"Going to stay till the grub's low, anyway," Bill drawled imperturbably. "Hazing burros over the trail is going to be hot work, from now on until fall. It's cooler in the hills. I'm taking out a rented burro that will come back alone. I figure this grubstake ought to run me until cool weather."
"Got a pretty good claim?" Storekeepers in mining towns are likely to be inquisitive.
"Can't say as I have," Bill grinned. "Open for engagements with old Dame Fortune, though. Kinda hoping, too, that she don't send her daughter, instead, to make a date with me."
"Her daughter?" The storekeeper was one of those who had desert dust in the folds of his brain. "Who's she?"
Bill looked at him soberly, rolling a smoke with fingers smoother and better kept than prospectors usually could show.
"Mean to tell me you never met Miss Fortune yet?" His lips were serious; as for his eyes, one never could tell. His eyes always had a twinkle. "She can sure keep a man guessing," he added. "I like her mother better, myself."
"Oh. Er—he-he! Pretty good," testified the storekeeper dubiously. Something queer about a fellow that springs things you never heard of before, he was thinking. The storekeeper liked best the familiar jokes he had heard all his life. He didn't have to think out their meaning.
"Hey! Cut that out! Bill! Take a look at that!" A voice outside called imperiously, and Bill swung toward the door.
"What is it, Luella?"
"Take a look at that! Git a move on!"