Ackerman grinned to hide his surprise. "Yo're a grand dreamer, Pete. I've had dreams somethin' like that, myself; an' so far's I'm concerned yourn can come true; but I only got one vote. An' as I ain't goin' back for some time, I don't know just what to say."
"Not knowin' what to say never bothered me," chuckled Long Pete. "I can talk th' spots off a poker deck; I'll show you how, some day. But as long as you mentioned dreams, it reminds me of another I've had. Not long ago, neither. I saw a two-gun prospector leavin' an unpleasant location. He was a reg'lar two-gun man; a wise feller could just see it a-stickin' out all over him. I kept right on bein' hungry. Then, quite a little later I saw another man, a cow-puncher, ridin' along his trail; an' he had so much grub it fair dazzled me. An' bein' friendly, in my dream, I up an' tells th' second man where th' other feller was headin'. An' if th' dream hadn't 'a' stopped there I could 'a' told him which way th' two-gun prospector an' his black, Tin Cup cayuse went on th' mornin' follerin' th' day I saw him. Funny how things like that will stick in a man's memory. An' I've heard tell that lots of people believes in dreams, too. Seems like you only got to know how to figger 'em to learn a lot of useful an' plumb interestin' things. A fortune-teller told me that. Why, once I dreamed that I had shot a feller that had been pesterin' me; an' when I got sober, d—d if I hadn't, too!"
Ackerman slammed his sombrero on the ground and leaned quickly forward over the fire. "Pete, I ain't got much money with me—didn't expect to have no call to use it. I ain't got enough for wages for any length of time; but I've got grub, plenty of it. An' if you wants to make that first dream of yourn come true, you stick to me an' with me, come what may, an' I'll see you a member of a little ranch back in some buttes, or we'll d—d well know th' reason why. We need brains up there. Are you in?"
"Every d—d chip; from my hat to my worn-out boots; from soda to hock," grinned Long Pete. "You got your cayuse, yore shootin' irons, an' th' grub; I got my cayuse, mean as it is, my guns, an' a steady-workin' appetite. Pass them pans over; allus like to wash things up as soon as they've been used. It'll be yore job next meal. I believe in equal work. Better hang up that pack—there's ants runnin' around here."
"Yo're a better cook than me," said Ackerman cheerfully, as he obeyed. "You do th' cookin' an' leave th' cleanin' up to me. I'd rather wrastle dirty pans than eat my own cookin' any day. That fair?"
"As a new, unmarked deck," replied Long Pete contentedly. "An' while we're talkin' about washin' pans, I want to say that that two-gun hombre went due north, ridin' plumb up th' middle of this here crick. An' since yo're trailin' him, I reckon he kept goin' right on north. I allus like to guess when I don't know."
"Yo're a d—d good guesser," grinned Ackerman. "Let's roll up in th' blankets early tonight an' get an early start in th' mornin'."
"Keno. That suits me, for if there is one thing that I can do well, it's rollin' up in a blanket. I should 'a' been a cocoon."