“Not yet,” Ralston replied prosaically. “Where was your horse?”
“Ah, yes, my horse. Where is my horse? I asked myself that question each time that I stopped to remove one of the poisonous spines of the cactus from my feet. Whether my horse lost me or I lost my horse, I am unable to say. I left him grazing in a gulch, and was not again able to locate the gulch. I wandered all night—or until Fate guided me into a barbed wire fence, where, as you will observe, I tore my trousers. I followed the fence, and here I am—I and my companion”—McArthur patted the skull lovingly—“this giant—the slayer of mastodons—whose history lies concealed in ‘the dark backward and abysm of time’!”
As he looked into Ralston’s non-committal eyes with his own burning orbs, he realized that great joy, like great sorrow, is something which cannot well be shared.
“Forgive me,” he said with hurt dignity; “I have again forgotten that you have no interest in such things.”
“You are mistaken. I wanted to hear.”
After McArthur had retired to his pneumatic mattress, Ralston lay wide-eyed, more mystified than before. Had Bear Chief’s eyes deceived him, or was McArthur the cleverest of rogues?
Breakfast was done when Ralston said:
“Will you be good enough to step into the bunk-house, Mr. McArthur?”
Something in his voice chilled the sensitive man. Ralston, whom he greatly admired, always had been most friendly. He followed him now in wonder.
“You are sure this is the man, Bear Chief?”