Then, catching the glimmer of a light on a hillside, he
turned toward it to put up for the night.
In answer to his call a big man with a lantern came to the door and
raised his light until it shone on a red, bald head and a portly figure.
His welcome was neither hearty nor cold; hospitality is expected in the
mountain-desert. So Nash put up his horse in the shed and came back to
the house.
The meal was half over, but two girls immediately set a plate heaped
with fried potatoes and bacon and flanked by a mighty cup of jetblack
coffee on one side and a pile of yellow biscuits on the other. He nodded
to them, grunted by way of expressing thanks, and sat down to eat.
Beside the tall father and the rosy-faced mother, the family consisted
of the two girls, one of them with her hair twisted severely close to
her head, wearing a man's blue cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up
to a pair of brown elbows. Evidently she was the boy of the family and
to her fell the duty of performing the innumerable chores of the ranch,
for her hands were thick with work and the tips of the fingers blunted.
Pages:
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119