"Mine was that-a-way." He shifted his leg in the saddle as he turned to the right and swept a comprehensive hand toward the east, meaning perhaps Texas, perhaps a series of wild frontiers west of the Lone Star state.
I noticed the nice distinction in Curly's tenses.

He knew the man more recently arrived west of the Pecos, possibly later to prove a backslider.

As for himself, Curly knew that he would never return to his wild East; yet it may have been that he had just a touch of the home feeling which is so hard to lose, even in a homeless country, a man's country pure and simple, as was surely this which now stretched wide about us.

Somewhere off to the east, miles and miles beyond the red sea of sand and _grama_ grass, lay Home.
"And yet," said Curly, taking up in speech my unspoken thought, "you can't see even halfway to Vegas up there." No.

It was a long two hundred miles to Las Vegas, long indeed in a freighting wagon, and long enough even in the saddle and upon as good a horse as each of us now bestrode.