"Allen McKenzie, Miners’ Camp."
"Allen McKenzie, Miners’ Camp."
Ross pursed his thin lips, and nearly whistled aloud as he returned to his desk.
"It’s one of the McKenzies who are after our claims," he wrote at the end of a long letter to his uncle and aunt; "but he is a funny, good-natured fellow. I partly like him and partly don’t. He has no six-shooter in sight–in fact, I’m told that six-shooters have gone more or less out of fashion in Wyoming; and he doesn’t look a bit as I had imagined a ’claim-jumper’ would. But one thing he may reckon on; there will be no chance for him or any one else to jump the Weimer-Grant claims in a few months."
And, sealing this confident declaration, he slipped the letter into the mail-box, ate a hearty dinner, and went to bed.
The following morning at nine o’clock D. H. Leonard, his father’s old-time friend, appeared, and greeted the son most cordially. Mr. Leonard was a man of middle age, hale, red-faced, bald-headed, and wearing a "boiled" shirt and collar.He was a dealer in real estate, with offices in both Cody and Basin. It was to his office that he first took Ross.
"We’ll go for a drive by and by," he began, throwing himself back in his chair and tossing a cigar across the desk. "We have the country of the future here, and I want you to see it. Perfect gold-mine in this land once it’s irrigated."
Ross picked up the cigar, played with it a moment, and laid it again on the desk, listening attentively.
The older man drew a match across the woodwork beneath his chair, and lighted his cigar. "It’stheplace for young men, Grant, a greater place than it was when Horace Greeley gave his advice to young men to go West–here’s a match," he interrupted himself to say.
Ross accepted the match, bit on the end of it a moment, and laid it beside the cigar.
"Don’t you smoke?" asked Leonard in some surprise.
Before Ross could reply, some one called Mr. Leonard out into the hall. As the door closed behind him, Ross arose and stood silently in front of the open window. Beyond the little town and beyond the level stretch of "shelves" arose the Big Horn Mountains, miles away, but so sharplyoutlined in the clear air that they seemed only a short walk distant.
As Ross leaned against the window-casing, some one in the room adjoining came to the open window. The stub of a cigar was thrown out, and a voice exclaimed:
"But if Grant realized the situation, he’d never have sent a boy out here to look after those claims. And it looks as though it was his son–same initials. But with such a boy and Weimer you ought to be able––"
The speaker left the window at this point, and Ross lost the rest of the sentence. In a few moments, however, some one clattered through the hall and down the stairs, with spurs jingling. A horse stood on the street below, tethered only by its bridle-reins dangling to the ground. From the entrance to the building Sandy McKenzie emerged, clad as on the previous day, except for a colored handkerchief knotted about his neck. Mounting his pony, he touched a spur to its flank, and galloped away in a cloud of dust just as Leonard returned.
"Who’s in the next room?" asked Ross.
"Over on the right?" asked Leonard carelessly. "Oh, a lawyer has that office." He crossed to the window, and glanced out just as McKenzie disappeared. "Evidently Sandy’s pulling out for themountains," he observed. "Miners’ Camp, that is."
"Are there only two McKenzies?" asked Ross.
Leonard shrugged his shoulders. "Two are all that have ever showed up around here–Sandy and Waymart; but they say there are half a dozen more brothers and cousins, some figurin’ under names not their own; but where they put up I don’t know."
Here he turned and looked curiously at Ross. "I suppose your father told you that Sandy and Waymart are sitting up on Meadow Creek waiting to jump the Grant-Weimer claims."
"Yes, he told me," answered Ross, and hesitated. "Do they use guns in the jumping process?"
Leonard laughed. "Not much! They have other and safer methods of getting their own way in case Weimer doesn’t do the work the law requires this year."
Then he glanced at the unsmoked cigar, and repeated his question of some time before. "Don’t you smoke?"
Ross shook his head shortly.
"Why not?" Leonard looked at his old friend’s son in friendly interest.
Ross stretched out his right arm in an unconscious imitation of the test his uncle had required of him only a few mornings before. "It’s apt toget on a fellow’s nerves," was all the reply he made.
There was much to see during the day and much to hear. Leonard took the boy for a long drive up the cañon of the Shoshone, whose densely green waters have a background of brilliant reds and yellows in the sandstone sides of the wall through which the river has cut. Up and yet up the carriage went, with the walls rising higher and higher on either side, the road a mere thread blasted out of the rocks, up to the great dam which was beginning to raise its head across the river bed to hold back the water and distribute it over Big Horn Basin through irrigating canals.
Ross’s interest, however, during the drive was divided. He was glad to see the vast "Shoshone Project," as the government reservoir is called; but his most active thoughts were following Sandy McKenzie on his way to Miners’ Camp, and his questions were of the Camp and Wyoming mining laws and the conditions he would meet in this new and strange land.
But Leonard had never been up to Camp, and was not interested in mining, but in ranch lands; therefore, Ross got but little enlightenment from him, and finally, ceasing to question, listened in silence while the older man, in obedience to the senior Grant’s request, did his best to interestthe junior Grant in the business prospects of Wyoming.
"I want you to come down to Basin at Christmas," Leonard said cordially as host and guest sat down to dinner in the dining-room of "The Irma" at six o’clock that night. "My home is in Basin. It’s the county-seat of Big Horn County, you know; and I want you to come down there. I want to show you more of this magnificent country."
Ross was grateful for this friendly invitation, but made no promises; and presently the two were eating in silence, Ross looking with interest on some of the contrasts which were too familiar for Leonard even to notice.
Under elaborate and gaudy chandeliers was a bare and not overclean floor. Looking down on the thickest and heaviest of cracked china were pictures by well-known artists. Seated around the tables spread in linen, were bearded men in chaps and overalls, flannel shirts and spurs, together with those in tan oxfords and broadcloth.
At the table opposite Ross, and facing him, was a man to whom his glance returned again and again. He sat alone. His square, unexpressive face was relieved by a pair of fine dark-brown eyes. The lower part of his face was covered by a stubby reddish beard. His hair was brown, and fell nearly to his eyes, giving him the appearance ofhaving a low forehead. He wore a coat,–the first of its kind Ross had seen,–a short, bulky affair, with a high collar laid over the shoulders and lined throughout with lambskin, the wool badly worn on the collar. His chaps were of undressed leather, with the long hair trimmed short save from the thigh to the ankle. High riding boots, spurs, and a sombrero, which he wore low over his forehead while eating, completed his costume.
