cut of their scalp-lock.'
"'Haw!' says he and stared at me. I was just on the point of askin'
him if red hair was a new thing to him, when all of a sudden he begun
to laugh, 'Haw-haw-haw!' says he; 'not bad at all, ye know.'
"'Of course not,' says I. 'Why should it be?'
"This got him going. I saw him figuring away to himself, and then I
had to smile so you could hear it.
"'Well,' says I, better humoured, 'tell us it again--I caught the word
sheep in the hurricane.'
"So he went over it, talking slow. I listened with one ear, for he had
a white bulldog with him; a husky, bandy-legged brute with a black eye,
and he was sniffing, dog fashion, around the door, while I blocked him
out with my legs. Doggy was in a frame of mind, puzzling out
bull-snake trail, and hawk trail, and bob-cat trail.
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