In the daytime the hotel was nearly deserted, for every man in town was working for the company; but in the evening, when they gathered around the massive stove, it was a merry company indeed.
There were college men, full of good stories and stories not so good, world-wanderers and adventurers with such tales of the East and West as never have been written in books. But not a college boy could match stories with Phil De Lancey, and few wanderers there were who could tell him anything new about Mexico. Also, when it came to popular songs, he knew both the words and the tune. So he was much in demand, and Don Juan passed many drinks across the bar because of him.
In all such festivities the two pardners stayed together; Bud, with a broad, indulgent grin, listening to the end, and Phil, his eyes alight with liquor and good cheer, talking and laughing far into the night.
Outside the winter winds were still cold and the Mexicans went wrapped to the eyebrows; but within the merry company was slow to quit, and Phil, making up for the lonely months when he had entirely lacked an audience, sat long in the seat of honor and was always the last to go.
But on the evening after their spat Bud sat off to one side, and even Phil's sprightly and ventriloquistic conversation with the-little-girl-behind-the-door called forth only a fleeting smile.
Bud was thinking, and when engaged in that arduous occupation even the saucy little girl behind the door could not beguile him.
But, after he had studied it all out and come to a definite conclusion, he did not deliver an ultimatum. The old, good-natured smile simply came back to his rugged face; he rolled a cigarette; and then for the rest of the evening he lay back and enjoyed the show. Only in the morning, when they went out to the corral to get their horses, he carried his war-bag with him and, after throwing the saddle on Copper Bottom, he did the same for their spare mount.
"What are you going to pack out, Bud?" inquired Phil, and Bud slapped his canvas-covered bed for an answer. Then, with a heave, he snaked it out of the harness-room where it had been stored and slung it deftly across the pack-saddle.
"Why, what's the matter?" said De Lancey, when they were on their way. "Don't you like the hotel?"
"Hotel's fine," conceded Bud, "but I reckon I'd better camp out at the mine. Want to keep my eye on that Mexican of ours."