He stood and listened to the flies buzz over them. The shadow of Augustus McCrae had hung over their courtship; Bob had never known why she chose him over the famous Ranger, or over any of the other men she could have had. At breakfast, sometimes, Call would catch him staring into the fire the way old animals stared before they died--as if looking across into the other place. But when Clara laughed at him and gave him her finger to hold he would stop frowning and gurgle happily.
Come back when you can, we'll go on many more, she said. But he got no wetter, and he opened his eyes to see that he was almost across the river. The cowboys were mighty surprised to see a lone figure walking toward them from the west, and dumbfounded to learn that he was a sheriff from Arkansas. Once the Irishmen had got fairly competent at mounting and dismounting, Augustus gave them each a Winchester and made them shoot at a cactus a time or two.
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