Hope watched them from below. Evidently the soft-voiced boy was enjoying himself immensely. He sat on one end of the ledge, his blue-overalled legs dangling over the side, while Dave worked industriously, hopefully on.
The hounds evidently had found a trail of some kind, for after sniffing about busily for a moment they made a straight line along the hill, disappearing over the high ridge. Hope watched them out of sight, feeling an impulse to follow, but changed her mind and rode over to old Peter's cabin instead. The old man limped to the door and peered out cautiously.
He was a squat-figured, broad-shouldered, grizzled little man, with unkempt beard and a shaggy sheaf of iron-gray hair, beneath which peered bright, shifting blue eyes. He added to his natural stoop-shouldered posture by a rude crutch of hasty manufacture much too short for him, which he leaned heavily upon. He opened the door only wide enough to put out his head, which he did cautiously, holding his hand upon the wooden latch.
"How d'!" he said in a deep, gruff voice that seemed to come from somewhere between his shoulders.
She nodded brightly, remembering to have seen the old fellow around Harris'.
"You have no objection to our digging out a den of coyotes back here, have you?" she asked.
"Umph! There ain't no den 'round here that I know about," he replied, still retaining his position in the door.
"But see here," pointing toward the side hill, "the boys have found one and are at work up there right now."
"More fools they, then," declared old Peter, limping cautiously outside the door. "I cleaned out that den three year ago, an' I never knowed a coyote to come an' live in a place that'd been monkeyed with. Too much sense fer that. I always said a coyote had more sense 'n them boys! Better go tell 'em they'd as well dig fer water on the top o' that peak, Miss!" He shook his tousled head dubiously, watched the boys on the hill for a moment, then limped back again, taking up his first position, half in, half out the door. His attitude invited her to be gone, but she held in her uneasy horse and proceeded in a friendly manner to encourage some more deep-seated, guttural tones from the old man.
"Do you live here all alone?"