“But what’re ye kickin’ about?” he broke off. “Wanted to see her, didn’t ye? Well, I told her all about ye, an’ she said she’d ride up next day an’ see ye. I knew ye wouldn’t look her up short of a month, an’ by that time maybe Jack Montgomery’d have her dead to rights. Now she’s seen ye, though, she’ll think a while before lettin’ Montgomery run away with her. What she have to say about yer astronomy, Tony?”
“Why, are you so greatly interested in my astronomy?” asked Joshua.
“Certainly am. Thing like that always takes on me. Now, if ye had a project in mind to make a million or two I wouldn’t give ye a smile. But somethin’ reg’lar, like astronomy, an’ I’m out to help. Did ye send f’r yer traps back East come payday?”
“Yes, I’ve sent for them,” said Joshua. “And I’ve subscribed for three scientific magazines, too. I’ll get to work evenings as soon as my things come. It’ll take a lot of study to bring me up to where I was when I left the House of Refuge.”
Then he told Bill about the little cave that he had discovered, where he could hide himself away and find quiet for his work. And this disclosure led to the one concerning the miniature mountain beyond the lake, where the atmosphere seemed so rare.
“By golly!” Bill applauded. “That’ll be just the place, Tony. We’ll fix ye up there all snug an’ tight, when ye get that telescope made, an’ ye’ll become an institution in the mountains—a character, ye know, like me. Tony of Telescope Mountain, they’ll be callin’ ye. No, that there don’t sound just right—seems. Le’me think! Spyglass sounds more romantic than Telescope, don’t it? Tony of Spyglass— No, by golly, I got it! Cole of Spyglass Mountain! That’s the dope. An’ say—why didn’t I think of it before, Tony? Just the caper. C’mon to my bunk tent with me—I got somethin’ to show ye.”
When they reached the big tent in which California Bill slept during his short periods in the mountain camp, where men lay in bunks three tiers high and talked or read, Bill reached under his straw pillow and pulled out a newspaper. He carried it to where the light of a candle, fused with its own drippings to the lid of a can, threw a feeble radiance over one end of the tent. He found what he wished to show his friend and handed him the paper. He rolled a cigarette and watched Joshua from under bushy black brows as he read.
When Joshua looked up from the article California Bill winked knowingly and laid a finger on his lips. Then, pocketing the paper, he led the way out again.
“Well, how’s it strike ye, Tony?” he asked as they walked through the trees once more.
“I don’t believe I understood all of it,” was Joshua’s reply.