Page:Saga of Billy the Kid.djvu/251

seen her in a month of Sundays. She was carrying home a leg of mutton in her market basket. ...... José Otero had caught a fine string of trout down in the Bonito. He wished he was going to take dinner with José Otero. Turned in cornmeal over a slow fire, these mountain trout certainly made mighty good eating. ...... Pat Garrett seemed to be having some sort of an argument with a couple of Mexicans in front of the Wortley Hotel. What could that old he-coon be arguing about? Old Pat. If shot so as not to spoil his beauty, he'd make a fine looking corpse.

Tilted back in his chair against the wall, Bob Ollinger sat at ease. With a casual gesture, he brushed a straggling lock of his long lank hair over his shoulder and adjusted his sombrero, tilting it slightly on the side of his head.

"April twenty-eighth, ain't it, Bell?"

"If it don't rain."

Bell was reading a newspaper by a front window. The Kid sat on his couch rolling himself a cigarette. Ollinger let his cold, whitish-blue eyes rest on the pale, slender prisoner chained hand and foot.

"You're lookin' kind o' peaked, Kid."

"Four months in jail ain't good for the complexion."

"Eatin' your vittles regular?"

"Yes."

"What's the matter then?"

"I need a bucking pony under me."

"Well, buck up. We'll give you a nice long ride at the end of a rope. Only fifteen days more to wait."

"I always figured I wasn't born to die that way," the Kid remarked with slow deliberation.

"Looks like you figured wrong. Garrett bought the rope yesterday. Good stout manila. Ever see a hang-