"Who is he?" asked Ross.
Mr. Leonard shook his head. "Man next to me here said he rode in this afternoon on the Yellowstone trail. Don’t know who he is."
As if he felt he was under discussion, the stranger raised his head, and his eyes met Ross’s in a quick furtive glance.
After dinner Leonard gripped Ross’s hand in farewell, and left. An hour later there was a rattle of wheels in front of the hotel, the sound of horses’s hoofs, and a rollicking voice called:
"Meeteetse stage. All aboard!"
Ross, with a glance around the office which he expected to see again before spring, picked up his bag, and went out on the piazza. Here he stood while his trunk and the emergency chest were swung up behind the stage and roped. Then he climbed up beside the driver, who was glad to have some one near to help him keep awake during thelong night ride, and they were off, only to be stopped almost immediately by a man standing in the doorway of a store.
"Hold up there!" shouted the man. "Steele is here, and wants to go on to-night."
The name caught Ross’s attention. "Is it Amos Steele?" he asked the driver.
The driver assented. "Yep–superintendent of the Gale’s Ridge Mine up in Camp."
Ross leaned forward and surveyed with interest the pleasant-faced, well-dressed, squarely-built young man who came out of the store and climbed into the stage. In his pocket Ross had the letter Steele had written his father at Weimer’s request.
"Git out of this," the driver requested briefly of his four bronchos as the stage door slammed to, and the four obligingly "got out" on a run.
Just as they left the last house behind them, a figure on horseback whirled by in a cloud of dust, and Ross recognized in the sheepskin coat and hairy chaps the stranger who had attracted his attention during dinner.
BesidesSteele, there were three other passengers inside the stage that night. One was the assistant manager of the Embar Ranch, south of Meeteetse. He had been to Omaha with a car-load of cattle. The remaining two were miners whom Steele had picked up in Butte. This much Ross learned from the driver. He learned many other things by listening to the conversation between Hillis, the manager, and Steele, although all the while he was keenly observant of his surroundings.
The stage was bowling along smoothly over a road as level as a floor and flooded by brilliant moonlight. Behind them Cody faded into silvery mist, guarded by the huge shadowy bulks of the Big Horn Mountains. Ahead, houseless and treeless, stretched the shelf until the shimmering mist cut off the sight. And in the distance, so far ahead that sometimes he blended with the mist, rode the horseman in the sheepskin coat.
"Hi, there, Andy," called the ranch-manager; "who is that fellow ahead?"
Andy, the driver, turned, and looked down through the open flap into the cavernous darkness of the stage. "Don’t know. Didn’t find out. I have seen fellers, though, that can give more information about themselves per square inch than that same chap ahead there."
"I never saw ’im in these parts before," returned Hillis.
"Nor I." The driver spat over the flank of the right wheeler. "Gid’ep there, Suke, ye slowmy, you! Hike it, old Blue! Git out of this!" And, having thus jogged the energy of the leaders, Andy gave his attention again to Hillis. "Hain’t ever set eyes on that brown chap before. I guessed back there he was bound fer Embar. Looks like a puncher."
"I wish"–the assistant manager of the Embar spoke forcefully–"that he and seven or eight more were bound for the Embar."
"Short of hands, eh?" questioned Andy, whirling his "black snake" so skilfully that the lash missed the heads of the wheelers, and touched the flank of the nigh leader.
"Short of hands?" Steele broke in. "Who isn’t short of hands from Butte to Omaha–especially in Wyoming? I’ve been out two weeks advertising and hunting men, and here I am back again with two only."
Ross turned half around in his high seat, and grasped the low back. "Is labor as scarce as that in Miners’ Camp?" he burst out in a brusque, astonished tone which betrayed a personal interest.
"As scarce as diamonds," returned Steele, adding with a laugh, "and almost as expensive."
Andy pushed back his hat, and surveyed his young companion with curiosity. There was a little stir in the coach also.
"It must be"–Amos Steele spoke as if the matter had been debated before–"that you are related to Ross Grant of New York."
"Yes," returned Ross, "I am his son."
He was conscious of becoming an immediate centre of speculation.
"I wondered," remarked Steele, "when I saw your name on the hotel register. Going out to Camp, are you?"
"Yes," Ross hesitated. "In answer to that letter you wrote father for Mr. Weimer."
"Oh!" Steele’s tone was edged with astonishment.
"Come out to see to the work, did ye?" asked Andy.
"Yes."
Andy glanced sidewise, and Ross caught the look of incredulity.
"Expected to hire men to do it, did ye?" That Andy was a general information bureau was due to his faculty for asking questions.
"Yes, I do," emphatically.
The present tense of the reply did not escape the listener’s attention.
"Weimer has tried to hire," volunteered Steele; "but it’s no use."
"Why not?" demanded the boy.
"Well, in the first place, as I said, there hain’t enough men to supply the demand; and, in the second place, no man in his senses is going away over on the Creek, where he’ll be shut in for months, when he can just as well stay down in Camp, and get the same wages."
"Shut in for months?" repeated Ross slowly.
Andy explained. "Along about first of February ye’re shut in fer sartain. Trail fills up, and there’s apt to be snowslides any time on old Crosby."
Ross sat with widening eyes staring out into the moonlight, and wondering with tightening muscles what he was "up against." The vagueness of his father’s knowledge concerning Weimer’s work had not counted in New York. But here, swinging along toward Miners’ Camp with two-thirds of the width of the continent between himself and his friends, Ross realized that this vagueness had put him at a disadvantage.
The two men behind him began discussing the cattle market, and the stage slid down the side of the first mesa of the Wyoming bad lands and into the coulee, or dry creek, at the bottom. The level road was left behind. Up hill and down plunged the horses ahead of the rocking, tipping stage. There was no regular road. A dozen tracks showed the differing routes of as many drivers. To Ross it seemed as if destruction were imminent every time they came to the top of one of the short, steep hills. But Andy jammed on the brake hard, and, giving a peculiar little whistle, yelled carelessly, "Git out of this."
Presently Andy took advantage of the rattle of wheels and hoofs to say to Ross: "Steele is boss of the Gale’s Ridge work up to Camp. They keep open all winter; t’other company shuts down."
"Shuts down?" repeated Ross.
"Yep, has to. Men go down t’ Cody t’ work on the Project. Hard work to keep men in Camp through the winter. When the railroad goes up there, ’twill be different."
Some one inside the stage struck a match.
