"That hoss don't welcome handlin' worth
a bean."
Winthrop's silence rather stirred Overland's sensitive pride in his
horsemanship. "'Course I broke and rode hundreds like her, down in Mex.
But then I was paid for doin' it. It was my business then. Now, minin'
and educatin' Collie is my business, and a busted neck wouldn't help
any."
Winthrop realized for the first time that Overland's supreme interest in
life was Collie's welfare. Heretofore the paternal note had not been
evident. Winthrop had imagined them chums, friends, tramps together.
They were more than that. Overland considered Collie an adopted son.
The Easterner glanced at Overland's broad shoulders stooped beneath the
weight of the heavy stock saddle. Something in the man's humorous
simplicity, his entire willingness to serve those whom he liked and his
stiff indifference to all others, appealed to Winthrop. So this flotsam
of the range, this erstwhile tramp, this paradox of coarseness and
sentiment, had an object in life? A laudable object: that of serving
with his sincerest effort the boy friend he had picked up on the desert,
a castaway.
As they toiled up the stream toward the camp, Winthrop recalled their
former chats by the night-fire.
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