h
seat. Not much!

He went to the drip, serenely careless of the thousand eyes upon him;
he drank and clicked to Girl o' Mine, his mare. She pricked up her
ears and approached a step or two; she tossed her head and whinnied;
she was afraid of the drip and spatter of the overflow.

He drank again.

"See," he said, "it'll not hurt you. Plain water--that's all--awful
plain! Sure, you're unstrung--but that's nothing. So am I. We both
been under a strain. But I'm not asking you to do anything I'll not do
myself. See, I'm drinking it--just plain water! There--what'd I tell
you? See!"

The mare had edged nearer, eagerly, while he talked. She was very
thirsty, though fearful. And at length his voice reassured her; she
thrust her velvet nostrils into the tub.

Then he seated himself upon a foundation timber of the tank and rolled
a cigarette. His toilet could wait. He wasn't going to ride into
Reservoir and advertise his straits,--not to a lot of half-breeds and
Mexicans and worse. He could wait; years and years of time were before
him. For, vindictively, he wasn't going to provide a spectacle for
those eyes at the windows to watch either; eyes hungry to look upon
anything--anything--if only it wasn't empty desert. Not even the
spectacle of a scarecrow making himself neat and clean,--not him! Let
'em suffer and be bored. He was bored himself!

He smoked and meditated, and presently a shadow fell athwart his lap.
Another horseman was arriving, and he was creating not mild interest
but a veritable stir at the windows. For he was different,
oh-so-different! He drew the eye with his magnificence. His chaps
were new and so was his shirt and his hat had cost thirty dollars. And
Blue Jeans could almost hear them exclaiming as they crowded to the
panes.

This was the real thing! You bet! No fringy-panted scarecrow upon a
horse too good for him--stolen probably at that. Well, I guess not!
This was a bit of the real West--the old West. Look at them spurs.
Silver--solid! A regular cowboy!

And the newcomer had been quick to sense this too. He was on his way
out from Reservoir, traveling north. Of course he would be traveling
north--the Dee & Zee lay in that quarter--and this magnificence was the
Dee & Zee superintendent. More than that, his horse was fresh up from
the stable, and the stable hands were not accustomed to sending a horse
out thirsty into the desert, but he did not now pause to conside