"On time, ain’t you, Andy?" asked Steele’s voice; "it’s twelve-thirty."
"Yep," returned the driver. "Here’s Dry Creek."
The road, a well-defined track here, was hemmedin between a creek-bed on one hand and a hill on the other. On top of the hill, silhouetted against the star-studded sky, appeared a wagon with a white bellying canvas top. Around it, covering the hilltop and the side clear down to the track was a soft white moving mass that caused Ross to give a startled exclamation.
"Why–that looks like–itissheep!" he ejaculated. "Sheep by the hundreds."
"Sheep’s the word!" returned the driver. "This is Sheepy’s layout. That’s his wagon up yon. He herds fer parties in Cody. There’s nigh seven hundred of them sheep. Never seen such a flock before, did ye?"
Before Ross could reply, the stage swung around a corner of the hill and Andy, with a sharp whistle, drew up the leaders abruptly. They were in an open space in front of the stage camp, half cabin and half dugout driven into the hillside. Beside the dugout was a low, stout corral, outside of which were a haystack and a jumble of bales of hay. As the stage stopped, the door of the dugout opened, and a man loomed large against a dim light within.
But all this Ross did not notice at the time. His attention was riveted on the horse just ahead ridden by the stranger. Around and around it whirled, unmindful of the quirt and spur of the rider.
"Pretty ridin’," remarked Andy, spitting appreciatively over the wheel.
The men inside the stage clambered out with grunts at their stiffened limbs, and leaned against the wheels watching. The man in the doorway stepped out, and thrust his hands into his pockets, and looked calmly while the horse placed its four feet together and humped its back with a momentum which sent the rider high in the air.
When he came down, he settled himself in the saddle, drew up on the reins, and dug his spurs into the horse’s flank. The animal, his nostrils distended and the foam flying from his mouth, without any warning rose on his hind legs, and threw himself backward. The rider freed one foot from the stirrup; but the other caught, and horse and rider went down in a heap. There was a deep groan from both, and then silence. If the men had seemed indifferent before, they made up in activity now. With a flying leap Andy was down from his high seat. The stage-camp man rushed forward, and threw himself on the horse’s head, while the others pulled the unconscious rider from beneath the animal’s body.
"Leg’s done for," Ross heard Steele say as they carried the wounded man into the dugout.
Ross clambered awkwardly down from his seat, and followed. He nearly fell over an emptychicken-coop and into the one little room of the dugout.
"Put ’im here," directed the stage-camp man, whom the others called Hank. He pointed to the blankets in the corner from which he had crawled ten minutes before.
"Here, boy," Steele said with pale-faced absorption, "smooth the blankets up."
Ross, half dazed by his strange and unexpected surroundings, slowly and clumsily did as he was directed, and they laid the unconscious stranger down carefully, his left leg hanging limply from a point half-way between knee and hip. Then the men straightened up, and looked at one another.
"A bad job," muttered Hank.
"Take ’im back to Cody?" asked Steele.
Hillis shook his head. "Doctor there went to Thermopolis this morning."
Suddenly the daze which had beclouded Ross’s brain cleared away. He woke up, and his whole attention focused itself on the prostrate man. In a moment he became alert, resourceful, and active. His boyish hesitation fell from him. He threw off his top-coat, tossed his cap with it to the uncovered board table, and, kneeling by the man’s side, laid his ear on the heart.
"Go out," he said authoritatively to the astonished men, "and bring in my smallest trunk.Hurry, for this chap will be conscious in just a moment."
No one stirred.
Whipping out his jack-knife, Ross cut a strap which secured the chaps, and caught one leg at the ankle. "Help me pull ’em off," he cried urgently.
Some one stooped to the other foot, and the chaps were off. Kneeling beside the wounded leg, with his knife, Ross ripped the trousers from ankle to thigh, and exposed a bloody wound.
"Compound fracture," he exclaimed after a brief examination.
Then he looked up. "Where’s that chest?" he demanded. "I must cleanse this and bandage it at once."
The cock-sureness of the boy’s tone and the sight of the skilful touch of his fingers on the wound galvanized the two miners into action, and in a moment the emergency chest was beside Ross.
"Hot water," was his next command, as he fumbled with the key, "and a small dish"–his eye fell on the table–"that salt cellar, with every grain of salt washed out. Quick!"
The wounded man had recovered consciousness now, and was groaning, and clinching his fists, and rolling his head from side to side in agony.
"Are you a doctor?" asked Steele incredulously.
"My uncle is," Ross returned briefly, "and I’m going to be."
The answer, coupled with a view of the contents of the chest and Ross’s manipulation of those contents, brought relief to the men.
He had produced a hypodermic syringe, and with a tiny morphine tablet dissolved in the salt cellar he began operations which lasted the greater part of two hours, and employed every man present.
"Bring in that hen-coop," directed Ross; "we can use that for a double inclined plane to stretch the leg over."
Steele, who had so recently issued orders to a slow and clumsy boy, now quietly obeyed this embryo surgeon. Hillis was holding bandages, while Hank and Andy were doing something which filled their souls with wonder, namely, making long, narrow bags from grain sacks out of which wheat had been hastily dumped.
"By the great horn spoon, what’re these fer?" Andy demanded in an undertone, running the big needle deep into his thumb. "Jehoshaphat!"
Hank shook his head helplessly. He plumped a stick of wood into his rusty old stove, and refilled a kettle from a water pail which stood on a box. Steele dragged in the triangular chicken-coop, and laid it beside the wounded man, who was moaning mechanically and drowsily now.
Ross arose, and set a bottle of alcohol on the table. He looked critically at the coop. "The very thing," he muttered with eyes alight. "How fortunate that I fell over it coming in!" Then he paused in thought.
Miners’ Camp and Meadow Creek were forgotten. Forgotten were Weimer and the neglected work. A "case" lay before him, a man needing the help that it was life for the boy to give.
When, at last, the belated stage was ready to move on, the men, again in their overcoats, lined up and looked down at the sleeping patient. He lay with the knee of the wounded leg over the peak of the chicken-coop, padded thick and soft with blankets, the leg held secure and motionless between heavy sand-bags. Down the leg from knee to foot on either side ran strips of adhesive plaster with loops protruding below the foot. And attached to the loops was a small bag loaded with stone.
"To reduce the fracture," Ross explained briefly. He was on his knees, measuring the well leg with a tape measure from the haircloth trunk. "See, this leg is longer now because the broken parts of the thigh bone in the other have been driven past each other, and the muscles have contracted, shortening the leg. The weight on the foot will stretch the muscles and allow the ends of the bone to meet again."
