" He turned his deeply smiling eyes
on his companion. "I don't often take on like this, Jeff," he
apologized, "but the sight o' this place makes me want to shout an' get
right out an' thank the good God He's seen fit to let me sit around an'
live."
But Jeff had no means of simple expression such as Bud. He could never
give verbal expression to the emotions locked away in his heart. Those
who knew him regarded it as reserve, even hardness. Perhaps it was
only that shyness which the strongest characters are often most prone
to.
He ignored the older man's quaintly expressed feelings, and fastened
upon the opening he had at last received, and which he had been seeking
ever since it had become obvious that Bud's knowledge of the great
Cathill range was almost phenomenal.
"You know these parts a heap," he observed.
"Know 'em?" Bud laughed in his deep-throated way, which was only
another indication of his buoyant mood. "You'd know 'em, boy, if you'd
had a father build up a big pelt trading post right in this valley, an'
fer sixteen years o' your life you'd ridden, an' shot, an' hunted over
this blue grass, and these hills, for nigh a range of fifty mile.
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