"Knowin' what I know, it makes me creepy settin' here listenin'."
"Shoo! I ain't that good, am I?" Bowers looked his pleasure at the tribute.
"Good?" ironically. "You oughta sew spangles on your shirt and wear ear-rings and git you a fortune-tellin' wagon. You're right about everything except that that horse never was beat while he owned him and he win about twenty thousand dollars on him, and that the last time I saw that feller he could buy sixteen outfits like this one without crampin' him, and instead of goin' to the asylum they sent him to the state senate."
Bowers laughed loudly to cover his annoyance at having bitten.
"It's come about queer, though," he said, "your knowin' him."
The stranger seemed to check an impulse to say something further; instead, he volunteered to wipe the dishes.
"No, you go out and set in the shade--it's cooler."
The truth was, Bowers did not want the man in the wagon, for his first feeling of mistrust and antagonism had returned even stronger.
"That feller's liable to pick up somethin' and make off with it," he mused as the stranger obeyed without further urging. "I shore have saw them quare eyes of his somewhur. Maybe it'll come to me if I keep on thinkin'."
In the meanwhile the visitor dragged Bowers's saddle blanket into the shade of the wagon and stretched himself upon it. Pulling his hat over his eyes he soon was dozing.
Bowers, rattling the plates and pans inside the wagon, suddenly bethought himself of Mary. What was the lamb doing not to be about his feet begging for the condensed milk which he always prepared for it when his own meal was finished? He flirted the water from his hands and hung out of the doorway.
Mary, a few feet from the unconscious stranger, was regarding him with the gentle speculative look which Bowers knew to presage mischief. It was not difficult to interpret Mary's intentions, and Bowers was fully aware that it was his duty either to warn the sleeper or reprimand Mary. His eyes, however, had the fondness of a doting parent who takes a secret pride in his offspring's naughtiness as he watched Mary. He did not like the stranger, anyhow, and the incident of the photograph still rankled.
"The Smart Alec," he muttered, grinning, "it won't hurt him."
The lamb backed off a little, made a run, and with its four feet bunched, landed in the pit of the stranger's stomach.
With an explosive grunt, the stranger's knees and chin came together like the sudden closing of a large pocket knife.
In spite of himself, Bowers snickered, but his grin faded at the expression which came to the stranger's face when he realized the cause of his painful awakening. It was devilish, nothing less than appalling, in its ferocity. Bowers had seen rage before, but the peculiar fiendishness of the man's expression, not knowing himself observed, fascinated him.