B. M. Bower

“ He pulled out his pipe and began to fill it nervously.
"Maybe I'll see Spooky's ghost," laughed Shelton, and stopped short when he looked up at Burney.
"Ed's a fool. They ain't any such thing." Burney spilled tobacco into the wrinkles of his ill-fitting vest.
"Well, I can go, can't I?" Shelton did not attempt to understand this big man. He looked so different from other men that one would not expect him to act like others, he reflected. In the week of their acquaintance he had observed many peculiar traits in Burney. He slept sometimes for hours during the middle of the day for one thing. ”

“ He spent ten minutes in bandaging the shoulder with his neck-tie, and while he worked he talked soothingly to the terrified little animal. He did not want to leave it there in the desert to die, and he could not bear to kill it. He held it in the crook of one arm while he mounted awkwardly and rode on, wondering if he could find a cool, shady little nook where it could stay until its shoulder healed. ”

“ CHAPTER III. It took Shelton C. Sherman a week or so to get used to Sunbeam ways, and to Burney, and to the blunt "joshing" of the cow-punchers who called Burney their boss. He learned to accept their sudden disappearances and their unexplained absences and their unexpected arrivals as the routine of a cattle ranch. He learned also to accept Burney as a reality, and gave over the fantastic idea that he was part of some fairy tale projected into the sage country. He learned to answer when some one shouted for "Shep"—for that was the way they twisted his self-confessed nickname of Shelt. ”

“ He also gave her the wounded rabbit to keep, though she assured him pessimistically that the dogs would kill it first chance they got, and that if they didn't, it would die of the broken shoulder. Womanlike, she was inconsistent enough to carry it home with her in spite of her pessimism, just because he gave it to her, perhaps.
Shelton tried to induce her to promise that she would come again to hunt rattlesnakes on some certain day, and failed. ”

“ It ain't human, and it ain't no animal. It—say, I'll bet four bits you'll come home scairt plumb simple—if yuh come. You wouldn't git me out there after sundown—not fer this hull outfit."
"Say, that sounds interesting!" Shelton declared, trying to put the chin strap over old Dutch's nose, and wondering what was the matter. "I'll have something to write home to the folks about. Whoa, old boy! Open your mouth like a good sport."
Spooky came up and took the bridle away from Shelton with an air of weary tolerance. ”