it'll say
three. That's the kind of clock gives a man the jams. Sends him crazy."

"Well, that ain't a bad thing to be in this country," said Ephraim,
rubbing the glass case and restoring identity to the hands. "If that man
had been crazy he'd been livin' right now. Injuns'll never touch
lunatics."

"That band have passed here and gone north," Jones said. "I saw a smoke
among the foot-hills as I come along day before yesterday. I guess
they're aiming to cross the Santa Catalina. Most likely they're that
band from round the San Carlos that were reported as raiding down in
Sonora."

"I seen well enough," said Ephraim, "when I found him that they wasn't
going to trouble us any, or they'd have been around by then."

He was quite right, but Specimen Jones was thinking of something else.
He went out to the corral, feeling disturbed and doubtful. He saw the
tall white freight-wagon of the Mexicans, looming and silent, and a
little way off the new fence where the man lay. An odd sound startled
him, though he knew it was no Indians at this hour, and he looked down
into a little dry ditch. It was the boy, hidden away flat on his stomach
among the stones, sobbing.

"Oh, snakes!" whispered Specimen Jones, and stepped back. The Latin
races embrace and weep, and all goes well; but among Saxons tears are a
horrid event. Jones never knew what to do when it was a woman, but this
was truly disgusting. He was well seasoned by the frontier, had tried a
little of everything: town and country, ranches, saloons, stage-driving,
marriage occasionally, and latterly mines. He had sundry claims staked
out, and always carried pieces of stone in his pockets, discoursing upon
their mineral-bearing capacity, which was apt to be very slight. That is
why he was called Specimen Jones. He had exhausted all the important
sensations, and did not care much for anything any more. Perfect health
and strength kept him from discovering that he was a saddened, drifting
man. He wished to kick the boy for his baby performance, and yet he
stepped carefully away from the ditch so the boy should not suspect his
presence. He found himself standing still, looking at the dim, broken
desert.

"Why, hell," complained Specimen Jones, "he played the little man to
start with. He did so. He scared that old horse-thief, Adams, just about
dead. Then he went to kill me, that kep' him from bein' buried early
to-morrow. I've been wild that way myself, and wantin' to shoot up