“A billion dollars!” repeated the judge. “A billion dollars! Now here, Rufus,” he cried, choking with exasperation, “I am in earnest about this matter! I don’t altogether approve of the way you and Jeff have been conducting my affairs down here, anyway, and I intend to take a hand myself, if you don’t mind. I may not know as much as you about the minor details of the cattle business, but I have been looking into forestry quite extensively, and I fail to see anything unreasonable in my suggestion of a trail. How far is it, now, over that hill to the ranch?”
“About twenty-five thousand miles,” replied Hardy blandly.
“Twenty-five thousand! Why––”
“At least, so I am informed,” explained Hardy. “Geographers agree, I believe, that that is the approximate distance around the world. The ranch is over here, you know.”
He pointed with one small, sinewy hand in a direction diametrically opposite to the one his boss had indicated, and struck out down a cow trail. It was a harsh blow to the old judge, and rankled in his bosom for some time; but after making sure that his superintendent was correct he followed meekly behind 210 him into camp. On the way, as an afterthought, he decided not to put down his foot in the matter of the sheep until he was quite sure of the material facts.
They found Creede in the last throes of agony as he blundered through the motions of cooking supper. Half an hour of house-cleaning had done more to disarrange his kitchen than the services of two charming assistants could possibly repair. His Dutch oven was dropped into the wood box; his bread pan had been used to soak dirty dishes in; the water bucket was empty, and they had thrown his grease swab into the fire. As for the dish-rag, after long and faithful service it had been ruthlessly destroyed, and he had to make another one out of a flour sack. Add to this a hunger which had endured since early morning and a series of rapid-fire questions, and you have the true recipe for bad bread, at least.
Kitty Bonnair had taken a course in sanitation and domestic science in her college days, since which time the world had been full of microbes and every unpleasant bacillus, of which she discoursed at some length. But Jefferson Creede held steadily to his fixed ideas, and in the end he turned out some baking-powder biscuits that would have won honors in a cooking school. There was nothing else to cook, his kettle of beans having been unceremoniously dumped 211 because the pot was black; but Kitty had the table spotlessly clean, there was an assortment of potted meats and picnic knicknacks in the middle of it, and Lucy had faithfully scoured the dishes; so supper was served with frills.
If the ladies had taken hold a little strong in the first spasms of house-cleaning, Jeff and Rufus were far too polite to mention it; and while the dishes were being washed they quietly gathered up their belongings, and moved them into the storeroom. Their beds being already spread beneath the ramada, it was not difficult to persuade the girls to accept Hardy’s room, which for a man’s, was clean, and the judge fell heir to Jeff’s well-littered den. All being quickly arranged and the beds made, Creede threw an armful of ironwood upon the fire and they sat down to watch it burn.
Three hours before, Hidden Water had been the hangout of two sheep-harrying barbarians, bushy-headed and short of speech; now it was as bright and cheerful as any home and the barbarians were changed to lovers. Yet, as they basked in the warmth of the fireside there was one absent from his accustomed place––a creature so fierce and shy that his wild spirit could never become reconciled to the change. At the first sound of women’s voices little Tommy had dashed 212 through his cat-hole and fled to the bowlder pile at the foot of the cliff, from whose dank recesses he peered forth with blank and staring eyes.
But now, as the strange voices grew quiet and night settled down over the valley, he crept forth and skulked back to the house, sniffing about the barred windows, peeking in through his hole in the door; and at last, drawing well away into the darkness, he raised his voice in an appealing cry for Jeff.