“You can keep your lunch,” said the man over his shoulder and strode doggedly on up the hill.
“Gimme something to take to him,” rapped out Hill to his wife, but the hobo’s sharp ears had caught the words and he wheeled abruptly in his tracks.
“I wouldn’t take your danged lunch if it was the last grub on earth,” he shouted in a towering 11rage; and while they stood gazing he turned his back and passed on over the hill.
“Let ’im go!” grumbled Bunker pacing up and down and avoiding his helpmeet’s eye, but at last he ripped out a smothered oath and racked off down the street to his stable. This was an al fresco affair, consisting of a big stone corral within the walls of what had once been the dancehall, and as he saddled up his horse and rode out the narrow gate he found his wife waiting with a lunch.
“Don’t crush the doughnuts,” she murmured anxiously and patted his hand approvingly.
“All right,” he said and, putting spurs to his horse, he galloped off over the hill.
The old town of Pinal lay on a bench above the creek bed, with high cliffs to the east and north; but south and west the country fell off rapidly in a series of rolling ridges. Over these the road to the railroad climbed and dipped with wearisome regularity until at last it dropped down into the creek-bed again and followed its dry, sandy course. Not half an hour had passed from the time the second hobo left till Old Bunk had started after him, yet so fast had he traveled that he was almost to the creek bed before Bunker Hill caught sight of him.
“Ay, Chihuahua!” he ejaculated in shrill surprise and reined in his horse to gaze. The young hobo was running and, not far ahead, the Ground Hog was fleeing before him. They ran through bushy gulches and over cactus-crowned ridges where the sahuaros rose up like giant sentinels; until at last, 12as he came to the sandy creek-bed, the black hobo stood at bay.
“They’re fighting!” exclaimed Bunker with a joyous chuckle and rode down the trail like the wind.
After twenty wild years in Old Mexico, there were times when Bunker Hill found Arizona a trifle tame; but here at last there was staged a combat that promised to take a place in local history. When he rode up on the fight the young miner and the Ground Hog were standing belt to belt, exchanging blows with all their strength, and as the young man reeled back from a right to the jaw the Ground Hog leapt in to finish him.