"Jehoshaphat!" exclaimed Andy softly. "He’s lucky to have you come trailin’ down the pike just behind ’im. But see here, fellers," the driver turned to the others; "yer Uncle Samuel will dock me this time sure, fer the mail won’t reach Meeteetse in time fer the stage up to Miners’ Camp!"
"Miners’ Camp!"
The exclamation burst involuntarily from Ross. He arose. The tape measure dropped from his hands. He drew his hand across his wet forehead. He had seen the stage load prepare to go on without a thought that he ought to go also. His one idea had been the care of the nameless man on the blankets.
"Miners’ Camp," he repeated; "why, I ought to go on!"
"Not much," cried Hank in lively alarm. "What ’ud I do with him and all that toggery?" jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the chicken-coop.
"Of course," was Ross’s decision in a low tone, "I can’t desert him–but I ought to go on."
A few moments later, Andy’s four bronchos pounded up the hill beyond the stage camp and disappeared, leaving Ross standing beside the window watching. The man on the blankets breathed heavily. A big yellow cat purred around Ross’s legs. Hank poked the fire.
"Guess I’ll rustle some grub now," the latter said in awkward solicitude. "Ye’re all in, ain’t ye, Doc?"
Ross turned from the window wearily without replying, and for the first time looked about the cabin.
It was roughly boarded, with a hard dirt floor. In addition to the bench, the only seats were boxes in which "canned goods" had been stored away. A pile of wood lay behind an old stove propped up on boxes in lieu of legs. A cupboard containing some tin cups and thick plates, a few pans and skillets, and a shelf heaped with magazines half a year old completed the furnishings of the room.
Suddenly Ross’s eyes lighted on the wounded man’s sheepskin coat, which had been cast hurriedly aside on the floor. Lifting it, he stepped to the door, and commenced to shake it energetically. Out of the breast pocket fell a small object. It hit the stone in front of the door with a metallic ring. Ross picked it up, and looked down into the photographed face of a winning girl with smiling eyes, curved lips, and plump cheeks. The picture was a little oval set in a gilt frame. On the back in a girlish hand was written the inscription, "To Lon Weston."
"Weston, huh?" came Hank’s voice at Ross’selbow. "I never heard of Lon Weston before. Wonder where he hails from."
Hank glanced speculatively at the sleeper, then took a deep earthenware dish from the cupboard, beat its contents with a spoon, greased a skillet, and set it on the fire.
"Men fergot t’ eat," he grumbled, "’n’ fergot t’ feed the horses. They fergot everything except him. They’ll be one hungry lot when they land in Meeteetse."
He raised the smoking skillet, and gave a deft toss, which sent the flapjack spinning into the air, turned it over, and settled it back with the baked side uppermost.
"Nice-looking girl that!" he muttered absently, immediately adding, "Here ye are–flapjacks ’n’ coffee!"
Late in the afternoon the injured man aroused himself groaning. He stared at Ross with eyes which gradually cleared as a realization of his environment was borne in on him.
"I say, Doc," he muttered, biting his lips with the pain, "I’m all to the bad, ain’t I?"
"Leg’s used up for a few days, that’s all, Mr. Weston," returned Ross cheerfully.
The man turned his head quickly. His eyes widened and he seemed to forget his pain. For a long moment he lay motionless looking from Rossto Hank, who grinned hospitably at him from the stove.
"Cheer up down there," said Hank in jovial strain, "the worst is yet t’ come, fer I’m makin’ ye some puddin’, and even my mother ’ud say that puddin’ ain’t one of my strong pints!"
The sick man did not smile. He merely stared at the speaker until Hank disappeared, a water pail in hand, bound for the spring. Then he threw out a hand toward Ross and asked abruptly:
"Where did you get it?"
Ross, turning a flapjack awkwardly, looked inquiringly over his shoulder. "Get what?"
"The name–Weston?"
Ross smiled and then, partly because he was embarrassed and partly because he thought the injured man would be, turned his back before answering, "A picture fell out of your coat and I–we–saw the name written on the back, ’Lon Weston.’"
There was no reply, and presently Ross added, "I put the photo back in your pocket and hung the coat above your head there on the peg. Guess you can reach it."
Still no reply, and Ross, looking around, found his patient with head turned away, eyes closed and lips pressed tightly together in his beard.
Suddenly, in the open doorway appeared a figurethat Ross had not seen before. A shaggy head was advanced cautiously within the cabin and the owner peered at Weston curiously. Then, evidently understanding his closed eyes to mean sleep, the stranger backed out precipitately and sat down on the bench outside the door. From this vantage point he peered around the jamb from time to time eyeing Ross and his patient in turn.
"Good-evening," said the former as the stranger showed no signs of speaking.
The shaggy head appeared in the doorway and nodding briefly, was withdrawn, just as Hank, coming with the water, called, "Well, Sheepy, what’s the latest word up your way?"
It was Luther, otherwise "Sheepy," the herder whose wagon crowned the adjacent hill. He was Hank’s daily caller.
"There ye are, Doc," exclaimed Hank entering with the water. "Puddin’ fer Weston, and flapjacks ’n’ coffee fer you and me with cabbage ’n’ spuds thrown in. Fill up."
It was a menu which was not varied to any great extent in the days which followed, strange days for "Doc Tenderfoot," as Hank called Ross.
"WHAT’S THE LATEST WORD?"
"WHAT’S THE LATEST WORD?"
Every night at midnight one of the two stages plying between Cody and Meeteetse stopped at the stage camp for supper and horse feed. Every noon the other stage stopped for dinner on its return trip. Between times, horsemen came and went, occasionally, men from the ranches on Wood River and the Grey Bull, miners "packing" their beds behind them, prospectors going out of the mountains for the winter, and every day during the first week there was Sheepy. Sheepy usually came toward night when his flock had been driven in from the range and rounded up by the faithful shepherd dog near the canvas-topped wagon.
One day, the last of the week, after Ross had had a particularly trying time with his patient, he left the latter asleep, and going outside, sat on the bench in the sunshine watching Hank who was repairing the corral. Presently Sheepy joined him, first refreshing himself, as usual, with a long look at the snoring Weston.
"Once I seen a feller that rode like him and looked like him, only his hair and beard," Sheepy announced finally in a hoarse whisper. "I seen ’im ridin’ in ahead of th’ stage that night, and I thought ’twas th’ other chap."
