"Then," said the spokesman gravely, "you just reckoned to stay here, old man, and take your chances with her rather than run the risk of frightening or leaving her--though it was your one chance of life!" "Yes," said the boy, scornful of this feeble, grown-up repetition.
"Come here." The boy came doggedly forward.

The man pushed back the well-worn straw hat from Clarence's forehead and looked into his lowering face.

With his hand still on the boy's head he turned him round to the others, and said quietly,-- "Suthin of a pup, eh ?" "You bet," they responded.
The voice was not unkindly, although the speaker had thrown his lower jaw forward as if to pronounce the word "pup" with a humorous suggestion of a mastiff.

Before Clarence could make up his mind if the epithet was insulting or not, the man put out his stirruped foot, and, with a gesture of invitation, said, "Jump up." "But Susy," said Clarence, drawing back.
"Look; she's making up to Phil already." Clarence looked.

Susy had crawled out of the mesquite, and with her sun-bonnet hanging down her back, her curls tossed around her face, still flushed with sleep, and Clarence's jacket over her shoulders, was gazing up with grave satisfaction in the laughing eyes of one of the men who was with outstretched hands bending over her.