If he spoke at all it would be with lazy speech, yet Jean had not encountered many men to whom he would have accorded more potency to stir in him the instinct of self-preservation.
"Shore," drawled this gaunt-faced Texan, "old Gass lives aboot a mile down heah." With slow sweep of the big hand he indicated a general direction to the south; then, appearing to forget his questioner, he turned his attention to the game.
Jean muttered his thanks and, striding out, he mounted again, and drove the pack mule down the road.

"Reckon I've ran into the wrong folds to-day," he said.

"If I remember dad right he was a man to make an' keep friends.

Somehow I'll bet there's goin' to be hell." Beyond the store were some rather pretty and comfortable homes, little ranch houses back in the coves of the hills.

The road turned west and Jean saw his first sunset in the Tonto Basin.