After that, Bill went away, still laughing at something funny. He said that he was going to bed. But the next morning, when Tommy went over to Bill's camp for breakfast, there were Bill's tracks in the fresh-fallen snow,—tracks coming up from across the gulch and turning in at the gate. Seeing them there, Tommy blinked again. He knew that it had not snowed until dawn was breaking.
One day, when Tommy was washing the dishes—Bill taking a turn at the blacksmithing—he came across two letters tucked behind a jar of fermenting peaches which should have gone into the discard days ago. Tommy pulled out the envelopes, goggled down at them and saw that one was addressed to Parowan, Nevada, and that the address had been covered by a red stamped notice, "NO SUCH POSTOFFICE." Below that was another address—where the Hunters got their mail. The other envelope bore a later date, and was addressed in care of D. L. Hunter. Neither envelope had been opened,—an over-sight which caused Tommy some anxiety. He thought it was darned careless of Don Hunter to put them up in the cupboard and say nothing about them.
So, "Here's a coupla letters Mr. Hunter musta brought yuh an' fergot to give yuh," he said, the moment Bill stepped inside for a drink.
Bill took the letters, glanced at them, lifted the lid of the stove and thrust them deep into the fire.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
BILL ACQUIRES A COOK
"We're on the right track," said Bill, and gathered up an armful of dulled steel to sharpen the next morning, preferring his own little forge by the camp for that purpose, and passing by the bigger shop at the mill.
"We are that," Tommy agreed, just as he had agreed every day for the past month. "She's talkin' to us, Bill. She's t'rowed out 'er thread uh gold, an' says, 'Will yuh folly the t'read, now, byes?' A mont' ago she said that—she did."