Starr, of the Desert | Page 6

find some easy mark to buy
out my relinquishment. Don't want to let it slide, yuh see, 'cause the
improvements is worth a little something, and the money'd come handy
right now, helpin' me into something here. There's a chance to buy into
a nice little service station, fellow calls it--where automobiles stop to
git pumped up with air and gasoline and stuff. If I can sell my
improvements, I'll buy in there. Looks foolish to go back, once I made
up my mind to quit."
He ate while he talked, and he talked because he had the simple mind
of a child and must think out loud in order to be perfectly at ease. He
had that hunger for speech which comes sometimes to men who have
lived far from their kind. Peter listened to him vaguely at first; then
avidly, with an inner excitement which his mild, expressionless face
hid like a mask.
"I was getting kinda discouraged when my horse up 'n died," the eater
went on. "And then when some durn greaser went 'n stole my burro, I
jest up 'n sold my saddle and a few head uh sheep I had, and pulled out.
New Mexico ranching is all right for them that likes it, but excuse me! I
want to live where I can see a movie once in a while, anyhow." He
stopped for the simple, primitive reason that he had filled his mouth to
overflowing with food, so that speech was for the moment a physical
impossibility.
Peter sipped his glass of milk, and his thoughts raced back and forth
between the door of opportunity that stood ajar, and the mountain of
difficulty which he must somehow move by his mental strength alone

before he and his might pass through that door.
"Ah--how much do you value your improvements at?" he asked. His
emotion was so great that his voice refused to carry it, and so was flat
and as expressionless as his commonplace face.
"Well," gurgled the young man, sluicing down his food with coffee,
"it's pretty hard to figure exactly. I've got a good little shack, you see,
and there's a spring right close handy by. Springs is sure worth money
in that country, water being scurse as it is. There's a plenty for the
house and a few head of stock; well, in a good wet year a person could
raise a little garden, maybe; few radishes and beans, and things like that.
But uh course, that can't hardly be called an improvement, 'cause it was
there when I took the place. A greaser, he had the land fenced and was
usin' the spring 'n' range like it was his own, and most folks, they was
scared to file on it. But she's sure filed on now, and I've got six weeks
yet before it can be jumped.
"Well, there's a shed for stock, and a pretty fair brush corral, and I built
me a pretty fair road in to the place--about a mile off the main road, it is.
I done that odd times the year I was on the place. The sheep I sold;
sheep's a good price now. I only had seventeen--coyotes and greasers,
they kep' stealin' 'em on me, or I'd 'n' had more. I'd 'a' lost 'em all, I
guess, if it hadn't been for Loma--dog I got with me. Them--"
Peter looked at his watch in that furtive way which polite persons
employ when time presses and a companion is garrulous. He had
finished his rice pudding and his milk, and in five minutes he would be
expected to hang up his hat behind the mirrored partition of the New
Era Drug Store and walk out smilingly to serve the New Era customers,
patrons, the New Era called them. In five minutes he must be on duty,
yet Peter felt that his very life depended upon bringing this wordy
young man to a point in his monologue.
"If you will come to the New Era Drug Store, at six o'clock," said Peter,
"I shall be glad to talk with you further about this homestead of yours.
I--ah--have a friend who has an idea of--ah--locating somewhere in
Arizona or New Mexico or Colorado--" Peter could name them now

without that sick feeling of despair "--and he might be interested. But,"
he added hastily, "he could not afford to pay very much for a place.
Still, if your price is low enough--"
"Oh, I reckon we can git together on the price," the young man said
cheerfully, as Peter rose and picked up his check. "I'll be there at six,
sure as shootin' cats in a bag. I know where the New Era's at. I went in
there last night and got something to stop my tooth