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Again Ellen studied the distance. "Look!" she cried an instant later. "Look! 'Liza's callin' an' motionin' to 'em. They're droppin' their shovels and runnin' for the house like a lot of scared sheep. Probably Martin's comin', an' they don't want him to catch 'em. There! What did I tell you? It is Martin. I can see him drivin' over the hill. Watch 'em skitter!"
From the moment that the echoes of the Cove caught the first elusive strain of the trumpet, infinitely sweet and clear and compelling, yet somehow ethereal, unreal, as if blown down from the daylight moon, a filmy lunar semblance in the bland blue sky, the denizens of Tanglefoot began to tremulously confer together, and to skitter like frightened rabbits from house to house.
"I've coaxed you some too, I guess. You wus hidden mighty tight, but not jest tight 'nuff. I 'lows I located you, an' I wa'n't goin' to lose sight o' you. When you quit Skitter Bend, like the whipped cur you wus, I wus right hot on your trail. An' I ain't never left it. See?
These were the only people that we really met on our journey, though we saw a few others far off on some bare hill. We did not encounter a single boat or canoe on the river. But we saw the deer come down to the shore, and stand shoulder-deep among the golden-rod and purple asters. We saw the ruffled grouse whir through the thickets and the wild ducks skitter down the stream ahead of us.
The little man dropped his washing and turned round, propping himself against the edge of the tub. "Skitter Bend Ranch?" he echoed slowly, as though the meaning of the question had not penetrated to his intellect. Then a subdued whisper followed. "Gee, but I " And he looked down at his own clothes as though to reassure himself. Tresler broke in; he understood the trend of the other's thoughts.
"Oh, you ain't like to git his rough edge," put in Carney, easily. "Guess you're payin' a premium?" asked Shaky. "I'm going to have three years' teaching." "Three years o' Skitter Bend?" said Slum, quietly. "Guess you'll learn a deal in three years o' Skitter Bend."
"Wal, I guess I ken locate his jest about now. I'm sort o' lyin' fallow, which ain't usual on Skitter Bend." "Guess not. He's servin' us diff'rent." "Ah! Doin' night-guard? Say, I'd see blind hulk roastin' 'fore I'd hang on to them beasties. But it's like you, Arizona. You hate him wuss'n hell, an' Jake too, yet you'd pshaw! So long. Guess I'd best get on.
Finally he applied to Shaky. "Wal," the carpenter began, with a ponderous air of weighing his words. "I ain't the man to judge a feller offhand like. I 'lows I know suthin' o' the blind man o' Skitter Bend, seein' I wus workin' contract fer him all last summer. An' wot I knows is nasty.
The racket of aimless firing continued a few minutes, underneath the mild effulgence of the stars. It ceased, from the Legion's trenches at the agreed moment; and soon it died down, also from the Arabs'. Quiet rose again from the desert, broken only by the surf-wash on the sand, the far, tremulous wail of a jackal, the little dry skitter of scorpions.
I don't know as I'll ever have the nerve to. But I want that little gal bad. I want her so bad I feel I could get right out an' trail around these darnation hills, an' skitter holes, hollering 'help' like some mangy coyote chasing up her young. Oh, I'm going to ask her. I'll have to ask her, if I have to get you to hand me the dope to fix my nerve right.
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