Ross listened without interest. Sheepy filled a pipe with deliberation and lighted it. Then, clasping a worn knee in both hands he spoke again out of the corner of his mouth.
"That feller had hair light as tow and his face clean of beard, but he rode the same and hiseyes was the same. He was a puncher off the cattle ranges. Used to ride past my wagon alone about once a week headin’ fer town. Went in the edge of the evenin’ always."
"And where were you?" asked Ross still without interest.
"Down in Oklahomy. I was herdin’ sheep fer old man Quinn."
Ross looked at Sheepy with new interest. "I heard the men on the train talking about old man Quinn and the sheep that he lost. Were you there at that time?"
Sheepy nodded. "I sartain was. That’s two years gone by."
"And did you see what was going on–driving the sheep into the river, I mean?" questioned Ross eagerly.
The sheep-herder shook his grizzled head. "It wa’n’t off my range that the sheep was drove, but another feller’s called Happy. He seen there was four men done it. It was night–dark night, and they didn’t stop to say howdy ner make any introductions. They shot Happy’s dog and got away over the bluff with a thousand sheep. They was drunk, all of ’em, but not too drunk not t’ know what they was doin’. Old man Quinn got three of ’em. He’s been after the other ever since."
"Do you think he’ll be caught?"
Sheepy moved his shoulders helplessly. "Don’t know. Old man Quinn he never lets up on a thing. Took ’im two years t’ find three. Bet he don’t give t’other up."
"Why did they drive the sheep over the bluff?" asked Ross.
Sheepy frowned. "Cattlemen claimed the sheep had crossed the dead line. Cattlemen are always claimin’ that, and they push the line further and further in on the sheep and claim more of the range every year. They do here. They did down in Oklahomy. The sheep owners and cattlemen had a row at the big cattle round-up on the North Fork. It was after the round-up, when the cow punchers was feelin’ pretty gay and let themselves loose, that them four drove old man Quinn’s sheep over the bluff."
There was a pause, and then Sheepy went back to the original subject. "The feller that looked like him and rode like him," jerking his thumb over his shoulder, "used to ride past when I was shakin’ grub in my wagon. He used t’ go grinnin’ mostly and starin’ at his hoss’ ears. And he alus went with his fixin’s on, tan chaps and a red silk ’kerchief ’round his neck and Indian gloves with these here colored gauntlets. Oh, he struck the trail in his good togs all right–bet he went t’ see some girl ’r other!"
This was the last information that Ross received from Sheepy for several months. The following morning there arrived from Cody a supply wagon which replenished the sheep-herder’s larder, and then, the sheep having eaten the range bare for miles around the dugout, the canvas-topped wagon was attached to the supply wagon and drawn to another hilltop ten miles away. With it went Sheepy only faintly regretting the loss of companionship at the dugout. The seven hundred sheep that his dog rounded up and drove in advance of the wagons were the companions with which he was best acquainted.
"It wouldn’t ha’ been a bad idee," Hank remarked when the last bleat died away in the distance, "if Sheepy could ha’ stayed all winter. He ain’t generally long on talk–none of them herders be–but he was some one t’ have around, and once in a while his tongue breaks loose."
Ross drew a long breath and thought of Meadow Creek.
In the afternoon Hank resumed his repairs on the corral, leaving Weston asleep and Ross kneeling beside his medicine chest sorting its contents.
The sorting done, the boy arose noiselessly and closed the lid of the chest. Then, turning, he looked down on the head of the sleeper. For the first time he noticed that Weston’s hair, thick andunkempt, was dull in color and had a dead look at variance with its evident health. Tiptoeing across the floor he bent over the recumbent man and gently raising a lock of his hair looked wonderingly at the roots. The sight caused him to utter an exclamation which disturbed the sleeper. He straightened himself and stepped back precipitately.
The hair was tow-colored at the roots.
Rossstood motionless until Weston, muttering and turning his head from side to side, gradually came to rest again and fell into a deeper sleep. Then the boy went outside and sat down on the bench.
"It’s easy enough to put two and two together," he muttered.
Leaning forward, he dropped his elbows on his knees and taking his head between his hands, proceeded to do some adding satisfactory in its results. He longed for the presence of Sheepy. Now he would question him with interest on the subject of the puncher whose face was free from a beard and whose hair was tow color. He wanted more information on the subject of that cattle round-up and of the process of getting those three guilty cow punchers. Still, he believed that Sheepy had told him enough to make it clear that Weston was the fourth that old man Quinn was after.
"Some one that looked like Weston and rode like him," Ross enumerated the points in the evidence, "only the man in Oklahoma had no beard and his hair was tow color."
What was easier than to grow a beard–the hair was already accounted for–it had been tow-colored before its owner stained it a chestnut brown. And why should he have colored it unless for purposes of disguise? And why a disguise unless he was guilty of a crime such as driving old man Quinn’s sheep into the North Fork?
At this point in his reasoning, another fact flashed into the boy’s mind–the strange way in which Weston had acted about his name.
"Ha, ha!" exclaimed Ross aloud and then checked his voice. "Probably he didn’t want us to know his name, his real name," he thought. "How all that dovetails together. If I could only get hold of Sheepy now!"
On further reflection, however, he decided that Sheepy could throw no more light on the subject. It was evident that the herder did not know the name of the puncher who had ridden alone past his wagon, for he had not connected Weston’s name with the other. Nor would Weston, if he were the same puncher, be likely to recognize Sheepy who, as he himself said, was in his wagon preparing supper when the puncher, his eyes on his horse’s ears, passed.
That night, when Ross rolled up in his blankets beside Weston he was sure he was lying beside the fourth cowboy of old man Quinn’s search. But inthe cold clear dawn he was not so sure. It might have been vanity that had led Weston to stain his hair, tow not being a manly color. Then, too, even if he had been on the North Fork, so were dozens of other cow punchers. As to his name, Weston would naturally have been astonished at perfect strangers addressing him rightly where he believed himself unknown.
Ross, eating his breakfast, and only half listening to Hank, looked down at the prostrate man speculatively, his mind full of suspicion, but not so sure as on the previous day that there was no flaw in his reasoning. He had not had an opportunity, the day before, of speaking to Hank about the matter, and now he decided to keep his suspicions to himself for the present.
