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Show 30 girls named after flowers. I was beginning to believe that no one on this gold rush used real names. I wandered around the town until I found several corrals off the main thoroughfare. They were crowded with worn-out horses and mules, many of them unable to stand. Signs read: Pack animals $200, I tramped through each corral, whistling and calling for Rexy. I checked each black horse with a white strip down its face, looking for a scar on its neck. Just in case Rexy did not remember me. There were hundreds of black horses in those corrals. They were mud-caked and bleeding and lame-survivors of the White Pass, I was giving up hope of ever finding Rexy when she found me. I had rushed over to a small black horse who looked somewhat like her, and I was stroking its neck. All of a sudden Rexy put her big muzzle on my shoulder and whinnied right in my ear. I didn't need to look for the scar, I expected to see the dealer soon, but he must have been riding on my shadow. "Wanna buy a horse, son?" "Sure," I said. "But not for two hundred dollars." "How much?" "One hundred dollars." He laughed. "You crazy?" |