Behind her the black horse
walked with drooping head, half asleep in the warm sunlight. At the heels of
the horse followed the little black dog.
CHAPTER IX. RIDERS IN THE BACKGROUND
Luck, as explained elsewhere, was sweating and swearing at the heat in Bear
Canon. The sun had crept around so that it shone full into a certain
bowlder-strewn defile, and up this sunbaked gash old Applehead was toiling,
leading the scrawniest burro which Luck had been able to find in the country.
The burro was packed with a prospector's outfit startlingly real in its
pathetic meagerness. Old Applehead was picking his way among rocks so hot that
he could hardly bear to lay his bare hand upon them, tough as that hand was
with years of exposure to heat and cold alike. Beads of perspiration were
standing on his face, which was a deep, apoplectic crimson, and little
trickles of sweat were dropping off his lower jaw.
He was muttering as he climbed, but the camera fortunately failed to record
the language that he used. Now and then he turned and yanked savagely at the
lead rope; whereupon the burro would sit down upon its haunches and allow
Applehead to stretch its neck as far as bone and tough hide and tougher sinew
would permit Someone among the group roosting in the shade across the defile
and well out of camera range would laugh, and Luck, standing on a ledge just
behind and above the camera, would shout directions or criticism of the
"business.
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