His suspicions, however, during the two weeks which followed, were swallowed up in the anxiety that attended this, the first "case" where he had been obliged to assume all responsibility. The care and interruptions to his rest wore on him. Never had one of Aunt Anne’s hair mattresses invited sleep as did the blankets laid on the dirt floor when he found time to lie on them. Often he fell asleep sitting on the hard bench, his head on his arms crossed on the table, while Hank was frying flapjacks and boiling thick black coffee.
As for the patient, he accepted Ross’s ministrationswith but few remarks. As his thigh bone began to knit, he became querulous, and finally passively enduring.
"When you goin’ to let me out of this?" he asked on the day when Ross last measured the injured leg.
The boy settled back on his heels. "I have sent for some plaster of Paris," he explained, "and, by the time it gets here, your leg will be healed and ready for a cast. Then you can be taken back to Cody and let the doctor there see you. If it was not for that ugly fracture you would have been out of here before. If you’d only have the Cody doctor to look you over now––"
The man grunted, and worked restlessly at the sand-bag, which, on the outside of his leg, reached his armpit.
"Cody doctor be hanged!" he remarked unaffably. "He don’t know half as much as you do."
It was the nearest approach to thanks or praise he had given Ross.
"That Cody doctor ain’t worth shucks," confirmed Hank, who occupied a box beside the stove. "He tended a feller that I knew, and let ’im die." The speaker looked from Ross to his patient with an expression which plainly said that the former could not be guilty of any such charge.
The brown eyes of the patient rolled slowly intheir sockets until their gaze could rest on Ross. Then the lids dropped over them. "The Cody doctor be hanged!" he remarked again more affably, and fell asleep.
Ross continued to sit on his heels until his patient commenced to snore. Then he glanced at the occupant of the box seat and asked softly:
"Hank, has Weston ever told you where he came from?"
"Nope," responded Hank absently. "Not where he hails from ner where he’s started fer, ner why, ner what fer. That’s nothin’ though, Doc." Here Hank looked sidewise at Ross. "You’ll find, if ye stay in these parts long, that there’s lots of men who ain’t partin’ with every fact they know within ten minutes after ye’re introduced to ’em. And you’ll find, too, that it ain’t always healthy to ask questions. Ye have th’ sort of sense who ye can question and who ye can’t."
"And this fellow––" Ross jerked his head in the direction of the sleeper.
Hank yawned and reached for the poker and a stick of wood. "I ain’t aimin’ to inquire fer into his history–unless I could inquire of some one else besides himself, that is. Hello!" he interrupted himself suddenly with the stick held over the stove. "Who’s that hikin’ over the Creek?"
Ross arose with alacrity and went to the door.The first snow had fallen on the bad lands, but in an hour it had been whisked away by a warm northwest wind, leaving the ground soft and a little stream of water in Dry Creek across which rode a man who proved to be a prospector from the mountains.
"Must have had a bit of snow here," he called as he turned his horse into the corral. "Up t’ Miners’ Camp it’s two inches deep and driftin’."
As this prospector was eating his dinner, he most unexpectedly gave Ross his first news of Weimer. The boy, finding Hank both intelligent and sympathetic, had talked freely concerning his mission in the mountains and his desire to return East at an early date. To the latter subject, in all its details of study and college-attendance, Hank listened and questioned in open interest. But, when Ross touched the subject of Weimer and the McKenzies, the other was non-committal and guarded, as became a landlord who might be called upon any day to serve flapjacks and coffee to all of the parties under discussion.
"I hope," he had observed cautiously on two or three occasions, "that you’ll get on all right with Uncle Jake Weimer."
And, although his tone implied a doubt, Ross could not prevail on him to explain it.
But the prospector, who had ridden throughfrom the mountains, and knew nothing of Ross or of his origin, spoke more freely. He had passed along Meadow Creek but a few days before.
"Dutch Weimer," he told Hank as he bolted boiled cabbage and flapjacks, "was settin’ at the door of his shack, a-smokin’ as though his claims was all patented and secure. He says that Eastern pal of hisn is a-sendin’ some one t’ help ’im out."
Hank coughed behind his hand, and motioned toward Ross, busy with his patient; but at first the prospector was too intent on his food to notice.
"And there," he observed with a chuckle, "are them two McKenzie boys a-settin’ on their claims next door and waitin’." He gave another chuckle. "Curious how that snow-blindness should have touched Dutch Weimer."
Then he saw Hank’s restraining gesture, and paused. Glancing down, he met Lon Weston’s veiled brown eyes and Ross’s wide gray ones; but the prospector had suddenly become as non-committal as Hank himself, nor did Ross’s persistent questioning wring from him any further details. He had but passed that way, he assured Ross, had stopped but a moment in front of Weimer’s cabin and that was all.
But what he had said was enough to leave Ross troubled, and impatient to start for Meadow Creek and his delayed work.
Finally the plaster of Paris came. The stage from Cody brought it one noon, and Ross’s spirits arose at the prospect of release from his unwelcome charge.
"If it wa’n’t fer yer Uncle Samuel’s long arm of the law, Doc," the stage-driver informed him as he was disposing of potatoes and pork, "I’d leave my stage right here and see ye wind all them stiff rags around that there leg. I’d like t’ see th’ finish s’ long as I seen the beginnin’. But the trouble with bein’ stage skinner is, ye’ve got t’ hike along no matter what shows ye come acrost on the trail. Hand them spuds acrost, Doc, will ye? Hank, if ye’d let ’em smell fire a minute ’r two mebby I could drive my fork int’ ’em."
A few minutes later, he arose from the bench, drew the back of his hand across his mouth and addressed Weston. "Wall, I suppose you’ll be ready t’ be boosted onto the stage when I come back in th’ mornin’? S’ long."
Scarcely had his four bronchos topped the hill on the further side of Dry Creek before a procession, the like of which Ross had never seen, appeared on the trail the other side of the dugout. It was a pack outfit on horses accompanied by a man and a boy. It slowly rounded the shoulder of the hill behind the corral. The man rode ahead whistling gaily, his sombrero pulled low over hiseyes, a purple tie knotted under the turn-over collar of his flannel shirt. His horse’s tail was tied to a rope which, in turn, was tied loosely about the neck of the first pack animal. In similar fashion the five bronchos were held together on the trail, and after them came a horse ridden by a boy about Ross’s height. On the pack animals were wooden saddles piled high with supplies for a camp, boxes and bags securely roped to the saddles.
Hank, in the act of clearing the dishes from the bare board table, stopped with a platter of boiled turnip and pork suspended in the air. "By the great horn spoon!" he yelled, "if there don’t come Wishin’ Wilson! And a pack outfit! Is my eyes a-foolin’ me? Doc, look out. Is it a five bronc outfit, or ain’t it?"
