"No wonder, making such a racket yourself. What's that? A playhouse?"
"A playhouse! That's a cellar." She dropped her work and walked back to the tent with him. "Well, it's good to see you. What has happened? What did Raeburn say?"
"Oh, not much. Gave me some good advice."
"What about Jones? Oh, yes, I forgot. The sheriff was here from Shoshone. He stopped here to ask you about those colts. He has them down in town."
"Yes, I know. I saw them last night."
"Well, then, you know more than I do."
"I know you've thought I was pretty mean, sis," Rob said, after a moment's silence, "not to tell you all about this business at the start. It wasn't because I didn't trust you; it was simply to save you from having to answer questions that you couldn't have answered honestly without giving everything away. But now it's all settled and you can know what we've been doing.
"First, I suppose you'd like to know who Jones is. I met him winter before last when we were both working on the new railway out of Shoshone. Jones had taken a subcontract under Grant, the man who had the whole job from the company, and from the start everything was against him: he struck rock, lost a team, and was laid up sick for a couple of weeks. He just lost out all around.
"Well, when he came to quit he hadn't a cent and was about five hundred dollars in debt besides. Grant got out a judgment against him for supplies, and there Jones was, with his whole winter's work shot to nothing.
"He worked at odd jobs during the summer. Then when he heard of that government ditch up in the northern part of the state, he hiked up there. He worked there all winter, got good pay, and saved some money. He'd written to me, off and on, and I saw he was worried about that money he owed. He wanted to pay it, but if he came back and paid up everything, he'd be cleaned out. If he could only invest it and make a little profit on it, he could pay his debts just the same and have a little left over to start on. He'd had such hard luck and worried so hard it seemed only fair.