Gard shook his head.
“Then ye’re that much better off,” Broome said, gloomily. “The grub was fierce; they was a foreman that was seven hull devils all rolled in one, an’ a range that’d drive ye crazy to ride. I was mighty sick of it, a while along, an’ I met up with a cuss one day that ’d bin out prospectin’ an’ struck it rich. So, bein’ a blame fool, I got the fever.”
He paused to watch his host, who was gathering the remains of the meal and putting things shipshape with a certain fine neatness that had become the habit of Gard’s solitude.
“D’ye allus put on as much dog as that?” he asked.
“As much as what?”
“Cleanin’ camp like an old maid school-ma’am,” was the reply. “Jus’ you alone: wha’d ye bother for?”
“It had to be that, or to go on all fours.” Gard offered no further explanation. Thad Broome’s type was familiar enough; he had foregathered with it by many a camp fire. He had saved this man from a horrible death, and the fellow was his guest; yet he realized, with a feeling of shamed hospitality, that Broome’s presence was irksome.
“Been here long?” the latter asked.
“Longer than it has seemed, maybe,” laughed Gard.
“There’s a difference in things,” he added, lightly. “I guess, now, the time you were down in the quicksand seemed longer than it really was?”