He turned a serious face off toward Cooke's Peak, which towered, a
mighty, sculptured mass of purest sapphire blue, against a turquoise
sky; and I, seeing that his countenance bore just such an expression of
inscrutable solemnity as it might have done had he been acting as chief
mourner at his own funeral, answered just as soberly:

"That must have been very interesting! I wish you would tell me about
it."

His gaze returned to his feet, his face relaxed into a smile, a chuckle
began somewhere in his throat, wandered down his long frame and lost
itself in his boots, which were high-heeled and two sizes too small for
him. Then he spoke again:

"That was the time we run a blaze on Pard Huff."

Then he relapsed into silence, contemplation of his boots, and several
successive and long-drawn chuckles. But at last he began his story.

"You see, Pard Huff, he was a tenderfoot, and there was n't nothin' he
was n't afraid of a-tall. You could n't convince him that coyotes
ain't dangerous; and he thought it was sure death if a tarantula looked
at him; and you could make him jump out of his boots any time by just
buzzin' your tongue behind his ear. I reckon he 'd have sure died of
fright if he had ever seen a live rattlesnake spittin' its tongue at
him.

"And Injuns! Well, he watched for Apaches all day long a durn sight
more 'n he did for cattle, and he could n't sleep nights for bein'