So he went on, while the sun beat hotly down upon him and the rocks sent up dry waves of heat like an oven.
A rattlesnake buzzed its strident warning between two rocks, but before he turned his attention to the business of killing it, the snake had crawled leisurely away into a cleft, where he could not reach it with the stones he threw.

His thoughts, however, were brought back to his surroundings so that he remembered Peppajee.

He stood still, and scanned carefully the jumble of rocks and bowlders which sloped steeply down to the river, looking for a betraying bit of color or dirty gray hat-crown.
"But I could look my eyes out and welcome, if he didn't want to be seen," he concluded, and sat down while he rolled a cigarette.

"And I don't know as I want to see him, anyway." Still, he did not move immediately.

He was in the shade, which was a matter for congratulation on such a day.