Gowdy last night," he said.
He was a tall, limber-jointed, whipped-looking man with a red nose and a
long stringy mustache, and always wore his vest open clear down to the
lower button which was fastened, and thus his whole waistcoat was thrown
open so as to show a tobacco-stained shirt bosom. The Missourian whom I
had noticed at table said that this was done so that the wearer of the
vest could reach his dirk handily. But Mobley was the last man I should
have suspected of carrying a dirk, or if he did packing the gumption
to use it.
I made good with my gang, and did a third more than any other eight
teams on the place. Before I went away, Gowdy talked around as if he
wanted me for overseer; but I couldn't decide without studying a long
time, to take a step so far from what I had been thinking of, and he
dropped the subject. I did not like the way things were going there. The
men were out of control. They despised Mobley, and said sly things about
his using his wife to keep him in a job. One day I told Magnus
Thorkelson about Mrs. Mobley's coming and taking Gowdy away from the
little cabin of the Fewkes family.
"She do dat," said he, "a dozen times ven Ay bane dar. She alvays bane
chasing Buck Gowdy."
"Well," I said, "who be you chasing, coming over here a dozen times when
I didn't know it? That's why you bought that mustang pony, eh?"
"I yust go over," said he, squirming, "to help Surajah fix up his
machines--his inwentions.
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