The Dude Wrangler Part 9

"There's your future home, Mr. Macpherson! That's what _I_ call a reg'lar paradise."

As Mr. Macpherson stared at the Elysium indicated, endeavouring to discover the resemblance, surprise kept him silent.

So far as he could see, it in nowise differed from the arid plain across which they had ridden. It was a pebbly tract, covered with sagebrush and cacti, which dropped abruptly to a creek-bed that had no water in it.

Filled with sudden misgivings, he asked feebly:

"What's it good for?"

"Look at the view!" said Pinkey, impatiently.

"I can't eat scenery."

"It'll be a great place for dry-farmin'."

Wallie looked at a crack big enough to swallow him and observed humorously:

"I should judge so."

"You see," Pinkey explained, enthusiastically, "bein' clost to the mountings, the snow lays late in the spring and all the moisture they is you git it."

"I see." Wallie nodded comprehensively. "Why didn't you take it up yourself, Pinkey?"

"Oh, I got to make a livin'."

There was food for thought in the answer and Wallie pondered it as he got stiffly out of the saddle.

"Can I be of any a.s.sistance?" he asked, politely.

"You can git the squaw-axe and hack out a place fer a bed-ground and you can hunt up some firewood and take a bucket out of the pack and go to the crick and locate some water while I'm finding a place to picket these horses."

Because it would hasten supper, it seemed to Wallie that wood and water were of more importance than clearing a place to sleep, so he collected a small pile of twigs and dead sagebrush, then took an aluminum kettle from his camping utensils and walked along the bank of Skull Creek looking for a pool which contained enough water to fill the kettle. He finally saw one, and planting his heels in a dirt slide, shot like a toboggan some twenty feet to the bottom. Filling his kettle he walked back over the boulders looking for a more convenient place to get up than the one he had descended.

He was abreast of the camp before he knew it.

"Whur you goin'?" Pinkey, who had returned, was hanging over the edge watching him stumbling along with his kettle of water.

"I'm hunting a place to get up," said Wallie, tartly.

"How did you git down?"

"'Way back there."

"Why didn't you git up the same way?"

"Couldn't--without spilling the water."

"I'll git a rope and snake you."

"This doesn't seem like a very convenient location," said Wallie, querulously.

"You can cut out some toe-holts to-morrow," Pinkey suggested, cheerfully. "The ground has got such a good slope to drain the corrals is the reason I picked it to build on."

This explanation reconciled Wallie to the difficulty of getting water.

To build a fire and make the coffee was the work of a moment, but it seemed twenty-four hours to Wallie, sitting on a saddle-blanket watching every move like a hungry bird-dog. He thought he never had smelled anything so savoury as the odour of potatoes and onions cooking, and when the aroma of boiling coffee was added to it!

Pinkey stopped slicing ham to point at the sunset.

"Ain't that a great picture?"

"Gorgeous," Wallie agreed without looking.

"If I could paint."

"Does it take long to make gravy?" Wallie demanded, impatiently.

"Not so very. I'll git things goin' and let you watch 'em while I go and take a look at them buzzard-heads. If a horse ain't used to bein' on picket he's liable to go scratchin' his ear and git caught and choke hisself."

"Couldn't we eat first?" Wallie asked, plaintively.

"No, I'll feel easier if I know they ain't tangled. Keep stirrin' the gravy so it won't burn on you," he called back. "And set the coffee off in a couple of minutes."

Wallie was on his knees absorbed in his task of keeping the gravy from scorching when a sound made him turn quickly and look behind him.

A large man on a small white pony was riding toward him. He looked unprepossessing even at a distance and he did not improve, as he came closer. His nose was long, his jaw was long, his hair needed cutting and was greasy, while his close-set blue eyes had a decidedly mean expression. There was a rifle slung under his stirrup-leather, and a six-shooter in its holster on his hip was a conspicuous feature of his costume.

He sat for a moment, looking, then dropped the bridle reins as he dismounted and sauntered up to the camp-fire.

Wallie was sure that it was "Boise Bill," from a description Pinkey had given him, and his voice was slightly tremulous as he said:

"Good evening."

The stranger paid no attention to his greeting. He was surveying Wallie in his riding breeches and puttees with an expression that was at once amused and insolent.

"Looks like you aimed to camp a spell, from your lay-out," he observed, finally.

"Yes, I am here permanently." Wallie wondered if the stranger could see that his hand was trembling as he stirred the gravy.

"Indeed! How you got that figgered?" asked the man, mockingly.

Wallie replied with dignity:

"This is my homestead; I filed on it this morning."

"Looks like you'd a-found out if it was open to entry before you went to all that trouble." Boise Bill shuffled his feet so that a cloud of the light wood-ashes rose and settled in the gravy.

Wallie frowned but picked them out patiently.

"I did," he answered, moving the pan.