"It certainly is," confirmed Ross.
He arose from his seat on the floor where he was working in the plaster and stepped to the door. But Hank was before him holding up the platter of food.
"Hey, there, Wishin’! Here’s some come-backs hot fer ye! Where’d ye come from? Where ye goin’ and what fer and how long and why and all the rest?" Evidently the newcomer was one of the kind that could safely be questioned, for Hank turned himself into a great interrogation point as he set the platter down, and rushing out, pulledthe stranger from his horse, shaking him in familiar bear play.
Ross watched while the train filed slowly up to the dugout, bringing the boy’s mount to rest in front of the door.
The young rider wore a new brown corduroy suit, and a long fur coat, the skirts of which were drawn up awkwardly above a pair of high riding boots and tucked under the rider’s legs. A pair of shining silver spurs adorned the heels of the boots, while a sealskin cap crowned a head covered with closely cropped hair darker than Ross’s. His eyes also were darker and his figure, although of the same height, was more slender than Ross’s. He was also, apparently, a couple of years younger.
The two boys nodded at each other, Ross with awkward cordiality and interest, the stranger carelessly and with unmistakable condescension. Swinging himself out of the saddle he said pleasantly but commandingly:
"Take my coat inside, please."
He shed his fur coat and pulled off his fur-lined gloves and tossed both into Ross’s arms, while Hank, watching the proceeding out of the tail of an amused eye, talked with Wilson.
Ross, biting his lips, backed into the shack and tossed coat and gloves on the end of the table near Weston. The boy, following his moves from thedoorway, pointed at the prostrate man, asking in a surprised and subdued voice:
"What ails him?"
"Broke his leg," responded Ross shortly, not relishing the touch of lordliness in the other’s manner.
"How did he do it?" demanded the stranger.
"Horse fell on him," answered Ross, and returned abruptly to his work with the plaster.
Weston lay with his blanket drawn up to his chin and one arm thrown over his face and ear, his face turned to the wall. He was breathing regularly as though in sleep, although Ross knew he was wide awake. This was a favorite position with him when Hank was entertaining guests. It saved him the trouble of responding to inquiries, and, as Ross had come to suspect, might also serve to avert a chance recognition.
Presently Wilson approached the dugout, leaving the boy in the corral rubbing down his mount. One arm was thrown in rough affection over Hank’s shoulder while the two pulled each other about like two boys at play.
"I tell you, Hank!" Wilson exclaimed at the door, "this is what ye might call God’s country, and I always have a feelin’ of gettin’ home in these parts. But, Jehoshaphat! it didn’t look a spell ago as if I’d ever strike the trail to the mountainsagain. It looked like as if I’d have to throw up my claims and––"
"Sh!" interrupted Hank tiptoeing into the shack. "Guess he’s asleep, ain’t he?" He explained over his shoulder in a hoarse whisper. "Chap named Weston that come this way three weeks ago and bust his leg out in front, here. Hoss fell on him."
Wilson, who followed at Hank’s heels, looked Weston over with friendly but detached interest. "On the mend, is he?" asked the newcomer subduing his voice with difficulty.
Hank forgot to continue his whisper. "You bet!" he exclaimed heartily. "Doc here is a-mendin’ him t’ beat anything I ever seen from a full sized doctor." He jerked his thumb toward Ross. "Doc’s goin’ to have him all plastered up and out of here to-morrow."
Wishing looked at Ross with a pleasant nod, stepped over the bench and was about to seat himself at the table when he bethought him suddenly of his riding companion. Leaning forward he looked out of the doorway. Then with a nod he sat down and forgetting that Weston was supposedly sleeping, raised his voice again to its normal high key.
"Fetch on them come-backs, Hank. My pard’ll be here in a minute. I need t’ git the start of himin eating always, fer he ain’t long on grub such as we shake out here. I expect," with an amused chuckle, "that it ain’t exactly what he’s used to."
Hank slapped his knee and leaned forward. "Say, Wishin’, how d’ye come t’ be hikin’ over the country with Queen Victory’s youngest? My eyes! Ain’t he a reg’lar ornament t’ th’ landscape?"
Wishing Wilson laughed softly and then glancing hastily from Ross to Weston, shook his head at Hank. "Less is all right!" he declared cautiously. "He’s young yet. Lots of time to learn–more time ’n you and me have, Hank."
Hank set coffee before his guest, asking, "Who is he and where does he hail from?"
Wilson squared himself before the table, both arms resting thereon and began to eat noisily, talking between knifefuls.
"Luckiest thing for me that ever struck the trail, that young feller is," he began. "I was stranded down in Omaha without a red cent in my pocket and no way of raisin’ one. If you’ll believe me I couldn’t find a man in Omaha with brains enough to believe in them claims of mine, no, not with the ore assay report before their eyes. I tell ye, Hank, times have changed down in Omaha. There wa’n’t no grub-stakers waitin’ around like there used to be fer prospectors tosnatch up–no, not one. And just as I was gettin’ plum used up talkin’, this young feller, Less Jones, fell onto me outer a clear sky. It was in a hotel where I went t’ talk with a drummer, but not t’ eat. Why, Hank, yer Uncle Wilson didn’t have the price of a hotel dinner handy, and that drummer never treated me! Well, I stood tryin’ to persuade him that his salary was burning fer investment in my claims, when in comes Less and lined up ’longside me listenin’. I hadn’t any kind of objection to his hearin’, but he looked like such a cub that I never paid no attention t’ ’im, but when the drummer said a final ’Nix,’ Less he stepped up and asked me about the claims, and, t’ make a long story short, before the end of the day I was hikin’ over town hot footed on the trail of supplies with Less at my heels with an open pocketbook."
"Does he stay up t’ the Creek with you?" asked Hank wonderingly.
"Says he will," laughed Wilson. "Says he’s wanted for years t’ try his luck with quartz!"
"Must ’a’ begun wantin’ then when he was a baby," remarked Hank succinctly. "Where’s his ma and pa?"
Wishing shrugged his shoulders and balanced a quantity of pork and potatoes on the blade of his knife. "Search me! He says there’s no one tohender him doin’ what he pleases, and so I take it he’s dropped out of some fairy orphanage som’ers where they have gold t’ burn. I’m fallin’ on his neck more’n I’m askin’ him questions that he don’t want t’ answer. Less is an all right sort, you’ll find, but he ain’t long on information."
