lieved, for after that Winch avoided him, and did not even look his way.
Indeed, Texas felt himself as one considered of lower caste when the party dismounted at the little stream and set about getting breakfast from the emergency supplies which each man had brought behind his saddle. They ignored him so completely that he withdrew down the stream a little way and made his fire. He had no coffee, and very little flour, for the rain had penetrated his mess that night he lay bound in the Texans' thongs. But nobody inquired into his necessities, and he was too proud to make them known.
There he broiled his last few slices of bacon and cooked a wad of dough on a stick, and ate his breakfast in bitterness of heart over this unjust, if not altogether unreasonable condemnation. His tobacco had been soaked by the rain, and the bit of it that he had dried in his palm before the fire had a miserable taste. All through, life had a bad flavor to him that morning, and there was not much on the horizon to offer him cheer. He was tired and sleepy, and glad only that there was sun in place of rain. As he sat there reflecting on his uncomfortable situation all round, Winch approached.
Texas looked up at him, not forgetting the cold
