One good turn

By Bertrand W. Sinclair
Author of “A Jack and Two Jills,” “Ten Thousand Bucks,” Etc.
Many a tragedy is concealed by the seemingly unpopulated woods of our great Northwest. This tale of Sinclair’s pictures the result of one, and the strange consequences, developing in later years in a way to confound more than one actor in the drama.
Goodrich propped himself up on one elbow. Among the thickets below there sounded the muffled clumping of an animal’s feet, the faint intermittent crack of dry twigs trodden upon. Goodrich rose from the blankets upon which he had lain down to gaze at stars peeping through the lofty tops of the sugar pine. He expected his hunting partner, and that partner would be hungry—almost as hungry for food as he, Bill Goodrich, was for the tobacco his partner was bringing. While he poked up the dying fire, laid on fresh wood, and hung a kettle of water to boil for coffee, the sounds of approach drew nearer.
But when the man and loaded burro should have passed from the thicket on the slope into the open grass under the big pines, the faint sounds ceased altogether, and they did not appear. For five minutes Goodrich watched and listened impatiently. Then as he began to think his ears might have deceived him, a man, leading a burro, came slowly into the circle of firelight. Goodrich stifled a grunt of disappointment. The wayfarer was not his expected partner.
Goodrich, however, was an outdoor man, habituated to camps and the easy hospitality of lonely places.
“Hello,” he greeted, “I thought you were another fellow when I heard you coming, and I’ve got the kettle on. But you’re just as welcome, especially if you happen to have any tobacco that isn’t working.”
The man was a young fellow about Goodrich’s age. He carried a carbine in his hand. A stout gray burro, heavily packed, trailed at his heels.
“I’ve got some pipe tobacco,” he replied.
“Like manna from heaven, that sounds,” Goodrich returned. “I haven’t had a smoke all day. My partner hiked out to the stage road yesterday to try and rustle some tobacco and grub. Well, the coffee will boil in a minute. Stake your mule over there by mine. There’s good feed.”