At the back it was long and looped up in the way a horse's tail is looped in muddy weather, and tied with a grimy red ribbon wound round and round it.

He wore a green-and-white roughneck sweater broadly striped, and the blue overalls that inevitably follow American civilization into the wild places.
"'S hot day," he announced unemotionally, and took the paper which the red-blanketed one held out to him.

His air of condescension could not hide the fact that behind his pride at being able to read print he was unhappily aware also of his limitations in the accomplishment.

Along the scare-head Luck had indicated, his dirty forefinger moved slowly while he spelled out the words.

"A-a-bank rob!" he read triumphantly, and repeated the statement in Spanish.