At this point Wishing’s garrulity suffered an interruption from the entrance of his young partner.
Leslie Jones walked with the erect bearing that Aunt Anne coveted for Ross. Buttoning his short corduroy jacket over a soft flannel shirt, across the front of which was suspended a large gold chain, he ran his fingers around inside his collar and looked about impatiently.
Ross, attending strictly to his work, did not look up. Hank, sitting on a bench opposite Wilson, spread his elbows yet further apart on the table and indicated a place beside him.
"Set down and fall to, young feller!"
"I’ll wash up first," returned Leslie in a tone which had a decided edge. His manner plainly indicated his desire to be waited on.
Hank raised his eyebrows and waved a hand vaguely toward the stove. "There’s pans ’n’ water. Help yerself. Guess there’s a towel hikin’ about som’ers in the corner. My dozen best handmade ’uns ain’t come in yet from the laundry!"
Every one laughed except Weston and Leslie.The former breathed regularly, apparently unconscious of all that was said and done in the room. The latter flushed, and plunging into the corner tumbled the pans about angrily like a spoiled child, spilling as much water on the floor as he could. Then he sat down beside his partner and asked shortly for some hot coffee, with an emphasis on the adjective.
Hank leisurely pushed the coffee-pot across the table. "Help yerself. This was hot a spell ago and will be again at supper time." Hank’s voice having acquired an edge by this time, "Victory’s youngest" poured the coffee angrily but wordlessly into his thick cup and ate in silence, listening to Wilson, who was too much occupied with a vision of riches to come to allow such scenes to disturb his equanimity.
"As I told Less," he went on, raising his voice to drown opposition, "we’ll leave part of the sticks and the grub up the cañon to the coal claims and then when it comes winter and the mountains are impassable, we’ll just strike the trail over from the Creek to the cañon and work the coal till things open up in the spring. That Creek is a mean place to drop into this late."
"What Creek?" asked Ross, suddenly awakening to the conversation.
"Meadow Creek," returned Wishing.
"That’s where Doc is bound fer, Wishing’," volunteered Hank. "Doc is come out t’ help Jake Weimer."
Wishing surveyed the boy with cordial eyes. "Jake Weimer, hey? We’ll be neighbors, then. My claims ain’t two miles up the Creek."
"Doc, he’s Grant’s boy," supplemented Hank. "But I bet my last year’s hat that he can’t mine it as well as he can doctor."
"Doctor!" exclaimed Leslie Jones curiously. "Are you a doctor?"
"He’s fixed him up all right," interrupted Hank pointing to Weston. "Stretched his leg over my best chicken-coop and needled his arm and made ’im walk a chalk line generally. Oh, I tell ye Doc is better than the Cody doctor."
Ross laughed. "I know something about medicine and surgery," he confessed. "I’ve read and helped my uncle, Dr. Grant. That’s all."
"All!" echoed Leslie Jones. His manner was touched with disbelief as he looked from Weston to Ross. "And did you, alone, set a leg?"
Ross sought to change the subject. "Aw–that’s not much–when you know how. I’m glad I’m to have neighbors up on Meadow Creek. Hope I don’t have to stay there any longer than you do."
"Expect to clean up the title this year, do you?" asked Wilson.
"That’s what I came for."
"Well, all I can say now is that you’ll be mighty glad you come. I tell ye what, Doc, Meadow Creek is the mining deestrict of the future," whereupon Wishing launched on a glowing account of the future of Meadow Creek claims as he saw the future. His eyes lighted up and he forgot to eat as he told of the wonderful value of the gold and silver that he expected to pull out of the claims he had staked the previous year. He believed so thoroughly in his own vision that even Ross, whose interests were far removed from gold mining, felt a thrill of expectancy as to the outcome of his work in Meadow Creek, while Leslie, whose appetite was slight for the coarse, ill-cooked food, dropped his fork to listen although he must have heard the recital many times before.
Shortly after dinner, the two saddled up and departed in the order in which they had come.
"So long!" yelled Wilson, waving his hat. "We expect t’ strike it rich before a month."
"Good luck!" shouted Hank and Ross together, the latter adding, "I’ll see you again in a few days."
Hank, stuffing his hands into his pockets, pursed up his lips and whistled shortly as the pack outfit disappeared in a cloud of dust.
"If Wishin’ is cal’latin’ that he has enough there to last two men all winter he’s about as faroff in his cal’lations as–well, as Wishin’ usually is. Wishin’ ain’t no lightnin’ cal’later on any subject, but he’s a mighty likely chap t’ have around."
"Judging from the small amount his pard ate to-day he has food enough, I should say," returned Ross, adding hastily, "but then I realize that I know nothing about it."
"Huh!" laughed Hank, "he must know that when that there young chap has been in the mountings a few days he’ll eat mulligan ’n’ spotted pup ’n’ bacon with the best of ’em. His will be a good, lively comin’ appetite–but huh! I should hate mightily t’ have t’ feed ’im. Wonder if Wishin’ has packed some bibs along ’n’ silk socks ’n’ hand-warmers! Huh!"
When Ross reëntered the cabin he found Weston staring out of the doorway, his arm stretched by his side.
"Guess you didn’t sleep much," remarked Hank noisily gathering up the dishes.
"All I wanted to," returned Weston shortly.
Hank piled the dishes into a pan and poured boiling water over them. "M-m," he soliloquized, "all the time I was lookin’ at him I was thinkin’ I’d seen that young Jones before. M-m–where, I wonder?"
No one answered, and he washed dishes insilence while Ross returned to his work and Weston lay staring out-of-doors.
The following day Ross saw his patient depart on the stage headed toward Cody, and prepared to take the next one himself in the opposite direction.
When he assisted Weston out of the door of the dugout, he knew exactly as much about him as when he followed his prostrate figure in at the same door three weeks before–and no more, unless the name be excepted.
Hank watched the stage off with a scowl, and then departed from his usual custom of cautious speech, where possible customers were concerned.
"Guess that feller must ’a’ hailed from som’ers beside Wyoming," he grumbled. "Now, a Wyoming chap would ’a’ paid his bill, or if he was on the hog’s back, he’d owned up and passed his promise. But that there maverick never even said, ’Thank ye,’ to you or me; and here you’re knocked out of three weeks’ work along of him, to say nothin’ of the work day and night you’ve put in on ’im. Well, good riddance; ’tain’t no ways likely we’ll set eyes on ’im again."