"Know Hooper?" he asked.

"I've seen him driving by," said I.

I had: a little humped, insignificant figure with close-cropped white
hair beneath a huge hat. He drove all hunched up. His buckboard was a
rattletrap, old, insulting challenge to every little stone in the road;
but there was nothing the matter with the horses or their harness. We
never held much with grooming in Arizona, but these beasts shone like
bronze. Good sizeable horses, clean built--well, I better not get
started talking horse! They're the reason I had never really sized up
the old man the few times I'd passed him.

"Well, he's a tough bird," said Jed.

"Looks like a harmless old cuss--but mean," says I.

"About this trip," said Jed, after I'd saddled and coiled my
rope--"don't, and say you did."

I didn't answer this, but led my horse to the gate.

"Well, don't say as how I didn't tell you all about it," said Jed, going
back to the bunk house.

Miserable old coot! I suppose he thought he _had_ told me all about it!
Jed was always too loquacious!

But I hadn't racked along more than two miles before a man cantered up