“Hello yourself,” he answered, but he looked at her daughter.
As soon as they were through the gate the pack ponies stopped and stood with spreading legs and drooping heads while Mullendore sauntered over to Kate and laid a hand familiarly on her shoulder.
“Ain’t you got a howdy for me, kid?”
She moved aside and began stripping the harness from the horse for the quite evident purpose of avoiding his touch.
“You’d better get them packs off,” she replied, curtly. “Looks like you’d got on three hundred pounds.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised. Them bear traps weigh twenty poun' each, and green hides don’t feel like feathers, come to pack ’em over the trail I’ve come.”
Kate looked at him for the first time.
“I wisht I was a man! I bet I’d work you over for the way you abuse your stock!”
Mullendore laughed.
“Glad you ain’t, Katie—but not because I’d be afraid of gettin’ beat up.”