r, when my horse
went lame on me from slipping on a shale bank, and I was set afoot. Uh
course, you being plumb ignorant of our picturesque life, you don't
half know all that might signify to _imply_." This last in open
imitation of Branciforte. "It implies that I was in one hell of a fix,
to put it elegant. I was sixty miles from anywhere, and them sixty
half the time standing on end and lapping over on themselves. That
there is down where old mama Nature gave full swing to a morbid
hankering after doing things unconventional. Result is, that it's
about as ungodly a mixture of nightmare scenery as this old world can
show up; and I've ambled around considerable and am in a position to
pass judgment.

"So there I was, and I wasn't in no mood to view the beauties uh
nature to speak of; for instance, I didn't admire the clouds sailing
around promiscous in the sky, nor anything like that. I was high and
dry and the walking was about as poor as I ever seen; and my boots was
high-heel and rubbed blisters before I'd covered a mile of that
acrobatic territory. I wanted water, and I wanted it bad. Before I got
it I wanted it a heap worse." He stopped, cupped his slim fingers
around a match-blaze, and Branciforte sat closer. He did not know what
was coming, but the manner of the indifferent narrator was compelling.
He almost forgot the point at issue in the adventure.

"Along about dark, I camped for the night under a big, bare-faced
cliff that was about as homelike and inviting as a charitable
institution, and made a bluff at sleeping and cussed my bum luck in a
way that wasn't any bluff. At sun-up I rose and mooched on." His
cigarette needed another match and he searched his pockets for one.

"What about the--whatever it was you started to tell me?" urged
Branciforte, grown impatient.

Andy looked him over calmly. "You've lived in ignorance for about
thirty years or so--giving a rough guess at your age; I reckon you can
stand another five minutes. As I was saying, I wandered around like a
dogy when it's first turned loose on the range and is trying to find
the old, familiar barn-yard and the skim-milk bucket. And like the
dogy, I didn't run across anything that looked natural or inviting.
All that day I perambulated over them hills, and I will say I wasn't
enjoying the stroll none. You're right when you say things can happen,
out here. There's some things it's just as well they don't happen too
frequent, and getting lost a