"Well," he said, taking a fresh chew and offering his plug to his
neighbor, who passed it on after helping himself, "ye see, it was like
this. Ye know that little Meredith gel?"
Chorus of answers: "Yes! The red-headed one. I know! She's a
daisy!--reg'lar blizzard!--lightnin' conductor!"
Bill paused, stiffened himself a little, dropped his frank air and
drawled out in cool, hard tones: "I might remark that that young lady
is, I might persoom to say, a friend of mine, which I'm prepared to back
up in my best style, and if any blanked blanked son of a street sweeper
has any remark to make, here's his time now!"
In the pause that followed murmurs were heard extolling the many
excellences of the young lady in question, and Bill, appeased, yielded
to the requests for the continuance of his story, and, as he described
Gwen and her pinto and her work on the ranch, the men, many of whom had
had glimpses of her, gave emphatic approval in their own way. But as he
told of her rescue of Joe and of the sudden calamity that had befallen
her a great stillness fell upon the simple, tender-hearted fellows,
and they listened with their eyes shining in the firelight with growing
intentness. Then Bill spoke of The Pilot and how he stood by her and
helped her and cheered her till they began to swear he was "all right";
"and now," concluded Bill, "when The Pilot is in a hole she wants to
help him out.
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