There was one more night’s camp before they crawled to the summit, which took place in the middle of the following morning. For hours the air had been growing cooler. All the majestic bleakness of the desert had passed and now friendly pines and tinkling streams and lofty, distant peaks greeted the tired travelers. Then they wound down into a level mountain valley where gleamed a tranquil lake.
“Stirrup Lake,” Bill named it. “An’ the mountain over there that looks down on it is Saddle Mountain. G-string is at the foot of it, but we don’t go that way. We’ll lead ’round the lake on the east and follow the south shore. See those peaks over there to the west? That’s where we’re headin’ for—that’s where the railroad’s comin’ through the mountains. Shanty Madge is there.”
He looked quickly with his keen, slate-colored eyes at his companion, the dense black brows lifted inquiringly.
“So ye knew Madge when she was a kid, hey?” he asked. “Eleven, did ye say?”
“Yes,” said Joshua, and he felt the heat growing in his face.
“Well, she’s over eighteen now, I guess. She’s good f’r the eyes. I’ve seen a lotta women handlin’ men’s jobs in the West, Tony, but none just like Shanty Madge. She’s different—there’s that confoun’ handy word again! But Madge is educated—they say her mother was a wizard at bringin’ her up—an’ she ain’t like any female pioneer that I ever knew before. She’s a good scout and all that, democratic an’ free, but she’s—well, confoun’ that word!—she’s different. Figger it out f’r yerself. D’ye think ye’re in love with her, son?”
California Bill’s abruptness was often disconcerting. Joshua’s face went red as fire, and his eyes failed to meet the freighter’s.
“Excuse me, Tony,” Bill said gently. “I’m always shootin’ from the pocket—seems. But I know what brung ye out here—just that an’ nothin’ else. Shut up like ye was in that there he-convent, seein’ no girls, ye just kep’ on thinkin’ of the little girl ye met in the gypo camp, an’ when ye broke corral ye loped for her. But I wanta tell ye, son, that Madge is what ye might call a grown woman now—though at that she’s only a kid—and she’s a mighty much admired skirt. Why, young Montgomery, son of the big Montgomery of Montgomery and Applegate, big contractors, is after Madge hot an’ heavy. I ain’t meanin’ to discourage ye, Tony—but right now ye’re only a tramp, an’— Well, figger it out f’r yerself.”
“I’m not going to see her until I’ve earned enough money to buy some decent clothes,” Joshua told California Bill. “I’m a pretty good powderman—it’s the only thing that appeals to me in railroad construction.”
“That comes o’ yer scientific mind,” said Bill.