United States or Lebanon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
His profile was again in view under a strong light, and Jack realized that his first recognition of a resemblance was the recognition of an indisputable fact. "Have I a double out West and another in New York?" he thought. "It gives a man a kind of secondhand feeling!" Then he recalled Jim's letter saying that John Prather had gone to New York. Was this John Prather?
But even Jack did not look up at the sky this time as he walked along in silence with his fellow-citizens to the point where the farthest furrow of his ranch had been drawn across the virgin desert. His foot was already in the stirrup when Jim Galway spoke the thought of all: "Jack, there's only two of you, and if it happened that you met Leddy " "It is Prather that I want to see," Jack answered.
"He isn't always such an ass," Dolph said, as he crossed his legs, preparatory to a long discussion. "It's only when he sets out to be bold and bad that he's so intolerable." "Prather and the adjectives don't seem to match up very well," Reed objected. "No. That is the whole trouble; he can't live up to his ambitions.
The Eternal Painter was shaking out the silvery cloud-mist of his beard across a background that had a softer, kindlier, deeper blue. The shadows of the ponies and their riders and Jag Ear and his pack no longer lay under their bellies heavily, but were stretched out to one side by the angle of the sun, in cheerful, jogging fraternity. Prather and Nogales had again become only a speck.
I've often thought of you rather pitifully!" said Prather. "You well might!" Jack answered, feelingly. "We may well share a common pity for each other." There was no sign that John Prather subscribed to the sentiment except in a certain quizzical turn of his lips, as he looked away. "Yes, the story has been kept from me. I have come for it!" said Jack. "That is raking out the skeletons.
It was like John Wingfield, Sr.'s after Jack had left the library. "This is the first time we have ever met to speak," said Prather, easily. "Yes!" assented Jack, the gray settling back into desert and the blue into sky and the zigzag flashes becoming only the brilliance of late afternoon sunshine. "Certainly it is time that we got acquainted, brother," said Prather. "It is!" agreed Jack.
"Leddy Pete Leddy and some of his men!" exclaimed Prather, shading his eyes to watch the file of figures now passing under the cotton-woods. It seemed to relieve him. "I suppose he came on my account," he added, nodding to Nogales. "Yes," said Nogales, with a grin. He always either grinned or his face had a half savage impassiveness.
Prather, is still living. "So everything is clear. Everything is coming out right. John Prather and I change places, as nature intended that we should. You need have no apprehensions on my account. Though I had not a cent in the world I could make my living out here a very sweet thought, this, to me, with its promise of something real and practical and worth while, at which I can make good.
"Señor Jack and Mister Prather, they no look alike," said Firio one day, evidently bound to make an end of the father's company. "Anybody say that got bad eyes. Mister Prather" and Firio smiled peculiarly "I call him the mole! He burrow in the sand, so! His hand tremble, so!
Jack answered, as he and Firio hugged the slope with their rifles resting on top and only their heads showing above it. "No! It couldn't be that they recognized me. They will let me by! They expect me!" "Yes, you belong on their side!" Jack called back. "I will send out a flag of truce!" said Prather, brightening with the thought. "You, Nogales, take my handkerchief and go and explain to Leddy!"
Word Of The Day