“Think about your fenders, sir.”
“We’ll cut the fenders off like the Indians do in Oklahoma. She’s over-fendered right now. She’s got too much of everything except engine. Jackson, that’s a real engine she’s got. One hundred and fifty ponies.”
“It certainly is, sir. It’s a great pleasure to drive that big engine on the good roads. That’s why I don’t want anything to happen to her.”
“That’s very good of you, Jackson. Now just quit suffering.”
“I’m not suffering, sir.”
“Good,” said the Colonel.
He was not, either, because just then he saw, beyond the line of close-bunched brown trees ahead, a sail moving along. It was a big red sail, raked sharply down from the peak, and it moved slowly behind the trees.
Why should it always move your heart to see a sail moving along through the country, the Colonel thought Why does it move my heart to see the great, slow, pale oxen? It must be the gait as well as the look of them and the size and the color.
But a good fine big mule, or a string of pack mules in good condition, moves me, too. So does a coyote every time I ever see one, and a wolf, gaited like no other animal, gray and sure of himself, carrying that heavy head and with the hostile eyes.
“Ever see any wolves out around Rawlins, Jackson?”
“No, sir. Wolves were gone before my time; they poisoned them out. Plenty coyotes, though.”
