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Elizabeth thought she was prepared to fulfill the promise made to her father three days ago, but, now that the opportunity was upon her, she felt her resolution slipping away. She loved her dear old friend as never in all her life. The singer rounded a projection of sandy beach just beyond the rock-pile where the girl was sitting.
Pond would certainly never take a fancy to such a dreadfully grimy child! His new, clean clothes made him look all the worse, as though dirty on purpose! The little girls retired to their rock-pile and talked over their bitter disappointment, Ralph and the other boys absorbed in a game of marbles near them. 'Lias had gone proudly into the schoolroom to show himself to Miss Benton.
Acting upon suspicion only, I told Poundstone I was prepared to send him to the rock-pile if he didn't behave himself in the matter of my permanent franchise for the N.C.O. and the oily old invertebrate wept and promised me anything if I wouldn't disgrace him.
Anyhow, I'd spend MY declining years nestled up to a rock-pile, with a mallet in my mit, and a low-browed gentleman scowling at me from the top of a wall.
Riotous laughter from all the listeners followed that declaration; a glance at the tubby tramp and survey of the tall young man whose contours fitted the garments made the fat man's assertion seem like a huge joke. "I can prove it!" squalled the vagrant. "Beat it! Get out of this city!" commanded a policeman. "If you don't we'll have you on the rock-pile. What ye mean by such guff?"
Baxter, Grahame, Bedell, and others of the prominent members of the community were haled in to court ... and, to the surprise of everyone, sentenced to forty-eight hours hard labour on the rock-pile, in the workhouse....
"That settles it," said Curly. "I never did know Juan to miss it on locatin' water yet, not onct. I kin fairly taste it now. But you see, Juan, he don't seem to go by no rock-pile signs. He just seems to smell water, like a horse or a steer." They now rode on more rapidly, bearing off toward the cairn which made the water sign.
And here I am Oh, hell, I'd rather be on a rock-pile with a ball and chain to my foot! Do you see those objects across yonder about two miles in that old grass? That's where we bedded night before last and forty odd died. We only lost twenty-two last night. Oh, we're getting in shape fast. If you think you can hold your breakfast down, just take a ride through mine.
I thought they wouldn't find me away down here, but they did. That's why Peter and I moved over to the big rock-pile at the end of the Ridge. I'm an outlaw. I've done a lot of bad things in the eyes of the law, and I'll probably die with a bullet in me, or in jail. I'm sorry, but that don't help. I'd give my life to be able to tell you what's in my heart. But I can't. It wouldn't be square."
But here, as in Missouri, he looked for consolation to the wet woods, to the still, soft, straight rain, to the sighing trees that softly soughed him welcome. After weary days and nights, working by day on rock-pile or in field, sleeping by night in the corner of a friendly fence of worm-eaten rails, fanned by the delicate hair of the pale blue grasses, he came to Burgin.
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