Abstractedness rode
upon Cash's lined brow. Placid meditation shone forth from his
keen old blue-gray eyes.
The bacon came from the oven juicy-crisp and curled at the
edges and delicately browned. The cakes came out of the baking
pan brown and thick and light. Cash sat down at his end of the
table, pulled his own can of sugar and his own cup of sirup and
his own square of butter toward him; poured his coffee, that he
had made in a small lard pail, and began to eat his breakfast
exactly as though he was alone in that cabin.
A great resentment filled Bud's soul to bursting, The old
hound! Bud believed now that Cash was capable of leaving that
frying pan dirty for the rest of the day! A man like that would
do anything! If it wasn't for that claim, he'd walk off and
forget to come back.
Thinking of that seemed to crystallize into definite purpose
what had been muddling his mind with vague impulses to let his
mood find expression. He would go to Alpine that day. He would
hunt up Frank and see if he couldn't jar him into showing that
he had a mind of his own. Twice since that first unexpected
spree, he had spent a good deal of time and gold dust and
consumed a good deal of bad whisky and beer, in testing the
inherent obligingness of Frank.
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