United States or Benin ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Keeping inside the long hitching-rack, he crossed the sagging porch and stepped through the open door into the store. For a moment he thought it empty. Then a chair scraped, and over in one corner a short, stout, grizzled man dropped his feet from the window-sill and shuffled forward, yawning. "Wal! Wal!" he mumbled, his faded, sleep-dazed eyes taking in Buck's bag. "Train come in?
Kinney and I had been strangers up to the time when I called "Hallo!" at his hitching-rack; but from that moment until my departure on the next morning we were, according to the Texas code, undeniable friends. After supper the ranchman and I lugged our chairs outside the two-room house, to its floorless gallery roofed with chaparral and sacuista grass.
To-day he looked about him with new interest, for here were streets and stores that were to become familiar to him. They entered the town from the south and drove directly to its center, where stood the courthouse in a small square surrounded by an iron hitching-rack. Stores faced it on every side, and above the stores were the lawyers' offices.
He did not look or act like a man who had been engaged in any underhand business, and neither did Colonel Shelby, who hastened down the steps and came across the road to the hitching-rack to help Marcy off his horse. "So glad to see you safe back," was the way in which he greeted the boy.
Paloma Springs in its entirety lay there in full view, drowsing in the torrid heat of mid-September. Not a human being was in sight. Only a brindled dog slept in a small patch of shade beside the store; and fastened to the hotel hitching-rack, two burros, motionless save for twitching tails and ears, were almost hidden beneath stupendous loads of firewood.
The following day, a warm and muggy one threatening rain awhile Jane was resting in the court, a horseman clattered through he grove and up to the hitching-rack. He leaped off and approached Jane with the manner of a man determined to execute difficult mission, yet fearful of its reception. In the gaunt, wiry figure and the lean, brown face Jane recognized one of her Mormon riders, Blake.
"Are you two going to ride out with me?" said Marcy, when he reached the hitching-rack, where they were waiting for him. "We may go out some day, but not for proof," replied Tom. "What would be the use, when we know that you told us nothing but the truth? But, Marcy, you don't mean to say that those robbers were frightened from their work by the simple breaking down of the chandelier?"
He hustled into his clothes, went down, and opened the door. "The señorita. Ees she at home?" the man asked again. "She's down to the Boston Emporium cuttin' sandwiches an' packin' 'em," Keith said. "Who wants her?" "I have a note for her from Señor Sanders." Master Keith seized his opportunity promptly. "I'll take you down there." The man brought his horse from the hitching-rack across the road.
"Ain't I? What does a man care about a little hobble, or one eye, or a little chunk of fat, when he can step into a layout like that?" "Why didn't you lead her up to the hitching-rack while you were there? Somebody else is likely to pick your plum while your back's turned." "No, I don't reckon.
Half an hour passed; a man had brought Ringo's pony from the O.K. corral and left it at the hitching-rack before the court-house. Everything was in readiness except the cash. Finally Goodrich returned. "All right," he told the sheriff, who was seated at his desk. "I've got the bail here, Johnny. Everything's arranged."
Word Of The Day